Vegans & fish

[Artichoke47]

haha. Quit checking out the trolls' package, John. :D

[1984]

People kill insects that supposedly dont feel pain to eat (vegetables).


I think it's something like 75% of all field grown crops are used to feed livestock animals. So, by becoming vegan and not consuming any animal products, you are not supporting the factory farming industry and in turn are lessening the impact made to insects through harvesting.

Veganism to me is about change, and I think as time goes on and hopefully more people become aware of how big of an impact our eating habits make, things will begin change. Nobody likes the idea of killing insects when food is harvested, and hopefully we can find a way around this in the future. Change takes time.

[Korn]

*Ok this is going to be my last comment for a little while because I need to focus on school, work, etc... That's what they all say when the questions are becoming too difficult :D


A group of people may believe its OK to eat anything but humans, because they believe that humans have some sort of spirit, level of consciousness or that God chose us to be a higher level of species, and its not fair to the human to take away its spirit or life.

I don't think that's relevant to veganism, because vegans have decided that all the parameters that you, for example, have introduced, one by one, doesn't really count when making the decision not to eat other living beings. You worry if fish can feel pain, because if it doesn't, you would kill it for B12, even if you would like to avoid killing as much as possible. When it looks like fish may feel pain, you worry if it is consciously aware that it feels pain. After my response (the brutal example about raping someone who is not consciously aware of it or feels pain), you introduce a new element - maybe that don't have a spirit? The last thing is some sort of division, higher / lower levels, where God chose us to be a higher level of species, where you indicate that it's 'fair' to kill and eat beings lower on that scale. I think there are even humans with higher and lower consciousness, and I don't want to eat any of them.


For me, I feel that anything with a conscious awareness of pain should not be harmed or killed, and anything that I feel has a spirit. So then your question was, "would you rape an unconscious person" or "would you kill a person and eat them", my answer is "no" because I BELIEVE that people have a spirit. This explains a lot. Initially you said you wanted to strengthen your vegan 'beliefs', and I think I see where the confusion comes from: you have other beliefs as well, and they crash with each other. Maybe they don't have to, but they seem to.



Maybe you all feel that everything has a spirit even fish
The fish might have a spirit, it may not, we might not even use the word spirit in the same way. Do I need to relate to your use of spirit in order to decide not to eat fish? No. The fish doesn't want to be eaten, it looks to most people as it feels pain, I don't want to kill animals (I have only killed insects in the past, and don't even 'like' that), and I don't need to eat fish. It's simple, isn't it? Your pain/conscious awareness/spirit/lower level beings-beliefs aren't needed in order to make a decision at all.


Don't try to say that its just wrong for someone who wants to prevent suffering to eat fish, if fish are found not to suffer.
This is where the communication stops, because I asked you if you considered removing the ability of a living being to live and enjoy life as 'suffering', and you didn't respond. I asked what if other fish suffer if one of them is killed - you didn't respond. I asked why you wanted to kill it - and I don't think your B12-response is valid at all. When I compare that fish with a person in coma, you introduce your beliefs, and I can't discuss with beliefs. If you believe something, and want to follow your beliefs instead of your intuition, feelings, observations and thoughts, why wasting your time on theories? :)


Saying that, would just be forcing your own belief that fish have a spirit on someone. With all due respect, that is nonsense. If you enter a vegan forum, have questions, and get honest replies, nobody is forcing anything upon you. What is 'force'? Is killing someone (a fish) because you 'believe' that it doesn't have a spirit or is a lower being.. is that forcing your beliefs on someone? To me, it is. Replying to your questions isn't.


Now, I know that veganism, in your opinions, is more based on your belief that fish have a spirit, not on the fact that they can suffer or not. Life is a lot less complicated if we stop assuming things. 'Believing' can either be 'assuming', or it can be trust. You have many assumptions, the latest one is that 'we' believe that fish have a spirit. This is wrong in many ways. First, there is no 'we' with one common opinion - we are 800-900 people with different views on many things. Secondly, there is no reason even to think that we are using the same two-step scale as you do (animals/bird/fish//humans with or without spirit). Thirdly, I don't know your definition of spirit. Finally, my choice not to kill anyone who doesn't want to be killed (nobody wants) doesn't even need the parameter 'spirit', because I wouldn't kill it even if it doesn't have what you call spirit. A little warning here... please don't make more assumptions, for example that I don't think there is such a thing as spirit, or assume anything about my vision about who has got a spirit and who hasn't.


If I do not know that fish can suffer even with nociceptors, then do I really know that insects with nociceptors (that are killed for vegetables) do not suffer. Kill as few insects as possible, avoid plants with pesticides as much as possible, worry less. Trust more. Assume less.


I am pretty sure that insects do not suffer or have spirits. How do I know this? I don't know [...] OK; more assumptions...


I think I am doing the best I can to prevent suffering of what I believe to be spiritless organisms. Maybe; you would do even better if you spent all this energy on helping animals, fish and insects not to be killed - after all, you are not sure, what if you find out that they have what you called a spirit? :D Your 54 posts promoting your assumptions might cause some visitors to kill more of these spirits than they would have if you rather have used your energy and intelligence to defend ALL living beings' right to live, instead of introducing four different possible ''excuses' for killing others.

I hope that there is nothing in your beliefs that tells you that you SHOULD kill them if they are low on the conscious scale.

Sometimes decision making is very simple: A and B is in a room. B doesn't want to die, A doesn't want to kill, and doesn't need to. Should A kill B?
Can it be simpler?

Your *only* reason to kill fish seem to be B12. Make sure your B12 info isn't based on assumptions as well. Your quoted source for 'vegan ethics' (veganoutreach) IS basing it's conclusions on assumptions, ignoring a lot of facts, and their conclusions are potentially dangerous even if their assumptions were right.

[PinkFluffyCloud]

I think everything with a face has a spirit. :)

You might come back as a Fly! ;)

:mad: But that is not the point - as said elsewhere, insects are, unfortunately, killed for crops fed to animals, so being Vegan does least harm.

And if anyone has any doubt about fishes and their sensibilities, please come and visit the ones who live in my house! :)

[Korn]

I don't think taking B12 supplements is a natural way of living.


I agree that taking B12 supplements is not part of a pure/natural way of living (but B12 supplements can be made without harming animals). See the B12-forums about what the B12 levels in food, soil and water would have been in a 'natural world.

I don't think eating fish is natural either; and the mercury and other toxins they contain aren't particularly natural, are they? Most of all, I don't think it's 'natural' to live in a society where even the water we drink contains elements that destroy B12, and I don't think killing other living beings is a solution to that problem.

Look at this: there are 4 kinds of possible B12 advice for people who eat animal products, including fish:

1) By eating animal products, like fish, you never need to take B12 supplements. Nobody is supporting this theory.

2) 30% (the percentage varies, but seem to be increasing by every decade) of all people (independent of age) who eat animal products, like fish, are either B12 deficient or in the low and potentially risky B12 level area. Try a search engine and type Tuft University + B12 for more info.

3) Pregnant and lactating women, people above 50-60 years, and all the people who are victims of the many non-dietary harmful and sometimes very effective B12 'troublemakers' need to take B12 supplements even if they eat fish and other animal products. Using some twisted logic and ignoring tons of other facts, it wouldn't be natural to live longer than 50-60 years, or to be pregnant/lactating.

4) According to this pdf ( http://www.hsu.com/newsletters/spring03.pdf ), The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported in June 2002 that most adults do not receive sufficient levels of vitamins (specifically C, A, B6, B12, and E) and concluded that it would be prudent of adults to take a vitamin supplement to help prevent disease. AS we know, 'most adults' eats eat fish and animal products. (I haven't seen the June 2002 issue myself, and therefore don't know if the source they quote are quoted correctly or if they have added their own opinions into JAMA's statement).

I'm all for 'natural', but wanting a natural life doesn't justify killing.


then there is no reason not to eat fish because it is healthier to receive vitamins from food as a opposed to supplements. Is fish food now? ;)

[Korn]

However, recently I have been taking B12 supplements to prevent deficiency, and I thought to myself that it just didn't seem natural to depend on supplements to live normally.
Allright, so we agree, MikDez, you fear a B12 deficiency even if you come from a background of eating animal products.... :)


I looked for non-animal foods that have B12, which is pretty much nothing
They may contain inactive analogues, or a combination of inactive analogues and active B12. What about all the plants listed in our B12 forums: do they contain true B12 or inactive B12?


unless it has been fortified
It has been found that 'a significant percentage of the activity in 'B-12 enriched' foods are inactive analogs.' I agree, eating fortified food = taking supplements.

And according to Dr. Victor Herbert, 'a typical 'VA lunch'* consisting of potato soup, cottage cheese, lettuce, peaches, crackers, butter and milk was analyzed and found to contain 40% inactive analogs. Why is inactive analogs a problem in plants and not in fortified foods, which veganoutreach recommends, or in an animal based diet? (According to Kanazawa 1983;Herbert 1982), 'B12 analogs is not a problem for normal people, as it has been established that inactive B-12 analogs exist in human liver, red blood cells, brain and mineral and vitamin supplements.' 'Normal humans are able to discriminate between the active and non-active forms as both have always been in nature and in foods. For example, the role of the plasma transport proteins transcobalamins I and III are to deliver non-functional B-12 analogs to the liver for discard in the bile (Burger, 1975, Jacob 1980, and Kanazawa 1983b). Moreover, an effective enterohepatic circulation recycles the vitamin from bile and other intestinal secretions accounting for its long biological half-life. During this process, vitamin B-12 analogues are preferentially excreted while human-active cobalamins are largely resorbed (Kanazawa 1983).


I'm sure a lot of vegans get cravings or urges once in a while (we are all human), but can easily suppress it by thinking about the suffering of the animal, which is what I have done. I never crave animal foods, I know of many vegans who never do - and haven't done for years. Once the habits are dropped, they are dropped. The craving and thought patterns are changed. Since we are all humans, we are in the lucky position of being able to grow and develop and improve our lives. It's actually very interesting, exciting and great fun. :)

[l337_v3g4n_1]

sorry, too lazy to use the quote tags
"I never crave animal foods, I know of many vegans who never do"

I don't!

About 'natural': Is the computer you are using natural? is the language we are writing natural? noooo
processed/cooked food isn't 'natural'. So why worry?

[eve]

"Far from being instinct-driven dunces with a three-second memory, researchers from Edinburgh and Oxford universities claim fish are great lateral thinkers." Read more at "The Age" http://www.theage.com.au/news/Science/Great-lateral-thinkers/2005/04/14/1113251741266.html

[cinchybell]

I am having a hard time giving up the fish... why shouldn't I eat fish?? Please someone remind me!! I get the meat thing, the dairy thing.... I just can't put my arms around this one yet....

[cedarblue]

at the very least because it can contain mercury and that is a poison!! :rolleyes:

[DianeVegan]

Okay, how about the fact that we are overfishing the oceans? We are destroying coral reefs? The new trawlers go farther and deeper into the ocean than ever before. Your consumption of fish adds to the destruction of the ocean and also depletes the food source of other fish. The only reason that some fish are now considered "endangered" is because of overfishing. And don't believe that farmed fish is a better choice. Those fish are cramped, diseased, fed so much food that their muscle mass gets too big for their frames (North Atlantic farmed salmon). Some southeast Asian countries have destroyed their shorelines in order to farm shrimp.

The ocean will not recover unless we stop fishing it for a number of years. Period. And if our population continues to grow as the fish population continues to shrink, where do you think the fish will come from to feed those people?

It takes months to grow plant protein. It takes years to grow fish protein. How much more convincing do you need?

Hope that helped.

[Evilfluffbunny]

Fish are made of meat! :confused:

[Seaside]

Animals are not food! :o

[Happiness]

Dianecrna - Perfect! You said just what I was going to say.

Being vegan isn't just about avoiding this or that. Its about dynamic harmlessness. A fish is an animal just as a cow, chicken or pig is an animal. Somehow people seem to forget this. In my eyes to be vegan is to bring yourself to the level of all things (cow, fish, tree, paperclip ;) ) and realize that we are a part of all things just as they are a part of us. So Dianecrna is right, eating fish does come back to haunt us. By partaking in the eating of fish we are harming our oceans beyond repair.

Here are a few more tidbits on ocean awareness:

Farmed fish is a dreadful thing. Not only is the rivers down stream for the farms pretty much unlivable to increased nitrogen content but here on the Pacific Coast they bring in Atlantic Salmon (shorter growth period) for these farms. These fish can and do escape. They then out compete the Pacific Salmon in their own rivers, leading to even more declining numbers of native fish. They also breed with the native Pacific Salmon. This results in a weakened gene pool for the native fish. Ugh. Dreadful.

There is a wonderful study that everyone should take a look at...but I'm completely blanking on its name. I'll find it and let everyone know. But in my opinion it is one of the more complete studies done on the state of the pacific ocean.

[Happiness]

The Pew Report!! :) Wow, I knew college would pay off. ;)

Summary:
http://www.pewtrusts.org/pdf/env_pew_oceans_final_report_summary.pdf
Full Report:
http://www.pewtrusts.org/pdf/env_pew_oceans_final_report.pdf

[Tigerlily]

I just found this good link in a PETA newsletter:

http://www.fishinghurts.com/feat/salmon/?int=weekly_enews

[cinchybell]

Thanks for all of you who had some helpful feedback... much appreciate it!! I realize that fish is meat...I realize that fish are animals....after all it's not rocket science. It is harder to make an emotional attachment with them for me...and for the same reasons some people watch horrible footage to remind themselves of why they don't eat meat, I needed this info to remind me of why not to eat seafood.

The info about what we are doing to the ocean was very helpful, as was the info about the fisheries...

Thanks to all who gave me the hard facts I was looking for.

[Seaside]

Posted by cinchybell:

I realize that fish is meat...I realize that fish are animals....after all it's not rocket science.
Obviously.
To me the hardest fact of all is the fact that flesh is not food for human beings. Knowing that this simple fact is true makes torturing myself with videos on animal cruelty completely unecessary.

[Mystic]

To be honest, I am not into the whole thing whether humans are natural omnivores or not - the fact of the matter is, that humans exploit animals to the maximum capacity - we even sell their shit (manure for gardening)! Fish are fishnapped from their natural environment and virtually suffocated in cramped uncomfortable conditions, just so we can batter them and serve them with chips! I can understand the 'being unable to be emotional' about fish - coz I don't like fish much either - they are a bit alien from the mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibions (and insects) that we are used to. In fact I gave up fish last too.

Well done - you are obviously full of compassion. keep going and you will get there ;)

[Seaside]

To me the simple idea that animals are not food for humans hasn't got much to do with whether humans are omnivores or whether people are capable of making emotional connections to certain species. I am not emotionally connected to snails and slugs, and yet their lives are of as much value as any other's.
If a person never comes to the point of not being able to consider animals as a food source the potential for exploitation will always exist. To believe "fish is food, and I'm suffering terrible cravings from the dietary sacrifice I'm making, but I'm trying not to eat it because it is considered unhealthy, bad for the environment, etc." is not recognizing the fact that the fish is a living being with its own right to exist unmolested, regardless of whether it inspires a warm, fuzzy emotional feeling in humans or not. Yes, animal exploitation has many disastrous facets for the animals involved and the environment. If people recognized the fact that animals do not exist to provide humans with the opportunity to make dietary choices for or against using them, we wouldn't have all the environmental problems we have right now.

Posted by cinchybell:

I have cut out red meat and chicken so far...next is seafood then dairy
it used to be all about the animals...know it is more about my health and my families health
The idea that animals do not exist to be viewed by humans as food is a very fundamental idea in the vegan ethic and should not be dismissed lightly, especially by someone who is not yet a vegan.

[tails4wagging]

Fish is a living breathing creature that has a face, a brain and lives their own lives without hurting us. Leave them alone to live their life and live yours cruelty free!!

[Cal]

Thanks for all of you who had some helpful feedback...I needed this info to remind me of why not to eat seafood.
I think a first step is to stop calling fishes "seafood". :(

I love to watch fishes swimming, they are the most amazing creatures with their complicated, underwater lives that I know so little about. I have no desire to harm them and therefore I could never eat them. :)

[Seaside]

Posted by tails4wagging:

Leave them alone to live their life and live yours cruelty free!!
Thank you Tails! That's saying it all! :)

Posted by Cal:

I think a first step is to stop calling fishes "seafood". :(
You have summed it up perfectly, Cal! :)

[spo]

To me the simple idea that animals are not food for humans hasn't got much to do with whether humans are omnivores or whether people are capable of making emotional connections to certain species.....
....is not recognizing the fact that the fish is a living being with its own right to exist unmolested, regardless of whether it inspires a warm, fuzzy emotional feeling in humans or not.
If people recognized the fact that animals do not exist to provide humans with the opportunity to make dietary choices for or against using them, we wouldn't have all the environmental problems we have right now......
The idea that animals do not exist to be viewed by humans as food is a very fundamental idea in the vegan ethic and should not be dismissed lightly, especially by someone who is not yet a vegan.
Thank you, Seaside, for putting the vegan ethic so well. I am not saying this lightly, but I think that these great and compassionate vegetarian thinkers would be pleased by what you said......

"Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being."
-Mahatma Gandhi

"The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different."
---Hippocrates (Greek Physician & Philosopher)

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
---St. Francis of Assisi

Even in the worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.
---Isaac Bashevis Singer (Nobel Laureate 1978)
For my part, I did not become a vegan because of concern for my health, or concern that humans would suffer because of the destruction of the environment. I became a vegan because I recognized that all creatures are the same as me; and that I would not want done to me what my fellow humans are doing to my fellow creatures. The best way to stop this abuse of the earth's creatures is to practice compassion for them. Exploitation is not compassionate.
spo

[Seaside]

Thank you, spo! I always appreciate the trouble you must take to find these quotes in your wonderful library and share them with us. It is good to be reminded of the thoughts of so many highly respected people past and present. :)