If you are a low/no meat eater, how do you feel about meat imitations?

So what? I'm sure you can supplement your diet in order to make up for the nutrients you are missing out in meat. But that's an artificial replacement for a natural source of energy and vitamins. Never as effective as the real thing.

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I don't know if you read the earlier pages in this thread, but we kind of went here already.

Farmerman asserted that some B vitamins could only be found in meat. I searched, and this claim is only made of B-12. B-12 is found in lots of non animal products, and for that matter is not even a product of the animal but rather of bacteria.

So what? I'm sure you can supplement your diet in order to make up for the nutrients you are missing out in meat. But that's an artificial replacement for a natural source of energy and vitamins. Never as effective as the real thing.

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As for protein, how much is left in a piece of meat after cooking it to the point where the germs are killed?

Tons of it is: just cook your meat to medium-rare. There is a reason that bodybuilders and others who want to build muscle eat tons of chicken: because it works.

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Humans can digest meat, but there no reason to believe that we must or even that it is a component of an optimal human diet.

I don't think there is a shadow of a doubt that it is part of an optimal human diet. It is extremely dense with nutrients and fats, more so than practically any vegetable. We evolved to eat meat for a reason....

I can't imagine for a second being athletic and not eating meat at all. Maybe it works if you don't want to push your body to do tough things. But it wouldn't for me.

Are soybeans able to be eaten in a manner thats unprocessed? HARDLY

Edible soybean, called Edamame in Japan and Mao Dou in China, is grown mainly to harvest the young green-shelled beans for vegetable uses, but not for the matured soybean crops. Plants grow best in warm climates but poorly in cold conditions. Soybean seed germination is relatively sensitive to water content in soil. Seeds can be easily rotted and fail to germinate if overwatered or soaked. Keep soil only moist but not soaked during the germinating period.

Edible soybean produces clusters of pods with green beans. Pick the pods when they are plump but still green. All pods on the plants are harvested at the same time. It is suggested to start seedings at several different times, so you can have continuous harvests of Edamame beans.

http://www.evergreenseeds.com/edsoyed.html

The Case Against Meat
Evidence Shows that Our Meat-Based Diet is Bad for the Environment, Aggravates Global Hunger, Brutalizes Animals and Compromises Our Health

by Jim Motavalli

There has never been a better time for environmentalists to become vegetarians. Evidence of the environmental impacts of a meat-based diet is piling up at the same time its health effects are becoming better known. Meanwhile, full-scale industrialized factory farming—which allows diseases to spread quickly as animals are raised in close confinement—has given rise to recent, highly publicized epidemics of meat-borne illnesses. At presstime, the first discovery of mad cow disease in a Tokyo suburb caused beef prices to plummet in Japan and many people to stop eating meat.

All this comes at a time when meat consumption is reaching an all-time high around the world, quadrupling in the last 50 years. There are 20 billion head of livestock taking up space on the Earth, more than triple the number of people. According to the Worldwatch Institute, global livestock population has increased 60 percent since 1961, and the number of fowl being raised for human dinner tables has nearly quadrupled in the same time period, from 4.2 billion to 15.7 billion. U.S. beef and pork consumption has tripled since 1970, during which time it has more than doubled in Asia.

One reason for the increase in meat consumption is the rise of fast-food restaurants as an American dietary staple. As Eric Schlosser noted in his best-selling book Fast Food Nation, “Americans now spend more money on fast food—$110 billion a year—than they do on higher education. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos and recorded music—combined.”

Strong growth in meat production and consumption continues despite mounting evidence that meat-based diets are unhealthy, and that just about every aspect of meat production—from grazing-related loss of cropland and open space, to the inefficiencies of feeding vast quantities of water and grain to cattle in a hungry world, to pollution from “factory farms”—is an environmental disaster with wide and sometimes catastrophic consequences. Oregon State University agriculture professor Peter Cheeke calls factory farming “a frontal assault on the environment, with massive groundwater and air pollution problems.”

World Hunger and Resources

The 4.8 pounds of grain fed to cattle to produce one pound of beef for human beings represents a colossal waste of resources in a world still teeming with people who suffer from profound hunger and malnutrition.

According to the British group Vegfam, a 10-acre farm can support 60 people growing soybeans, 24 people growing wheat, 10 people growing corn and only two producing cattle. Britain—with 56 million people—could support a population of 250 million on an all-vegetable diet. Because 90 percent of U.S. and European meat eaters’ grain consumption is indirect (first being fed to animals), westerners each consume 2,000 pounds of grain a year. Most grain in underdeveloped countries is consumed directly.

While it is true that many animals graze on land that would be unsuitable for cultivation, the demand for meat has taken millions of productive acres away from farm inventories. The cost of that is incalculable. As Diet For a Small Planet author Frances Moore Lappé writes, imagine sitting down to an eight-ounce steak. “Then imagine the room filled with 45 to 50 people with empty bowls in front of them. For the ‘feed cost’ of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a full cup of cooked cereal grains.”

Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer estimates that reducing meat production by just 10 percent in the U.S. would free enough grain to feed 60 million people. Authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that a pound of wheat can be grown with 60 pounds of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 pounds.

Environmental Costs

Energy-intensive U.S. factory farms generated 1.4 billion tons of animal waste in 1996, which, the Environmental Protection Agency reports, pollutes American waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. Meat production has also been linked to severe erosion of billions of acres of once-productive farmland and to the destruction of rainforests.

McDonald’s took a group of British animal rights activists to court in the 1990s because they had linked the fast food giant to an unhealthy diet and rainforest destruction. The defendants, who fought the company to a standstill, made a convincing case. In court documents, the activists asserted, “From 1970 onwards, beef from cattle reared on ex-rainforest land was supplied to McDonald’s.” In a policy statement, McDonald’s claims that it “does not purchase beef which threatens tropical rainforests anywhere in the world,” but it does not deny past purchases.


http://www.emagazine.com/view/?142

Not hardly at all. Soybeans are delicious, even most of the shell is edible and it's delicious too

I believe that I stated that there were several B vitamins and that ALL are contained in meat.

The panoptics of B vitamins can only be provided by some meat intake...

the issue has morphed into a dietary "Which is denser" meat or soybean meal.

Thomas seems to be someone who can live on soybean meal. I cannot. In fact, if youve ever tasted soybean meal its really vile ****.

SOybeans, although an ancient crop, have not really been exploited for mass feeding until after WWII. The crop has turned into an interesting industry that relies on High uses of chemicals (that mot vegans seem to wish to avoid), Large scale ag practices (like huge pieces of ag equipment, and fertilizers (even though its a legume, we need fertilizer to get the seed started and growing).

Meat has been raised on a "boutique" basis for eons.

I dont like ANY industrial farming pravtice , so I grow grass fed animals and thats a low intensity activity.

We tried soybens and never EVER realized a profit over costs because we dont have enough land to spread out the unit costs (such as rental of custom sombining services).

Many ag activities require "one time" charges for equip or activity scheduling or special inoculants etc which have license fees.

To claim that you get everything you need from soy, may be ok if taste is unimportant and when eating is merely some clinical activity.

Meat is still my chosen form of dieatry fats, protein and vitamins. oybeans, in order to be processed into meal or extracting wheys, require steam processing in **** like HEXANE.

If I were to grow soybeans again, Id like to follow, ton for ton, what happens to my crop. Im sure most of it goes to make paints .
and plastics.

I got a package of processed soy bean patties. and the ingredients read like a FRANKENFOOD script.

SInce soybeans are perhaps the most processed and genetically modified food stuff, Im a little coinfused as to why some of the vegans here have chosen their particular lifestyle.

Are soybeans environmentally responsible? Hell no

Are soybeans free of Genetic modification-DOUBLE HELL NO because over 85% of soybeans in thne US and Argentian and Brazil are genetically modified (Roundup ready)

Are soybeans free of xchemical processing? NO NO, unless you consider Hexane, benzene, and chlorinated solvents as a foodstuff

Are soybeans able to be eaten in a manner thats unprocessed? HARDLY (Ive only seen soy sprouts once and, if ya want to eat the beans in a responsible fshion, you houl eat lupinis or lima beans, they are waay easier to grow and harvest.

The farm i worked on in New Mexico more than 20 years ago, there was a jar of soy beans in the Kitchen. They were so hard, i decided they must have been there when they set off the atom bomb at Trinity. Soaking them didn't do a damn bit of good. I never did figure out a way to make them edible.

They had a tofu factory in Santa Fe. They'd get enthusiastic young hippies who'd line up for minimum wage to work at such a "cool" place. They'd last about a month or so, then they'd quit, and swear off tofu. It stank to high heaven when you drove by.

They'd last about a month or so, then they'd quit, and swear off tofu.

So I don't eat GE soybeans from Monsanto crops.

I think this discussion had earlier turned on to a demonization of meat.

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So I don't eat GE soybeans from Monsanto crops.

Thats impossible. You arent given the choice.

There are three ways to get the benefits of soy products and avoid the possible dangers of soy products:


Avoid non-organic, genetically-manipulated soy ingredients. See the following web page for more information: http://www.soyinfo.com/haz/gehaz.shtml.


Avoid heavily-processed soy ingredients such as soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, hydrolyzed soy protein, texturized soy protein. These ingredients are will not provide any significant health benefits and may cause health problems as discussed above. Instead use traditionally-processed soy products such as miso, tempeh, tofu, natto, and soy milk.


Use soy products ocassionally. Eating miso soup several times per week and having tempeh or tofu in a dish a couple of time per week is fine. Use other legumes or lean meats to get the bulk of your protein.