this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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I have to eat meat for dietary reasons, but I don't enjoy it. I do wish I could be vegetarian or vegan.
What are the dietary reasons?
It tastes too good
Possibly iron. There's heme and non-heme forms of iron and some people are just physically incapable of using non-heme (plant based) iron. It's uncommon but definitely a thing.
If for some reason he medically required heme-iron, I'd rather publicly subsidize the price difference for them to eat impossible meat as that does contain heme-iron. No more requirement to rely on animal products for that. As far as I'm aware though, it's just a concern of absorption rate. If the absorption rate is the concern they should just focus on taking a higher dosage supplement - which would not require heme-iron.
Depends. Growing children will literally starve to death without protein, especially between weaning and early childhood. If you do sports, protein can be absolutely critical.
Also, as cute as animals are, don't kid yourselves; if we don't eat that cow, another omnivore or a carnivore will. Sadly nature knows that innocent baby animals (including human babies) are squishy, soft and delicious, and wild predatory animals do not hesitate to eat the weak despite how horrifying we find it.
The reason I say so is, well, just in case you get a pet and need to know it's diet. A rabbit is alright with eating just leaves and fruit, while dogs, cats and ferrets are obligate carnivores and at least need meat-derived pet kibble in their diet to live.
Dogs aren't obligate carnivores, they're omnivores.
Dogs don't eat grass, they swallow it to refresh their gut microbiome and then regurgitate it or pass it undigested.
I don’t know what the real answer is here but I imagine the assumption wasn’t that dogs can survive on grass, c’mon.
No no fam, they're omnivorous. They evolved to eat a starch-rich diet because they were domesticated by us for 15,000 years. They can eat other veggies besides grass -- carrots are actually good for them.
Source: I live in a house with a dog :P
Everyone will die without proteins. And you can get all of the required protein from plants and plant based foods. This is not only the case for adults and children but also for pregnant people.
You know that we breed a crazy amount of animals into existence for the sole purpose of killing and consuming them, don't you? And you know that a lot of times we even throw away a lot of what's edible from the animal? No other species on earth does this.
Furthermore, even in the wild predatory carni- or omnivores usually don't kill a whole population of animals. They kill some, yes for the purpose of survival. But by far not all. And even if that happens, those predators will starve and die until more prey is available again. That's how predators and prey are balancing. Meanwhile we kill basically every animal we breed for food and we wouldn't even need them for our survival. There is no such balance. To the contrary. It is one of the major factors of environmental destruction and pollution.
First of all that might be a reason not to get a pet. Secondly, dogs, cats and ferrets can be fed on a plant-based diet. It might not be as easy and should definetly happen with support of a veterinarian (as most people won't know for sure what they are doing), but it is proven to be possible without inflicting harm on the animals.