What exactly is wrong with the way cattle are raised and handled for slaughter? Me thinks you watched some hit piece highlighting the bad exceptions to the rule.
I can handle tofu and even like it in certain Asian food dishes but it isn't an acceptable replacement for meat. It's virtually cottage cheese made with soy instead of milk. I've seen it made on commercial scale, it's kinda gross.
I can appreciate needing to cut out milk or dairy for health reasons but the way dairy cows are typically treated is ridiculously good so I hope that isn't your reason.
What show(s) did you watch that tainted your opinions of meat or the way animals are treated? Seriously, I want to watch them.
I mean, yeah, I agree about tofu, because I saw it being made on some PBS show the other day. Definitely not appetizing to watch. We just fried some last night in olive oil because I had some in a rice bowl in a Vietnamese restaurant recently & it was amazing. Turned out pretty good on our end... the GF loved it.
As far as the treatment of animals goes: it's just an ethical issue for me. My girlfriend absolutely adores animals so she hates the thought of eating them. It also means we have a ton of pets. We recently got a rat because she had one as a kid & loved it. She's also been wanting a hairless animal (we have lots of guinea pigs) & she saw a hairless rat being sold as a feeder rat for snakes. The concept of an animal being sold just to be given as food to another makes me kind of sad. I know, circle of life, yada yada. I guess I'm a softie. But the concept of raising an animal their whole life just to take them to be killed so we can eat them doesn't sit well with me. It just is what it is. But even done humanely, that seems like a cruel, crappy end to their life. And of course I'd sooner free range for the chickens rather than being cooped up in a gigantic building where they barely have room to stretch their legs.
@NM11046 yeah, I realize that. Ultimately if I go back to eating more meats I'd like to buy that kind of stuff. It has always been a goal of mine. We just can't really afford to right now on two broke college kids budgets.
I haven't really watched anything that's dramatically changed my mind on the subject. One that I watched recently that kind of spurred us to do it was called
What the Health on Netflix. I'm a science guy, so I was naturally pretty dubious about of a lot of the claims in the documentary, but it was still interesting.
The rest is just if you want to read my ramblings on why I'm at where I'm at with this.
For instance, the main guy had several instances throughout where he finds one study that fits his premise & then attempts to call major organizations like the American Diabetes Association and asking why their advice contradicted his one study. That's a bit ridiculous.
But he also get the chance to sit down with a couple spokespeople on camera from these advocacy groups to ask them pointed (if easily disputed) questions about nutrition, and these people absolutely refused to engage. It was shocking to see spokespeople shut down & just refuse to discuss things with someone, even if they had an agenda. They were rude, IMO. I expected more from these people as professionals.
It was also pointed out the Dairy Checkoff program pays money for fast food places to put more and more cheese on their stuff. It's a rare free-market moment from me, but it seems weird for the government to prop up an industry. I've similarly grown to dislike the ethanol subsidies over time. On further inspection, it seems dairy farmers & importers pay into the checkoff program to fund it, but it seems the government still oversee it. In general I think Americans would be better off if most foods had slightly less cheese...?
They also pointed out how some of the big advocacy groups (chiefly the ADA, the American Cancer Society & the American Heart Association) take a TON of support from Big Pharma. I'm not saying it's not good to support these places. I'd rather have Big Pharma money helping them than pushing more drugs on people. But my take on this is similar to how I feel about curing cancer: Did you ever see the episode of Family Guy where Lois's dad gets cancer & miraculously cured? Brian confronts him on it & he basically tells him it's far more profitable to treat cancer than cure it. Thus a cure for cancer is going to eat a big chunk of Big Pharma's profit margins.
My main beef is with the ADA: they are happy to help people live WITH their condition rather than take steps that could potentially reverse it. You can't make that case for cancer or heart disease. But there is a chance someone could reduce or eliminate their need for Type 2 diabetes meds with diet & exercise choices. But that would eat into the diabetes med market, which is massive.
There was also an MD in the doc who claimed there are some fairly immediate, radical changes on the progression of cardiovascular disease with a switch to a plant-based diet. I'm looking into this further to see if there's truth to it.
I'm hoping this doesn't sound conspiratorial, but it just gave me a lot to think about. In general I just came away thinking a more plant-based diet couldn't possibly be bad. It hasn't slowed down my strength at all - given, I'm slowly transitioning that way - but I just hit a new max on bench yesterday.
:lol: 
