Making people feel sick when eating meat

Hello,

I don't know how you can be so patient. When you complain, then you do it verbally and that's it. I am different. When I complain about something, then I want to see results. Only results matter for me. Everything else is a waste of time and consequently a terrible loss.

Vegetarians are healthy people. I would say that there are less overweight vegetarians than people who eat meat.

Those who eat meat don't think of the fact that animals were kept in prison and that they were killed for the persons who then eat the animal's meat.

It would make sense if our people would use its money to distribute fliers in front of Steak House and other restaurants and if it would show animals being killed and then served for fat, unhealthy persons. The ads should convey the message that eating meat makes people become sick and fat and inhuman. Eating meat should be regarded as becoming a killer. People should think that when they eat meat, they will consume dead animals because eating meat is nothing else than killing innocent animals and consuming dead meat.

This would make people feel sick when they watch such ad on TV and they would remember this ad each time they eat meat.

Thereby we would have made a first, but very successful step in turning people to avoid eating meat. They will become vegetarians and our club of vegetarians will increase within a short time.

What do you think of such ads?
How patient are you?

I am not patient anymore. I want to see results.

beating people over the head with a message is not a way to be a good influence.  If someone were to tell me I was a "killer" or the same equivalent as a murderer for eating meat it would make me rebel.  I am a vegetarian and your post is offensive to me.  You can make a point without hostility and without being condescending or rude. 

Sounds like you should join PETA. They're pretty radical too...

Personally, I have been eating less and less meat for the past few years.  Now I eat meat maybe once a week.  I eat fish and seafood also probably once a week.

Based on the fact that there are more vegetarian options on restaurant menus, the fact that grocery stores have vegetarian sections, even in the tiny town where I live, tells me that more and more people are becoming vegetarian.

Now, if you're saying, yes, but not fast enough for me. I want to push harder.  ... you should expect to receive a push back against your idea.  I don't know of anyone who likes to be told what they must or must not eat.  I think your strategy will backfire.

Also, I doubt that any tv networks (who receive ad money from 'the beef people') will accept your ads.

But good luck to you.  I love your idealism!  I just hope you can be more creative and find a way to persuade people that is less likely to provoke a backlash....

Jim, I wish you good luck and suggest you start here. But I also feel sorry for you.

Sir you fight an un-winnable battle, period. The vast majority of people in the US and Europe will always eat meat. Showing people pictures of abattoirs and calling people murders will only alienate your cause and push back the results you seek. Myself I have killed and butchered my own meat and it has yet only convinced me it is neater to pay other people to do it for me.

As for one of the questions you asked "How patient are you?"; I am patient enough to not only let everyone make personal decision on whether they eat or do not eat meat, I am patient enough to accept they decision and let them live with it in peace.

I am vegan. I don't support people eating animal meat when they have options to do otherwise. But sadly, some people don't have options. Some people really do NEED to eat animal meat to survive, because they have allergies to soy/nuts/beans/other foods, they can't afford soy products, and/or they are in a third world country where there aren't gourmet grocery stores and they have to eat what they can get.

Also, humans crave meat..it is just in our biology, it's in our blood to crave meat. It really isn't a learned behavior, per se, it's our history of survival ingrained in our soul memories and our evolution. Most humans are not willing to give up satisfying their craving for meat..and will do drastic, even scary, things to get it when denied..including eating their own species.

I admit, I still crave meat, but I just refuse to eat it.

My (quick) 2 cents:  if you can't force/convince people to not smoke using the tactics you mention, you won't be able to force/convince people to not eat meat.  Plain & simple.

You have to kill plants to eat them too.  What about the poor trees that have been sacrificed to create farmland to grow the soybeans for tofu? Just because a plant doesn't scream or wail, does it not suffer injury too when it is cut down? Plants are living, breathing, reproducing organisms as well.  Where do we draw the line?  Do we also make all of the other animals in the animal kingdom vegetarians?  Polar bears should not eat seals, hawks should not eat mice and rabbits, fish should not eat insects and worms, etc.?  Aren't they also being cruel?  Just some things to think about - the slope can get quite slippery.

Do I have issues with factory farms? Yes, I do. However, I do not take issue with people who hunt responsibly for meat for their families.  I do not take issue with people who raise livestock and poultry in order to provide meat for their families, nor do I see a problem with someone fishing to provide a meal for themselves and their family. 

What people choose to eat is a personal decision.  Just as I wouldn't support legislation to close fast food restaurants even though I do not eat fast food, I do not support trying to harass people into becoming vegetarian, even though I do not eat much meat myself.  There are better ways to get your message out to the public without resorting to strongarm tactics. 

What if we tried to force you to eat meat?  Same concept!  You cant do it...

I like your creativity and artistic approach.  It's a nonviolent, reasonably non-confrontational way of drawing attention to an important health issue.  I think you can always get a lot further pointing out the health benefits of a vegetarian diet than making the "meat is murder" argument.  We're a capitalist society and as consumers most people think with their pocketbooks ... so pointing out the social cost of heart disease and meat-related obesity can be very persuasive to people who wouldn't agree with your moral views on killing animals.

It's very difficult to be politically active on a controversial issue because, as some other people have pointed out, you can turn complacence into hostile opposition by taking too extreme a position.  But keep thinking about constructive ways to spread the message ... I hope to hear more ideas from you.

I understand your point of view, but being a fellow vegetarian this is what gives a bad name.  I hate when people find out that I am a vegetarian and then start "are you going to try and convert me?" or something stupid like that. I made this life style choice not only for the animals but my body . I would rather people join "our group" willingly than feel remorse for eating meat and then fall off the bandwagon. My husband eats meat and I will never ask him to change.

Sounds like someone needs a hug.

After I got over the initial surprise of your argument, I had to take a moment to see how I felt about it. I've always viewed myself as a vegetarian by choice, a choice that I felt free and confident to make. I certainly am a healthier person now than I was in my carnivorous days, and I think the same could be said for a lot of the members of "our people".

That said, I've always been objective enough to realize that being a vegetarian was my personal choice. I have not, nor will I ever, try to force my personal beliefs on others, just as I ask that they do not attempt to force theirs on me. If they ask why I am a veggie I point out the numerous health benefits and leave the information with them to make their own decision.

While you are certainly entitled to your rather militant approach to conversion, I ask that you express your views as your own and stop speaking on behalf of "our people". 

i admire your passion and drive, but the strategy you described reminds me too much of bible-thumping christians harrassing womyn outside of abortion clinics, and other such hostile protestors who, uh, rub people the wrong way, to put it mildly.

the best way to "recruit" veg[etari]ans is to lead by example and, of course, point them towards sources of compassionate and gentle information//education.

as humans, most have the power to choose what we put into our bodies.  there will be countless people who thoroughly grasp the anti-meat sentiment, but still won't discontinue eating it.  that's just how the world is, unfortunately, instead of how it would be IDEALLY!

I would just like to add that eating meat does not make one sick, fat, nor inhuman.

I eat meat, I'm healthy, and I consider myself to be quite the human!

Let people make their own choices.  Besides, humans were meant to eat meat.  Granted, animals were not meant to be treated the way they are in captivity for meat products today, but killing an animal for food was never that glorious I suppose (chasing them w/ spears and such doesn't seem too kindly..but it had to be done for survival).

If someone chooses not  to eat meat, thats cool.  But don't harrass those who are just following the natural way of eating that we've been known to do since the beginning of time.  it's not always our fault that animals are treated poorly.  I would raise my own animals and treat them kindly and then have them killed for my own food if I could, but, I can't.  Nor can many other people.  Thus, we meat-eaters need to buy it from somewhere.

Au contraire:  A group of doctors, after reviewing earlier studies of meat consumption and disease, has published a report arguing that the yearly national health care costs of eating meat are comparable to the estimated $50 billion spent each year to treat illnesses related to smoking. ...

The authors of the analysis, Dr. Neal D. Barnard, Dr. Andrew Nicholson and Jo Lil Howard, are all members of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an organization in Washington that promotes vegetarianism. They linked regular consumption of red meat and poultry, in particular, to significant increases in the risks of developing high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, gallbladder disease, overweight and resulting osteoarthritis, food poisoning and cancers of the colon, lung, ovary and prostate.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?se c=health&res=9B07E1DC1339F932A15752C1A963 958260

Naturally there is considerable debate on this issue.  But just because a behavior is "natural" doesn't mean it is healthy.  Prehistoric man did not have global markets to provide an almost endless supply of food options.  S/he also had a life expectancy of about 40 years.  I don't mean to suggest that every individual person who eats meat is unhealthy, but I do think the evidence is emerging that as a trend, eating meat has significant negative health consequences.

And I'm not sure that it's true that it's "natural" for humans to eat meat.

Nutritional biochemistry is still a science in it's infancy with new discoveries daily, but one thing is certain... our bodies use the micronutrients in our food for a host of bodily processes.  And these micronutrients (vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals as opposed to the "macro"nutrients; carbs, protein and fat) are found where?

Almost exclusively in plants.

It seems clear to me that our species evolved eating fruits and veggies.  Not meat.

I think the thing people don't realize in the "whether or not humans were meant to eat meat" arguement, is that, while our hunter-gatherer ancestors did indeed consume meat...they were just what we call them - hunter/gatherers.  You have to think that they probably sucessfully hunted animals enough to eat meat maybe once a week if they were lucky.  They survived the majority of their day by eating plants.  Things have changed a lot today.  Women don't have to send their husbands out for weeks on end to hunt woolly mammoths while they subsist on fruits and veggies and nuts.  Instead we just hit the supermarket and pick up some ground beef or steak.  While eating meat in and of itself may not be overtly harmful, eating a serving (and this is conservative - most people's "servings" are really two or three) at every meal just may be.

And one last thing (and this will undoubtedly piss someone off, but oh well), someone once said to me "yes, humans evolved by eating meat, but we are also the most evolved species on the earth.  Maybe it is because of our intelligence and our ability for compassion that a move away from meat is the next logical evolutionary step."  I love that.

I had a babysitter when I was younger who was vegan. All she did was tell me how bad meat was for me; all it did was make me want to taunt her by eating as much meat as possible around her.

I didn't gain weight from the meat I was eating. I gained it from all the candy and processed junk I ate.

Eating meat has helped me with my weight loss. I have always eaten meat and I always will. I have no problem with vegetarians, and they shouldn't have a problem with me.

I swear I saw a commercial on TV from PETA, if I remember correctly it was people running in the field dressed as sheep... or there were singing cows... I really dont remember. But they had a few good ones. It was a good year or so ago too... but It was good to see that there was some "pride" on the TV.

But I also remember the controversy it brought up. Terrible back lash of it, people got upset, children cried, mothers yelled, the earth broke apart, and then nothing happend.

My favorte thing to see is posters down town, or stickers hanging around, just the little things to remind us that "We are doing something, there are Veg's out there and they care and feel the same way I do."

We dont want to be pushy. Pushy people suck.

as long as i dont have to eat meat, i am fine! the end of the day its up to  them if they want to eat it,my whole family are meat eaters...and yeah if i had the choice i would have the whole world veggie...but lets face it it aint gonn happen. i admire your loyalty :)