Comments for Students veg out at http://tracypress.com , comment 1 to 82 out of 20 comments http://tracypress.com Sun, 11 May 2008 23:25:36 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-41259 well thats really disappointing that Saras picture is there and not the kids who actually participated in the meatout... she wasn't apart of it... :( - vikki Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:29:42 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40908 Amy To answer your question, my vegan friends actually feed their pets a vegan diet and amazingly enough the animals thrive. Unfortunately many of their carnivorous reptiles and fish can’t do this with their digestive metabolism so my vegan friends who own those types of pets have to compromise and purchase rodents or brine shrimp that have been humanely dispatched and frozen to provide food for those animals. And strangely enough, even though the material is out there for all to see and hear, none of my vegan or ova-lacto vegetarian friends publically denounces anyone who is a meat eater and those who have are quickly admonished not to do so by their vegan friends as that is not the way to make quick changes in the general population’s lifestyles. Dave Hardesty My apologies for the length of my blogs here. I feel it is an important topic and I only want to be clear in my statements. That's hard to do and still have meaning. Thanks to all for their indulgence. - Dave Hardesty Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:47:15 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40907 animallover cont. But please don’t ask me or others to follow some militant diatribe about the inhumane treatment of animals as a source of protean and compromise your position by still doing any business, either direct or indirect that promotes the usage of animal protean as a diet. It’s hypocritical, you know it, I know it and more importantly the very people you are trying to reach to convert to a vegan diet know it and the vast majority of them will reject your message completely. Look, I am trying to help you in your cause by showing you a way where you can get the same thing accomplished by winning people to your side instead of turning them off from the get go by attacking their way of life because they eat meat. I wish you only success in improving the lives of living things that are incapable of doing it for themselves. That is a nobel cause. I am simply attempting to show you a better way where you don't turn off people in the process is all. I hope you can see that. Dave Hardesty - Dave Hardesty Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:43:17 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40906 animallover cont. Awareness to inhumane treatment of animals is very important and in this we have common ground. As one who has been through the slaughtering process it can certainly be done more humanely than what we read in the news but you also have to remember that what you see in the news are the abortions in society, most of which are breaking the very laws many of us have created to prevent such things form occurring. But to say all meat related industries stoop to such practices is also incorrect because in fact most are following the laws concerning the treatment of animals otherwise the inspectors on these sites, who are there on a daily basis, would close them down. You may say the laws do not go far enough and that may be true. But you need to foster a method whereby you can win others to your argument rather than attacking their lifestyle as being immoral or wrong. Otherwise it will be more difficult for you to change those laws as people will turn off your message before it is even fully heard. Now inspectors, like any other faction of humanity, can and do shirk their duties, but that too is the exception and not the rule and it is illogical to assume they all do it for no other reason than they can be fined and even incarcerated for allowing those violations of the law to continue. Now you might decide to open up your own food store that only sells plant based materials and absolutely no animal byproducts at all and pass out literature promoting the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle and I would be more than happy to trade at such an establishment. - Dave Hardesty Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:40:32 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40905 animallover cont. I will not argue the health benefits of being vegan and or even ova-lacto vegetarian for it is proven beyond doubt of the health benefits that come with that lifestyle. What I object to is the way some vegans and ova-lacto vegetarians go about in attempting to show others a better way of life. I would also comment that many who cater to the vegan or vegetarian pallet do so from a profit motive that is not genuine concern for anything other than money as well. For one, just take a look at pricing of foods that or organic or vegan and vegetarian consumption. The same weight protean from meat is much cheaper. You made this illustration in one of your comments. Given these animals eat vegetable materials and convert that into meat protean for consumption, patently a wasteful and expensive process to get protean from plant materials into the human diet from a perspective of efficiency, it should be self evident that the same amount of protean directly from plant based materials should be cheaper than funneling it through an animal and obtaining it from meat consumption. But it isn't. A vegan diet, as you probably know but may not because you don't consume meat, is at least a third more expensive to fund than one whereby your protean comes consuming meat. While you may be able to afford the luxury of supporting your vegan choice, you also need to be aware that many more people cannot afford that type of lifestyle and if they have never been exposed to veganism or vegetarianism in their upbringing, changing to such a lifestyle is extremely difficult if not financially impossible for them. - Dave Hardesty Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:39:56 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40904 animallover You are correct and it was my mistake. I had intended to ask you and for some reason in the edit accidentally omitted the question so you do have my apology for that error. And I do agree there are vegetarian foods available on the shelves of stores like Safeway and even in Save Mart as well and am very glad to see it. But the point I am making is that all of the stores you have mentioned encourage the consumption of meat and animal byproducts in all of the rest of the products of their stores for without them their stores would quickly exist. So they, and you, compromise. They offer vegetarian foods to a scant but growing customer base, as it has been increasingly easier for someone like myself and my church member friends to find these products locally, but only in the last ten years or so, and we compromise by trading in stores that continue to sell meat and animal byproducts in order to stay in business. If you shop anywhere in Tracy, to my knowledge, you are just as guilty of supporting your alleged inhumane treatment of animals simply by trading at these stores and helping them stay in business to support the businesses of slaughtering animals for food and other byproducts as the person who also trades at those same stores who is a meat eater. From reading your above posts you seem to encourage people not to support these businesses and yet you seem to be doing the same thing by your suggestion I look in Safeway, Save Mart and health food stores, unless you grow all of your own food and ensure you shop in stores that do not sell any meat or animal byproducts of which there are none in Tracy that fit that category of business. - Dave Hardesty Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:39:08 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40871 mr. hardesty, not only have you irritated me, but you shall get me vote for council :-* good words amy, if you are of a certain persuation, i thinkz leavin' me will be the AMAZN AZZN ;) I have always liked her taste. mays, there is so much love for Mssr H and the hottie amy, that I just can't muster the energy. What they sez. IMHO - IMHO08 Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:45:07 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40851 To clarify what I said about shopping. If such business opens supporting the cause for animals, I would shop there, giving them support to see that the animals get more humane treatments.. but there is no such business like that in Tracy, yet? If there were, more people would be enlightened and will have made that choice.. like your way, or other way. Have a good rest of the day. -amy - amy Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:14:50 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40843 To animallover. Glad to hear that you are trying to make the world a better place. Need more people like that. I do eat pork, chicken and beef. Couldn't live without it. I have two cats by the way. Would not want to eat them though. Cats and dogs were domesticated way back by the Egyptians. Cats were a god to them. - Dog Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:54:43 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40836 Dave Hardesty, I like it when you offer solution: Dave Hardesty's paragraph: "While it would be nice if we had some of those types of stores in the area, I cannot think of a single one, including the one on 11th street, that don’t have some type of animal byproduct offered for sale and I do shop there." I would shop there, and they could pass information out on animal issues show us the alternate lifestyle for those who chose to be vegetarians. I like it when people try to find solution to bring us closer to the answer to the problem to make the lives easier, the more shoppers, the more awareness, it would be nice to see, "Green Store" .. Organic stores, and so many opportunities available in the City of Tracy. We just need to find a way to get the visitors to wanting to visit Tracy, that will happen, when foot traffic increases, businesses will have opened. animallover, pls don't respond to this, this is for DH and others. But I am curious, what do vegetarians pets eat if meat is a no-no in their diet? - amy Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:36:35 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40823 Stick with the animal issues. Inhumane overcrowding and killing vs Humane free roaming and mercy killing. STICK WITH THE ISSUES! - Jeffrey Dahmer people eater Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:17:31 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40821 Open your pie hole wider, gotta stuff apple in! - Jeffrey Dahmer Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:05:34 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40813 DAVE HARDESTY I would have responded the question if it had been asked. Look at your post before you accuse me of anything. I am vegan, I do not wear fur, leather, wool, silk, buy products that animal test or eat any animal byproducts. I am well aware of how to live a vegan lifestyle. If you look in safeway, savemart, the health food store etc, they all have a vegetarian/vegan section, maybe you should check it out. I think it's great that things have improved, but they are still not good enough. Did women settle when they got the right to vote? No they still kept fighting for equal rights and still do today. What would happen if everyone just settled for mediocre conditions, then nothing would have ever changed. The majority of meat does not come from those lovely "family farms", that's a thing of the past though a small percentage do still exist. Meat companies are made with one thing in mind, money. That is why chickens are crammed into tiny cages and pregnant pigs don't even have enough room to move around. It's so they can fit as many animals as possible to make as much money as possible. If asking for well thought arguments is accusatory or self-rightous, then that's just sad. But then again that it is the reason Socrates was put on trial and executed, because people couldn't stand to be told to defend or provide evidence to support their argument. I have defended every position I have given and have asked the same of others. - animallover Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:35:31 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40812 Jeffry Dahmer, why don't you provide an argument instead of making pointless jokes. Cats, dogs etc were domesticated a long time ago, was that right? No, but they are. So now it's our responsibility to care for them and watch out for their well being even though we do a crappy job with that. DOG: If you would have read one of my earlier posts you would have known that I already answered that question but just to please you, I will again. I intern for a humans rights organization, specifically domestic violence. I work with children who have been affected by the violence. I've gone to various events to raise awareness about the suffering of humans in various parts of the world, like the Global Night Commute, ending the genocide in Darfur etc. - animallover Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:35:20 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40799 animallover cont. Your obviously self-righteous and accusatory posts completely illustrate my point in that perhaps you should “concentrate more on the healthful benefits of being vegan, and teaching that from example, instead of pointing out the flaws in someone else's lifestyle. You would probably get a lot further.” Convince them by example with sweetness, compassion and love instead of brow beating them over the head and sanctimoniously pointing out their problems when no doubt you have problems of your own that need some work. In short, perhaps you should wipe the mote out of your own eyes so you can see clearly to remove the beam from the eyes of your fellow man. Oh, by the way, having lived longer than you I have seen significant improvement on the way that animals are managed today compared to what went on in the 50s and 60s. Not all of these "farms" are guilty of the heinous methods of animal cruelty you have suggested here. In fact most companies run good businesses if for no other reasons than people like my self have enacted laws to prevent them from doing so. It's not a perfect world and never will be but things are not as bad as they were several decades ago. Dave Hardesty - Dave Hardesty Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:05:22 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40798 animallover Do you even want to go down the pathway regarding supporting companies that do bad things in the creation of their products or cause bad things to happen to their customers in the name of profit? Hum, let me see, Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi-Co, Heineken, Johnson & Johnson, Heinz, GM, DuPont and a whole host of others that you probably support by purchasing their products either directly or indirectly come to mind. And being that you are demanding an answer from these people I will remind you I ask YOU if you were vegan or ova-lacto and you have not responded. It seems a little unfair for you to expect others to answer your pointed questions and then have you get upset at them when they don’t, when you do the same. Unless you shop or obtain your food and supplies from businesses that have absolutely no usage of animal products, either for food or clothing or in any portion of the other products they sell, makes you a hypocrite to suggest that others should be doing the same and those people will reject your argument no matter how sound or factual it may be. While it would be nice if we had some of those types of stores in the area, I cannot think of a single one, including the one on 11th street, that don’t have some type of animal byproduct offered for sale and I do shop there. Hopefully you can comprehend that when you go to a business that serves or sells any animal byproducts for consumption and only order salad or only plant fiber for wear, you are still supporting those businesses, the businesses that are exploiting the usage of animals and their byproducts for profit and thereby lead to the so called inhumane treatment of animals you are so passionately concerned with. - Dave Hardesty Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:04:57 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40788 Ditto, h! (If any member of PETA throws any blood or V-8 or red paint on my person or my family member, I will have lawsuit waiting for you!) - Jeffry Dahmer Tue, 25 Mar 2008 06:54:00 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40787 animallover you have pets? Why, animals are kept in cages.. you support cruelty. - Jeffry Dahmer Tue, 25 Mar 2008 06:29:46 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40784 To animallover. And what are YOU doing to improve the life of humans. I am eating chickens, cows and pigs as a way of animal control. We don't want them to take over the world do we? - Dog Tue, 25 Mar 2008 06:07:10 +0100 http://tracypress.com/content/view/13988/2242/#comment-40783 animallover, you corn fed? - Jeffry Dahmer Tue, 25 Mar 2008 06:06:42 +0100