VEGANGELICA

Yes, Number9, meat has two definitions: (1) flesh from any animal; (2) lamb, pork, and beef. So, even in schools here in Iowa the public school lunches sometimes offer "fish on Friday" since there are apparently still a lot of Christians who feel they shouldn't eat "meat" on Friday (using definition 2).

When I used to tell servers in restaurants that I don't eat meat, some would sometimes say, "Oh! Do you eat fish or chicken?" Now I explain I'm vegan and I don't eat any flesh, eggs, milk, cheese, gelatin, broth, or fats from animals. I find I have to be very specific because people may not think of cheese as "dairy," or know that gelatin comes from pigs' skins. I do feel more and more people know what vegan means in terms of diet so it is much easier to be vegan now than when I went vegan 10 years ago!

I'm happy to answer questions about veggie issues!

__________________

Cadrian

I seen my uncle kill a cow like that one time... They tied it to a telephone pole and shot it with a .38 pistol behind the ear. It just wouldn't die.... He Unloaded and Loaded the pistol once before it finally gave out.

Ive seen deer die in seconds from one buckshot pellet hitting it in the throat but that Cow with 5 to 6 close range pistol shots to the head was something terrible.

We had a dog once named Bush.... that I dont know what happened but wondered back up to the house one day after about a week of being gone. Someone had shot him in the face.... The dog was missing half his jaw. It looked like some sick **** called our dog up and shot him in the face. The dog lived for like a year and half before he went missing again and we never seen him. The dog always frightened everyone who came over and never seen it before. It looked like a Zombie Dog from a movie.... But he was just as playful as a normal dog.

I don't know what I was getting out with these stories but it always kinda let me know a Will to live is something powerful. The most amazing thing I seen was a Deer that pretty much gutted from a rifle but ran about 150 yards with out any of its vital organs.

MAStudent

It wasn't the first or last time he had to kill a dog he loved.

In the country, dogs encounter things like porcupines

http://blackramfarm.files.wordpress....orcupine-1.jpg

that they try to bite and get the quills stuck all inside their mouth and head

http://therealsouthkorea.files.wordp...cupine2_sm.jpg

wild hogs that rip them up/ gut with their tusks. Boars/ hogs are smarter than dogs, and up to 800 pounds or so

http://www.bigtusks.com/a-images/Boar2b.jpg

or bad people that try to poison them.

You could pay a vet a lot to kill them, but you might as well do it yourself. It is usually quick and as painless as possible to shoot an animal in the head, this time it just went wrong. The vet can make mistakes, too, you would just never know about it.

Cadrian

ya Ive seen hunting dogs get hogs cornered and the mess it makes.... Hogs are a force to be reckoned with. I think they are one of the animals people underestimate how dangerous they are. They are a pain in the ass to kill as well since they got that shoulder blade that is pretty much bullet proof for small calibers. Those tusk plus weight.... make them bulldozers with knives on the front.

We don't have porcupines here in the south.... So i never seen their destruction but damn that pic says it all.

I wouldn't say its painless considering usually the people shot their in head don't live to tell you whether it hurt or not.

We didnt have money for the vet that was one the big reasons, plus it is just the way its done when you live on a dirt road an hour away from anything... I guess thats what would be considered country. My dads saying was a shotgun shell costs a hell of alot less then a ride to the vet and the 50 bucks it would it cost to put it down. Considering how many animals we had it makes plenty sense to me. I just hated having to do it... It was my animal my dad made it a point to make me do it.

We had a 150 chickens and I think 10 turkeys at one time... I remember one day coming home from school with my dad to finding an entire pack of dogs, 7 of them, pretty much the whole communities dogs around us had got into the chicken Coup and killed every last one of them. They didnt eat them, they were running around and just killing them and moving on the to the next. My dad walked up put a concrete block over the hole they, went inside grab 2 shotguns one for me and one for him, I already knew what we were going to do. We killed everyone of them in that coup. We called the community to come get their dogs or we were going to bury them our selves.

Every person that came and got their dead dog didn't say a word but they knew that it was the rules where we lived that must be done, because once they got the taste of blood they would kill every chicken in the community. I buried 3 Dogs and 150 chickens and 9 turkeys that day. 1 Turkey Lived... We had him for like 5 years after that... That was the most bad ass turkey that every lived, it took like 6 months for his feathers to come back from where the dogs got of hold on him and would attack anyone who went into the coup with him.

Neapolitan

What do (some) Vegetarians have against Milk and Honey, since death isn't invovled in obtaining them?

Should Vegetarians own guitars that have bone nuts; andd/or Mother of Pearl and/or Abalone inlays?

Do Vegetarians eat mushrooms, because fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants?

Should Vegans kill off carnivores like lions, tigers, and bears to stop the cycle of violence in the animal kingdom?

Should Vegetarians own pets? Since cats eat mice, and dogs eat can dog food which contain animal meat.

Could Vegetarians eat chocolate covered ants since an ant isn't technically "animal meat"?

Since most vegetarians have a beef against using animal by products like milk and honey, and Jello gelatin and pudding pops; should vegetarians drink water? Since animals drink water, it is only inevidable they have to urgently pass the water via urination aka yellow liquid animal by-product. The water in the urine re-enters the bio-sphere when it evaporates into the air then into rain clouds or filters through the ground and eventually ends into river. No matter where it goes the animal by-product ends up in our drinking water.

Should Vegans use expressions like "dumb as a fox" or "a snake in the grass," ?? Since such expressions demeans and belittles the animal (or reptile) in the phrase by stereotyping them just to belittle the human as they draw an anaologous trait of thus said animal or reptile - something like that.

__________________

VEGANGELICA

Hi Neapolitan! Thank you for your questions. I really am happy to answer them.

Eating dairy products does support the killing of cows. Unfortunately, dairy cows are inseminated (usually artificially) every year in order for them to maintain a milk supply. Thus they give birth every year. The male calves are either killed right away or after around 6 weeks to be eaten as "veal" because it isn't lucrative to raise male "dairy" calves for meat.

Also, although dairy cows normally would live 20 years, farmers usually kill them at around 6 years of age because their milk supply dwindles below the profitable level.

Honey bees, when raised in large populations by people, tend to out-compete non-captive pollinators, which I've read may harm ecosystem species diversity. Bee keepers do kill bees in the process of handling them.

Vegans probably usually feel the negative side of bee-keeping is less important than the negative side of raising large domestic animals to kill. As a vegan, though, I avoid honey because I don't know the full effects of the honey industry on bees and ecosystems. Sometimes I eat some bread that has a little honey in it because often it is hard to find bread without honey.

Ideally, no, since harvesting sealife harms ocean ecosystems...although I'm not sure of the exact origin of decorative mother of pearl. I assume it is a byproduct of the shellfish industry. Ideally there would be substitutes for use in instruments. Or people would just use shells that wash up on the beach!

A related issue I face is with my violin bow: it has horse hair. I very much doubt people harvest long hairs from *living* horses. I need to investigate the little-known, potential horrors of the horse hair trade.

Yes, vegetarians eat mushrooms, because fungi have no brains and thus would be expected to have little sentience or awareness of existence, since the mind as we know it is associated with, if not the same as, the brain.

You are right that fungi are more closely related to animals. They have a weird fleshy taste to me, though I like to eat mushrooms, Neapolitan. They look so alien to me....all those brown spores and gills!

No, because it wouldn't be right to hurt their chance to live. I feel vegetarians are concerned only with human actions and do not hope to end hunting done by animals who have no choice. I do wish the natural world were different than it is, though, because it is horrendously cruel...even though there are amazingly wonderful aspects, too.

A very good question and not easy to answer. My view: yes, vegetarians may care for certain pets and certainly strays, but not make pets out of wild-caught animals or animals who really shouldn't be captive because they don't enjoy it. I wouldn't own a pet where I had to kill another animal to feed her or him, though. I actually know a vegetarian who feeds her dogs steaks, probably reasoning that this is healthiest for the dogs...though I wonder why she ignores what is best for the cows.

While dogs can be vegetarian, cats do require a fatty acid found only in flesh, if I recall correctly...although I should think people could synthesize this component to make veggie cat food. I feel feeding renderized animal parts to cats is probably not healthy for cats and definitely is not good for the livestock animals! I used to own a cat, but wouldn't now because I would feel guilty and sad about supporting the killing of one animal (cows) to feed another (cats). I loved my cat very much, though. The bond of friendship I felt with her helped me feel more empathy for other animals. This is one of the nicest aspects of caring for a pet.

Since an ant is an animal, I think few vegetarians would seek to eat chocolate-covered ants. Most would probably feel that since ants live such short lives anyway that eating them is low on the list of serious harms people cause animals. People bashing baby piglets to death (common practice) concerns me more. I do try to avoid stepping on ants. One thing about being vegan is that you realize you cannot stop or end all killing of animals, but you try to reduce it.

Yes, water is fine. Water is not produced by intentional killing of animals and other living beings, but by their own life processes. Drinking water will not kill aniimals...usually...although freshwater depletion due to human use is a severe problem in many places of the world. Look at the Yangtze River in China...running dry much of the year. So, our use of freshwater does certainly impact other animals and should be considered.

I support free speech but myself do not put people down by saying they are like various non-human animals for the exact reasons you give, Neapolitan. Also, instead of "Kill two birds with one stone" I say "Find two berries in one bush."

__________________

Guybrush

Vegangelica, you are such an altruistic nutter I'm not sure whether I think it's admirable or crazy. Maybe a bit of both!

__________________
Something Completely Different

Arya Stark

Altruistic nutter?

__________________

MB Journal.
Azucar y Especia. My blog.

FETCHER.

Wow. As much as I think you're great/amazing/lovely. You're also crazy.

My dog eats biscuits, but I regularly feed her (i don't wanna say this) Pigs ears, which she adores. She will often get fed some good meat from the butchers and such, only sometimes though.

Also, my dog goes out into my garden, picks up little animals, kills them and brings them home. What would a vegetarian do in this situation? It's only natural instinct to kill, as carnivores. I don't understand the statement bolded, if every animal had to walk on egg shells, being considerate. I'm estimating that nothing would exist. Isn't Vegan really unhealthy as you aren't getting the right amount of Vitamins/Minerals. My old Biology teacher told me Vegans were nuts, she didn't know how they could do it. I believe her words were "It's basically damaging".

In nature when animals kill animals how do you feel? If you'd feel uncomfortable feeding your cat something that it would find else where if it was in the wild?

Your hearts completely in the right place, but I'm afraid I now think you're nuts. No joke.

__________________

My Journal.
Last.Fm if your interested...

Urban Hat€monger ?

Even if it was possible to feed my cat vegetarian food I wouldn't.

I'd much rather it lived on fresh meat or freshly caught fish than some slop that's had god knows what added to it just to prove a point.

__________________