Oct 22, 2010 -- 5:22PM, solfeggio wrote:

C'mon, Ebon,

LOL, the meat producers are pulling everybody's leg when they say that red meat has a 'valuable' role to play in a well-balanced diet.    If that were true, all the vegetarians/vegans/piscatorians and others who don't eat red meat would not be walking around!

That doesn't really follow. As you know well, people make their dietry choices for reasons that go far beyond simple nutritional values. If vegans were stuck eating gruel (a very nutritious but tasteless stew made from cannabis seed), I dare say there would be a lot less vegans around. Of course, we live in a world where we have sufficient variety available to us that vegans can eat a balanced, varied and interesting diet.

But the point of the OP was, of course, that the average person in the industrialised West eats far too much meat, and especially processed meat, and that this sort of indulging is likely to do a person in.

That much, I have no argument with. Even if we go with my higher estimate, there's a big difference between a six-to-eight oz portion of lean meat a couple of times a week and the masses of heavily processed, artificially flavoured, fat and salt loaded crap most eat every day. I think what irritates me most is that it's so unnecessary. On occasion, Kat and I have toyed with the idea of opening an eaterie (my mental state means it never goes further than that) and loading take-out or restaurant food with salt and fat is both lazy and profiteering at your customer's expense. On these flights of fancy, we put together a menu of pizzas (fresh-made dough every morning), fresh-made hamburgers (lean beef mince, dijon mustard, a little horseradish, just a pinch of salt and griddle cooked), grilled chicken salad, my stuffed peppers. And that includes two veggie options on the pizzas (veggie regular: red & green peppers, red onion and mushroom. Veggie hot: Jalapenos, peppers, roquito and olives; obviously, the cheese can be left off for vegans), all meat ethically sourced from Jim the local butcher and cheese from the dairy farmer in Tunstall. It doesn't need to be so unhealthy.

But, the fact is, of course, that most people - hell, the vast majority of people on this planet - enjoy the taste of meat so much that they prefer to take their chances and eat it anyway....until they find themselves in hospital with a heart attack. 

Yeah, well. I smoke 40 a day mainly because I enjoy smoking. People exchange health for happiness all teh time.

Oct 24, 2010 -- 10:48PM, solfeggio wrote:

As for your smoking, Ebon, that's your decision and, since it doesn't cause harm to animals, (or to other people, as long as they don't breathe in your secondary smoke), and you're fully aware of what smoke can do to your lungs and blood vessels, but you don't care, I'd say bloody hell, go for it.  It's your body and your life. 

That's kinda my point. I'm fully aware of the haarm my smoking does to my body. I make a conscious and considered decision to exchange X years at the end of my life for the enjoyment that smoking gives me. As for the rest, I don't worry about old age. I'm not going to make seventy. It's fairly unlikely I'll make fifty.

See, I think life is a lot like a savings account. Everyone is born with X years of life in their account (made up of all kinds of factors). Take up smoking and you withdraw, say, seven years. Have a burger from a greasy spoon, you withdraw a couple of days. Skip the burger and have a salad and you claw back a day or two. Some people want their account to last as long as possible and there's nothing wrong with that approach. It's probably psychologically healthier than my own approach but me, I'm more interested in enjoying my account and a lot of the things I did or do come with price tags attached. All that tasty whisky I threw back, all those painpills I dropped, all those smokes I puffed, I always knew there'd be a price to pay for it someday. "There'll be hell to pay someday, so put it all on the bill" ~ Jim Steinman.

Really, you can apply that to everything. And I'm being philosophical now 'cos the singing potatoes got me in that kind of mood but everything has a price attached. A choice only becomes a decision after it's been made and for every choice we make, we close off another option. You make a choice to not eat meat and in the process, you deprive yourself of the pleasure. That's fine and I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, I'm just using that to illustrate a point. When you make a choice to do one thing, you automatically make a choice to not do something else. And that's a price. Everything has a price, whether it's what you eat, smoke, pop, snort. Even learning comes with a price because you can't ever unlearn something. I'd love to not have to know that there are monsters in the world but, having learned that, there's a price for that knowledge, you have to do something about it. Did you know that the more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to suffer from a mental illness? I have an IQ of between 152 and 165 (depending on the test), that puts me in the genius category but the price I pay for that is Major Depressive Disorder, a mental illness where death is a real and possible outcome. That's the price. Because everything has a price. And that's ok to me. I'll pay that price. Because I intend to skid across the finish line of this race at 200mph with my hair on fire and a smoke clenched between my teeth.

Oct 24, 2010 -- 11:57PM, Ebon wrote:

Oct 24, 2010 -- 10:48PM, solfeggio wrote:

As for your smoking, Ebon, that's your decision and, since it doesn't cause harm to animals, (or to other people, as long as they don't breathe in your secondary smoke), and you're fully aware of what smoke can do to your lungs and blood vessels, but you don't care, I'd say bloody hell, go for it.  It's your body and your life. 

That's kinda my point. I'm fully aware of the haarm my smoking does to my body. I make a conscious and considered decision to exchange X years at the end of my life for the enjoyment that smoking gives me. As for the rest, I don't worry about old age. I'm not going to make seventy. It's fairly unlikely I'll make fifty.

See, I think life is a lot like a savings account. Everyone is born with X years of life in their account (made up of all kinds of factors). Take up smoking and you withdraw, say, seven years. Have a burger from a greasy spoon, you withdraw a couple of days. Skip the burger and have a salad and you claw back a day or two. Some people want their account to last as long as possible and there's nothing wrong with that approach. It's probably psychologically healthier than my own approach but me, I'm more interested in enjoying my account and a lot of the things I did or do come with price tags attached. All that tasty whisky I threw back, all those painpills I dropped, all those smokes I puffed, I always knew there'd be a price to pay for it someday. "There'll be hell to pay someday, so put it all on the bill" ~ Jim Steinman.

Really, you can apply that to everything. And I'm being philosophical now 'cos the singing potatoes got me in that kind of mood but everything has a price attached. A choice only becomes a decision after it's been made and for every choice we make, we close off another option. You make a choice to not eat meat and in the process, you deprive yourself of the pleasure. That's fine and I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, I'm just using that to illustrate a point. When you make a choice to do one thing, you automatically make a choice to not do something else. And that's a price. Everything has a price, whether it's what you eat, smoke, pop, snort. Even learning comes with a price because you can't ever unlearn something. I'd love to not have to know that there are monsters in the world but, having learned that, there's a price for that knowledge, you have to do something about it. Did you know that the more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to suffer from a mental illness? I have an IQ of between 152 and 165 (depending on the test), that puts me in the genius category but the price I pay for that is Major Depressive Disorder, a mental illness where death is a real and possible outcome. That's the price. Because everything has a price. And that's ok to me. I'll pay that price. Because I intend to skid across the finish line of this race at 200mph with my hair on fire and a smoke clenched between my teeth.

For me, it's a quantity vs. quality issue.

I gave up smoking when I was still in my 20s because although it might not in the end have that much effected the quantity of my life, it was already affecting the quality.

Physical fitness and the ability to do physically challenging things is very important to me. Probably more so than other people. So, I make some sacrifices others might not be willing to make.

I know I'll have to slow down at some point. At 43, I already have a bit. Even so, I can now go on a cross-country run and feel far less kicked in the ass by it than I would have at 27, because back then I smoked, but now, I don't. In fact, back then, I doubt I could have gone on the run at all -- because of the smoking. So, even though I enjoyed smoking, it was a quality of life issue for me.

Also, I see my Dad -- who is pushing 74, and still goes on extended outdoor adventures and hunting trips that some 20-somethings might find too challenging. And, that bodes well for me, I guess. Plus, he made some pretty good health choices -- including diet, over the years that I've tried to make as well.

Oct 25, 2010 -- 7:50AM, Guessses wrote:

Oct 25, 2010 -- 12:19AM, mytmouse57 wrote:

Oct 20, 2010 -- 7:40PM, Guessses wrote:

Life: No one gets out of here alive.

No body gets out alive.

But, what is life, really?

From a certian perspective, it hasn't even started yet.

It does indeed. There are very few in recorded history that supposedly took their body with them. 

Why would you want to?

Use it for its intended purpose -- here and now. It's simply a means to an end on this plane of existance, as far as I'm concerned.

Oct 25, 2010 -- 5:28PM, Guessses wrote:

Oct 25, 2010 -- 5:27PM, mytmouse57 wrote:

Oct 25, 2010 -- 7:50AM, Guessses wrote:

Oct 25, 2010 -- 12:19AM, mytmouse57 wrote:

Oct 20, 2010 -- 7:40PM, Guessses wrote:

Life: No one gets out of here alive.

No body gets out alive.

But, what is life, really?

From a certian perspective, it hasn't even started yet.

It does indeed. There are very few in recorded history that supposedly took their body with them. 

Why would you want to?

Use it for its intended purpose -- here and now. It's simply a means to an end on this plane of existance, as far as I'm concerned.

I concur!

I would only add, that the better you treat this bio-mechanical contraption you've been given for this stage of your journey, the more you'll tend to get out of it.