Whether or not it can consciously feel pain and suffering or not why (having already gone vegan) would you want to??mikdez
Why cause harm when there is ABSOLUTELY no need to?
Whether or not it can consciously feel pain and suffering or not why (having already gone vegan) would you want to??mikdez
Why cause harm when there is ABSOLUTELY no need to?
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.
My point is that if it wouldn't cause any more harm to kill a fish than it would to kill an insect, then why should we not eat fish?Poison Ivy
Regarding the "ABSOLUTELY need to" part of the question, I am pretty sure as human beings we need vitamin B12 to sustain normal functions in our body; therefore, if we can eat fish without causing harm and if we need the B12 that they provide, then there is no reason not to eat fish because it is healthier to receive vitamins from food as a opposed to supplements.
And in the end we are not harming anything more than an insect.
The point is that fishing causes great harm, go to the Greanpeace site and look at the number of Dolphins and Whales killed by deep trawling. Look at the fact that the Cod is soon to be an endangered species because of the net sizes and the dead that are thrown back because there not big enough.mikdez
Look at those facts then come back and say whether it is OK to eat fish because they feel no pain.
Ok, I completely understand your point, but what if you fished for yourself to eat. I live near the ocean, so this is a very possible alternative.boomer
Our acceptance of acts that lead to accidental or unintended deaths does not require the acceptance of acts that lead to intentional deaths.mikdez
Also, once the fish is caught and out of its natural enviroment, how do you think it feels, it has a brain and is probably in fear, so suffers. Fish know danger and I can't see how they can't feel fear.
If you believe that it is not harmful to kill a fish for food, why choose to follow a diet/way of life that excludes/eschews the use of all animals/byproducts for food/clothing etc???mikdez
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.
I mean, I think everything everyone has said has merit, but you still haven't answered question at hand which is whether or not fish can experience pain due to their lack of a cerebral cortex.
It also occured to me that a one can say that fish and other sea life have defense mechanisms, which would prove that they do feel pain, but the way to refute this comment would be to say that plants and insects also have many defense mechanisms, such as thorns and stingers.
I agree that people need to lay off killing so many fish to the point that they are extinct, but this is more of a matter of moderation and and maintaining an equilibrium. I think we shouldn't wipe out the rainforest or all insects either, but that is not going to prevent me from eating vegetables because if I kill a plant, it does not feel pain. Therefore, if a fish does not experience pain, then why not feel guilt free about killing it (like killing a plant) for food.
I think eating anything in moderation is a way to reduce abusing the life and future of the organism...
As of now, I am planning to go by the "its better be safe than sorry" menatality, but I think these questions are vital in defining one's veganism.
I for one became Veggie because I could not eat something I wasn't prepared to kill, I went vegan when you realise the horrors of the by products.
You may be craving Sushi this week what will you do next week if that changes to eggs or cheese, or god forbid meat.
All animals should be free and we have no right to deprive them of that freedom or their lives for such trivial reasons as money, the taste of their flesh or the pursuit of sport.
I really like the way you try to undermine my new found veganism. I agree with pretty much all the beliefs of veganism, but just because one little craving or thought at the beginning stages made me stumble upon an issue that is significantly (as proven by your comments) not as clear as killing mammals, should you criticize my veganism or my compassion.boomer
If vegans are not considering this topic to its fullest, then the vegan argument will not get stronger.
Mikdez, you might find this article of interest
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.
What made you decide to go vegan in the first place? This isn't to attack, I'm just curious as to why you would go vegan then start justifying what species you can eat.
For my own personal belief, once I made the conscious decision to go vegan, that meant that I would no longer knowingly consume any living creature. I know I still kill every day just be breathing, driving, walking, the way my fruits + veg are farmed etc. but by living a vegan lifestyle, one reduces the overall harm people do to all living creatures.
is it just me, but whether or not fish feel pain is surely irrelevant to vegan ideology?
this thread is dumb. sorry.
This is a quote from the Veganoutreach.orgTofu Monster
"And this brings us back to the original question of what is a 'vegan'? Perhaps instead of defining a vegan as "someone who does not use animal products," we should define a vegan as "someone who reasonably avoids products that cause suffering to nonhumans."
Maybe you should think about the vegan ideology a little more... just a suggestion.
Here's some information about fish .
I decided to go vegan because I want to prevent as much suffering as possible and still be as healthy as possible. By being vegan I feel I can prevent animals from suffering. As for the second part of my statement... my family has always been health conscious, partly because my father is a gourmet chef, and I have never needed to take any supplements to get my nutrients. 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. Therefore, I looked for non-animal foods that have B12, which is pretty much nothing unless it has been fortified, which is pretty much the same thing as taking a supplement. Then I looked into animals that could not experience suffering and at the same time I was craving or thinking about how much I enjoyed the taste of sea urchins.feline01
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. However, this technique doesn't work if you dont know that the organism is actually suffering.
i have no problem with that definition. but surely you can see that "reasonably avoiding products that cause suffering to nonhumans" obviously includes not eating a fish, since killing it - depriving it of life - is clearly causing suffering. whether or not that includes feeling 'pain' in terms that you can relate to is neither here nor there.mikdez
Thanks for the links to the websites, they have given me some more information on fish, but I have also found quite a bit that has refuted these arguements.
http://www.eaa-europe.org/2003/PFCas...mesRose-EN.htm
A rebuttal to the paper: "Do fish have nociceptors: Evidence for the evolution of a vertebrate sensory system"
http://outside.away.com/outside/envi...12wildfile.adp
The Wild File
http://www.grandin.com/welfare/fear.pain.stress.html
Distress in Animals: Is it Fear, Pain or Physical Stress?
My husband (vegan) loved eggs but stopped eating them after realizing that many of them are aborted chicken fetuses while many are unfertilized. He originally wondered if there was a way to determine which eggs were fertilized and which ones weren't because he'd have been okay eating the unfertilized ones. Then he became enlightened and realized that it didn't matter whether the egg was fertilized or unfertilized, the egg was not created for his use. It belonged to the chicken.
Yes, many vegans do get cravings because we tend to want to eat what we are familiar with. I used to love cheese but does that mean I think it's okay to eat cheese made from my own cow (if I had one) that was treated really, really well? Nope. I just make my uncheeses that taste mighty fine.
If you're looking into justification for eating sea urchin or any other living creature, I don't think you'll find it here. Of course you can eat fish but then you're not vegan.
Do we not kill insects and deprive them of life for our vegetables? To be extreme...What about the plants themselves? Do we not deprive them of life?Tofu Monster
Sorry, but im going to recycle this quote from veganoutreach.orgfeline01
"And this brings us back to the original question of what is a 'vegan'? Perhaps instead of defining a vegan as "someone who does not use animal products," we should define a vegan as "someone who reasonably avoids products that cause suffering to nonhumans."
How am I not vegan IF i were to eat, for example a fish that is found not to suffer?
So... what do you think about killing insects?feline01
what do you suggest we eat then? sand?mikdez
next you'll be saying that because any form of farming is inevitably going to result in some degree of suffering, that we may as well stop giving a shit about anything and all go down to mcdonalds.
yes. yes we do. we deprive plants of life. depriving a cabbage of its life by plucking it from the field is quite clearly the same as stringing a pig up in a filthy abbatoir and slitting its throat. gimme a break with all this foolishness.mikdez
I don't murder them intentionally. I have relocated countless to outdoors.
I think the problem now is is that the definition for veganism should be revised by veganoutreach.org OR someone could still be a vegan eating something that is found to not to experience suffering
I think you are getting pretty defensive about this...Tofu Monster
No. picking cabbage and killing a pig is definately not the same and I don't think we should feel guilty about killing insects if they cant experience suffering, but if you believe in what I just said, then you should have no problem eating a fish if it doesn't cause suffering
I think the true problem is that you're trying to justify eating fish (or eggs, or cheese, or an already cooked hamburger whatever..) when there is absolutely no way you couldn't convince anyone on this forum (sorry if I'm speaking for someone who does not agree with me) that murdering a fish is WRONG! Whether or not they feel pain like we do, they are alive. You have no way of knowing that they willingingly want their lives to end for your pleasure and for that reason alone, EATING FISH IS WRONG!
I think you are making this a personal slam on you... I'm definately not. I definately am not trying to justify eating fish either, I am just trying to question my own beliefs right now... If you feel eating fish is wrong, then more power to you, but if you have no logical arguement for it or if you just say EATING FISH IS WRONG with no real support, then you are being ignorant.feline01
And you are right, I do not know if fish want their lives to end for our pleasure, but I don't know if an insect says "hey kill me and thousands of my family members so you can have vegetables to eat"
The only thing we can actually go by is whether or not an organism can experience pain with their brain capacity.
for a vegan, eating fish is wrong. no ifs or buts. end of story.
if you want to eat fish, go ahead. nobody's forcing anyone to be vegan. if you want to 'question your own beliefs' then run along and question all you like. knock yourself out. but enough with the bullshit already!
Why is it bullshit? and Why is it the end of the story? Did one person say that we shouldn't eat fish and then try to justify it later? just like you think I am trying to justify eating fish.Tofu Monster
I really do not understand why you all don't think these are important questions to consider.
What is your topic of choice Tofu Monster?
naked chicks on roller skates, ta very much.mikdez
you just helped your argument out a lot with that comment
You crack me up, Tofu monster!!!
"Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends". ~ George Bernhard Shaw.
I think it is good to ask questions, but important to be aware of where the answers are coming from. Here are two links that look at the issue of can fish feel pain. Some of the articles used above are from pro-fishing web sites and have understandable bias in favour of fishing. The BBC article posted by Poison Ivy is a good one.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3673
http://www.firstscience.com/site/edi...s_05092003.asp
This is a quote from the last paragraph of the second link:
"Pain minimisation has got to be the order of the day, not sainthood. Screw aubergines and tomatoes I say! Kill the vegetables! Save the animals! They really ARE feeling pain and KNOWING IT is someway along the path to helping to STOP IT."
Veganism is so much more than the question of whether things can feel pain. It may be important in one sense but then you could argue that sedating animals with an overdose of anaesthetic then makes the animal fit for consumption. This obviously isn't the only element. There is also the consideration of the animal, it's role in it's community, the effect on the remainder of the community, it's role in the environment, the effect of farming these creatures, and of lesser importance to most vegans here, the health elements of consuming animal flesh.
It has been demonstrated adequately that we don't need to eat animals; the question whether anyone would want to becomes irrelevant.
If you are having seafood cravings Mikdez, there are some wonderful vegan seafood recipes that could meet the nutritional desire including kombu soups, rehydrated wakame and toasted nori sheets are a great snack. I made about 2.5 kg of sushi last weekend for a vegan Japanese party and throught the evening I think we ate about 5 different types of seaweed!
"if compassion is extreme, then call me an extremist"
In my humble little opinion, fish do feel pain (as an ex fisherwoman and ex aquarium keeper I speak from observation), it is wrong to fish, and it is counter-productive to feed trolls.
Amen to that!Miel Miette
And I think we need some Norwegian intervention again.
I respect anyone's person opinions, but its still not very pragmatic. Veganism then becomes somewhat like religion, where you just have to believe instead of know.
I'm not trying to undermine anything, I just don't understand why you would want to cause the death of any living creature. Most people had cravings for one thing or another but the veganism is a life choice and therefore will impact everypart. If you are determined and sure that the vegan life is for you then well done, the cravings will go and you will feel fantastic for doing so. You are in the very early stages and we will all tell you it gets better. In a few weeks you will be appalled that you even wanted fish.mikdez
Boomer, I really doubt that Mikdez is a vegan.
I think you are right and I am feeding a troll.....Hasha
actually I am a vegan... I like the way you think though... "if he questions our beliefs, he must not be one of us" I think your mentality is pretty similar to a dictatorship... Just don't question anything and blindly do what others do.
Ok have you read anything that I have written previously. Do you realize that insects are living creatures that are massacred so that you can eat vegetables? I DO NOT want to cause the death of any living creature, but as a human I must eat something; therefore, I think we should draw the line at suffering (just like vegeanoutreach.org has) and if fish do not suffer because they dont have the brain capacity to then it should be ok to eat them. Does any of this make sense to you?boomer
Honestly, you guys sound pretty brain washed...
I follow the vegan organic gardening principles and prefer that all food that I eat is the same, so do not intentionally kill any insects in that way, I do drive a car because I have no choice so they do die as I drive along that is not what I would like but is a fact of life.mikdez
Brainwashed NO concerned that living beings die for the food chain, YES.
If you are concerned for your health, then please look into the heavy chemicals that pollute our seas and the fish that live therein. High quantaties of mercury are found in some fish, highly toxic, for health reasons would you want that to go into your diet
Intentional or not, you are killing a living organism, lots of them. I think you can make peace with that by appreciating that they are dying for your food and knowing that they are not suffering, which is the same argument for eating fish... if fish do not suffer.boomer
As for health concerns go, I think you could find better quality fish just like you can find better quality vegetables that are organic.
You're free to follow any diet you want. Veganism is obviously not for you.
"Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends". ~ George Bernhard Shaw.
Fish do feel pain.
I've read some research from the university of Wageningen, aimed to see how they could extend "shelf live" of fish.
They did measure "brain" activity.
I will see if I can still find it on my drive later today
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