...if we shouldn't eat animals, why are they made out of meat...?!

Next time you brush your teeth, look in the bathroom mirror at them. Then recall your school biology lessons and what they said your teeth did; we have the teeth of an omnivore.

So the answer is simple: Eat anything and everything!

But each to their own, what the veggies leave means more for the rest of us!

How does it explain Russian fertility and population downfall? Maybe theyve all turned veggies since there was no meat available during the 90's upheavals?

Comrade, "Pravda" means, "truth". Therefore, it must be true. How can it possibly be otherwise? You are wishing a holiday in Siberia, perhaps? Do not be so foolish.

Da, the overalls with the red star on them please.

Omnivorous animals require food from both animals and plants to survive healthily!

Water wet, sky up, fire hot, Microsoft sucks.

There, ladies and gentlemen, is your IT angle.

Please tell me this is some kind of satirical piece and that there aren't really people that stupid in the world?

... you just wasted an entire article on something written by PRAVDA? I mean, really, who takes that rag seriously? The only time anyone ever believed what pravda published was back in the days of th soviet union, and even then it was only the loons who thought the USSR was some sort of paradise.

Is Paris a vegetarian or a vegetable?

They won't eat animals, yet they'll happily wear leather shoes and belts - preferably while protesting against fur ....

If they really want to be veggies, they ought to have multiple rows of teeth, a gut that would make the average beerdrinker wonder how many KEGS it'd cost him to achieve that result and bleat in a pasture.

Which is a sacrifice too far for their zealous "omg-we-gotta-look-good" lifestyle - and defeats their "veggies are better people because" argument ...

I for one will be fighting the Church of Vegotology - pass the cattle prod so I can start herding them to their grazing grounds, right over the edge of that cliff over there.

PH icon because even she has enough common sense to eat meat :-D

You can move your jaw from side to side.

This might not seem significant, but it's a trait only shared by mammals who are also herbivores.

Perhaps interestingly, the same group of mammals tend to be like us - they have sharp teeth at the front, but mostly flat ones at the back.

Carnivores don't. Have a look in the mouth of your dog or cat, if you don't believe me....

As to us being omnivores, you could probably argue that way back in history, someone worked out it was easier to keep animals in pens, than it was to hope the weather would allow edible plants to grow.

So, we're not only herbivores by design, we are lazy ones, too...

"Please tell me this is some kind of satirical piece and that there aren't really people that stupid in the world?"

No, I'm sorry, but there really are vegetarians in the world

In which case, vegetarians are vegetables, thus proving the truth of all this.

That said, if vegetarians eat vegetables, then what do humanitarians eat?

Coat, door, I know the drill.

Nah, as TP pointed out, the REAL hypocracy is they'll throw red paint over fur-clad models but won't throw red paint over leather-clad Hells Angels.

Sure, I'd undertake some perversions of nature with Alicia.

All I needs is some hot grits...

Was there an article attached to the picture ? Sorry, must have missed it.

...Fried Chickens, & a coke!

She's as fit as a butcher's dog, isn't she?

I'll get my leather jacket...

Not to pigeon-hole everyone, not to tar everyone with the same brush, not to generalise, stereotype, or whatever other cliche you care to use?

Not all veggies refuse meat on the grounds that we shouldn't eat it (in fact, i think the majority would agree with the evolution argument), but are merely against farming practices.

And someone needs to point out the difference between veggie and vegan - milk and eggs, are fine for the former, and both contain many (if not all - i'm no Gillian McKeith) of the relevant amino acids veggies need.

Cue flame (which may cause me to evaporate).

shame it's not a image board, coz if it were there would now be 500 pictures of hideous people and "I'm a Vegetarian" as the comment.

What do you mean they'll happily wear leather shoes and belts? I don't wear leather at all. It's not really that hard to find quality shoes and belts that aren't leather, at least in the Syracuse and NYC areas of New York it's not. And if there isn't anything available locally, that's what this Intarweb thing can be used for.

Paris because she has about as much of a clue.

To the batmobile!

Just ask them which plant produces Vitamin B12, and can a human live without it?

Need I say more... Don't take it so seriously.

Almost forgot, rabbit require vitamin B12 as well as humans but in order to get it they eat thier own droppings.

are the Veggies. Normally you would have had at least a few flaming the comments, or are they all too humourless to read El Reg?

/Troll

...does that mean I can't be a vegetarian?

Yeah, this article is total bollocks.... I am sorry to say...

You should check Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism

"A 1999 metastudy[51] compared six major studies from western countries. The study found that the mortality ratio was the lowest in fish eaters (0.82) followed by vegetarians (0.84) and occasional meat eaters (0.84) and which was then followed by regular meat eaters (1.0) and vegan (1.0)"

Been around Kailash last year, walking 35km up to 5,500 m high and I can tell you, fitness has nothing to do with meat...

Know yourself, open your heart and your mind will follow....

elestial.:.

www.elestial.tv

"[vegetarians] raise their voice, swing their arms and splutter when arguing. "

No, that's the French, and they aren't vegetarians, not by a long shot.

The fur one, with the leather belt, please.

I agree with the sentiment that a lot of veggies are that way because of the lack of decent animal husbandry in the Western world. Natural animal care requires that they may be able to escape at some point in their lives. Those that don't are too stupid to survive, so we eat them! Just imagine if all sorts of animals roamed around the gardens and countryside of the developed world, and you just have to go out and catch your meat!

Do all you "carnivores" agree with everything that Pravda wrote? Because most of you have taken the opportunity to bash vegetarians (again), *not* make any relevant comments.

The Register article is not about vegetarianism per se, but about the ridiculous, outrageous and totally unsupported claims made by Pravda. That's what the discussion should be about. But it's more fun to pick on people that are different, than it is to stay on topic, eh?

Me, I'm an omnivore and proud of it. If some self-righteous hippie tells me that I should quit meat, I'll tell him where to get off. But I fully support that hippie's right to eat or not eat whatever the hell he damn well wants!

Live-and-let-live, people. The world has enough racists, sexists and religion-ists. We don't need food-ists as well!

Errrr... so how long can you live without vitamin B12? An hour, a day, a week?

I've met people who have been veggie for years and are still alive.

I think you may be thinking of vegans. Veggie people would get it via dairy products.

You can but only if you don't enoy it :P

Only good one I know is in Northamptonshire.

Mrs Silverstone was utter cr4p in Batman 3. Possibly because she was confronting Plant-toting Poison Ivy?

Ah, yes, mine's the coat with carrots dangling out of it.

"I love animals - they're delicious !"

bet the viagra folkes are shitting themselves...

....demonstrates the enormous breath of human nature... and this is certainly one of them.

Stupidity to humour and all the way back to bigotry.. amazing

Apparently we're all too busy boiling over and waving our hands in the air ;-)

I guess having run all the gays out the country they're looking for a new national sport. No Veggie Pride parade in Moscow this year then....

Amusingly, the expert Russian doesn't appear to know the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian!

I am a vegetarian and will actively avoid products made of leather, fur or from anything that comes from an animal, but unfortunately some of the alternatives do a lot of damage to the environment, cotton being a major culprit.

It's all about the wonder crop known as hemp!

Is Paris a vegetarian, who eats fish, and meat, like so many of them!

been a vegetarian for over 20 years. Didn't realise that I had a low boiling point - thanks to those great purveyors of truth Pravda for pointing it out. Also glad to see that they refute corrupt western medical evidence that Vegetarians are healthier and tend to live longer than non-vegetarians.

Haven't indulged in arm waving, frothing at the mouth etc., since I caught salmonella from a rotten chicken served at a university function years ago.

I wonder if the Russian Business Network has moved from Phishing into Animal Farming and now needs to get customers.

They forgot to mention that we have no sense of humour.

Well, I'd better go out on my daily 6 km run, in preparation for my 25 km hill walk this weekend, then along to the climbing wall for a two hour work out. Glad Pravda has shown me how unhealthy I am !!

I just wonder what Russian carnivores do for their daily exercise: I guess it must be swim the Black Sea, run across Asia and climb Everest all in the morning before they start their work at 9.

Like most eating disorders, Vegetarianism can be cured quite simply.

Bacon Sarnie

don't even get Pravda STARTED on Mac users ;-)

There is no Pravda in Isvestia and no Isvestia in Pravda.

However, PITA are most definately not a 'hug a whale for Jesus' outfit, they are dangerous nutters who refuse to condemn violence, but have somehow managed to get a silky smooth image from the patronage of people like Alicia Silverstone, who probably knows nothing of their activities in and around the Oxford Animal house or HLS. Don't mix the rest of us Veggies up with them, although thanks for the picture, 'tis appreciated.

Can a veggie give head and still be called a veggie? And if yes, would they be allowed to swallow (a good source of protein) or be forced to spit?

I'm your typical UK veggie, milk products, eggs, etc. Yes I wear leather shoes and belt. No I'm not a hypocrite because I don't go round pretending anything else. Most male calves from milking herds are killed at birth.

Indian veggies by culture don't eat eggs. Vegans don't eat honey either. Many go to the trouble of avoiding leather. There are reasonable substitutes for shoes. Some avoid silk, because of the farming of silk worms. There are extreme sects of the Jain religion which are fruitarian. They will only eat fruit that was 'designed' by evolution to be eaten as a means of seed distribution. They also go around naked except for a face mask and brush the dust in front of their feet in case they squash insects. Not a pretty sight.

You do not need meat for a healthy diet. You can be vegan and healthy, but you have to work at it. And there is plenty of evidence that vegetarians live longer, although that may be a correlation, not cause and effect. I plan to live to 100, like two of my grandparents.

I'm veggie for my own reasons, but the world is running short of grain. Poor people are going to start starving again in large numbers soon. One way to reduce grain consumption is to eat it, instead of feeding it to cows that you then eat. There are some types of agricultural land where sheep and goats can be raised more efficiently than arable crops, but I don't like lamb anyway.

I don't see the problem with someone being vegetarian, as long as they aren't self-righteous about it, but it is a fact that humans are designed (by natural selection) as omnivores, and in fact the move from eating only plantstuffs, to eating more and more animal protein was one of the main shifts in hominid evolution, and pretty clearly defines the transition from Australopithecine sp. et al. to Homo sp. ie. from an ape that happens to walk on it's hindlegs towards forms that we would understand as being more human.

This is seen in dentition, a decrease in size of chewing muscles and jaw structure, a decrease in gut size and the shape of the rib cage, and a corresponding increase in brain size. (more energy and nutrient rich foods with the resultant decrease in the need for a large, plant-processing digestive system means more energy available for the decelopment and maintenance of a large and expensive(in energy terms) brain).

A hunting lifestyle also would have been very important in encouraging what we would see as culture- tool/weapon manufacture, the ability to remember where food sources are, most importantly an increase in cooperation and language for hunting.

"you could probably argue that way back in history, someone worked out it was easier to keep animals in pens, than it was to hope the weather would allow edible plants to grow." l; without hunting and meat eating in the first place, there would have been no "someone (ie a conscious human being)" to work out farming was easier than foraging.

It just kind of annoys me when veggies imply that we are designed as herbivores, it's nonsense.

PH icon as she could eat me anytime.

(can't be bothered previewing so forgive any typos please)

comes from the fruits of the marmite tree.

Vegetarians can easily obtain vitamin B12 - dairy products are a good source. Vegans on the other hand generally need to take supplements or fortified food products.

@Mr Stalin

Bacteria (friendly ones or otherwise) produce Vitamin B12. No plants, no animals.

Are bacteria plants or animals - an interesting question and not once that is going to be answered conclusively on a Register comments page.

I suspect that you need to redefine 'vegetarian' for this context. I find that the following is more to my taste (sic) :

I don't eat any meat that doesn't eat me back.

No plants that I'm aware of produce vitamin B12, but there is this thing called Marmite, you may have heard of it? It's 100% vegaterian and full of B group vitamins, B12 included.

B12 is also found in dairy products, which are vegetarian, not vegan however.

That was easy, got another?

This looks set to become a regular El Reg Meme.

BTW, Steve Jobs is a Vegan. I'll pass on eating him.

http://www.nndb.com/lists/782/000064590/

We ain't all pasty faced hippies with a fluffy bunny loving complex, you know!

I weighed a healthy 24 stone and decided to shift it. Let me tell you there's nothing like dirty great slabs of Quorn and lentil-nut roast to put you off your food and help lose that flab!

After two years, I still love the smell of fried bacon and a steaming hot beef roast still makes me salivate and dribble like a 90-year old who's lost his false teeth. Still miss the taste of licking fresh Doner grease and chilli sauce of my fingers after really great kebab on a Friday night! I just can't face eating animals any more. It's a personal choice thing.

I think everyone should eat meat, it's bloody good for you, my missus and I are veggies but our kids ain't, we still cook meat for them and it's up to them to decide if they want to eat it or not. We are not going to force our kids to go veggie.

So before you start labelling us all freaky hippies, spare a thought that like all things in life, it ain't all black and white, loads of grey areas!

I prefer to think of us as the evolution of humanity... :-)

They concluded that thinly disguised kinky sex with a member of the opposite gender is often a good treatment.

Yeah. Water = wet, sky = up etc.

Cornflakes and marmite on toast?

I always wonder at the term vegetarian. Try and imagine what your pizza, all day breakfast, Fish and Chip etc would be like without all the vege goodness...

A pizza would be salami. Very nice. Not quite as stodgy and delicious as melted mozarella cheese on an oregano (or is it basil) tomato sauce with some filling base. And garlic bread and a really good salad. In fact given a choice I'd rather be a veggie than a meatie.

An all day breakfast... bacon and sausages. Excellent, my favourites! But sausages have quite a lot of flavours added which a strict meatie wouldn't touch. So bacon and pork. Almost as good. But I'd miss toast, and eggs, and mushrooms and beans and tomatoes and, especially, the hash browns. And the brown sauce sandwiches and cup of tea. I suppose meaties could drink Bovril.

Fish and Chips wouldn't be the same without batter and chips. Or vegetable oil to fry it in. A strict meaty would only have lardy fish.

What;s your favourite curry? The sauce is nice, right? Now none of that is made from meat thus your curry becomes lardy mutton cubes. Or microwaved chicken strips for the ladies watching their weight.

See, vegetarians don't just eat vegetables just as normal people don't just eat meat. If you had to become a vege or a meatie, most meaties would be sad and unhappy eaters. And die early.

People eat meat because they like to, and that's good enough for me. Other people don't it because they realise it's not as healthy, or they don't like factory farming, or they only eat what they kill rather than buy cellophaned meat. The fact they made a decision is good enough for me. It's the ones who eat meat because their peers do, well, that's just sheeple behaviour...

If you are a vegan or fruitarian that is (they eat supplements to stay alive). They eat no animal protein. Veggies eat animal products, as somebody else has already said. You will see them scanning the ingredients of cheese packets and wine bottles for evidence of dead animals though.

Luckily plenty of wine and cheese is now made without dead animals bits, sadly the same can't be said for the melted pig trotters in Jelly Babies

To various: who the hell are you to tell vegetarians what they believe in?

You know nothing about them other than that they don't eat meat.

p.s. doesn't B12 grow on the famous Marmite tree?

Still, good for when you're bored of reading The Onion. :)

Get the stick out of your arse, Stu.

As far as I can tell, all the "yup, this is soo right" comments are more in the vein of extending the "truth" to it's ridiculous logical extreme.

We once had in grammar school a debate on "Is education wasted on women". There were three groups:

a) Women who said it was a terrible thing and No, it was NOT wasted

b) Men who took it seriously and agreed with (a)

c) Men who saw it as a stupid question and came up with all the tired cliche's about "women's work" "sink" and "chained".

(it's actually true, it IS wasted on women. Unfortunately for that answer you had to realise a deeper truth: the question was badly worded. It should have been "Is education wasted" because it's wasted on men too. Think about it: how many times have you needed to know the volume of a sphere is 4/3 pi r cubed?)

Windows vs. Mac

Stallman vs. Torvalds

Java vs. C++

ISPs vs. RIAA

And all the other traditional Register flame-starting subjects?

>non-believers to risk sterility

Doesn't bother me, after one too many kids my wife forced me to get the tubes cut before she'd let me near her again, rather dispells that myth.

>lacklustre hair

Never noticed, I've been a skinhead for as long as I care to remember, so that remains unproved.

I'm also six foot two and weigh 100Kg so if the urge to throw something over a Hell's Angel did occur again I doubt I'd hesitate too long a second time, another myth debunked.

Is that enough of a flame?

I'd go through the rest of the ill informed comments but it's lunchtime so would someone quickly tell me where I can get B12 from and do I really need any?

Are you for real?

There are various types of veggie, some just don't eat meat, and some are purists who won't eat, use or wear anything that is derived or made from animal.

Personally, I'm a strict veggie. The only leather I wear is protective, when I'm riding a motorbike, and I very rarely eat cheese and never drink milk. and I am a lot healthier for it. I do however, think that it's not necessarily a question of being built to eat meat or any of the evolutionary arguments. What I disagree with is the industrialisation of animal cruelty, the environmental impact of the practice and the inefficiencies of an industry that feeds cattle more food than they produce, use drug enhancements to increase yield and generally have lost touch with nature.

It suites me physically and metabolically as well and morally...

Tux - because I'm also a self righteous Linux user...

Strange how, at the moment, it's the meat-eaters that appear to have low boiling points -- and a great number seem to be wilfully ignorant too.

Some of the comments above make me ashamed to say I'm a meat eater.

The amount of anti-vegetarian vitriol always surprises me (it seems akin to the demonising that closet homosexuals indulge in) when a non-story like this surfaces.

More than anything I'm interested to know how rabbits cannot get vitamin B12 by eating vegetables, only by eating their own droppings. I assume that the B12 magically forms in the droppings when on the ground, perhaps by some new form of photosynthesis.

"It just kind of annoys me when veggies imply that we are designed as herbivores, it's nonsense."

I agree, but it annoys me more when people suggest we were designed at all. Natural selection doesn't "design" anything.

One of the best articles I've read (not including the death of DRM) in a long time.

Errr.... PITA are not a bunch of nutters, they are Greek breads ideal for the transport of tasty morsels to mouth. Try hummus or baba ghanoush. Both are vegetarian. You also get them around kebabs, they are not vegetarian.

You may be thinking of PETA. They are different and crap with hummus.

if we are lazy herbivours plase explain the 4 teeth we have which a dentist calls No.3 on the count known as the canine teeth the sharp pionty ones designed for tearing up meat

please also explain why we have both upper and lower sets of teeth which is a very uncommon trait in herbivours they generally have a hard plated lower jaw and only an upper row of teeth

upper and lower teeth is a trait more common in omnivours and carnivours. also note that every other member of the Hominidae family eat meat either through active hunting of scavaging

Da Vinci - veggie

Einstein - veggie

Gandhi - veggie

Bush - meat eater

Blair - meat eater

Gates - meat eater

I rest my case ;p

A natural analog of vitamin B-12 is Hydroxocobalamin (OHCbl) which is more easily absorbed by people who's gut ph is more alkali = Vegans...

There is nothing wrong with taking b12 supliments, or eating fortified cereals, the Vegan society recommends this.

It's not in itself a meat biproduct, so it's not a compromise...

:) face of concern? not here... You ought to choses your battles more carefully... You don't use windows by any chance do you? ;)

That's the biggest pile of...utterly flawed logic you're trotting out there. The sideways moving jaw tops the lot - what plants were *you* eating when you came up with that one?

Humans (and most of our ape cousins) are ominvores - from front teeth to sphincter - pure and and simple.

A vegetarian can't eat wine gums :(

B12 is in Yeast.

Very few vitamins that occur in meat do not also occur in some form in veggies. (Torine being one that I know about - cant have cats on a veggy diet or they go blind - but why would you do that to a cat anyway? Though it can be synthesised - as in red bull.)

See marmite - vegetarian. (might be vegan, but there are definite vegan versions)

http://www.marmite.co.uk/love/nutrition/vitamin-b12.html

Me, Veggy 10 years, triathlete, very heathy.

Reason: don't eat meat as I don't want to kill for fun. (don't need to eat meat so wont). I don't wear leather. Enough alternatives.

Question: Why does being a veggy scare so many meat eaters? You always get a ridiculous comments to stories like these.

Have to side with Mrs. Silverstone on that one. Her arguments are physically amazing and therefore amazingly effective.

"Are bacteria plants or animals - an interesting question and not once that is going to be answered conclusively on a Register comments page."

On contrare, it can be conclusively answered, and probably could be by a GCSE biology student.

Bacteria aren't plants or animals idiot, they are bacteria.

yeah, this is an interesting one. I've been eating steak for ages.. since I was 8 I've eaten steak at every restaurant I've been to, bar probably about 10. (then I have either lamb/scampi).

I loved reading Pravda during my A level history course. Amusing article.

I don't eat bugs.

With her dry and fragile hair, dull eyes and unhealthy complexion. My local butcher wouldn't go near her!

I must say, however, why do PETA representatives always claim they have so much more energy now they don't eat meat? I'm the same lazy feckless git I was before I became a vegetarian!

Nice satirical poke at a preposterous Pravda article, by the way. I'm sure both vegetarians and cow-killers alike can agree that it's mainly hyperbole, probably written by someone who was writing Communist propaganda 20 years ago.

Please Eat The Animals

It always seems strange to me that my choice not to kill animals for food because I dont need/want to, generates such a strong reaction.

Why?

PS: omnivore - means we can choose what we eat, and choose not to eat things as well.

PPS: Also, "if we shouldn't eat animals, why are they made out of meat...?!"

So are you. See PS.

B12 - yeast - marmite.

Where's the beer angle? Liquid bread. The vegetarian wonder-food that goes with just about everything. Makes for a messy steak sandwich though.

I can't believe how many people took this article seriously, and how many people have opinions based on flawed information. If you don't know enough about vegetarianism to see how it is different from veganism then you are really in no position to opine about it.

"I agree, but it annoys me more when people suggest we were designed at all. Natural selection doesn't "design" anything"

True, i would hope though that most reg readers would realise this is bad wording, rather than advocacy of intelligent design or any other such crap =)

Like every other celebrity that claims they are a vegetarian the fact is they are not. They consume meat proteins in the forms of fish, chicken and cow, either chopped up in small bits in their tofu, salad or pasta. Plus, they all suck down hand fulls of nutritional supplements, of which many of them contain animal protein and fatty acids. In fact most all capsules for the nutritional supplements are made from 98% to 99.8% animal protein it's the only way that the products can claim to be 100% all natural. Capsules made from planet proteins without a synthetic binder and stabilizer breakdown in air within a few days, but capsules made from animal proteins can last for years without starting to breakdown. I was the IT engineer at plant that made the capsules for the vitamin/supplement and pharmaceutical industries. I know what and how the capsules are made out of.

In college I worked at a Restaurant in Beverly Hills and I can say that celebrity claims of vegetarianism is all about show and has no reality in what they order when they go out. The Chief gets the calls from the celebrity a few hours before they show up and places their order. The wait staff tells the chief when the celebrity's order is submitted the Chief then verbal changes the order and makes sure the line cooks make it look like the vegetarian dish that is on the order while it's packed with cooked animal.

My favorite one is the 3 grilled chicken breast blue cheese dressing.

Take three grilled chicken breasts and chop fine in a food processor

Fold in blue cheese dressing and whip till creamy

pour on salad and top with blue cheese crumbles

" Australopithecine sp. et al. to Homo sp. ie"

Gehzunteit

is made by yeast, so this stuff is full of dead animals.

The issue is not vegetarians vs carnivores as some commentators here suggest.

Very, very, few of The Reg's readers are carnivores.

Most of the meat-eating readers eat meat that was killed by someone else, and has been laying around for some days (at a minimum) before being consumed.

That's being a carrionvore.

Be proud to be a carrion eater, but go easy on the vegetarians who chose not to do so. Both choices can appear repulsive to those conditioned to eat in specific ways.

[PPS: Also, "if we shouldn't eat animals, why are they made out of meat...?!"

So are you. See PS.]

Look up "humour".

Why are so many vegetarians devoid of humour. I think that Prada need to get some research. Maybe a low-cholesterol diet damages the brain.

In case you didn't get it,

IT'S A JOKE.

You should never tell people what they believe is wrong. It makes them defensive and then aggressive.

Having said that...

Meat may be an efficient way to consume protein, but its an incredibly inefficient way to produce it. The natural resources which could be saved by switching from meat to veggie diets...

If that doesn't convince you, try these three letters: B.S.E.

Now, I'm off to convince a Mac user that he should be using Windows instead.

The mink fur one and yes, they are vicious vermin.

Unfortunately a lot of beer, in particularly lager is not vegetarian. Discussing this over a pint with a vege can be tricky, especially if they love Guinness (which is i believe filtered with a by-product from fish), as I did.

I find vegetarianism is more a way of life than a diet.

I very rarely eat fruit and veg, it's not that i'm scared of the stuff, i'd just rather have a plate of meat. It's done me absolultley no harm, I'm 6'2 14 stone with not an ounce of fat on me. I don't really exercise, apart from walking to work.

I put my physique down to my glutony for meat, I've never broken a bone, never been to hospital, and only see the doctor when i need a sick note for work ;)

I do, however have a terrible temper. So who'd like to tell me that you don't need meat in your diet, face to face?

Penguin, because it's one of the few animals i havn't enjoyed eating yet!

Vegetables aren't food, vegetables are what food eats.

No, B12 doesn't form in poo that's left in the sun. I'm not actually sure that B12 has all that much to do with this process - it's more about protein.

Their guts don't really have the enzymes needed to extract protein from vegetable matter, so another mechanism evolved to deal with this. Being quite muscular, active animals (necessary to escape from predators) their protein requirements are somewhat higher than other herbivores of a similar size.

Rabbits drop two kinds of turd. Firstly are the little, hard, round pellets which consist of the fibrous material from their diet. These are just the normal faecal waste that you'd expect any herbivore to produce. They are also right little fuckers to get out when you tread them into the rug.

The second type of poos are called caecotrophs. These are squishy, black and quite stinky turds which look like little bunches of grapes. You will never see these unless a rabbit is sick. These contain a mixture of the nutrient material from food that the rabbit wasn't able to extract while it was digested, and a rich soup of bacteria and enzymes. The rabbits gobble up the caecotrophs as soon as they emerge. These are then swallowed where they ferment in the gut. This secondary digestion produces quite decent amounts of protein.

That two-stage digestive system is quite unique to rabbits. It has evolved as a way for them to secure sufficient protein from their relatively protein-free main diet of grass. I like to use this one in arguments with intelligent design loons.

In a second evolutionary twist, also unique to rabbits as far as I know, they are unable to vomit. Rather cruel (but essential) for an animal forced to eat its own shit to survive.

Rabbits are awesome, but you have to keep them in the house, not in a hutch in the garden. They are easily litter trained, don't smell, are very intelligent and they have far more personality than the average house cat.

I do understand that the Pravda of pravda.ru has nothing to do with the formerly respectable Soviet newspaper. Pretty much every article they run is completely ludicrous, bordering on satire - kind of a Russian Inquir^H^H^H^H^H^HEnquirer.

Regardless, another article like this and I'm going to start calling it The Vegister. Who's with me?

I also cannot believe how many people here are flippantly throwing around ignorant hearsay as if it were scientific fact.

I also cannot believe no-one has yet mentioned the fact that veggies smell of turtles and sleep with their knees facing the wrong way.

To MahatmaCoat:

Hitler: veggie...

Er...

Me coat, please

The 'mainstream' animals that we consume, let's say sheep, cows and pigs, are no longer wild. They exist solely to supply humans with food and clothing, as required to survive and remain comfortable.

Farmers, God bless 'em, struggle enough to make ends meet, but, were it not for 'meat-eaters' they would have little reason to maintain the aforementioned species as they would be a drain on resources with no return.

So veggies, in effect, HATE animals and want them all to die. Meat eaters sustain their existence by finding them tasty (medium rare please).

Also, salad, vegetables etc are a side-dish, meat is the main meal. I mean seriously, when was the last time you salivated over a a watercress and beetroot salad?

Nuff said.

People

Eating

Tasty

Animals

That said my younger sister has always hated meat. Ever since she was a child. So perhaps some people are born to it.

To the veggies who say I can get B12 from dairy products. What about me? I can't have ANY dairy products or I will be violently sick all night.

Someone please pass the HP sauce and another sirloin please.

"Meat may be an efficient way to consume protein, but its an incredibly inefficient way to produce it. The natural resources which could be saved by switching from meat to veggie diets..."

Although something like "goat" is an excellent way of turning scrubland into something more useful for humans. You can't get any decent human-edible plant growth off the welsh hillsides but sheep turn scrubby hillside grass growing on poor soil into meat. In africa, the goats turn the sporadic clumps of grass into meat. Farming in its' stead won't work unless you're really into irrigating or are willing to walk a long way from clump to clump, watering it.

Where we can raise *cows* can be mostly turned into productive land for HUMAN plant consumption, so that's not a good idea as far as sufficiently feeding humans is concerned.

So the most EFFECTIVE way of feeding humans would be

a) grow human food where we can farm effectively

b) raise goats or sheep or similar where we can't farm efficiently and get this transformed grass to walk to the farmer

But this is now degenerating into a serious discussion to a silly article, so to get it back on track:

I *eat* vegetarians. Cows, sheep, pigs etc. Though I wouldn't mind a nibble on Alicia...

using the example of a Hollywood maintained robot..err..actress, with millions in professional skin treatments, customized dietary supplements, and a part time job at least of wasting calories at the gym with a personal trainer...any deficiencies caused by any diet or lifestyle are surely erased and covered up and accounted for....like the PETA gal who demands all animal based products be banned but lives off bovine insulin...

Besides, if she truly doesn't consume "animal" protein, then who cares how "hawt" she looks on the outside-it'd be like making payments on a Ferrari that's kept under glass and all you can do it look at it...

You...

You...

You didn't actually reference WIKIPEDIA as support for your argument did you?

On THE REGISTER?

We need a "stunned" icon...

Note to Vegans: Don't tell me what to eat and I won't use you to make Soylent Green.

I'll have the foi gras and veal to go....

My mate's a Carnivoretarian

Seriously he doesn't eat any vegetables... at all.

It can be quite awkward when we invite him round for lunch. All I get is "You better not be frying my burgers in any vegetable oil, you know I can't eat anything that has vegetables in it" And to make matters worse he doesn't drink either. Beer, wine scotch all derived from vegetables apparently.

Also he looks quite ill, his skin looks to be in really bad condition, not sure if this is related?

I went on a brewery trip to the Marston's brewery in Burton some years ago and they were shipping excess yeast off to Marmite.

Most fizzy beer (certainly Tetley's at Leeds) use finings to clear bear. It's made from fish's swim bladders.

Yeast is alive in real ales too.

The leather jacket with the McShake in the pccket please.

Vegetarianism - You are what you eat.

Vegetarians are lazy - it doesn't take much energy to sneak up on a carrot.

I did get a kick out of the article. Even though it's not the old Pravda it's clear they haven't lost their knack for unintentional humor.

It does cause you to think strange, I tried an veggie diet for an week and an half or two weeks. Sort of soft spongy thinking/logic perverted, the sort of thing you need if you are being led.

I am more interested in how true what they claim is (without reading through over an 100 comments) in summary did anybody find that any of it was not supported by evidence and untrue?

It is funny that the bad behaviour symptoms they ascribe to vegetarians sounds like the symptoms of ill health from mal-nourishment. The only vegetarians I have personally known have not suffered from this, but then again I don't know for certain they did not have some meat. Now Vegans, have an more restrictive diet, I wonder if they used studies that use them. I am not saying that vegetarianism is OK for most people, it is harder to get adequate dietary intake from what I have been told.

Gautam

About lack of meat leading to low birth rates in Russia after the collapse of the soviet union (where did you get that from?). I remember that back in that time news reports of whole groups of miners, not getting paid for months, and others not getting paid (for whatever period). Food was scarce, and they were depicted eating an few vegetables. So that part, might, be true, but I also imagine it has something to do with wages and standard of living going down making people reluctant to invest into having large families (which the state used to promote). The other factor that might, on an slimmer chance, have something to do with it, is the allegation that certain chemicals turning up in the food chain, and from plastic, could be producing the falling sperm counts in western men. Basically, one mimics estrogen and is used in food manufacture (I think also as an waste product in manufacture) get into the environment and into our food, the wrapping for our food (even tinned food is lined with plastic now a days) and our microwave food containers, and tries to neuter our sperm count an bit.

*cough*

India

*cough*

"a typical vegetarian has dry and fragile hair, dull eyes and unhealthy complexion. They can hardly stand criticism and have a low boiling point. They raise their voice, swing their arms and splutter when arguing. They are weak even in their logic."

Why does this sound so similar to the old warnings about the "dangers" of masturbation, ie how it would lead to a weak constitution, sallow skin, stunt your growth etc etc...?!

OK then, the rabbits don't get B12 from the droppings. They get it from the bacteria in there lower instetine that get excrited with the droppings. B12 being produced in the lower part of the gut can't be absored because that is done by the upper short instestine, so the rabbit eats its dropping and re-ingests the bacteria and the vitamin B12. If I remember correctly either horses or cattle shit in the water holes they drink from so as to re-ingest the bacteria they need to replenish there guts bacteria levels.

BTW which plant provides calcium?

I'm a vegetarian for many, many reasons. Not many people can think of true reasons for their omniverosity other than they were raised that way.

My hair is lustrous (what remains of it) and my eyes are sparkling and fresh (my contact lens vendor said my eyes were the moistest he had seen). This sort of propaganda would not have been seen in the Soviet days! Oh wait..

Also: I see a far higher percentage of unhealthy omnivores than sickly vegetarians. Prety funny when you see omnivores/anti-veggies refusing to eat something because it says "Meat-free" on the front, like they ONLY eat meat..

Just because it looks like leather doesn't mean it is. Some of the fake leathers are very hard to distinguish from the real thing. The seats in my car are a faux leather and I wouldn't have anything else. They don't get as hot in the summer as real leather and they don't crack over time. I've heard more than once from someone I was giving a lift how much they loved my leather seats.

Of course there are ignoramuses who won't eat meat but will wear leather. I'm guessing Paris falls into this group.

... meat can be grown artificially in colonies of skin/muscle cells in laboratories (and commercially), I shall stop eating meat from *real* animals immediately.

The flipside...

http://artists.letssingit.com/arrogant-worms-lyrics-carrot-juice-is-murder-sdnfw88

Here is how I see things - not that anyone will still be reading these comments!

1. Ancestors started eating meat, crop failures may have triggered it - it's understandable

2. We have got better, crops (in the western world at least) are more reliable and we don't need to depend on meat for our survival

3. If we don't eat meat, we need a carefully slected diet to get the necessary proteins and vitamins (e.g. B12), but it's possible

Therefore, we don't NEED to eat meat; it's a lifestyle choice.

Therefore, if you eat meat, animals are being killed for your pleasure.

I don't believe in killing anything for pleasure. I would eat meat if my survival depended on it. I avoid animal skins where possible (e.g. belts, ties), sometimes I have little choice but to wear leather shoes to go with my suit.

No one is perfect, but I do my best to minimise the unnecessary killing. Ethics are personal - some people still like to hunt foxes with hounds, I just don't agree with it.

Jaysus h christ. Vegetarianism?? I happen to be one but I dont want a techie site (sorry, should I say "former" techie site?) try to discuss the so called "misguided" reasons people might choose to not eat animals. Its like going to topgear.com only to see a home page article on the merits of home cooking!

Stick to what you know, unless you're happing heading towards tabloid mediocrity.

I haven't eaten meat, fish, turkey, etc for well over 30 years and even I don't label myself a "vegetarian." Nice and healthy I am too, unless you count the multiple dings from people who consider me a legit target for surprise attacks such as "Ha! That's a leather belt if I'm not mistaken!"

It's up to each individual to decide what can and can't go in our mouths (I am avoiding the temptation to Paris this) but remember folks this is body parts we're talking here eww.

The reason you can chew in a kinda cow-chewing the cud fashion, rather than just bite (which is why they sharp teeth are only at the front...) would seem to be reasonably obvious - at some point in our evolution we had to do a lot of chewing.

"It just kind of annoys me when veggies imply that we are designed as herbivores, it's nonsense."

Erm, if you have such a rock solid argument to support your own assertion, that line devalues it a little.

Off to read a copy of the Heretics Feast.

I'm sorry. I'll have to call B.S. on that one. It is a cute story, though.

I'm not a vegetarian. I don't have anything against them, except in the few extreme cases (usually found smoking their hemp skivvies at the PeTA headquarters).

Most of the biggest jerks I've met have not been vegetarians.

However, there are some awesomely delicious vegetarian dishes out there. 90% of REAL Indian food is actually vegetarian (but not usually up to vegan standards). It is truly yummy.

Why would a celebrity go to a restaurant that serves good vegetarian food, then order some disgusting pre-chew? They can have Francois cook them up a rib roast in the comfort of their own home.

You know the type.. the ones that have a go at you for killing animals and yet will happily slaughter living plants or even eat them alive purely because they don't have an adorable face and don't make cute sounds. It's all about guilt and sympathy for creatures they identify with whilst not caring about another living organism that they destroy in order to keep their own body going just because they have no concept of it.

Science is finally getting past the hideous notions that in order to have any form of intelligence you have to be biologically similar to mammals.

We're discovering that plants have a lot more to them than simply sitting there and soaking up the sun and releasing oxygen.

We are discovering that many of the species actually have social structures, exert a control over their environment that is on a par with most animals, respond to outside threats and stimuli, plan ahead for growth and expansion (often using complex weather pattern mathematics)... Science has also discovered the plant version of our neurons..

Just because it doesn't bear any resemblance to animals doesn't mean that there isn't more to a creature.

To get you started on this I suggest a visit to http://www.plantneurobiology.org/

To view plants as non-entities, here purely to furnish us with guilt free nourishment and oxygen is just plain ignorant.

The question is, if plants show many of the same abilities as animals what will those who have guilt over ending the life of something eat if plants join the ranks of animals?

The cruel twist to life is that for one entity to continue living, another must die... if we do have a god, then we have a very twisted one!

Don't forget, our ancestors used to believe that plants held spirits too...

Einstein was only a vegetarian for the last year of his life. Look how quickly it killed him...

Stephen Gould once said something to the effect of how silly it was for people to be vegetarian on the principle that animals are advanced. A carrot is every bit as advanced as a human. It has gone through just as many (or more) cycles of evolution as every other living creature.

For that matter, grass is also an advanced living being. Remember all those pictures of dinosaurs grazing in fields of waving green grass?

Only some of the later ones actually seemed to have the privilege. Kind of a "last meal":

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20051130/Note2.asp

People seem to forget that plant life is just as much a subject for evolution as is animal life.

@ AC, Yes, that's the one that anti-vegetarians always trot out. In fact, Hitler consumed quite a lot of meat and fish so I'd hardly call him a vegetarian.

@ Stephen: It's never too late to get smarter ;p He also said: "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet". He may well have a point because the crap we eat at the moment seems to breeding a generation of no-hopers.

Paris, cos she seems to love sausages.

Chimpanzees hunt and eat meat. Not exclusively - but they do it.

They also engage in tribal warfare, but that's a whole 'nother thread.

Vegetarians still take in animal protein (egg, cheese, milk, etc.). Vegetarians just don't eat meat (chicken, fish, red meat etc.), but Vegans don't eat ANYTHING that comes from an animal (no cheese, no milk, no eggs, no butter, etc.).

So perhaps it are Vegans that are worst off than Vegetarians?

If scientists could mix pork and fish together, we would have ribs that are as healthy as salmon. Tasty and healty.

Einstein was a veggie for only a year or so, about when his brain started to get addled :P

I don't have much of a problem with vegetarians except when they expect me to go out of my way for them. I remember one time I was at a friends place for a BBQ. A friend of a friend who came to his house started ordering him not to put any meat on his bbq as they were cutting up vegetables to cook.

Needless to say a nice juicy steak was dropped immediately on to the hot plate.

As with most lifestyle choices you can do what you like, start trying to force me to change my choices and you will cop it

Flame icon as it reminds me of a bbq

"By Joe Stalin...

BTW which plant provides calcium?"

erm... beans, broccoli, cabbage, cress, lettuce, olives, spinach as well as almonds, cashews, oranges etc. etc. In fact seems as if most plants provide calcium. Even baked beans contain (3 times more) calcium than human milk...

Then again who cares about facts when the pro meat and anti meat nazi groups are having a go at each other.

So Ms Silverstone says we should all be Veggie? Isn't that 'Actors' using 'Acting' to preach about stuff that they have no idea about?

Two words: MATT DAAAAAAAAAAMON!

...and if anyone there actually /found/ a fresh vegetable, they'd make it the lead story on "News At Tenski".

It's fridat, it's 09:30, it's BACON time!!

Eat meat-increase your risk of colon cancer for starters and get that cholesterol into you! On another note, the meat industry belches out more CO2 than ALL the combustion engined vehicles on the planet so up yours meat eaters; I'll not feel guilty about driving increasingly more powerful petrol engined vehicles as the years roll in