Jul 16, 2011 -- 2:10PM, rabello wrote:

A few careless statements gave more cache & glamour to burgers and fries that all the hype over the WH vegetable garden could give to carrots and cucumbers, in spite of the hype!

Honestly? 

OK time for a little evaluation here.  "Cache and glamour"  alrighty.  Now just stop, have you EVER seen carrots and cucumers as glamourous,  exciting?  How about the potato or tomato? 

The fact is you these foods are never going to have cache and glamour because let's face it - there is zero decadence to them.   Hello, burgers and fries are designed to be delicious.  The only thing that might make carrots and cucumbers decadent and therefore give them glamour is a decadent dressing like ranch or something.  I eat carrots and cucumbers - sure but I can't live on those. 

To utilize a cliche here we are talking apples and oranges. 

On the one hand we have carrots and cucumbers, potatotes and tap water.  On the other we have burgers and fries, milk shakes and cold beer.  You can't really substitute one for the other.

For our vegetarian friends it might be fries and grilled cheese along with a milkshake - still high calorie, still fatty and still a decadent meal. 

I for one like to see a fit and healthy woman enjoying the healthy foods and the decadent foods. 

If Ms. Obama came out preaching about never eating a decadent food and all french fries are bad, she would never be taken seriously and her message would quickly become ridiculous.   

Jul 16, 2011 -- 9:18PM, rabello wrote:

Jul 16, 2011 -- 8:48PM, Erey wrote:

Honestly? 

Yep

Jul 16, 2011 -- 8:48PM, Erey wrote:

Now just stop, have you EVER seen carrots and cucumers as glamourous,  exciting?  How about the potato or tomato? 

Stop WHAT?

You see hamburgers and French Fries as glamourous and exciting?  I'm talking about Michelle Obama not food.  Not surprised you missed the point entirely, though.

Jul 16, 2011 -- 8:48PM, Erey wrote:

Hello, burgers and fries are designed to be delicious.  

"Delicious"?   

"Honestly"?

Those $0.39 burgers at McDonalds that poor people buy on a regular basis are delicious???? Could have fooled me! 

Jul 16, 2011 -- 8:48PM, Erey wrote:

For our vegetarian friends it might be fries and grilled cheese along with a milkshake - still high calorie, still fatty and still a decadent meal. 

I'm pretty sure vegetarians don't eat grilled cheese, fries and a milkshake, but who knows?  Some people who claim to be vegetarians might do something like that.   Has nothing to do with promoting fast food burgers by saying something like life wouldn't be worth living without them.  Most of us can chuckle at it, even as we bemoan "those fat people who stink" and thier diet of $0.39 burgers

Jul 16, 2011 -- 8:48PM, Erey wrote:

If Ms. Obama came out preaching about never eating a decadent food and all french fries are bad, she would never be taken seriously and her message would quickly become ridiculous.   

Doubt it.  The vegetable garden was pretty good PR

Gotta go with Erey on this and I'm not kissing up, as Erey knows. This whole business is one jokey tempest in a tea-pot.

How many of our homeless vets eating those $.39 burgers and why? Our social services "stink on ice". Who is responsible? We know who is responsible in great measure--supply side neo-cons.

Rabello, you often forget that very well-educated posters also populate this board.

Jul 16, 2011 -- 9:33PM, jane2 wrote:

Gotta go with Erey on this

That's fine.  Some people see eating fast food burgers as an expression of personal freedom; others recognize it as a political choice with politcal consequences.  Depends on one's perspective. 

Jul 16, 2011 -- 9:33PM, jane2 wrote:

Rabello, you often forget that very well-educated posters also populate this board.

Beating up on one poster who happens to be non-American and a political-vegan just because she is irritated with a careless remark by the First Lady of the United States isn't a measure of anyone's education.   I think more posters would "get" where solfeggio is coming from, without the judgement, if they'd consider, once in a while, what she has to say, the numerous references she provides, and why she says it -- she says it often enough, afterall.   A curious mind is the mark of a true intellectual, afterall, and highly educated people can be as closed-minded and reactionary as the biggest dolts around, too.  Everyone has their sacred cow (pun intended), funny that Mickey-D's turns out to be a sacred cow!

Has it ever occured to any of solfeggio's many opponents that she's not talking about individuals on this board, but about broader social trends?  It isn't vegetarian countries that are using most of the earth's resources and putting them back in the form of permanent pollutants, afterall.....or causing the extinction of species on a daily basis.

Jul 16, 2011 -- 9:40PM, Abner1 wrote:

Rabello wrote:

> I'm pretty sure vegetarians don't eat grilled cheese, fries and a milkshake, but who knows?

> Some people who claim to be vegetarians might do something like that.

Actually, many do - and they're just as much vegetarians as any other vegetarian.  A vegetarian is anyone who doesn't eat meat, and none of those three items contain meat.  Now a *vegan* wouldn't have the grilled cheese, and they might or might not be able to eat the milkshake depending on whether it actually contained milk (some 'milkshakes'  available in fast food restaurants are non-dairy, sadly, making them a travesty of the name).  But even a vegan could eat the fries, and some do.  Many fast food joints now have available quite a few unhealthy vegetarian options to go with their unhealthy meat-containing options for the rest of us.  The key to fast food success is to get a combination of fat, sugar, and salt that causes someone to over-consume and come back again and again ... it doesn't matter from their perspective whether the fat part of that comes from meat or not, or even animals or not.

It is entirely possible for a vegetarian to eat a very unhealthy diet (my ex-wife, for example, ate way too much pasta during her vegetarian phases and so actually gained weight on it, losing weight when she shifted back to eating meat).  It is even possible for a vegan to do so.  A person doesn't stop being a vegetarian or vegan due to making poor dietary decisions ... they just stop being a vegetarian if they eat meat, or a vegan if they eat any animal products.

None of the vegetarians I know eat that way; they have taken the time to learn how to cook genuine but healthy vegetarian dishes/meals....you won't find grilled cheese, French Fries and milkshakes in a vegetarian cookbook!  Of course, many vegetarian dishes can be fattening...not as fattening as $0.39 hamburgers, hot dogs and french fries, though....but I know, I know....Mrs Obama doesn't eat THOSE things!

Rabello wrote:

> It isn't vegetarian countries that are using most of the earth's resources and

> putting them back in the form of permanent pollutants, afterall.....or causing

> the extinction of species on a daily basis. 

Probably because there aren't any vegetarian countries - there is not a single country on this planet where everyone is a vegetarian, or where eating meat is illegal.  Some countries eat more meat on the average than others, but no country goes so far as to become a vegetarian country.  Of course, I could be wrong on that - do you know of any countries where everyone is a vegetarian or where eating meat is illegal?

> None of the vegetarians I know eat that way; they have taken the time to learn

> how to cook genuine but healthy vegetarian dishes/meals....

Interesting - I know quite a few vegetarians who eat that way (as well as quite a few vegetarians who don't).  Vegetarians, in my experience, span the entire normal human range of behaviors - some of them eat well, some of them eat poorly, most of them are somewhere in between.  It appears that I may know more vegetarians than you do, or else I see them as normal people rather than romanticizing them into perfection.

Furthermore, vegetarians are quite capable of using more than their share of resources.  A vegetarian can own a hummer, or even a private jet ... can have a huge McMansion which they keep at ridiculous temperatures through over-using the AC or heater ... can litter, leave their appliances running, and waste and pollute the world just like anyone else.  And in my experience, many of them do - just because they don't eat meat doesn't suddenly change all of their other behaviors that destroy or pollute the environment.  If you think otherwise, then I really do think that you are looking at them through rose-colored glasses, romanticizing them to the point where you're not seeing reality any more.

Vegetarians are normal people, with all that implies.

Jul 16, 2011 -- 10:09PM, Abner1 wrote:

Probably because there aren't any vegetarian countries - there is not a single country on this planet where everyone is a vegetarian, or where eating meat is illegal.  Some countries eat more meat on the average than others, but no country goes so far as to become a vegetarian country.  Of course, I could be wrong on that - do you know of any countries where everyone is a vegetarian or where eating meat is illegal?

No.  You are right, and I should have been more precise because what I meant was those countries (all poor) that do not glorify fast-food hamburger and hot dog "meals".  Those are not countries that are, in general, harming the earth, and in general, live on a diet of vegetables and grains, usually rice.   Certain cultures certainly do advocate vegetarianism more that does "The West."  That's generally where vegetarians learn the recipes for vegetarian dishes.

The fact is, vegetarianism and veganism are legitimate components of an ecological paradigm for a sustainable world, and there is no reason to beat up on the messenger without even considering the message, even if, in the end, one pooh-poohs the argument.

Jul 16, 2011 -- 10:09PM, Abner1 wrote:

Interesting - I know quite a few vegetarians who eat that way (as well as quite a few vegetarians who don't).  Vegetarians, in my experience, span the entire normal human range of behaviors - some of them eat well, some of them eat poorly, most of them are somewhere in between.  It appears that I may know more vegetarians than you do, or else I see them as normal people rather than romanticizing them into perfection.

Perhaps it is more a matter of perspective, or definition.   There are no vegetables in quicky meal of grilled cheese sandwich, french fries and a milkshake (ok, by definition, the fries might qualify as "vegetables" in a Ronald Reagan world).

Jul 16, 2011 -- 10:09PM, Abner1 wrote:

Furthermore, vegetarians are quite capable of using more than their share of resources.  A vegetarian can own a hummer, or even a private jet ... can have a huge McMansion which they keep at ridiculous temperatures through over-using the AC or heater ... can litter, leave their appliances running, and waste and pollute the world just like anyone else.  And in my experience, many of them do - just because they don't eat meat doesn't suddenly change all of their other behaviors that destroy or pollute the environment.  If you think otherwise, then I really do think that you are looking at them through rose-colored glasses, romanticizing them to the point where you're not seeing reality any more.

That is a generally true statement, but doesn't characterize the vegetarians I know. 

Jul 16, 2011 -- 10:09PM, Abner1 wrote:

Vegetarians are normal people, with all that implies.

And as solfeggio has pointed out, more than once, studies have shown that vegetarianism really does do less damage to the environment than meat-consumption does, in spite of the human failings of vegetarians.