because the only thing poultry needs to grow is corn, right?

you can compare the two (tofu and poultry) but it's more complex than you're making it seem/reading the numbers. the 16 lbs of wheat for a lb of beef doesn't include all the water it takes, for feeding the cow, nor for washign away the feces and urine of the cow, not to mention cleaning the stall, the cow, the equipment, etc. there are all kinds of other resources used in the growing of meat. the food the animals eat is just one of those resources.

sure, both soybeans and beef require harvesting, and trucking, and storage, but do soybeans require someone to wash their s--- away daily?

do you know what a cattle ranch smells like? betcha do.
do you know what a soybean farm smells like? betcha don't.

Free range bison and cattle require little to no supervision and can live off the land, actually contributing significantly to the prairie and grassland ecosystem(Ted Turner's ranch is an example). Many many scientific papers on this.

Meat... is far less harmful to our environment when farmed properly.

i'm not disputing that wild animals take less resources than freakin factory farmed beef. i don't think anyone is.

how much of the meat in the average grocery store comes from free range bison?



again, how much of the beef at safeway was farmed properly? the pork? the turducken?

Just curious, does anybody know of any gold medal winning, power lifters, sprinters, gymnasts who are vegan? What about top climbers, any of those vegan?

carl lewis, the gold medal winning runner is. and has a nice cookbook out too.

I know I am just a "2 poster", but I hope I can contribute to this "discussion".

The people contributing to this post should take a step back, and think about what kind of evidence they would need to see to change their mind.
Meat -> Veggies
Veggies -> Meat
If all you plan on doing is pointing out false dichotomies and building straw man arguments, you ought to stop posting and enter politics. Part of discussing or arguing is keeping an open mind, and using with discretion the principle of charity. If you can not do those things, please save your breath, because you will never convince anyone of your ideas.

There is plenty of information on vegan/veggism, and plenty against it. Don't look to a thread by rock climbers for info. Go to a couple of performance doctors and nutritionists.

Above all, try to use what amount of reason and common sense you might happen to have. Cause we don't all have the same amount.

This is very well thought out advice, delivered in a clear concise fashion. What the hell is it doing on rockclimbing.com.

Although I have been fascinated by the bizarre arguments both for and against a vegetarian diet, I would like to get back to the main post. I have been a vegetarian for 18 years now (no fish, no eggs, occasional cheese) and I seem to have suffered no ill effects--in fact I climb harder than most of the people I regularly climb with. I think the most important thing to do is to follow your conviction and morality and do what you think is right. If you are disgusted with the meat industry, stay away from it. Despite what the other posters on this site spew, eating lower on the food chain is more efficient. They seem to forget all the land, water and grain it takes to get the cows, pigs and chickens to be big enough to eat. When you factor in the energy required to maintain a cow (heating, s---, growing, walking, etc...) it is obvious that that land/water would be better spent on a)grains for human consumption, or b)land left to rest. While I agree that much agricultural land is in poor condition, lets look to the government's subsidy program to blame there, NOT vegetarianism.

I always wonder why meat eaters come out so strongly against vegetarians...are they afraid the meat industry is near collapse?? It sounds like all the right wingers crying about the attacks on Christmas...as if we are in some danger of Christmas going away (I wish!)
jemco

OK, I found it myself. The protein content in soybeans is only about 40 % (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean). That means:

1 lb of soy protein = 2.5 lb of soybeans, assuming that 100% of soy protein is digestable. Thus, assuming that it takes the same resources to gow 1 lb of corn and 1 lb of soybeans (which is a rather crude assumption, soybeans may require more resources), we see that taking protein from poultry is 1.4 times more efficient than taking it from soy. Beef indeed looks very inefficent.

hese are good numbers, but not sufficient to justify your point. They do not take into account all these non-perfectly looking tomatos and apples with a little scratch here or there that farmers destroy, or the wast amounts of food been daily damped by supermarkets, restaurants, or wasted in our households. In less developed countries, they waste less. I know as I grew up in one.

Wow! As an omnivore I thought that the vegans were way more aggressive in this thread, I guess it is just ones perception.

I do find it funny how after all of the arguments pro and con that have quoted various studies etc. have been dismissed with a simple "eating lower on the food chain is more efficient". What are your sources? It is not as you have stated "obvious" to me and apparently many others.

People are not against vegetarians they are against preachy, self righteous vegetarians.
By the way, why would you attack a persons religion or political position to make a point about diet?
It is all just a big conspiracy by the right wingers though isn't it?

If you wish to measure only the protein in soybeans and ignore the rest, it's only fair that you do the same for the meat.

Google suggests that beef averages a little under fifty grams in a six ounce portion (some cuts more, some cuts less, so I'm being generous.)

16oz * (50grams/6oz)= ~135 grams of protein in a pound of beef.

Again says google: 135 grams = 0.297624054 pounds

1 pound is ~450 grams.

450/135 = 3.333 etc.

Therefor you need three and a third pounds of beed to get one pound of protein. So you need 2.5 pounds of soybeans to get one pound of protein, as opposed to needing 3.3 pounds of beef, which requires 53.3 pounds of human edible grains.

For poultry, I looked at chicken, which is ~30% protein. Thus, you'll need just over three pounds of chicken to get a pound of protein. Thus, you'll need five and a half pounds edible grain to get a pound of protein from chicken.

Also, like I've pointed out earlier, you're focusing on soy protein to the point of obsession. Many vegetarians, myself included, will sometimes go days, weeks, months, or years without eating any tofu.


This is fundamentally ridiculous. The difference in America at 1.6 hectares and indonesia at .2 hectares is throwing away bruised fruit? You're stating that American grocers throw away 7/8s of our nations total agricultural output. You're either insane or just being disingenuous.

The post by organic on the previous page states that meat production is much more efficient and sustainable than agriculture, it sounds that he may back up his claim by the numbers.

NO, I mean this salad was HUGE HUGE!!! NO JOKE! :shock:

You don't need 'sources' to show that being a vegetarian conserves resources -- it just makes SENSE.

Have you ever wondered why do you have these canine teeths, in the first place?

If you think this, you should re-read the thread. Collegekid asked for tips on being a vegetarian. Some folks, me included, gave him some. Then a bunch of people came by arguing that vegetarianism is stupid and silly and that none of the reasons for being a vegetarian are rational at all.


Perhaps you missed the section comparing land use quantities. Or where Annak dismissed that argument based on the bizarre notion that American grocers throw away the vast majority of the food the nation's farmers grow as bruised and unattractive. Perhaps you missed where veganboyjosh listed data regarding the quantities of human-edible grains required to produce a given quantity of human edible meat.



The thing is, none of this was preachy until somebody attacked vegetarianism. I personally don't really care how YOU eat. You and Annak and some other folks seem to want to call me stupid for how I choose to eat, and I take issue with that.

I'm considering eating Fish, however, since it seems to be healthier than land animals (I've thought about mercury levels though, and that kinda worries me).