30 Days Forums

He came there, with his "conservative republican" attitude, and he wasn't wow'ed by the radical arguments presented to him. He didn't react to the whole "animals are exactly the same as people", because that's pretty damn radical for most people. The "radical" viewpoints flaw was definitely shown. In the beginning of the episode, all the people he met weren't seeing it objectively. Just check the hitler killing jews"-comparison with the animals. The holocaust has absolutely nothing to do with the meat&fur-discussion.

What changed his mind, as with what would change most peoples mind, is the "moderate viewpoint". He said it perfectly, "it's just that I see this suffering, and it's unneccessary". Getting people to become vegan is hard, however, you can get people to support industries that treat animals better.

I belong to the "moderate" school of thought on this. Yes, meat is unneccessary, everybody should eat soy, but we shouldn't use cigarettes, alcohol, gamble etc either, and it's hard to make everybody quit today. But does that mean the situation can't be improved? Definitely not.

In Sweden (where I live), it's become very trendy and popular to buy friendlier products. Eggs from hens that get a little space to move, ecological products, fairtrade products, eco-jeans etc. By paying a little more for the product, the company notices that the consumer cares about things like the environment, workers conditions, treatment of animals, and the company feels the pressure to prove that they care. If people just go for the cheapest price, you get poor treatment of animals, toxic waste dumped in the river near you, and bad conditions for the people working for the company.

It's all about the money, and if consumers show companies that there's money to be made in caring about these things, they will try to be the friendliest, best, most accountable company in the field. Promoting ecological products etc makes a much bigger impression on the market than avoiding the market completely.

If you saw Super-Size Me, you know how little meat and dairy is actually in fast food. (Look at Morgan's vitamin intake chart. Pause it. Even with over 5000 calories, the only one he met the RDA for was vitamin C, from some orange juice at breakfast. B12 was notably absent.)

My main criticism of Super-Size Me was that they interviewed a guy from PCRM. I don't think fast food has used real milk since the 80s, so to say casein (which does have an opiate-like effect when injected) is behind fast food addiction is flawed. Actual fast food addiction can be blamed on plain old glucose. And the elaidic acid in the oil just sets up the mechanisms to make glucose more addictive.