GPC100s wrote:
I tried to be vegan once before but I was in great pain during that time. The pain was kinda external but not the surface of my skin, like whenever I put pressure on my body (for example standing on my feet, even in my shoes).[...]
meat (even with less protein grams compared to my vegan/vegetarian trials) relieved my pains within a few days of intake so that's why I eat meat now.
This is one of a few possible things:
1. It's probably a coincidence. Have you tried quitting meat again since then?
If you do, and you experience the pain again, then it's less likely a coincidence.
How severe was the pain, and how long did it take to come about?
You may need to visit a doctor for a better diagnosis of the condition itself. Can you describe it more fully?
It could be due to inflammation, or hypersensitivity of nerves.
2. As TheVeganAtheist suggested, it may be due to something else in your diet.
As you said you were eating all of the same thing before, you were probably not eating all of the same amounts of those things.
You may have issues with one or more of the things you are eating (such as allergy issues), which only shows up when you eat quite a bit more of it than you usually do.
You need to control for those variables to determine what it might be.
If you give us more details about your diet, including all of the things you eat, and approximate amounts, we can help you figure out a better test to determine what the problem may be.
3. It's very unlikely, but it could be that your body has an inability to synthesize something which is in meat, but not in vegetables or dairy.
That list is very small, and would make you something of a medical anomaly. This is probably not the case.
If it turns out it's not 1 or 2, you should go to the doctor to get a blood test done before you experience the pain, and then later while you're experiencing the pain.
GPC100s wrote:
It seems sensible to me to say that it was collagen production that my body was having trouble with, but I'm no nutritionist so I'm open to suggestions... Since collagen is created from lysine and proline (proteins) with vitamin C as a catalyst, I tried many vegan options including beans
Too many variables. If you think it's due to Lysine and Proline shortages, use them directly:
http://www.allstarhealth.com/f/source_n ... powder.htm
http://www.allstarhealth.com/f/now-l_ly ... powder.htm
Pure amino acid sources are not expensive today as supplements.
There is nothing useful in meat that isn't available as a supplement - and every single thing, in bulk, is cheaper than meat itself as a source.
I would only do that after:
A. You make sure it's not just a coincidence
B. You eliminate the possibility that it's an allergic food reaction to something you're eating more of than you can tolerate
We're talking less than $20 to test the hypothesis in a reliable way, though.
More exotic, there are some proteins which are not in plant matter, which human beings synthesize themselves. If you have a genetic condition and are unable to synthesize them, they could result in abnormal symptoms.
Some possibilities would be Taurine and Creatine. Normal people synthesize plenty of these. Cats can't synthesize Taurine. I'm not sure if there's any animal that can't synthesize creatine- but both are available in bulk.
http://www.allstarhealth.com/f/now-taurine_powder.htm
http://www.allstarhealth.com/f/now-crea ... ydrate.htm
Chemically, there's nothing metabolically significant in meat that you can't buy.
-I think all beings derive their morality from their perceptions. Vegans like to talk about sentience but I'm not gonna pretend to know what you guys mean by it; when I read the dictionary definition, it sounds like a synonym for perception.
We derive moral consideration from the ability of a being to want. If something can not want, then it's not possible to consider that lack of a want.
Want derives from rudimentary intelligence and sensory interactivity with the world- crudely, yes, perception.
-A being that cannot perceive pain, by definition, cannot care if I were to inflict pain upon them (or perform actions that would normally inflict pain such as pinching).
Correct. Such as plants, which are not sentient, or brain dead accident victims "vegetables". All they have are 'mindless' reflexes.
-A being that cannot perceive the existence of it's future, by definition, cannot care about it's future.
There is no such being that can perceive pain, but does not have any sense of future. Pain perception only has use because of a primitive sense of causality - "I did this, and that happens". THAT, by nature, is in the future.
Without being able to tie cause and effect together, and anticipate effects that follow causes, intelligence doesn't work, and fundamental aspects of expressed intelligence, like operant conditioning, are impossible.
Even very rudimentary animals (some kinds of worms) can do that.
There are some animals which may not be able to: Oysters, Jellyfish, Sponges.
You are welcome to eat these animals- you will find few people can construct a sound argument against it.
-The end of one's future is called death.
This doesn't have to do with anything. Killing a being which can want is wrong, because you have deprived it of something it innately wants- to continue to exist and do whatever it was it was trying to do.
It's a matter of opportunity cost.
A being wants to fulfill its wants, and if it would be able to do so (or might have been able to do so) had you not killed it, there is a loss there.
If a particular being's future was certain to be nothing but misery, with the inability to fulfill any of its wants, then that's called a mercy kill- the opportunity cost is negative.
-Death can occur without pain.
It can, but it does not.
This is a statistical matter. In no large scale farming operation do all of the animals die painlessly- I would argue that none of them die painlessly with current practices.
Even with perfect methodology, though, you will screw up sometimes.
Death can not reliably occur without pain, no matter your precautions. There's always a chance of pain, and because moral action is statistical in nature, it is immoral to risk subjecting another to pain (whether or not it actually happens)- the same reason it's immoral to drive drunk even if you got lucky and didn't kill anybody that time, or shoot a gun into a crowd even if you got lucky and didn't hit anybody that time.
-Animals such as cows and chickens have never been shown to plan for the future, according to my knowledge, which I think is our only measure in determining their perception of their potential future.
Firstly, that's just empirically wrong.
But more importantly, all animals with brains that can undergo operant conditioning are innately planning for the immediate future. So far, the use of operant conditioning has been very conclusively proven down to the level of insects.
Some animals plan out more distantly into the future than others.
If Bob plans only for tomorrow, and Sally makes a five year plan, is it OK for Sally to kill Bob, since he has a more limited plan of the future than she does?
-Other animals have been shown to plan for the future through scientific tests, so we do have methods.
What tests are you talking about?
With the exception of sessile organisms like sponges and Oysters, or very simple ones like Jellyfish, larger animals plan for the future to some degree. All chordates certainly do.
There is a question of exactly where the line of sentience is, but that question is hovering around small insects and worms- not around chickens and cows. There is no doubt that they are sentient and grasp the concepts of cause and effect.
Further, there is no doubt that they plan for the near future. The ability to simply walk and veer around obstacles proves this conclusively.
They see something they want across the yard. They plan to walk over and get it. They look at the yard, and note any obstacles. They plan out the route they will take to reach the destination.
Spiders do this stuff too. Portia can look at a complicated maze of sticks from a distance, analyze it by forming a 3d mental model, and figure out how to get to the prey, following the route perfectly (and realizing if it messes up along the way).
Sorry, but any scientist who thinks the question of some major threshold in cognition revolves around chickens and cows is an idiot.
-And finally, much like god claims, I treat lack of evidence as a good indicator of no evidence until evidence can be found.
That's not how morality works.
Look, there's a stroller in the road. I don't *see* a baby in it... well, it's in the way and I can't be bothered to stop and check, so I'll go ahead and run it over with my truck. There's no evidence of a baby in it from here (a position from which it's hard to tell), so that's evidence that there's not a baby in it!
No.
If there's a chance of something being sentient, a moral person gives it the benefit of the doubt.
We have proof positive that cows and chickens are sentient, but even if we didn't, the fact that they are substantially similar to organisms we have proof are sentient, and that they are closely related to those organisms (and closely related to us as well), would all point to the reasonable assumption that they are sentient.
In this case, the null hypothesis is that they ARE sentient. In this case, Occam's razor suggests they ARE sentient.
Just as a stroller, rather than a shoe box, points to the more reasonable chance of there being a baby in it.
If there was a shoe box in the road, we could reasonably expect it not to have a baby in it, because shoe boxes are not closely related to things babies are normally kept in. It's a much safer assumption in that case.
We aren't excused from doing harmful things just because we weren't 100% certain that they were harmful at the time.
Moral responsibility dictates a certain measure of caution.
If you agree with every bullet point, then our conclusion should be the same: it's not wrong to kill some animals. Otherwise feel free to tell me why I'm wrong.
It may not be wrong to kill some animals. Like, for example, sponges. Phylogenetically, you're something like five orders of magnitude off.
There's no question that it's wrong to kill chickens and cows. There's no question that it's wrong to kill chordates.
The issue is whether they're sentient.
Unless, as I mentioned, it's a mercy kill. I.E. under the same conditions WE would want to die, or that we'd euthanize a loved pet under.
