h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On a different - and destinctly more theoretical note - I was discussing this with some friends over a couple of drinks last night and one of them asked if vegan girls swallow....?

sorry to lower the tone

(no I'm not)

agcB

Sorry Sal but the URL got moderated off, you could always email me it. Anywyay, now I'm *definitely* not becoming vegan if you have to eat marmite (not that there was much danger anyway).
(my knowledge of marmite is limited as I can't stand the stuff but it sounds like it could be useful to include my article when I get around to finishing it).

To lower the tone even more that agcBen, human pooh is apparently a good source of B12. Right time for lunch...

Cor blimey! You kids sure know how to drag a conversation down to the pits.

Check your email Orcus. I've posted the Marmite FAQ address to you. I might have guessed a demon wouldn't like marmite because, as we all know, it's full of natural goodness

That thing about poo, Andy - it seems extraordinary that your body should sling away a vitamin that it desperately needs. Or is that just meat eater doo doo? Have you examined any vegan poo for its vitamin B12 content? If not, could you find out next time you're rummaging through the uhh, waste products

Apparently, B-12 is created in abundance in the colon. Unfortunately it's too far down the digestive tract for it to be absorbed.

Is that why rabbits....naah!

Cheers Sal, got the email. Weird, one website I was looking up for this had an nutrition expert giving advice to people and one of his comments was that there is no *good* source of B12 outside the animal kingdom. Maybe he considered 16% of RDA a bit too low ot count as good .
Interesting, I'll certainly include some of that info me thinks.

Don't mention the rabbits ... too late! Now I feel sick.

There's another thing I remember about a B that makes you bad. Doesn't B6 cause nerve damage if you take too much of it (in pill form)? And I remember something about some nutter who lived on a mono diet of carrots for months and got something like vitamin A poisoning and turned orange. Give me a shout when you take it over to PR. I'll be waiting

Xanatic, in your post number 19 you asked: "why is it less cruel to kill plants? They can feel pain like we can, so why is it less cruel to eat those." Then you gave a slight clarification of you point in your post number 27: "Pain = registering of damage. That is how I would define it."

That's doesn't seem an accurate definition to me. I can register damage to my car and it doesn't hurt me in the least. Think about the reason pain evolved. There's no point in sensing pain if you're unable to do anything about it, like withdraw. Animals feel pain so they can avoid whatever is causing them damage. Why would grass, for example need to feel pain? It has no chance whatsoever of escaping from the teeth of the sheep or cow or the galloping hoofs of the stampeding herd. The nervous systems of animals evolved to give them a survival advantage, not to gratuitously torture them. So I don't feel guilty about torment suffered by my salad.

And you said: "It is true that maybe you shouldn´t eat animals because they are treated badly. But I hardly ever hear that argument."

I hear that argument quite often. It's one of my favourites.

And you also said "I believe that because you then won´t get one thing, I think it´s Vitamin A, you can risk going blind."

Broccoli, carrots and spinach are good sources of vitamin A.

liked the bit about veggie not responding maybe it is to do with all the time spent in the kitchen. I am vegan now after many years of being veggie there is an alternative to marmite(not vegan) there is also the beloved sox mix. Am i the only vegan out here?

Well, I am very unsure about which vitamin it was that caused the blindness. I just had a vague feeling it was A, even thought it did seem odd. But about the B12, my mom was reading a text-book for laboratory technicians yesterday. And that was mentioned as an example of what vitamins vegetarians didn´t get.

I don´t think you have to get poisoned to turn orange from carrots. Just eat a lot of them and your skin will change color. That is because it contains a lot of beta-caroten, the stuff they put in the tanning-pills.

I´ll look up the health-stuff again. But on another note, who wants to give up everything to be healthy?

Well, pain is something you have so if you cut yourself, you can know you need to heal it. In the same way a plant needs to know if a leaf has been cut off, so it can heal it. You can register the chemical signals a plant uses to feel pain. And also the chemicals they use to communicate from plant to plant. Plants are not as stupid as you might think. Those things I mentioned has only been tested on a few plant species, but I see no reason why it shouldn´t go for others.

So you think killing animals is natural for human beings?
Ever tried to kill an animal with your bare hands? Do you eat your meat raw, or without spice?
As vegetarian you don't necessarily have to kill plants - as a rule I mainly eat the "fruits".
(And honestly: I don't think a potatoe can feel pain, or has a consciousness).
And I don't think we are animals as the others, otherwise I wouldn't bother to kill animals.

Vitamins:
- as vegie you should see to get enough vitamin B12. It's mostly in meat, because bacteria produce it, but it's also in yeast.
- if you lack of vitamin A, it's probably because you are consuming to much calcium. This can happen if you are consuming to much milk products - at long term the milk of a cow is to rich for the human metabolism, which e.g. can cause gout (you see: a newborn cow doubles it's weight in about 4-5 months, where as the human child needs 18 months!)

Proteins:
Unless you aren't Arnold Schwarzenegger you really don't need a lot. And then - herbal protein is more digestible for humans.

Killing an animal with my bare hands? Does fly-smacking count? I haven´t done it really, but that is because I don´t have to. If I was on a deserted island or such, then I would do it. And I would cook the meat yes, but that is simply because human stomach have adapted to cooked meat.

Well, just eating the fruits is nice. But usually people don´t just stick to that. And it seems kind of like eating calves doesn´t it?

So you don´t think potatoes can feel pain? So if you put a fork in one, and it started screaming would you believe it? Sadly potatoes don´t have a mouth, but that is about the only difference between that and putting your fork in a pig. And could you tell me what conssiousness is, and why humans aren´t animals?

humans are animals

Which brings me back to my question about vegan girls and whether or not they swallow...



agcB

Yes. (well I guess it depends on the particular one really )

My vegetarian ex knew some vegans, so in one of my more daring moments I asked her

I've caught, killed, and gutted my own fish. I've also watched and learned as my stepdad dressed a rabbit. So not only have I been able to handle killing an animal for food on my conscience, but I've noticed that fresh meat tastes incredible. Anyone have a sheep tearing up their lawn?

Still, I think it's not natural for humans, to kill animals.
Otherwise we would have claws and fangs. In order to catch or kill an animal, people need weapons or lets say tools.
But we have fingers which enable us perfectly to pick fruits (that is also nuts, grains or crop).

Whether natural to kill them or not, we have certainly evolved to eat them hence the irrelevance of the appendix which would otherwise be used to breakdown vegetation into more digestible matter.

Oh and certain animals can be caught and killed with bare hands; ever heard of trout tickling? Not to mention plenty of birds (provided you can convince them to stay close to you).

Correct me if I'm wrong but we have Canine teeth, especially for eating meat. Herbivores don't.

If plants feel pain (and you could get the philosophers union out on this one) I'm a potato.

Plants obviously don't feel pain. They don't have a central nervous system for one thing, so there would need to be some other way of the pain reaching the perception centres of the spud. Oh, hang on, they don't have perception centres either. Have you even seen a carrot try to scratch an itch?
This is an argument usually advanced by devil's advocates trying annoy veggies. It no longer works.

We don't have canine teeth (except vampires, maybe) - a man who would try to catch a wild animal would do it with his hands but certainly not with his teeth, like a dog.

Canines also have more aggressive acids in their stomaches, and a short intestine.
Plant-eaters have less aggressive acids and a long intestine (like cows AND humans).