I have eaten 1/4lber beef hamburgers all week....I can't get enough of them lately. Now, I need to eat some rooster.....
This is good conversation. It makes one think a bit about these organizations more or differently. I too assumed that PETA was first formed with good intent and that it eventually spiraled out of control into the lunatic group it is today. I guess it was formed with bad intentions to begin with and they use their puppies to cover the ugly truth. OK, i'm with the guy who said they hate em with a passion.
I think the problem we are running into is what happens any time there is a blanket statement made about a group of people. No matter how true it may be it simply cannot apply to all members of the group. I'm sure there are members of PETA that are in it for the right reasons and are too blinded by their passion to accept the wrongdoings that the organization commits. Honestly I don't think we get to see the craziest side of PETA. If we did their membership would not be as strong. They are excellent marketers and masters of PR. That's what makes them so dangerous. They are able to sweep under the rug a lot of the nastiness that they commit and then when they are called on it use the shield of their cause to try to justify it. There is no doubt in my mind that not all of PETA's members are bad people, I'm sure some of them are great people. However, all of PETA as an organization is bad. On a side note, Duke, I'm sure you know that that Animal Welfare Act change in '85 was based off of the 17 monkeys I referred to. Not that the act is a bad thing, but that is the balance of them pushing for extremes and a compromise through politics. If they had the sway then that they have now I'm sure that act would have been much more extreme.
Thank you Rampaige for making my day. On a serious note, this has been an interesting conversation to read. I enjoyed reading all the provided links as well. Like many other things, often times something is started for the sake of being beneficial, however extremists get carried away. The same thing happens in politics, religion and many other aspects of our society.
http://www.ussportsmen.org/page.aspx?pid=2839 [h=4]Vegans Love Their Veggies…and Their Steak[/h]8/25/11 While PETA, the Humane Society of the United States, and other animal rights groups and anti-hunting zealots aggressively promote veganism through numerous programs—including free courses supplied to schools and forced on kids and young minds across the US—seems their efforts are not lasting. According to a recent study by Psychology Today, most vegetarians return to eating meat. Food & Wine magazine also recently profiled several meat-eating former vegans who now believe purchasing sustainable meat is a new form of activism. So, why the switch and obvious about-face? Seems there are many health issues when humans try living like a rabbit. Becoming anemic, with dark circles and odd-colored skin, has plagued many who passed on beef or other meat sources. More details are at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...6/why-do-most-vegetarians-go-back-eating-meat. For those who claim they will now only eat sustainable or organic meats, take note. We are quick to offer up that a deer, elk, squirrels, rabbits, bears, or pronghorn are food sources that rank at the top of the organic chart. Add to that list doves, pheasants, problem geese and that raccoon in the backyard, and you have a virtual smorgasbord in which to choose. A shopping trip to acquire these wonderful foods is called “hunting,” and in this meat-to-the-table process, collecting sounds like a sudden “bang” and nothing like the “ring” of a cash register. Any former vegans needing to learn how to “shop” can go to www.wheretohunt.org . We’ll be happy to let them borrow a sharp knife.
Why Do Most Vegetarians Go Back To Eating Meat? [h=1]Why Do Most Vegetarians Go Back To Eating Meat? I am interviewing Staci Giani who is forty-one but looks ten years younger. Raised in the Connecticut suburbs, she now lives with her partner Gregory in a self-sustaining eco-community deep in the mountains twenty minutes north of Old Fort, North Carolina. Staci radiates strength, and when she talks about food, she gets excited and seems to glow. She is Italian-American, attractive, and you want to smile when you talk to her. She tells me that she and Gregory built their own house, even cutting the timber and milling the logs. I think to myself, "This woman could kick my ass." [/h]Staci wasn't always so fit. In her early 30's, Staci's health started going downhill. After twelve years of strict vegetarianism, she began to suffer from anemia and chronic fatigue syndrome, and she experienced stomach pains for two hours after every meal. "I was completely debilitated," she tells me. "Then I changed the way I ate." "Tell me about your diet now. What did you have for breakfast today?" I ask. "A half pint of raw beef liver," she says. * * * Ok....Staci is a bit extreme in her carnivory -- these days she prefers her meat raw, and she eats a lot of it. But the transformation from hard-core vegetarian to meat-eater that Staci illustrates is surprisingly common. Indeed, according to a 2005 survey by CBS News, three times as many American adults admit to being "ex-vegetarians" than describe themselves as current vegetarians. This suggests that roughly 75% of people who quit eating meat eventually change their minds and return to a diet that includes animal flesh. It seems that for most people, vegetarianism is a phase rather than a permanent change in lifestyle. Why? Perhaps because I was raised a Southern Baptist, I have always been fascinated by backsliders, so I decided to find out why so many vegetarians eventually give up their all-plant diet. To study the motivations of ex-veggies, Morgan Childers and I set up a website that included a survey related to eating.Then we put out a call for ex-vegetarians through Internet sites devoted to topics like health, nutrition, and the treatment of animals. Over the next week or so, seventy-seven former vegetarians took our survey. As is true of vegetarians generally, the majority of the participants were women. Their average age was 28, and on average, they had been vegetarian for nine years before for reverting back to eating animals. We asked the participants to indicate the primary reasons they quit eating meat in the first place and why they subsequently decided to give up their all-plant diet. They also had the opportunity to comment at length on the reasons for the changes they had made in their eating habits. Why Did They Stop Eating Meat In The First Place? As other researchers have reported about vegetarians, our participants originally quit meat for a variety of reasons. The most common reasons in our study were ethical concerns about the treatment of animals (57%), followed by health and environmental reasons (15% each). Fewer people stopped eating meat because they did not like the taste of animal flesh or because of social pressure from friends, spouses, etc. Why The Ex-Veggies Resumed Eating Animals Reasons For Resuming Meat-Eating The reasons that the ex-vegetarians gave for reverting to omnivory fell into five categories. Declining Health. In his book The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson extols the health benefits of an all plant diet. He writes, "Now at 68, several years a vegan, I find I have never been healthier. I weigh less than I did at thirty; I am stronger than when I was forty; I have fewer colds or minor illnesses than at fifty." While Masson may have thrived on a meatless diet, this is not always the case with vegetarians. In fact, thirty-five percent of our participants indicated that declining health was the main reason they reverted back to eating flesh. For example, one wrote, "I was very weak and sickly. I felt horrible even though I ate a good variety of foods like PETA said to." Another wrote, "My doctor recommended that I eat some form of meat as I was not getting any better. I thought it would be hypocritical of me to just eat chicken and fish as they are just as much and animal as a cow or pig. So I went from no meat to all meat." The most succinct response was by a man who wrote, "I will take a dead cow over anemia any time." Hassles and Social Stigmas. About a quarter of our ex-veggies described the hassles they said were associated with strict vegetarianism. They complained that it was difficult to find high quality organic vegetables in their local supermarkets at a reasonable price. Others began to resent the time it took to prepare meatless dishes, and some said they simply grew tired of the lifestyle. A related reason for returning to meat consumption, one mentioned by 15% of our subjects, was that vegetarianism was taking a toll on their social life. The degree that vegetarianism and particularly moral veganism can screw up your day to day existence was nicely summed up in a New York Times op ed by the philosopher Gary Steiner titled, appropriately, "Animal, Vegetable, Miserable." In describing his personal experience with giving up the consumption of animal products, he wrote "What were once the most straightforward activities become a constant ordeal." Irresistible Urges. About one in five of our participants had developed an irresistible urge to taste cooked flesh once more. This occurred even among some long-term vegetarians. Participants talked about their protein cravings or how the smell of sizzling bacon would drive them crazy. One, for example, said "I just felt hungry all the time and that hunger would not be satisfied unless I ate meat." Another described his return to meat in mathmatical terms: Starving college student + First night back home with the folks + Fifty or so blazin' buffalo wings waiting in the kitchen = Surrender. Shifts in Moral Thinking. About half of the respondents originally gave up meat for ethical reasons. Yet only two of our ex-vegetarians said changes in their views of the morality of killing animals motivated their decision to resume meat consumption. In fact, most of the former vegetarians were still concerned with animal protection and the ethical issues associated with eating animals. The participants' original reason for giving up meat did affect their level present meat consumption. Individuals who had given up eating meat primarily for social reasons indicated that they ate meat much more frequently than did people who originally became vegetarian for ethical or environmental reasons.* The Bottom Line For most people, the draw of meat is powerful -- often irresistible. This is not a justification for slaughtering creatures because they happen to taste good. Philosophers correctly warn against committing "the naturalistic fallacy" - assuming that because a behavior is "natural," it is also ethical. In fact, I believe the case against eating other creatures is strong on moral, environmental, and health grounds. Why then do even most vegetarians eventually cave to the desire to eat animal flesh? Is meat-eating in our genes? I will take this question up in a future PT blog. Stay tuned. Note: This is the third in a series of posts on the human-meat relationship. Here are the first two: Having Your Dog And Eating It Too? Eating Disorders: The Dark Side of Vegetarianism Hal Herzog is Professor of Psychology at Western Carolina University and the author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard To Think Straight About Animals.
Interesting FACT on PETA From July 1998 through December 2010, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) KILLED more than 25,000 dogs, cats, and other "companion animals." That's more than five defenseless creatures every day. PETA has a walk-in freezer to store the dead bodies, and contracts with a Virginia Beach company to cremate them. Took them from homes that weren't "suitable" to killing these animals themselves. This was their alternative? PETA: STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM HUNTING, AND TREAT YOUR PETS "ETHICALLY!"
I do not agree with any of PETA... You say what about dog fighting? Goverments have laws for that we don't need PETA.. What about PETA killing and throwing dogs in a dumpster yes they got caught doing it!!! You will side with a org. that will harm humans to save a animal????????? Thats just the tip of the ice berg I don't have the time or the desire to type all I feel about this topic....Walt
I hate these ignorants, they should stay away from me. I have to admit, sometimes I go shopping, in the winter, at the info stands, wrapped in fur and let me inform them about the hunt. But they hate me because I basically wear fur. That's how I love it.
