being vegetarian

[shirhamalot]

To clarify, vegans abstain not only from red meat, poultry and fish, but also from all dairy products and eggs, and sometimes products like yeast as well. I have also been a vegan, and like Paloma, concluded that it is structurally unhealthy. For example, B12 does not naturally occur in any plant sources; all vegans get it in enriched milks or other supplements. A Christian vegan could perhaps argue that B12 was available in plants before the Fall, or something, but that seems like a stretch to me. God wouldn't demand the impossible, so veganism can't be ideal.

A note about B12.  B12 is not made/synthesized by any animal (human or non-human).  B12 is the result of bacterial digestion.  The bacteria that make B12 live in the soil.  B12 is then ingested by ruminant animals (sheep, cows, etc), used by their bodies and then stored in muscle tissue and secreted in milk.

It is theorized that our diets in the days before being hyper-sensitive about cleaning our vegetables we ingested vitamin B12 in some of the dirt that still clung to the vegetable matter we ate.  Just like cows, sheep, deer, etc.

With modern farming techniques that rely on chemically treated soil there are fewer vitamin B12 producing bacteria.  As a result it is believed that B12 levels in factory farmed meats (particularly since these animals rarely graze any more) are declining.  Many commercial animals feeds contain B12 supplementation.

So in effect, in the B12 argument, the animal whose flesh you eat is only the middle man for vitamin B12.

Supplementation with B12 is really not any  more unnatural than giving the supplements to the cows, chickens, etc and then eating them.

(Edited to add - I am not a vegan so I'm not defending my personal eating habits.  Just pointing out that B12 is not "naturally found" in any animal as in the animal makes their own.  All animals must obtain B12 from external sources, in other words, bacteria.)

What an interesting tidbit! I didn't know that's how we got it. Yum. Though I can't imagine eating vegetables with dirt on them as being a part of God's original plan--Jewish law was so concerned with cleanliness that it seems unlikely, though it's true that I can't recall any vegetable-washing rules from the Bible off the top of my head.

Pax to all,
SH

[Historian]

What an interesting tidbit! I didn't know that's how we got it. Yum. Though I can't imagine eating vegetables with dirt on them as being a part of God's original plan--Jewish law was so concerned with cleanliness that it seems unlikely, though it's true that I can't recall any vegetable-washing rules from the Bible off the top of my head.

Well, you don't really need a lot of B12 and your body will store it for quite a long time.  So you would not have needed to eat completely unwashed vegetables with huge clumps of dirt clinging to them.  But washing methods for vegetables have changed over the centuries and we are now perhaps a bit hyper-sensitive about how much our veggies and fruits are washed (rightfully so when we consider all of the chemicals our foods are exposed to).

Soil in times of sustainable agriculture (without pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, etc) also likely contained much higher concentrations of the bacteria that produces B12 than it does now.

[HappyWife]

I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables...neither did my hubby. Bring me some cow...rare if you please!

[sweetpea]

If I had to kill my own meat I'd totally be a vegan.

[jovan66102]

If I had to kill my own meat I'd totally be a vegan.

 While I don't hunt often, when I do, I eat what I kill. The ones who really tick me off are anti-hunting meat eaters!

[frerejacques]

I guess I should care about whether Prusak eats meat, but I don't.  

[Historian]

I guess I should care about whether Prusak eats meat, but I don't.  

+1  I don't even care who he is, let alone what he eats.

[SCG]

I guess I should care about whether Prusak eats meat, but I don't.  

+1  I don't even care who he is, let alone what he eats.

  I was thinking the same thing!

- Lisa

[Historian]

About being vegetarian, there is a line in the Bible about people not eating meat being evil or wrong.

That is not about vegans or vegetarians, but those who believed the body was created by something evil.

It is refering to things like Manichaeism.

[WhollyRoaminCatholic]

Unless you read Genesis 4:1-4.  It doesn't look good for the vegetarians.

I'm just sayin'.