Pigs can't give handies.

One
more
total
communication
failure.
I wrote that there would only be an obligation for them to also help men IF they want to claim that 'feminism' is about pure equality of the sexes and not just working for women's rights, which is what had been contended. It was a reply to a claim, not a suggestion.
Please try reading again.

Sexual objectification is sexist, even if it's objectifying a man. What do you think the word means?
from dictionary.com
Sexist - relating to, involving, or fostering discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex or gender, or attitudes and behavior toward someone based on the person's gender

This is the exact thing I've come to dislike about 'feminism'. It seems you're saying his objectification and devaluation isn't up to par with the objectification and devaluation many women suffer from, so it's not "actual sexism", doesn't matter, and he should just shut up about it and quit his whining.....but if a woman said the exact same words about being uncomfortable being required to do the exact same actions there would be (and has been) a serious discussion of how to solve that disturbing sexist trend and a move to fire and shame the disgusting pig director/photographer that forced her to do something she was uncomfortable doing, and if someone dared to say her issues were minor, outrage and attack.

Ok I'll try to divide up my wall text a bit better this time

I totally acknowledge that people in the past, and even in present day, some people have to live a certain way in order to survive, but for the vast majority of people that doesn't apply.


Taste:
Like most of the senses in the human body, the sense of taste is in a constant state re-calibration. It's highly subjective and easily influenced over mere seconds but also long periods of time. They say it takes 3 weeks to acclimatize from things you crave, from salt to heroin. That's why most healthy eating books tell you go to cold tofurkey (see what I did there ) for 3 weeks. It's all about the brain chemistry. After 3 straight weeks you aren't craving it. (The habit might still be there but, the chemically driven cravings are gone).
Try it yourself by eating an apple before and after some soft drink. First the apple will taste sweet, and after it will taste sour. Or try decreasing salt over a 3 week period, it'll taste bland at first, but if you go back after 3 weeks it'll be way too salty.



Food science:
One of the major things stopping me from not being vegan, was the health concerns, so I read a number of books about plant-based eating.
There is a new book "How Not To Die" by Dr. Michael Greger. If you want scientific proof of a plant based diet this the one stop shop. 500 pages explaining tens of thousands of studies, some going for decades and involving hundreds of thousands of people. I was blown away at the simple fact that so many studies get done. Most of them are interventional studies also, meaning they are able to show cause and effect (unlike observational or corrolational studies, as he explains in the book). 150 pages of this book alone are lists of references to studies. It's pure unbiased science. (It's not a vegan book either in case you are worried about him being biased).

At the risk of spoiling the book - whole foods like apples and broccoli doesn't give you cancer, in fact they go a long way to preventing it, some bean based foods are as effective as chemotherapy, and without the side effects. I thought it sounded it ridiculous, but the science is valid.
Of course you can visit his website he explains all new research almost daily at nutritionfacts.org in 1 or 2 minute videos.
He also has a checklist phone app called Dr.Greger's Daily Dozen.

There are other authors too, most of these ones have recipes too, such as Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Cadwell Esselstyn, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr Joel Furhman.
Health-wise it's the best thing you can do for yourself. And if like me you thought eating healthy meant salads, you'd be as wrong as I was I haven't had a salad for years. My blood results and vitamin levels are exactly what the books said they would be.

Try it for 3 weeks, but make sure you do it the right way as explained in the books, and you'll be shouting from roof tops about what a change it's made to your life. The other thing is, you get to eat more, and the more you eat it's healthier. What a weird concept in a world where we are constantly being told to calorie count (it doesn't work btw).

Environmental:
I've read a lot about ethics, reason and evidence based thinking, as well as nutrition and health (as a result of my own skepticism). So I could and I enjoy talking about these all day long. On the environmental side of things, I'm not as aware, but there some documentaries such as Earthlings and Cowspiracy which paint a pretty clear picture.
Anyone can do the maths even at a rough level - there are 56 billion animals bred and slaughtered each year. Feeding 56 billion animals (many of which are bigger than people) takes a lot more food than a mere 7 billion. Therefore it must take more crops and land to feed them, not to mention the land the animals occupy themselves, as well as the land they destroy by dump their waste products (feces are toxic in those concentrations, where as plant waste, is just compost)
The other thing is that many of these crops are grown in countries where people are starving, using up the fertile land to feed our livestock instead of the people. How f'd up is that?
It's reasons like that why countries like the Netherlands are asking their people to not eat meat more than 3 meals a week.

Productivity and economics:
Countries like Finland have government assistance to switch farmers from dairy to berry. Because they got sick of being sick:
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dietary-guidelines-from-dairies-to-berries/

The world won't go vegan overnight, and realistically it will never be 100% vegan (people still smoke after all). There will be more than enough time to transition. And surely you aren't suggesting that we should eat meat and dairy to keep someone employed? I don't want anyone to lose their job, but to do something pointlessly cruel just to keep a person working seems wrong.

Animal industries are also heavily subsidized in many countries, so if they were to stop being subsidized that's money freed up for other projects, such as the ones in Finland.

The last bit:
If you eat a plant based diet, just like the cow you'll never have constipation, thanks to all of the fibre
When it comes to enzymes, humans are lactose intolerant because after the age of 2 the enzyme lactase stops being made by the body (unless you keep drinking it). Humans also don't have another enzyme called uricase (true omnivores, and carnivores do), which is the enzyme used to break down the protein called uric acid. As you might know gout is caused by too much uric acid, forming crystals in your joints.
However humans have a multitude of enzymes for digesting carbohydrate rich foods (plants). And no carbs don't make fat despite what the fitness industry would have you believe (as the books above explain).
Appealing to history as well, when they found fossilized human feces, it contained so much fibre it was obvious that humans ate primarily a plant based diet. (Animal foods don't contain fibre).

The reasons why you wouldn't want a whale to eat krill for you is:
1. Food is a packaged deal - there is nothing harmful in something like a potato. But feed a lot of potatoes to a pig, and eat the pig, you're getting some of the nutrients of a potato, but also heaps of stuff you're body doesn't need from the pig, like cholesterol, saturated fat, sulfur and methionine containing amino acids etc And no fibre. (low fibre means constipation and higher rates of colon cancer).
2. Your body's health is also dependent on the bacteria living inside you. (fun fact, most the weight of your poop is bacteria!) The bacteria inside you needs certain types of food to live. If you eat meat, you're starving your micro-organisms, and the less good bacteria you have, the less they produce certain chemicals and nutrients , and you get a knock on effect. The fewer the good bacteria also makes room for bad bacteria which make chemicals you don't want.
Coincidentally, if you eat 3 potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you have all the protein you need - it worked for Matt Damon on Mars right?

Let's be realistic, most of the work our war planes do has collateral damage. We don't simply use them on 'the bad guys', but again that is a simplification to allow you moral latitude.

Non-smokers are no better than smokers, I know since I used to be a smoker. Just because I decided that I no longer wanted to smoke doesn't mean I feel the need to go up to someone smoking and start telling them how much better I am that I quit. Again, I'm not any better of a person than they are, I just chose to do something different. That is one of the things you can't seem to grasp, because you continue to say that morally you are more good than someone who does not practice a vegan lifestyle. You aren't.

As far as the functional capacity for feelings, of course animals feel pain, it is a stimuli that helps in their survival instinct. That instinct is what drives them to avoid pain because it means they might not survive. It doesn't mean that they have the logical thought capacity to relate pain to more than an instinctual response. I am pretty sure that no pig ever felt pain and said to itself, I feel pain therefore I exist as a being, they felt the pain and instinct told them to get away from it. Plants even have stimuli that they will respond to in order to grow or try to avoid damaging forces, but they aren't self-aware. Neither are animals until you get to a certain level of intelligence, like dolphins or great apes.

I grew up in the country, I have seen first hand and used my hands in regards to the butchery you speak of. Never once have I had a pig who had seen another be slaughtered do anything that would give me the belief that they were responding in any other fashion than a "shit, flight time since I might be next" natural instinct that is in all prey animals. Factory farms may not be totally humane, and that should be reformed, but all they are doing in the end is killing prey animals on a much larger scale than I did growing up.

i am vegan BECAUSE i do not consider myself superior to others,regardless of their species. when looked at logically and without the inherent blinders of our culture, the one's who truly consider themselves superior are the one's who believe that feeling beings have to suffer and die for their taste preferences. your statements completely disregard the viewpoint of the victims who have no choice in their own suffering and death. since it is indisputable that the cows, pigs, chickens and fishes whom people consume feel pain and want to live, there is no moral justification for exploiting and killing them in the name of a momentary taste sensation.

the only consistent ethical position is to reject all forms of violence and exploitation rather than limiting one's concern for a select few species. if you would not wish to experience something yourself, it is never humane or justifiable to force another to experience it. veganism is not about perfection but is about doing the least harm possible. the truth is that when any animal product is consumed, sentient non-human animals suffer and die as a result of it. it is only by being disconnected from the reality of it that one continues to support such heinous violence.

The simple point is that you are not superior. You have made a lifestyle choice because you wanted to. You have no solid scientific evidence that food animals are fully sentient. Both dogs and pigs routinely fail self-awareness tests, they may be intelligent and able to learn, but they ARE NOT PEOPLE. Vegans want us to believe that eating a pig is tantamount to eating a 3 year old baby, and simply isn't. You are certainly welcome to your opinion on the subject, but that is all.

Now to address your issue with how people treat vegans. I know that I have never went out of my way to lambaste a vegan for choosing to be vegan. I will, and have, severely castigate vegans who start telling me that they are superior to other people because they choose to not eat meat. How can you not see that having the attitude that you are better than someone else because of your choices is not the same manner of thinking that leads to church people condemning people for not following their ethos?

So, let me ask you, how many people have given you shit for being vegan out of the blue? For instance, you were minding your own business and eating a salad, then a person jumped in your face and said "How dare you eat that salad next to me?" I'm willing to bet you might have gotten some gentle ribbing if you went to a friend's barbecue and asked for a vegan option, but I doubt anyone got in your face about it. On the other hand, I have absolutely had more than one vegan get in my face and tell me that I am a murderer and a beast because I ate a hamburger at a desk across from them or sat down at a table with some brisket without making sure it wasn't a 'meat-free' zone.

The sheer chutzpah that most vegans have towards non-vegans is what makes them a target for ridicule. I get it, you think you are better than us, but we wouldn't care if you didn't feel the need to trot it out every five seconds.

Was.. was.. was that dude riding a pig?

that is my focus because this is where all the harm is taking place. as Paul Farmer said, "The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.”

the video is about being a man being kind to a dog and a bird-i was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of being kind to these animals while paying others to murder cows, pigs and chickens who are not at all different from the dog or the hummingbird.

"In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people." — Ruth Harrison

interesting story-but what is also very interesting is why the man does not make the connection between the dog and bird he helped to save and the tortured farmed animals who's flesh, milk and eggs he very likely consumes on a daily basis.

“The only difference between a dog, cat, horse and dolphin and a cow, chicken, pig and turkey is perception. One is no more valuable than another. And yet in this culture, we hold the former animals in high esteem and the latter we brutalize for food. All animals are deserving of respect and freedom from violence. The way to respect others is veganism.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Giant gineau pigs that sound like tribbles.

We have gendered bathrooms because men are pigs. In prison, even men are warned to be careful and watch themselves in the bathrooms. No, most of the population isn't made of people out to commit sexual assaults. However, I can appreciate women not wanting to have to wonder if the men sharing the bathroom with them are one just this time.

More practically than that, we are sexual creatures and bathroom etiquette would be complicated. Can't have that...

As I said, I don't know what happened, but yeah, this "murderous pigs chase teenagers into 4ft of water and drown them" thing seems a tad extreme. I'm not saying that it isn't possible they are culpable in some way, I just can't make any determination about it from this dashcam/audio alone.

And yeah, if they were my family I probably would think differently about it - but then if they were family I wouldn't be allowed to sit on the jury, so, yah.

Your video, The smallest noisy (oinking, not farting) pig in the world?, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

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I know I've seen this done by someone else where it was done slightly differently with better, more thorough cremation. I think they put the pig in the chair and let it smolder naturally, with the fat melting, wicking into the cloth, and feeding the fire for hours like an oil lamp. This video really looked like the cloth just burned and scorched the pig, but not really '(non)spontaneous pork combustion'.

Just to point out, I didn't say that. I'm not taking a moral cue from how animals behave. I'm saying our species and precursors have a long history of eating meat and it turned out pretty good for us.

(aka - my ancestors are smiling down at me imperial, can you say the same?!)

For the record if i had to kill my own food, i would have no problem with that. I'd rather pay someone to do it for me - yes. But if i needed food and could get my hands on an animal, you better believe i'm sleeping on a full stomach that night.

But as for eating less bacon if you had to slaughter the pig - if you were a farmer, settler or nomad or something and you had pigs you'd probably eat lots of bacon. In society right now, it's pretty unrealistic to slaughter your own pig if you live in an average suburb. It makes more sense to buy bacon than slaughter a pig for most people right now, but there are situations when the opposite would be true and i don't think it would bother me (or you).