any vegetarians/animal lovers out there?

[8ft.tall.tejano]

looking for help for a upcoming protest sponsored by peta.....can't list too many details...pm me for more info...

[lebomb]

I love to eat animals...........they are delicious!!!! :hungry:

[BacktoBasics]

Being an animal lover and working along side PETA is like parking a wooden plank next to a yacht and calling them both boats.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

nothing finer
http://www.alleghenymeadows.com/images/beef_cuts.jpg

[I. Hustle]

I hope you are planning on ruining PETA's protest because those people are idiots.

[BacktoBasics]

I sure could go for some tri-tip right now.

[ashbeeigh]

mhmm. People Eating Tasty Animals.

http://www.reallyrude.com/pics/art/470-1002.jpg



But, I do not like fur and do not agree with animal testing though. A girl has to get her protein somewhere.

[BacktoBasics]

I have another source of protein for you ash.

[I Love Me Some Me]

If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of tasty meat?

[8ft.tall.tejano]

Being an animal lover and working along side PETA is like parking a wooden plank next to a yacht and calling them both boats.

i don't always agree w/them, so i see your point...
but my wife and i couldn't afford the signs/pamplets/etc w/o their support...

everyone else...wow, like i never knew that dead animals = meat...real mature....way to come up w/something i never heard in my 12 years of being a vegetarian...whats next, "boys have a penis, girls have a vagina" jokes???

[Viva Las Espuelas]

If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of tasty meat?
uh, the OP refers to him as "god". just a heads up.

[BacktoBasics]

i don't always agree w/them, so i see your point...
but my wife and i couldn't afford the signs/pamplets/etc w/o their support...

everyone else...wow, like i never knew that dead animals = meat...real mature....way to come up w/something i never heard in my 12 years of being a vegetarian...whats next, "boys have a penis, girls have a vagina" jokes???Why did you become a vegetarian?

[I Love Me Some Me]

uh, the OP refers to him as "god". just a heads up.

:lol

I'll rephrase.

If animals were not meant to be eaten, why are they made out of tasty meat.

[8ft.tall.tejano]

mhmm.



But, I do not like fur and do not agree with animal testing though. A girl has to get her protein somewhere.

ash, stop eating microwavable healthy choice meals for lunch.......noodles are cheaper.....just add tofu.....


If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of tasty meat?

so if your "god" made me feel good about killing people, would that be okay?

[8ft.tall.tejano]

uh, the OP refers to him as "god". just a heads up.

damn way to beat me to it....need a faster connection.......

[I Love Me Some Me]

so if your "god" made me feel good about killing people, would that be okay?

We're not talking about people, we're talking about animals.

[Fpoonsie]

i don't always agree w/them, so i see your point...
but my wife and i couldn't afford the signs/pamplets/etc w/o their support...

everyone else...wow, like i never knew that dead animals = meat...real mature....way to come up w/something i never heard in my 12 years of being a vegetarian...whats next, "boys have a penis, girls have a vagina" jokes???

Meh. The mere MENTION of PETA can get people riled up due to some of their asinine behavior in the not so distant past.

Also, slapping "vegetarian/ANIMAL LOVERS" right next to each other could send the wrong message. Petting my beagle, Maddie, while enjoying a medium rare steak at the table isn't that CRAZY of a concept.

[ashbeeigh]

ash, stop eating microwavable healthy choice meals for lunch.......noodles are cheaper.....just add tofu.....


And gross.

[Blake]

so if your "god" made me feel good about killing people, would that be okay?

name a few posters and I'll tell you if G(g)od gives you the green light to kill them

[I. Hustle]

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd140/jpbarnhart/peta.jpg

[I. Hustle]

http://www.pomochristian.ca/wp-images/hitler_veg.jpg

[Fpoonsie]

name a few posters and I'll tell you if G(g)od gives you the green light to kill them

:lol

[8ft.tall.tejano]

And gross.

ah smashly, some things never change...


name a few posters and I'll tell you if G(g)od gives you the green light to kill them

my point is, what gives us the right to pick and choose...
how is michael vick gonna do time for making dogs fight, while the judge eats a hamburger?.....

[BacktoBasics]

Why did you become a vegetarian?

[I Love Me Some Me]

my point is, what gives us the right to pick and choose...
how is michael vick gonna do time for making dogs fight, while the judge eats a hamburger?.....

Because it's illegal to "make dogs fight", while it's not illegal to eat a hamburger.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

how is michael vick gonna do time for making dogs fight, while the judge eats a hamburger?.....:lol
are you serious? you must be a vegan. not a vegetarian.

[ashbeeigh]

ah smashly, some things never change...



Matty? If you're who I think you are then your name should be two foot tall tejano.

[I. Hustle]

my point is, what gives us the right to pick and choose...
how is michael vick gonna do time for making dogs fight, while the judge eats a hamburger?.....

:lol

[Fpoonsie]

my point is, what gives us the right to pick and choose...
how is michael vick gonna do time for making dogs fight, while the judge eats a hamburger?.....

Cheese and rice! This is what makes vegetarians so insufferable.

[baseline bum]

Are you kidding me? PETA is a group of some of the stupidest bastards alive. I can't believe they go and protest animal shelters when they themselves practice euthanasia. People who talk shit to those who eat meat are retarded. Humans have evolved to instinctively want to eat meat as well as vegetables, and veganism is nonsensical repression of a basic human need every bit as much as another equally stupid idea people preach from their high horses about not having sex until marriage. On top of that, PETA's just another religious group trying to shit on science.

[lebomb]

Shit all this talking about PETA is making me hungry for a big ass Chris Madrid ghetto burger!!!

[BacktoBasics]

This thread did not go well for 8ft

[baseline bum]

Shit all this talking about PETA is making me hungry for a big ass Chris Madrid ghetto burger!!!

What's the ghetto burger? Chris Madrid's does fucking rule though, but I stick to the cheddar cheese macho and macho nachos. I don't think I've ever even looked at the menu when I've gone. :lol

[Viva Las Espuelas]

This thread did not go well for 8ft
:lmao

[Viva Las Espuelas]

Pro-Choice PETA members are my most favoritest peoples of all time.

[ashbeeigh]

This thread did not go well for 8ft


It's like some of my threads. Poor guy. He'll learn.

[baseline bum]

nothing finer
http://www.alleghenymeadows.com/images/beef_cuts.jpg

Great pic, but where's the love for pork and seafood?

[Fpoonsie]

Are you kidding me? PETA is a group of some of the stupidest bastards alive. I can't believe they go and protest animal shelters when they themselves practice euthanasia. People who talk shit to those who eat meat are retarded. Humans have evolved to instinctively want to eat meat as well as vegetables, and veganism is nonsensical repression of a basic human need every bit as much as another equally stupid idea people preach from their high horses about not having sex until marriage. On top of that, PETA's just another religious group trying to shit on science.

:lol

While I whole-heartedly agree w/ the majority of your rant, I always thought their belief system stemmed from hippie nonsense, not religious ideology.

I could be completely wrong, however.

[lebomb]

What's the ghetto burger?


I just call it that because its huge and intimidating like tha ghetto tends to be. And NO, Im not racist.....Im a bruva. :fro

[I Love Me Some Me]

Oh, BTW....tri-tip rules!!!

[Taco]

Vegetarian - old Indian word meaning lousy hunter

[BacktoBasics]

Oh, BTW....tri-tip rules!!!I've got about 4 or 5 different ways of preparing it but diced and used to make chili sounds the best in cold weather.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

Great pic, but where's the love for pork and seafood?i really don't dig on swine and there's too many fish to post.

[8ft.tall.tejano]

honestly been so long, i forgot.........


Because it's illegal to "make dogs fight", while it's not illegal to eat a hamburger.

so "because i said so"....nice logic.....must be why pot is illegal still and alcohol related deaths continue every year...because it "thats the law" wow...
a dog is an animal, a cow is an animal, so why don't they have the same rights?


:lol
are you serious? you must be a vegan. not a vegetarian.

was. my uncle sugar didn't provide vegan mre's but had veggie ones, so i kept up the veggie thing, want to go back to being a vegan though...


Matty? If you're who I think you are then your name should be two foot tall tejano.

haha....funny...i think i've grown since i last saw you..........


This thread did not go well for 8ft


no shit...damn thats the last time i ask the ST community for any help...i mean if you didn't agree, you didn't have to post anything...some people's mom's never taught them...if you don't have anything nice to say....

[I Love Me Some Me]

I've got about 4 or 5 different ways of preparing it but diced and used to make chili sounds the best in cold weather.

Sounds interesting...might have to give that a crack.

Just grill that sucker about 4 minutes on each side, and enjoy. Good tasting cut.

[8ft.tall.tejano]

It's like some of my threads. Poor guy. He'll learn.

yea and its all your fault...the only reason i got on here was cos i saw you get away w/it at our former slave labor job....

[Viva Las Espuelas]

Vegetarian - old Indian word meaning lousy hunter
but they can make a mean hummus dip


































:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao
:lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao :lmao

[lebomb]

Damn 8ft. A big juicy medium-well Ribeye steak smothered in onion, with steak sauce on the side and a baked potatoe doesnt sound yummy to you?? :(

[8ft.tall.tejano]

Sounds interesting...might have to give that a crack.

Just grill that sucker about 4 minutes on each side, and enjoy. Good tasting cut.

seriously?
using the veggie thread to trade meat recipes?
thats just wrong.
no wonder this city is so fat.............

[baseline bum]

:lol

While I whole-heartedly agree w/ the majority of your rant, I always thought their belief system stemmed from hippie nonsense, not religious ideology.

I could be completely wrong, however.

It is religion. PETA has their dogma, and everything is black and white to them. To PETA, humanely slaughtering cattle for food as every bit as bad as slitting it's throat and watching it kick and scream in agony as it slowly dies. To PETA, we're all evil, we can't own pets, we can't give in to the same base instincts that drive every other mammal, and so on. They ask for money, and they're all a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Then they have the ALF to be their equivalent to the nuts to who kill abortion doctors.

[BacktoBasics]

Sounds interesting...might have to give that a crack.

Just grill that sucker about 4 minutes on each side, and enjoy. Good tasting cut.Yeah I do that too since its the quickest. I actually prefer to brine it for about two hours then give it a nice brown sugar pepper rub and smoke it with pecan or mesquite until medium rare. Then thinly slice it and make a horseradish steak sauce dip.

Tri-tip without a shred of doubt makes the best chili meat.

[I Love Me Some Me]

so "because i said so"....nice logic.....must be why pot is illegal still and alcohol related deaths continue every year...because it "thats the law" wow...
a dog is an animal, a cow is an animal, so why don't they have the same rights?

Cow is also delicious, while I imagine dog tastes like shit. That could have something to do with it.

[8ft.tall.tejano]

Damn 8ft. A big juicy medium-well Ribeye steak smothered in onion, with steak sauce on the side and a baked potatoe doesnt sound yummy to you?? :(

nope....not at all...i'm pretty sure i would have been born a vegan if it wasn't for the fact that i'm chicano....ask smash if you don't believe me, she's seen co-workers try everything to get me to budge...nothing sounds appealing about dead animals to me...i don't ness like animals either, just think they should live peacefully...away from me...that being said, i also think abusing them is wrong...

but a baked potato doesn't sound bad...

[ashbeeigh]

yea and its all your fault...the only reason i got on here was cos i saw you get away w/it at our former slave labor job....

:lmao Awesome. I'll let this thread be. I know where we stand on this issue.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

the only thing that would make this thread even better is if everyone started posting breast appreciation pics. fully hijack'ded it.

[I. Hustle]

http://www.sillyape.org/trash/welcome_to_the_internet.jpg

HEY! Is that George Hill?

[I. Hustle]

seriously?
using the veggie thread to trade meat recipes?
thats just wrong.
no wonder this city is so fat.............

I know alot of fat vegetarians. I lived in Austin for a few years.

[ashbeeigh]

no shit...damn thats the last time i ask the ST community for any help...i mean if you didn't agree, you didn't have to post anything...some people's mom's never taught them...if you don't have anything nice to say....


Look at my post count 2ft.tall.tejano I could ask for help with something, I have, and the same thing would happen. So don't get all butt hurt.


And check your PMs.

[8ft.tall.tejano]

It is religion. PETA has their dogma, and everything is black and white to them. To PETA, humanely slaughtering cattle for food as every bit as bad as slitting it's throat and watching it kick and scream in agony as it slowly dies. To PETA, we're all evil, we can't own pets, we can't give in to the same base instincts that drive every other mammal, and so on. They ask for money, and they're all a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Then they have the ALF to be their equivalent to the nuts to who kill abortion doctors.

i agree... fundamentalism at any level is dangerous...notice that i'm not encouraging anyone to be a vegan or vegetarian, was merely reaching out to like minded people...but some close minded folks can't help but pushing their agenda on people........tisk tisk

[BacktoBasics]

Look at my post count 2ft.tall.tejano I could ask for help with something, and I have, and the same thing would happen. So don't get all butt hurt.


And check your PMs.Yeah but you ask for help then do the complete opposite of what we recommend. You rarely listen to reason and thats why you get shit from people.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

I know alot of fat vegetarians. I lived in Austin for a few years.
so do i. i busted out laughing when they revealed it to me.

[ashbeeigh]

Yeah but you ask for help then do the complete opposite of what we recommend. You rarely listen to reason and thats why you get shit from people.

It's all car related. I'm a girl. It can be excused.

[BacktoBasics]

Seriously though how do you not remember why you're a vegetarian? This stinks of turning vegetarian because you met a vegetarian chic.

[mrsmaalox]

Do PETAs spay/neuter their pets?

[Viva Las Espuelas]

but some close minded folks can't help but pushing their agenda on people........tisk tisk
yeah. very un-PETA like.

[ashbeeigh]

2ft.tall.tejano lived in Austin for a while. This is why he is a vegetarian. And I never once tried to get you to eat meat when we work together. Never. I might have tried to get you to go to church with me once. But never to eat meat.

[BacktoBasics]

It's all car related. I'm a girl. It can be excused.The only thing that excuses your behavior is your luscious rack.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

2ft.tall.tejano lived in Austin for a while. This is why he is a vegetarian. And I never once tried to get you to eat meat when we work together. Never. I might have tried to get you to go to church with me once. But never to eat meat.
fish?

[Bender]

how is michael vick gonna do time for making dogs fight, while the judge eats a hamburger?.....
I think that might be the dumbest thing I've ever read here...

[I. Hustle]

The only thing that excuses your behavior is your luscious rack.

[8ft.tall.tejano]

Seriously though how do you not remember why you're a vegetarian? This stinks of turning vegetarian because you met a vegetarian chic.

its had many meanings in my life...as a child however, i never liked the taste of meat...and never ate anything off the bone for as long as i can remember...then i stopped eating pork and fish for similar reasons, the last thing i quit was chicken, then dairy, but now i'm back to dairy....but that's your reasons...never met a vegetarian chick, so that wasn't it...i do remember middle school biology playing a part in me being more militant about it...that went away as soon as the army showed me how fun guns were...no i just think its barbaric, but i don't push my beliefs on anyone else...just open to educating anyone who asks...and at some points it was even religious...


Do PETAs spay/neuter their pets?

not a member, so i don't know, but i think ingrid newkirks position is to just avoid having a pet unless you rescue it or something, but don't quote me on that...

[BacktoBasics]

Thanks for explaining.

[8ft.tall.tejano]

2ft.tall.tejano lived in Austin for a while. This is why he is a vegetarian. And I never once tried to get you to eat meat when we work together. Never. I might have tried to get you to go to church with me once. But never to eat meat.

but i was a veggie way before i went to school in austin...prob the only product of edgewood that is a veggie...you didn't but i know you saw others who did...and also saw how i never pushed my beliefs(about animals, not politics) on anyone else...

[mrsmaalox]

Oh so it's like the pro-lifers who haven't adopted any children.

[8ft.tall.tejano]

I think that might be the dumbest thing I've ever read here...

well can any of you give me a SCIENTIFIC explanation as to why a cow is okay to eat and a dog is given the same legal rights as some humans...

[8ft.tall.tejano]

Oh so it's like the pro-lifers who haven't adopted any children.

which is why i don't always agree w/peta, but i would take their money and support to advance my beliefs...

[Blake]

my point is, what gives us the right to pick and choose...
how is michael vick gonna do time for making dogs fight, while the judge eats a hamburger?.....

if memory serves, Vick is not so much in jail for cruelty to animals as he is for running an illegal gambling ring.

I wonder if the judge prodded the cow, starved it, and had it fight other cows before eating the burger.

[8ft.tall.tejano]

if memory serves, Vick is not so much in jail for cruelty to animals as he is for running an illegal gambling ring.

I wonder if the judge prodded the cow, starved it, and had it fight other cows before eating the burger.

so if all vick did was run, but not actually hurt the animals, wouldn't that be the same as providing monetary support?

so the judge paid someone to prod, starve, possibly eat cattle feed that had cow in it, so on...

so you're agreeing its the same then?
thanks.

[ashbeeigh]

The only thing that excuses your behavior is your luscious rack.

:lmao ftw



but i was a veggie way before i went to school in austin...prob the only product of edgewood that is a veggie...you didn't but i know you saw others who did...and also saw how i never pushed my beliefs(about animals, not politics) on anyone else...

I know we never had any problems about anything. I'm very open minded about most things. You do your thing, I do my thing. The barack thing was just primary season.

[lebomb]

Let me get this straight 8ft. You dont like the taste of T-bones steaks, pan seared mahi-mahi will romalade sauce or grilled lamb chops florentine, but will eat a big ass bowl of brussel sprouts and beets?

:vomit:

[ashbeeigh]

which is why i don't always agree w/peta, but i would take their money and support to advance my beliefs...

This is like me taking ACORN's money even though I'm not as crazy as you all think I am.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

well can any of you give me a SCIENTIFIC explanation as to why a cow is okay to eat and a dog is given the same legal rights as some humans...you work with PETA and you ask that question? regarding the dog.

[BacktoBasics]

brussel sprouts are awesome. Sauteed in a white wine butter sauce.

[Blake]

so if all vick did was run, but not actually hurt the animals, wouldn't that be the same as providing monetary support?

huh? I think you misunderstand me. He most likely hurt the animals himself. Point being that cruelty to animals is not as big an offense as you might think.


so the judge paid someone to prod, starve, possibly eat cattle feed that had cow in it, so on...

what beef company does this sort of thing? Do they have the time to do it?

but if they did, I would say "hey Company A......stop messing around and just kill the friggin cow already......I'm hungry."


so you're agreeing its the same then?
thanks.

Well, it turns out I'm a vegetable lover. I only eat meat because I think it's terrible what people like you do to tomatoes.

Did it ask you to pluck it off the vine? It was doing just fine before you yanked it off and mercilessly sliced it open.

disgusting. I bet you are into veggie fighting.

[baseline bum]

i agree... fundamentalism at any level is dangerous...notice that i'm not encouraging anyone to be a vegan or vegetarian, was merely reaching out to like minded people...but some close minded folks can't help but pushing their agenda on people........tisk tisk

You can't even go to that card when you're talking about protesting with PETA. All PETA does is push their dogma on people.

[Anti.Hero]

ZdxLFF--MIM

[balli]

I'm considering taking up deer hunting next fall because of cruel slaughterhouse practices, as well the looming apocalypse. That's about as far as I'll go.

[balli]

David Foster Wallace



Consider The Lobster
The enormous, pungent, and extremely well marketed Maine Lobster Festival is held every late July in the state’s midcoast region, meaning the western side of Penobscot Bay, the nerve stem of Maine’s lobster industry. What’s called the midcoast runs from Owl’s Head and Thomaston in the south to Belfast in the north. (Actually, it might extend all the way up to Bucksport, but we were never able to get farther north than Belfast on Route 1, whose summer traffic is, as you can imagine, unimaginable.) The region’s two main communities are Camden, with its very old money and yachty harbor and five-star restaurants and phenomenal B&Bs, and Rockland, a serious old fishing town that hosts the Festival every summer in historic Harbor Park, right along the water.

Tourism and lobster are the midcoast region’s two main industries, and they’re both warm-weather enterprises, and the Maine Lobster Festival represents less an intersection of the industries than a deliberate collision, joyful and lucrative and loud. The assigned subject of this article is the 56th Annual MLF, July 30 to August 3, 2003, whose official theme was “Lighthouses, Laughter, and Lobster.” Total paid attendance was over 80,000, due partly to a national CNN spot in June during which a Senior Editor of a certain other epicurean magazine hailed the MLF as one of the best food-themed festivals in the world. 2003 Festival highlights: concerts by Lee Ann Womack and Orleans, annual Maine Sea Goddess beauty pageant, Saturday’s big parade, Sunday’s William G. Atwood Memorial Crate Race, annual Amateur Cooking Competition, carnival rides and midway attractions and food booths, and the MLF’s Main Eating Tent, where something over 25,000 pounds of fresh-caught Maine lobster is consumed after preparation in the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker near the grounds’ north entrance. Also available are lobster rolls, lobster turnovers, lobster sauté, Down East lobster salad, lobster bisque, lobster ravioli, and deep-fried lobster dumplings. Lobster Thermidor is obtainable at a sit-down restaurant called The Black Pearl on Harbor Park’s northwest wharf. A large all-pine booth sponsored by the Maine Lobster Promotion Council has free pamphlets with recipes, eating tips, and Lobster Fun Facts. The winner of Friday’s Amateur Cooking Competition prepares Saffron Lobster Ramekins, the recipe for which is available for public downloading at www.mainelobsterfestival.com. There are lobster T-shirts and lobster bobblehead dolls and inflatable lobster pool toys and clamp-on lobster hats with big scarlet claws that wobble on springs. Your assigned correspondent saw it all, accompanied by one girlfriend and both his own parents—one of which parents was actually born and raised in Maine, albeit in the extreme northern inland part, which is potato country and a world away from the touristic midcoast.2

For practical purposes, everyone knows what a lobster is. As usual, though, there’s much more to know than most of us care about—it’s all a matter of what your interests are. Taxonomically speaking, a lobster is a marine crustacean of the family Homaridae, characterized by five pairs of jointed legs, the first pair terminating in large pincerish claws used for subduing prey. Like many other species of benthic carnivore, lobsters are both hunters and scavengers. They have stalked eyes, gills on their legs, and antennae. There are dozens of different kinds worldwide, of which the relevant species here is the Maine lobster, Homarus americanus. The name “lobster” comes from the Old English loppestre, which is thought to be a corrupt form of the Latin word for locust combined with the Old English loppe, which meant spider.

Moreover, a crustacean is an aquatic arthropod of the class Crustacea, which comprises crabs, shrimp, barnacles, lobsters, and freshwater crayfish. All this is right there in the encyclopedia. And an arthropod is an invertebrate member of the phylum Arthropoda, which phylum covers insects, spiders, crustaceans, and centipedes/millipedes, all of whose main commonality, besides the absence of a centralized brain-spine assembly, is a chitinous exoskeleton composed of segments, to which appendages are articulated in pairs.

The point is that lobsters are basically giant sea-insects.3 Like most arthropods, they date from the Jurassic period, biologically so much older than mammalia that they might as well be from another planet. And they are—particularly in their natural brown-green state, brandishing their claws like weapons and with thick antennae awhip—not nice to look at. And it’s true that they are garbagemen of the sea, eaters of dead stuff,4 although they’ll also eat some live shellfish, certain kinds of injured fish, and sometimes each other.

But they are themselves good eating. Or so we think now. Up until sometime in the 1800s, though, lobster was literally low-class food, eaten only by the poor and institutionalized. Even in the harsh penal environment of early America, some colonies had laws against feeding lobsters to inmates more than once a week because it was thought to be cruel and unusual, like making people eat rats. One reason for their low status was how plentiful lobsters were in old New England. “Unbelievable abundance” is how one source describes the situation, including accounts of Plymouth pilgrims wading out and capturing all they wanted by hand, and of early Boston’s seashore being littered with lobsters after hard storms—these latter were treated as a smelly nuisance and ground up for fertilizer. There is also the fact that premodern lobster was often cooked dead and then preserved, usually packed in salt or crude hermetic containers. Maine’s earliest lobster industry was based around a dozen such seaside canneries in the 1840s, from which lobster was shipped as far away as California, in demand only because it was cheap and high in protein, basically chewable fuel.

Now, of course, lobster is posh, a delicacy, only a step or two down from caviar. The meat is richer and more substantial than most fish, its taste subtle compared to the marine-gaminess of mussels and clams. In the U.S. pop-food imagination, lobster is now the seafood analog to steak, with which it’s so often twinned as Surf ’n’ Turf on the really expensive part of the chain steak house menu.

In fact, one obvious project of the MLF, and of its omnipresently sponsorial Maine Lobster Promotion Council, is to counter the idea that lobster is unusually luxe or rich or unhealthy or expensive, suitable only for effete palates or the occasional blow-the-diet treat. It is emphasized over and over in presentations and pamphlets at the Festival that Maine lobster meat has fewer calories, less cholesterol, and less saturated fat than chicken.5 And in the Main Eating Tent, you can get a “quarter” (industry shorthand for a 1‰-pound lobster), a 4-ounce cup of melted butter, a bag of chips, and a soft roll w/ butter-pat for around $12.00, which is only slightly more expensive than supper at McDonald’s.

Be apprised, though, that the Main Eating Tent’s suppers come in Styrofoam trays, and the soft drinks are iceless and flat, and the coffee is convenience-store coffee in yet more Styrofoam, and the utensils are plastic (there are none of the special long skinny forks for pushing out the tail meat, though a few savvy diners bring their own). Nor do they give you near enough napkins, considering how messy lobster is to eat, especially when you’re squeezed onto benches alongside children of various ages and vastly different levels of fine-motor development—not to mention the people who’ve somehow smuggled in their own beer in enormous aisle-blocking coolers, or who all of a sudden produce their own plastic tablecloths and try to spread them over large portions of tables to try to reserve them (the tables) for their little groups. And so on. Any one example is no more than a petty inconvenience, of course, but the MLF turns out to be full of irksome little downers like this—see for instance the Main Stage’s headliner shows, where it turns out that you have to pay $20 extra for a folding chair if you want to sit down; or the North Tent’s mad scramble for the NyQuil-cup-size samples of finalists’ entries handed out after the Cooking Competition; or the much-touted Maine Sea Goddess pageant finals, which turn out to be excruciatingly long and to consist mainly of endless thanks and tributes to local sponsors. What the Maine Lobster Festival really is is a midLuck_The_Fakers_level county fair with a culinary hook, and in this respect it’s not unlike Tidewater crab festivals, Midwest corn festivals, Texas chili festivals, etc., and shares with these venues the core paradox of all teeming commercial demotic events: It’s not for everyone.6 Nothing against the aforementioned euphoric Senior Editor, but I’d be surprised if she’d spent much time here in Harbor Park, watching people slap canal-zone mosquitoes as they eat deep-fried Twinkies and watch Professor Paddywhack, on six-foot stilts in a raincoat with plastic lobsters protruding from all directions on springs, terrify their children.

Lobster is essentially a summer food. This is because we now prefer our lobsters fresh, which means they have to be recently caught, which for both tactical and economic reasons takes place at depths of less than 25 fathoms. Lobsters tend to be hungriest and most active (i.e., most trappable) at summer water temperatures of 45–50°F. In the autumn, some Maine lobsters migrate out into deeper water, either for warmth or to avoid the heavy waves that pound New England’s coast all winter. Some burrow into the bottom. They might hibernate; nobody’s sure. Summer is also lobsters’ molting season—specifically early- to mid-July. Chitinous arthropods grow by molting, rather the way people have to buy bigger clothes as they age and gain weight. Since lobsters can live to be over 100, they can also get to be quite large, as in 20 pounds or more—though truly senior lobsters are rare now, because New England’s waters are so heavily trapped.7 Anyway, hence the culinary distinction between hard- and soft-shell lobsters, the latter sometimes a.k.a. shedders. A soft-shell lobster is one that has recently molted. In midcoast restaurants, the summer menu often offers both kinds, with shedders being slightly cheaper even though they’re easier to dismantle and the meat is allegedly sweeter. The reason for the discount is that a molting lobster uses a layer of seawater for insulation while its new shell is hardening, so there’s slightly less actual meat when you crack open a shedder, plus a redolent gout of water that gets all over everything and can sometimes jet out lemonlike and catch a tablemate right in the eye. If it’s winter or you’re buying lobster someplace far from New England, on the other hand, you can almost bet that the lobster is a hard-shell, which for obvious reasons travel better.

As an à la carte entrée, lobster can be baked, broiled, steamed, grilled, sautéed, stir-fried, or microwaved. The most common method, though, is boiling. If you’re someone who enjoys having lobster at home, this is probably the way you do it, since boiling is so easy. You need a large kettle w/ cover, which you fill about half full with water (the standard advice is that you want 2.5 quarts of water per lobster). Seawater is optimal, or you can add two tbsp salt per quart from the tap. It also helps to know how much your lobsters weigh. You get the water boiling, put in the lobsters one at a time, cover the kettle, and bring it back up to a boil. Then you bank the heat and let the kettle simmer—ten minutes for the first pound of lobster, then three minutes for each pound after that. (This is assuming you’ve got hard-shell lobsters, which, again, if you don’t live between Boston and Halifax, is probably what you’ve got. For shedders, you’re supposed to subtract three minutes from the total.) The reason the kettle’s lobsters turn scarlet is that boiling somehow suppresses every pigment in their chitin but one. If you want an easy test of whether the lobsters are done, you try pulling on one of their antennae—if it comes out of the head with minimal effort, you’re ready to eat.

A detail so obvious that most recipes don’t even bother to mention it is that each lobster is supposed to be alive when you put it in the kettle. This is part of lobster’s modern appeal: It’s the freshest food there is. There’s no decomposition between harvesting and eating. And not only do lobsters require no cleaning or dressing or plucking (though the mechanics of actually eating them are a different matter), but they’re relatively easy for vendors to keep alive. They come up alive in the traps, are placed in containers of seawater, and can, so long as the water’s aerated and the animals’ claws are pegged or banded to keep them from tearing one another up under the stresses of captivity,8 survive right up until they’re boiled. Most of us have been in supermarkets or restaurants that feature tanks of live lobster, from which you can pick out your supper while it watches you point. And part of the overall spectacle of the Maine Lobster Festival is that you can see actual lobstermen’s vessels docking at the wharves along the northeast grounds and unloading freshly caught product, which is transferred by hand or cart 100 yards to the great clear tanks stacked up around the Festival’s cooker—which is, as mentioned, billed as the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker and can process over 100 lobsters at a time for the Main Eating Tent.

So then here is a question that’s all but unavoidable at the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, and may arise in kitchens across the U.S.: Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure? A related set of concerns: Is the previous question irksomely PC or sentimental? What does “all right” even mean in this context? Is it all just a matter of individual choice?

As you may or may not know, a certain well-known group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals thinks that the morality of lobster-boiling is not just a matter of individual conscience. In fact, one of the very first things we hear about the MLF …well, to set the scene: We’re coming in by cab from the almost indescribably odd and rustic Knox County Airport9 very late on the night before the Festival opens, sharing the cab with a wealthy political consultant who lives on Vinalhaven Island in the bay half the year (he’s headed for the island ferry in Rockland). The consultant and cabdriver are responding to informal journalistic probes about how people who live in the midcoast region actually view the MLF, as in is the Festival just a big-dollar tourist thing or is it something local residents look forward to attending, take genuine civic pride in, etc. The cabdriver—who’s in his seventies, one of apparently a whole platoon of retirees the cab company puts on to help with the summer rush, and wears a U.S.-flag lapel pin, and drives in what can only be called a very deliberate way—assures us that locals do endorse and enjoy the MLF, although he himself hasn’t gone in years, and now come to think of it no one he and his wife know has, either. However, the demilocal consultant’s been to recent Festivals a couple times (one gets the impression it was at his wife’s behest), of which his most vivid impression was that “you have to line up for an ungodly long time to get your lobsters, and meanwhile there are all these ex–flower children coming up and down along the line handing out pamphlets that say the lobsters die in terrible pain and you shouldn’t eat them.”

And it turns out that the post-hippies of the consultant’s recollection were activists from PETA. There were no PETA people in obvious view at the 2003 MLF,10 but they’ve been conspicuous at many of the recent Festivals. Since at least the mid-1990s, articles in everything from The Camden Herald to The New York Times have described PETA urging boycotts of the MLF, often deploying celebrity spokespeople like Mary Tyler Moore for open letters and ads saying stuff like “Lobsters are extraordinarily sensitive” and “To me, eating a lobster is out of the question.” More concrete is the oral testimony of Dick, our florid and extremely gregarious rental-car guy, to the effect that PETA’s been around so much in recent years that a kind of brittlely tolerant homeostasis now obtains between the activists and the Festival’s locals, e.g.: “We had some incidents a couple years ago. One lady took most of her clothes off and painted herself like a lobster, almost got herself arrested. But for the most part they’re let alone. [Rapid series of small ambiguous laughs, which with Dick happens a lot.] They do their thing and we do our thing.”

This whole interchange takes place on Route 1, 30 July, during a four-mile, 50-minute ride from the airport11 to the dealership to sign car-rental papers. Several irreproducible segues down the road from the PETA anecdotes, Dick—whose son-in-law happens to be a professional lobsterman and one of the Main Eating Tent’s regular suppliers—articulates what he and his family feel is the crucial mitigating factor in the whole morality-of-boiling-lobsters-alive issue: “There’s a part of the brain in people and animals that lets us feel pain, and lobsters’ brains don’t have this part.”

Besides the fact that it’s incorrect in about 11 different ways, the main reason Dick’s statement is interesting is that its thesis is more or less echoed by the Festival’s own pronouncement on lobsters and pain, which is part of a Test Your Lobster IQ quiz that appears in the 2003 MLF program courtesy of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council: “The nervous system of a lobster is very simple, and is in fact most similar to the nervous system of the grasshopper. It is decentralized with no brain. There is no cerebral cortex, which in humans is the area of the brain that gives the experience of pain.

Though it sounds more sophisticated, a lot of the neurology in this latter claim is still either false or fuzzy. The human cerebral cortex is the brain-part that deals with higher faculties like reason, metaphysical self-awareness, language, etc. Pain reception is known to be part of a much older and more primitive system of nociceptors and prostaglandins that are managed by the brain stem and thalamus.12 On the other hand, it is true that the cerebral cortex is involved in what’s variously called suffering, distress, or the emotional experience of pain—i.e., experiencing painful stimuli as unpleasant, very unpleasant, unbearable, and so on.

Before we go any further, let’s acknowledge that the questions of whether and how different kinds of animals feel pain, and of whether and why it might be justifiable to inflict pain on them in order to eat them, turn out to be extremely complex and difficult. And comparative neuroanatomy is only part of the problem. Since pain is a totally subjective mental experience, we do not have direct access to anyone or anything’s pain but our own; and even just the principles by which we can infer that others experience pain and have a legitimate interest in not feeling pain involve hard-core philosophy—metaphysics, epistemology, value theory, ethics. The fact that even the most highly evolved nonhuman mammals can’t use language to communicate with us about their subjective mental experience is only the first layer of additional complication in trying to extend our reasoning about pain and morality to animals. And everything gets progressively more abstract and convolved as we move farther and farther out from the higher-type mammals into cattle and swine and dogs and cats and rodents, and then birds and fish, and finally invertebrates like lobsters.

The more important point here, though, is that the whole animal-cruelty-and-eating issue is not just complex, it’s also uncomfortable. It is, at any rate, uncomfortable for me, and for just about everyone I know who enjoys a variety of foods and yet does not want to see herself as cruel or unfeeling. As far as I can tell, my own main way of dealing with this conflict has been to avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing. I should add that it appears to me unlikely that many readers of gourmet wish to think hard about it, either, or to be queried about the morality of their eating habits in the pages of a culinary monthly. Since, however, the assigned subject of this article is what it was like to attend the 2003 MLF, and thus to spend several days in the midst of a great mass of Americans all eating lobster, and thus to be more or less impelled to think hard about lobster and the experience of buying and eating lobster, it turns out that there is no honest way to avoid certain moral questions.

There are several reasons for this. For one thing, it’s not just that lobsters get boiled alive, it’s that you do it yourself—or at least it’s done specifically for you, on-site.13 As mentioned, the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, which is highlighted as an attraction in the Festival’s program, is right out there on the MLF’s north grounds for everyone to see. Try to imagine a Nebraska Beef Festival14 at which part of the festivities is watching trucks pull up and the live cattle get driven down the ramp and slaughtered right there on the World’s Largest Killing Floor or something—there’s no way.

The intimacy of the whole thing is maximized at home, which of course is where most lobster gets prepared and eaten (although note already the semiconscious euphemism “prepared,” which in the case of lobsters really means killing them right there in our kitchens). The basic scenario is that we come in from the store and make our little preparations like getting the kettle filled and boiling, and then we lift the lobsters out of the bag or whatever retail container they came home in …whereupon some uncomfortable things start to happen. However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof. And worse is when the lobster’s fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around. The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming).15 A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if it’s in terrible pain, causing some cooks to leave the kitchen altogether and to take one of those little lightweight plastic oven timers with them into another room and wait until the whole process is over.

There happen to be two main criteria that most ethicists agree on for determining whether a living creature has the capacity to suffer and so has genuine interests that it may or may not be our moral duty to consider.16 One is how much of the neurological hardware required for pain-experience the animal comes equipped with—nociceptors, prostaglandins, neuronal opioid receptors, etc. The other criterion is whether the animal demonstrates behavior associated with pain. And it takes a lot of intellectual gymnastics and behaviorist hairsplitting not to see struggling, thrashing, and lid-clattering as just such pain-behavior. According to marine zoologists, it usually takes lobsters between 35 and 45 seconds to die in boiling water. (No source I could find talked about how long it takes them to die in superheated steam; one rather hopes it’s faster.)

There are, of course, other fairly common ways to kill your lobster on-site and so achieve maximum freshness. Some cooks’ practice is to drive a sharp heavy knife point-first into a spot just above the midpoint between the lobster’s eyestalks (more or less where the Third Eye is in human foreheads). This is alleged either to kill the lobster instantly or to render it insensate—and is said at least to eliminate the cowardice involved in throwing a creature into boiling water and then fleeing the room. As far as I can tell from talking to proponents of the knife-in-the-head method, the idea is that it’s more violent but ultimately more merciful, plus that a willingness to exert personal agency and accept responsibility for stabbing the lobster’s head honors the lobster somehow and entitles one to eat it. (There’s often a vague sort of Native American spirituality-of-the-hunt flavor to pro-knife arguments.) But the problem with the knife method is basic biology: Lobsters’ nervous systems operate off not one but several ganglia, a.k.a. nerve bundles, which are sort of wired in series and distributed all along the lobster’s underside, from stem to stern. And disabling only the frontal ganglion does not normally result in quick death or unconsciousness. Another alternative is to put the lobster in cold salt water and then very slowly bring it up to a full boil. Cooks who advocate this method are going mostly on the analogy to a frog, which can supposedly be kept from jumping out of a boiling pot by heating the water incrementally. In order to save a lot of research-summarizing, I’ll simply assure you that the analogy between frogs and lobsters turns out not to hold.

Ultimately, the only certain virtues of the home-lobotomy and slow-heating methods are comparative, because there are even worse/crueler ways people prepare lobster. Time-thrifty cooks sometimes microwave them alive (usually after poking several extra vent holes in the carapace, which is a precaution most shellfish-microwavers learn about the hard way). Live dismemberment, on the other hand, is big in Europe: Some chefs cut the lobster in half before cooking; others like to tear off the claws and tail and toss only these parts in the pot.

And there’s more unhappy news respecting suffering-criterion number one. Lobsters don’t have much in the way of eyesight or hearing, but they do have an exquisite tactile sense, one facilitated by hundreds of thousands of tiny hairs that protrude through their carapace. “Thus,” in the words of T.M. Prudden’s industry classic About Lobster, “it is that although encased in what seems a solid, impenetrable armor, the lobster can receive stimuli and impressions from without as readily as if it possessed a soft and delicate skin.” And lobsters do have nociceptors,17 as well as invertebrate versions of the prostaglandins and major neurotransmitters via which our own brains register pain.

Lobsters do not, on the other hand, appear to have the equipment for making or absorbing natural opioids like endorphins and enkephalins, which are what more advanced nervous systems use to try to handle intense pain. From this fact, though, one could conclude either that lobsters are maybe even more vulnerable to pain, since they lack mammalian nervous systems’ built-in analgesia, or, instead, that the absence of natural opioids implies an absence of the really intense pain-sensations that natural opioids are designed to mitigate. I for one can detect a marked upswing in mood as I contemplate this latter possibility: It could be that their lack of endorphin/enkephalin hardware means that lobsters’ raw subjective experience of pain is so radically different from mammals’ that it may not even deserve the term pain. Perhaps lobsters are more like those frontal-lobotomy patients one reads about who report experiencing pain in a totally different way than you and I. These patients evidently do feel physical pain, neurologically speaking, but don’t dislike it—though neither do they like it; it’s more that they feel it but don’t feel anything about it—the point being that the pain is not distressing to them or something they want to get away from. Maybe lobsters, who are also without frontal lobes, are detached from the neurological-registration-of-injury-or-hazard we call pain in just the same way. There is, after all, a difference between (1) pain as a purely neurological event, and (2) actual suffering, which seems crucially to involve an emotional component, an awareness of pain as unpleasant, as something to fear/dislike/want to avoid.

Still, after all the abstract intellection, there remain the facts of the frantically clanking lid, the pathetic clinging to the edge of the pot. Standing at the stove, it is hard to deny in any meaningful way that this is a living creature experiencing pain and wishing to avoid/escape the painful experience. To my lay mind, the lobster’s behavior in the kettle appears to be the expression of a preference; and it may well be that an ability to form preferences is the decisive criterion for real suffering.18 The logic of this (preference p suffering) relation may be easiest to see in the negative case. If you cut certain kinds of worms in half, the halves will often keep crawling around and going about their vermiform business as if nothing had happened. When we assert, based on their post-op behavior, that these worms appear not to be suffering, what we’re really saying is that there’s no sign that the worms know anything bad has happened or would prefer not to have gotten cut in half.

Lobsters, however, are known to exhibit preferences. Experiments have shown that they can detect changes of only a degree or two in water temperature; one reason for their complex migratory cycles (which can often cover 100-plus miles a year) is to pursue the temperatures they like best.19 And, as mentioned, they’re bottom-dwellers and do not like bright light: If a tank of food lobsters is out in the sunlight or a store’s fluorescence, the lobsters will always congregate in whatever part is darkest. Fairly solitary in the ocean, they also clearly dislike the crowding that’s part of their captivity in tanks, since (as also mentioned) one reason why lobsters’ claws are banded on capture is to keep them from attacking one another under the stress of close-quarter storage.

In any event, at the Festival, standing by the bubbling tanks outside the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, watching the fresh-caught lobsters pile over one another, wave their hobbled claws impotently, huddle in the rear corners, or scrabble frantically back from the glass as you approach, it is difficult not to sense that they’re unhappy, or frightened, even if it’s some rudimentary version of these feelings …and, again, why does rudimentariness even enter into it? Why is a primitive, inarticulate form of suffering less urgent or uncomfortable for the person who’s helping to inflict it by paying for the food it results in? I’m not trying to give you a PETA-like screed here—at least I don’t think so. I’m trying, rather, to work out and articulate some of the troubling questions that arise amid all the laughter and saltation and community pride of the Maine Lobster Festival. The truth is that if you, the Festival attendee, permit yourself to think that lobsters can suffer and would rather not, the MLF can begin to take on aspects of something like a Roman circus or medieval torture-fest.

Does that comparison seem a bit much? If so, exactly why? Or what about this one: Is it not possible that future generations will regard our own present agribusiness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero’s entertainments or Aztec sacrifices? My own immediate reaction is that such a comparison is hysterical, extreme—and yet the reason it seems extreme to me appears to be that I believe animals are less morally important than human beings;20 and when it comes to defending such a belief, even to myself, I have to acknowledge that (a) I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat certain kinds of animals and want to be able to keep doing it, and (b) I have not succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient.

Given this article’s venue and my own lack of culinary sophistication, I’m curious about whether the reader can identify with any of these reactions and acknowledgments and discomforts. I am also concerned not to come off as shrill or preachy when what I really am is confused. Given the (possible) moral status and (very possible) physical suffering of the animals involved, what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands (since of course refined enjoyment, rather than just ingestion, is the whole point of gastronomy)? And for those gourmets who’ll have no truck with convictions or rationales and who regard stuff like the previous paragraph as just so much pointless navel-gazing, what makes it feel okay, inside, to dismiss the whole issue out of hand? That is, is their refusal to think about any of this the product of actual thought, or is it just that they don’t want to think about it? Do they ever think about their reluctance to think about it? After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’s extra attention and sensibility just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory?

These last couple queries, though, while sincere, obviously involve much larger and more abstract questions about the connections (if any) between aesthetics and morality, and these questions lead straightaway into such deep and treacherous waters that it’s probably best to stop the public discussion right here. There are limits to what even interested persons can ask of each other.

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?currentPage=9

[ashbeeigh]

cliff notes please?

[balli]

I know, I'm sorry. But it's really good if anybody wants to kill 20 minutes.

[MsMcGillyCutty]

I'd rather kill a squirrel and eat some nuggets.

[dimsah]

well can any of you give me a SCIENTIFIC explanation as to why a cow is okay to eat and a dog is given the same legal rights as some humans...

Certainly.

Cows are much easier to catch than dogs. (Have you ever tried to catch a dog? Cheerist, by the time I caught it I was hungry enough to eat a horse, uhh, cow.) If the cow didn't want to be eaten it should have evolved in to something much faster.

Cows don't make cute puppy eyes. Cows just stare blankly at you as if to say "Hey, you wanna chew on my delicous ribs?"

Cows have much more meat on their bones so you can feed more people with less work.

And this is just an opinion mind you, but cows probably taste much better as well. I couldn't say because I've never tasted dog to my knowledge. I'm pretty sure I've eaten cat before but the lady said it was chicken thighs. Well, it was delicious to say the least. Cubed and cooked in a skillet with some jalapenos. Fuckin A! She called it Cwazy hot chicken.

[samikeyp]

Fuck PETA. Because of them and their brainwashed hippie minions at Michigan State, the Circus that the Shriners hire every years is canceling their performance this year. Those fucks were invited by the circus to inspect their facilities to report any wrong doing and PETA turned them down. Now the kids I volunteer with are out over $600 which they would have earned working that weekend. My wife is a vegetarian and even she thinks PETA is whacked.

[samikeyp]

"Vegetarianism is like bisexuality. Teenage girls always go through a phase of it, but inevitably go back to meat."

[phyzik]

Brought to you by Anti-Vegetarian Society of Meat Eaters (AVSME).

http://logo.cafepress.com/9/5870823.1684729.jpg

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[phyzik]

Its no wonder PETA bastards and vegetarians are fucking idiots.

A study by nutritionists, reported at the current conference of the AAAS, shows that vegetarian diets can damage children's health. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/feb/22/food.sciencenews for a news report. (Search Google News for the name 'Lindsay Allen' for more coverage.) But the most interesting part of the study is that it followed the effects of giving dietary supplements to Kenyan schoolchildren. Some were given meat (2 ounces a day, equivalent to a small hamburger), some were given extra calories but not meat, and a control group were not given supplements. The results showed large improvements in IQ (fluid intelligence) for the 'meat' group. This seems relevant to the debate over international IQ differences, particularly in Africa, and to the causes of the 'Flynn Effect'.

[braeden0613]

petakillsanimals.com

[v2freak]

If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of tasty meat?

I'm vegetarian too, but I think PETA goes about it the wrong way. And I hope this isn't a serious argument...

[Dex]

So are tigers bad because they eat meat?

Can Tony the Tiger really be evil?

http://amiestreet.com/public/blog/20071207_tony_tiger.jpg

[Dex]

By the way, those plants are living creatures too, and are smart enough to perform such functions as photosynthesis. Not to mention providing us with vital oxygen and beautifying the Earth.

And you're eating all of them.

[monosylab1k]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3282/2852662944_29e5398a30.jpg?v=0

[CuckingFunt]

Everyone in this thread who has tried to piss of the vegetarian fails miserably for not yet mentioning the deliciousness of veal.

[duncan228]

But it's really good if anybody wants to kill 20 minutes.

It was a good read. Thanks.

[Duff McCartney]

I actually recently became a vegetarian and I think it's fantastic. Not that I see anything wrong with eating meat. I think eating beef, pork, chicken and the likes is great too. But I decided to the vegetarian thing for a month to see how it went and I have since never gone back. Going on almost 4 months now.

That said..I don't think I'd ever consort with PETA. I know they have good intentions for the most part, and I'm against cruelty to animals, but as with everything, some of them are just too crazy for their own good. They turn people right off to whatever they have to say when they act like lunatics.

[samikeyp]

Everyone in this thread who has tried to piss of the vegetarian fails miserably for not yet mentioning the deliciousness of veal.

Again, the Funt is wise.

[monosylab1k]

Everyone in this thread who has tried to piss of the vegetarian fails miserably for not yet mentioning the deliciousness of veal.

:lol good point. Although even as much as I love animal flesh, veal is actually something I have some sort of odd moral opposition to, which explains all the tiny vaginas growing on my face.

[baseline bum]

I actually recently became a vegetarian and I think it's fantastic. Not that I see anything wrong with eating meat. I think eating beef, pork, chicken and the likes is great too. But I decided to the vegetarian thing for a month to see how it went and I have since never gone back. Going on almost 4 months now.

That said..I don't think I'd ever consort with PETA. I know they have good intentions for the most part, and I'm against cruelty to animals, but as with everything, some of them are just too crazy for their own good. They turn people right off to whatever they have to say when they act like lunatics.

Some of them? The whole organization is a bunch of nuts, from that cunt Ingrid Newkirk on down.

[CuckingFunt]

:lol good point. Although even as much as I love animal flesh, veal is actually something I have some sort of odd moral opposition to, which explains all the tiny vaginas growing on my face.

I love veal. Understand completely the moral opposition and would prefer that those succulent little baby cows had a better living situation pre-slaughter, but will continue to eat them.

[CuckingFunt]

On the other hand, though, I should probably mention that I went out for sushi tonight for dinner and, since I don't like raw fish, had a 100% vegetarian meal that was absolutely delicious. These completely meatless tempura yam rolls that I brought home are pretty much rockin' my world.

[ploto]

I actually am not much of a meat eater- simply do not have the taste for it- but I support animal testing in medical research.

[baseline bum]

On the other hand, though, I should probably mention that I went out for sushi tonight for dinner and, since I don't like raw fish, had a 100% vegetarian meal that was absolutely delicious. These completely meatless tempura yam rolls that I brought home are pretty much rockin' my world.

You don't like raw fish? WTF? Next thing you're going to tell me you don't like raw steak?

[T Park]

Waits for Baseline Bum to post again, the fantastic episode about PETA by Penn and Teller of Bullshit.

That episode makes your eyes want to bleed.

[balli]

Thanks.
:toast

[Duff McCartney]

You don't like raw fish? WTF? Next thing you're going to tell me you don't like raw steak?

Hey before I went vegetarian that was a favorite thing of mine. Getting a small chunk of raw steak adding a dash of kosher salt and pepper and just eating it. It was so damn good.

[I. Hustle]

Fuck PETA. Because of them and their brainwashed hippie minions at Michigan State, the Circus that the Shriners hire every years is canceling their performance this year. Those fucks were invited by the circus to inspect their facilities to report any wrong doing and PETA turned them down. Now the kids I volunteer with are out over $600 which they would have earned working that weekend. My wife is a vegetarian and even she thinks PETA is whacked.

My boss' husband is the right hand man to the guy that runs that circus. She made it seem like it was going to continue. She told me about those PETA idiots too.

[T Park]

Mikey, ain't it wonderfull also how no one will report how the kids will lose money or how that affects businesses?

[desflood]

I've always loved animals and have recently gone vegetarian, specifically to protest the treatment of animals in the slaughterhouses and on the "farms"... But PETA scares the hell out of me. They're fanatics, and fanatics are always dangerous. I'll have nothing to do with them, thank you.

[samikeyp]

Mikey, ain't it wonderfull also how no one will report how the kids will lose money or how that affects businesses?

True.

Now I love animals and I don't want to see them mistreated, but not all circuses are bad. I work with good kids and these kids have activities they do throughout the year and instead of asking for money, they prefer to work for it. Maybe I am a little biased but I just like to see these kids and others rewarded for their willingness to work.

[samikeyp]

My boss' husband is the right hand man to the guy that runs that circus. She made it seem like it was going to continue. She told me about those PETA idiots too.

They were talking up here about how hundreds of students came out to protest. We worked all three days of the circus and saw exactly 2 protesters Sunday morning.

I think they got offended when my nephew said in a loud whisper, "hey Uncle Mike, can we go out for bunny jerky afterwards?" :)

Oddly enough, we saw the same protesters after the performances at Taco Bell. :lol

[v2freak]

By the way, those plants are living creatures too, and are smart enough to perform such functions as photosynthesis. Not to mention providing us with vital oxygen and beautifying the Earth.

And you're eating all of them.

True, but remember that plants are not sentient. Photosynthesis comes naturally like breathing does for us, and I don't think we would be taken seriously if we credited ourselves as intelligent creatures because our bodies perform automatic functions. Also, contrary to what Timothy McVeigh said, plants do not feel pain. They do not have nervous systems.

Going vegetarian is also much greener than eating meat, even though it seems that we are removing some of the carbon sinks necessary to life. Remember that with most vegetables and fruits, you can remove the food and leave the plant intact. Supposedly, planting 300 trees is equivalent to erasing your entire life's carbon footprint!

Personally, my reasons for going vegetarian are:
It's greener
It's more cost effective
It's healthier
It's guilt-free. I would never eat a cat or dog, and I decided it was time to extend that courtesy to cows, chickens, pigs and the like.

[I. Hustle]

They were talking up here about how hundreds of students came out to protest. We worked all three days of the circus and saw exactly 2 protesters Sunday morning.

I think they got offended when my nephew said in a loud whisper, "hey Uncle Mike, can we go out for bunny jerky afterwards?" :)

Oddly enough, we saw the same protesters after the performances at Taco Bell. :lol

Yeah I used to get fed up with this one girl I worked with. She supported Peta so I asked her if she ate meat or animal related products. She responded with "I try not to but I like cheese alot". I was like you dumb bitch.

[Heath Ledger]

No but I am a Vaginatarian. Got clit?

Besides if we aren't supposed to eat meat then why does it taste so fucking good?

[Guru of Nothing]

Are you kidding me? PETA is a group of some of the stupidest bastards alive. I can't believe they go and protest animal shelters when they themselves practice euthanasia. People who talk shit to those who eat meat are retarded. Humans have evolved to instinctively want to eat meat as well as vegetables, and veganism is nonsensical repression of a basic human need every bit as much as another equally stupid idea people preach from their high horses about not having sex until marriage. On top of that, PETA's just another religious group trying to shit on science.

Yes, BUT, the meat industry has changed the equation drastically. Essentially, animals are raised in their own shit, eating food that they themselves did not evolve to eat (god bless corn subsidies); and to compensate for it all, these sick animals are flooded with antibiotics.

I highly recommend the book The Omnivore's Dilemma. The author breaks down the American diet and follows the food chain from the corn fields to the feedlots to the dinner table. It's more fascinating than I would have ever thought.

Humans have evolved to the point where we excel at fucking things up on a grand scale, and there's no reason to think the meat industry should be excluded from our reach.

Bon Appetit.

[baseline bum]

Yes, BUT, the meat industry has changed the equation drastically. Essentially, animals are raised in their own shit, eating food that they themselves did not evolve to eat (god bless corn subsidies); and to compensate for it all, these sick animals are flooded with antibiotics.

I highly recommend the book The Omnivore's Dilemma. The author breaks down the American diet and follows the food chain from the corn fields to the feedlots to the dinner table. It's more fascinating than I would have ever thought.

Humans have evolved to the point where we excel at fucking things up on a grand scale, and there's no reason to think the meat industry should be excluded from our reach.

Bon Appetit.

I agree the meat industry is disgusting, and if PETA wasn't a religious cult they'd make rational arguments about changing it instead of getting on the mountain and preaching about veganism. Cutting meat out of the human diet is in no way a realistic option. The vast majority of us don't have a choice in the matter; we're hardwired to want meat just as much as we're hardwired to be social, to develop language, to have a sex drive, and so on.

[JustSpurs]

Let me get this straight 8ft. You dont like the taste of T-bones steaks, pan seared mahi-mahi will romalade sauce or grilled lamb chops florentine, but will eat a big ass bowl of brussel sprouts and beets?

:vomit:

and then fart like a Longshoreman

[DarkReign]

Considering that the spare parts of cows are ground up and added into the feed used for other cows, the inbreeding on cattle ranches, the deplorable filth that these animals are raised in, the caulk-gun-sized antibiotics to combat the inherent disease associated with such filth, the steroids used to beef them up faster and the myriad of inefficent and cruel ways I have seen cattle killed one after another after another after another...

If early humans were vegetarians, we would have never left the savannas. The high protein diet coupled with the hunt itself (the planning, the cunning, the coordination of multiple early hominids) propelled humans to the top of the food chain.

You vegans/vegetarians can thank meat-eaters for your ability to protest at all. Youre welcome.

[leemajors]

i don't each much red meat, but then again i have a deep freeze full of ground venison, venison ham steaks, venison sausage, and the like. i just don't have to buy it. But i do love sweet, delicious chicken and turkey.

[Dex]

Considering that the spare parts of cows are ground up and added into the feed used for other cows, the inbreeding on cattle ranches, the deplorable filth that these animals are raised in, the caulk-gun-sized antibiotics to combat the inherent disease associated with such filth, the steroids used to beef them up faster and the myriad of inefficent and cruel ways I have seen cattle killed one after another after another after another...

If early humans were vegetarians, we would have never left the savannas. The high protein diet coupled with the hunt itself (the planning, the cunning, the coordination of multiple early hominids) propelled humans to the top of the food chain.

You vegans/vegetarians can thank meat-eaters for your ability to protest at all. Youre welcome.

:tu

If someone doesn't like eating meat or doesn't believe in it, that's all well and dandy. Keep it a personal choice and let me have mine.

Acting like people are wrong for eating meat is like denying evolution. We weren't the first carnivores to roam this planet, and we won't be the last.

[Guru of Nothing]

:tu

If someone doesn't like eating meat or doesn't believe in it, that's all well and dandy. Keep it a personal choice and let me have mine.

Acting like people are wrong for eating meat is like denying evolution. We weren't the first carnivores to roam this planet, and we won't be the last.

I don't disagree with you, BUT, the Evolution is not over yet.

[DarkReign]

I don't disagree with you, BUT, the Evolution is not over yet.

Totally fair point.

[v2freak]

Yes, BUT, the meat industry has changed the equation drastically. Essentially, animals are raised in their own shit, eating food that they themselves did not evolve to eat (god bless corn subsidies); and to compensate for it all, these sick animals are flooded with antibiotics.

I highly recommend the book The Omnivore's Dilemma. The author breaks down the American diet and follows the food chain from the corn fields to the feedlots to the dinner table. It's more fascinating than I would have ever thought.

Humans have evolved to the point where we excel at fucking things up on a grand scale, and there's no reason to think the meat industry should be excluded from our reach.

Bon Appetit.

Yup. I also recommend Six Modern Plagues, which discusses how many diseases have been created by humans. Among them is Mad Cow Disease which was caused by the meat and bone meal that you were just discussing.

The idea that we are born to eat meat does not impress me at all. We may have an inclination to do it, but we have also been bestowed with the ability to make important choices and flex our will power. Humans becoming civilized is a good example of this. Evolution dictates that the less fortunate should be culled out of the gene pool, but this is inhumane.

[baseline bum]

The idea that we are born to eat meat does not impress me at all.

It may not impress you, but go look in a mirror and see that you have sharp teeth suited for cutting meat in addition to those more useful for eating vegetables. It's clear as day that natural selection favored humans who ate meat, or it wouldn't have screwed around choosing ancestors with those teeth.

[DarkReign]

It may not impress you, but go look in a mirror and see that you have sharp teeth suited for cutting meat in addition to those more useful for eating vegetables. It's clear as day that natural selection favored humans who ate meat, or it wouldn't have screwed around choosing ancestors with those teeth.

Bingo. Your skeletal structure, bone mass, brain size ratio and eye location say youre a predator. Sorry, herbivore's stay in the wild...forever.

Now, Guru made a good point. Evolution hasnt stopped by any means, so people embracing a non-meat diet is fine. Its a luxury for civilized humans.

But just dont think we meat-eaters are somehow inhumane. The vegans/vegetarians deny their lineage consciously, we dont. Thats all.

[v2freak]

Bingo. Your skeletal structure, bone mass, brain size ratio and eye location say youre a predator. Sorry, herbivore's stay in the wild...forever.

Now, Guru made a good point. Evolution hasnt stopped by any means, so people embracing a non-meat diet is fine. Its a luxury for civilized humans.

But just dont think we meat-eaters are somehow inhumane. The vegans/vegetarians deny their lineage consciously, we dont. Thats all.

Some of the comments in this thread make me think that this is hardly a compelling argument.

[baseline bum]

Some of the comments in this thread make me think that this is hardly a compelling argument.

Come on, name names. What specifically is inhumane? People talking about how they like to cook their steaks? :lol

[Blake]

I don't disagree with you, BUT, the Evolution is not over yet.

what does that even mean in regards to this thread....

that one day we will all become flat teethed vegans?

[Darrin]

Why discriminate against plants? It's only disgusting and a tragedy because it can cry in pain like us and it is cute.

I need to kill something to live. We all do--plant, fish, poultry, beef--it doesn't matter. The goal should be not to slaughter anything for the sake of it. The goal should be to take only what is needed and leave the rest alive.

I would be more concerned about deforestation of the Rainforest, Carbon emissions in the air, and pollution in our seas than the Cow or turkey I just ate.

[I. Hustle]

I am an animal lover. I love animal slices seasoned and thrown on the pit and eaten with tortillas, guacamole, cheese, and a bunch of other stuff.

[Blake]

Why discriminate against plants? It's only disgusting and a tragedy because it can cry in pain like us and it is cute.

I need to kill something to live. We all do--plant, fish, poultry, beef--it doesn't matter. The goal should be not to slaughter anything for the sake of it. The goal should be to take only what is needed and leave the rest alive.

I would be more concerned about deforestation of the Rainforest, Carbon emissions in the air, and pollution in our seas than the Cow or turkey I just ate.

it's already been argued: "because animals are sentient"

but I wonder how far down the sentient chain it goes before it's considered "inhumane"

does it have to be mammal? What about reptile or insect?

[Darrin]

it's already been argued: "because animals are sentient"

but I wonder how far down the sentient chain it goes before it's considered "inhumane"

does it have to be mammal? What about reptile or insect?

So...it has to be able to respond to stimuli the way mammals do? Where's this argument during the abortion debate?

[I. Hustle]

So...it has to be able to respond to stimuli the way mammals do? Where's this argument during the abortion debate?

+1

[Blake]

So...it has to be able to respond to stimuli the way mammals do? Where's this argument during the abortion debate?

no kidding, right?

I don't really know, but I bet the vast majority of PETA'ers are also abortion rights activists.

[Guru of Nothing]

what does that even mean in regards to this thread....

that one day we will all become flat teethed vegans?

What it means is that some day, everyone will look back and laugh at hot-dog eaters. Coming soon to a Geico commercial - "So simple, even a hot dog eater can comprehend it."

Does that help?

[Blake]

What it means is that some day, everyone will look back and laugh at hot-dog eaters.

doubtful

[I. Hustle]

http://www.lolgay.com/images/2007/05/29/052907lolgaycheezburger.jpg

[Sec24Row7]

I personally like to kill my own meat... and do it quite often.

I couldn't imagine being as disconnected as some of the people i read about are...

[urunobili]

Veggie rules!

[Kamala]

One vagitarian here!:toast