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  • "No force-feeding, no factory-like conditions, no cruelty..." Until it comes time to kill the bird and remove the liver, right? If we're going to eat meat let's be honest about the cruelty of slaughtering animals for food "because they're so freakin' delicious." I'm not opposed to eating animals or foie gras, but come on, it's cruel to kill something and eat it.

  • @browntran for me it isn't cruel to kill something to EAT it, for me it relies on how you do it, for example the north american meat industry, how they kill animals for mass production in contrast there is Kobe beef or Kosher meat or butcheries where animals live surrounded by nature with enough space for each one instead of crowded rooms without light and where they eat genetically modified food; also there is gabage in France and natural foie gras in Spain and USA,

  • @browntran they are trying to find a solution where people who enjoy eating meat can do it, but still be human doing eat, I don't see people feeling guilty when the step on an ant, but it's entirely the same as a cow, or even the grass, we are surrounded by living organisms, not moving to avoid harming others wouldn't be the solution, just being conscious about it, how, when, why, where, for whom we do it. and don't do it unless we have to.

  • How do I get this naturally raised Foie gras! I want to eat some. I haven't eaten foie gras in years because of how it's produced.

    

  • @Fallensky57 I'm a healthy veggie (28 around years), partly for moral reasons. People now over eat meat (full of saturated fat), produced by factory farming, leading to unhealthy diets and animals suffering.

    I respect people who hunt for food and are aware of more reality's, most don't/can't, and if everyone did it would also be unsustainable

    Youtube "Dan Barber: How I fell in love with a fish" to explore better larger scale production of meat.

  • I'm a vegetarian because,

    a/ I can choose not to eat fellow animals, b/ the animals are treated as factory product, c/ it is damaging earth.

    However, I think Dans ideas are part of the solution to a sensible, sustainable, aware and caring future.

  • FOIE.

  • I love finally I saw something interesting and smart the way they fead the goose, this video show how natural these geese can change the way the other people are force feeding the geese. but these geese live a free live is the best way to treat the animal

  • He loved his geese soooo much that he took their livers...

  • @astephiesteph would you say the same to a broccoli farmer? he loves planting his broccoli so much that he just cuts them in the end.

    Just 'cuz ducks have an anatomy a bit closer to us (made out of meat) doesn't mean they are more of a living creature than a plant is. Plants communicate in different ways (chemical concoctions) so they appear to us as a "non-living" creature.

    We live off food, we will die eventually, so does geese. Would you rather the geese live a horrible life while they live?

  • @maniacguitar This is such a silly argument, a lazy smoke screen to justify your comfort zone and appetite.

    There are levels of awareness within life, and levels of suffering. If you cannot see the difference between a broccoli and a dog's ability to feel, you got to be blind.

  • Perhaps the solution is population control. Sorry folks, but we can't take a happy pill and wish for organic wholesome products for the "community" . Put your hand over your heart and be honest, how many poor families can afford to go to the Farmer's Market and buy a pound of tomatoes for $3.00 or the organic onions at $2.00 a pound when they can visit the ONE AND ONLY store in their neighborhood and get TWICE as much or more for the SAME amount of money.

  • @Rociero1968 I don't understand your comment re population control, do you mean wild animals or just humans?

    The whole direction of factory farming and monoculture brings such huge problems in many ways. Please Youtube "Dan Barber: How I fell in love with a fish" for some of the possible alternatives. I agree that our current methods with Organic farming offers no solution, more a feel good factor for people that can afford it.

  • @Rociero1968 Most organic farming is small business. that's why organic is expensive. Huge commercial farming conglomerates feed off of Federal Tax dollars in the form of farm subsidies. So... the food isn't really "cheap".... you and I are paying for it through taxes. I would really like the farm subsidies to end... like how some people don't like universal health care? So why should my tax dollars go to giant corporations that really don't need it?

  • Seriously its time for us Japanese to restart listening to "nature's operating instructions" like Eduardo does.

  • putting vegetable peelings, leaf cutting, lawn mowings in my compost bin produces an incredible amount of insect life all breaking everything down  to a teeming pulsating mass of life. Put this in the garden and what grows is full of energy.Couldn't be simpler and more meaningful imo. Every plant, insect , animal and human benefits within this generous environment .

  • Also I dont think its natural to sustain ourselves on vegetables alone in a natural environment as unlike most of the wildlife that can, we cannot digest alot of the plants out there that say a deer or rabbit could just as we cannot probably eat the same amount of rotten meat that a coyote could which is why we are OMNIVOROUS and designed to optimally eat both meat and plants. So I will eat meat as I see it as a moral and vital link to optimal health and a natural moral choice as I'm a omnivour

  • The only thing that drives me nuts however are the insistant vegans and mindless PETA drones that push there views on others and equate meat eaters to the levle of murderers. Just because we can survive without meat with modern intervention, I dont believe that in any way it is natural as human evolution has been argued to stem from the consumption of meat that differed us from our Simple vegan foragers of our ancestors and thus the beginnings of our current levle of intelligence.

  • I do believe alot of the factory farms have taken the production of meat into new levles of cruelty for the animals, however I don't see the problem getting any better considering the overpopulation of the world by humans at the moment, we'll have to take care of that problem later....

    I do like how the video shows that it isn't nescessary to inflict cruel and industrious practices just to get a great product, which is why I wish I could farm for myself, After all, I can only hunt so much.

  • Wow... Gave me a different perspective of Foie Gras.

    and that presenter was awesome.

  • @kinguther0 Agree completely. Awesome video. Only problem with Foie Gras like this, is the way it can become too intense in flavour.

  • Really good speech about this difficult issue. How ever problematic the interest in just a small part of a goose may be - here is the prove to have an ecologially and morally better way to attain it. We don't have to forbid eveything, but we have to think about what we eat, where it comes from and how the animals are treated.

    You may also watch the multimedia page of the Pateria de Sousa, it is very interesting too!

  • 500 bucks a kilo for Eduardo's confit

    im so glad to see ethical treatment of animals brought to the forefront by someone other than hippies

    sustainable agriculture is vital for sustainable human existance

  • @Reggieworth Where find that out? I'd like to buy some.

  • @chefkoo

    youve got mail

  • This is very cool.  Goes to show that it's possible to balance taste and treating the animals humanely.

  • i had raider the first time but i failed and now i have the new girl

  • This video was sent to me by a friend who has a goose farm. Note that I am vegetarian and love birds. Well, she loves her birds too. She cries at harvest. We need to remember that farmers feed us. There is a Buddhist quote, something like "don't hate the butcher if you eat the meat." I think this is an incredible message and believe Eduardo's message of listening to nature should be brought to prominence in this country and elsewhere.

  • Dan Barber is one of the most important chefs this world has right now.

  • i used to prepare 100kg duck and 50kg goose foie gras a day - so does it make me the devil incarnate?

    foodies are just amateurs - but gastronomes rule the planet !!!!!

    i never let my chefs molest the animals either ( at least when they are alive).

  • Eating foie gras is equal to child molestation? I don't like foie gras but you need to get some perspective.

  • oh god! this video is part of CIA gastronomy assignment

  • lol. i have dan barber for my CIA gastro project right now!

  • who is ur gastronomy instructor?

  • i had Raider too. i'm in skill3 now

  • woah... i think your in my block! i have wasser. but are you in the second half of B block?

  • yeah. i'm in the second half. i have raider. at 7 in the am.

  • It's best with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

  • kooooool. well, good luck!! i hope my project goes well.

  • asking the reasonable questions "is this wrong?", "is this cruel?", "is this cruelty necessary?" and "can i take part in this process in a state of good conscience" before concluding "it just tastes so good!" should help you see that the potential suffering and unwilling termination of a sentient life supersedes your already overfed apatite.

    that's the mistake that child molesters make. they don't consider another conscious being's potential suffering before satisfying their own desires.

  • It would were not for the fact that my answers to those questions differ greatly from yours.

  • you're ignorant. what does that have anything to do with the fact that there is someone who is using the ideals of honest farming which used a symbiotic relationship with nature to benifit both sides. less profit for the immediate time but more profit over longer period of time with the security that it creates for a long term business plan.

  • If we are to believe mr. Barber, the judges of the coup de coeur thought highly otherwise. So ... have you tasted Eduardo's foie gras and compared it to regular foie gras?

    ...or are you just sporting an antithesis just because you see it fit?

  • @eloquentdiamond if you watched the end of the speech he says he tasted it and thought it was the best he's ever had

  • @TJM459 This was written before the "@"-system (I have since aquired a new username). I should assume my comment was directed towards some unbeliever, not Barber himself - I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

    I hope that if you see my comment in the light of being adressed to a skeptical youtube-user, it will make more sense^^

  • @TJM459 This was written before the "@"-system (I have since aquired a new username). I should assume my comment was directed towards some unbeliever, not Barber himself - I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

    I hope that if you see my comment in the light of being adressed to a skeptical youtube-user, it will make more sense^^ Dan Barber is an excellent presenter, and I urge everyone to also enjoy his talk about a fish love declaration.

  • Comment removed

  • Jews inventing Fois Gras is a bit of a fairy tale, sure it may have originated in Ancient Egypt, but since historical evidence shows that the jews were never in egypt, well... anyway that's neither here nor there...

    The Last 2 minutes of this talk are among my favourites of any TED.

    Great session all around.

  • Folks, are you collectively knuckleheads? Did you not actually watch this lecture? You are bantering about whether or not there is morality in our meat-eating habits but not getting the real message here, having little to do with liver or animals and everything to do with the fact that we've forgotten more about tending the Earth than science has taught us.

  • Over the past three years( same amount of time I've been unemployed) I've had the chance to Sit back and watch the Hustle and Bustle of "life" as I knew it from a spectators view. There are so many Unnatural habits people have adopted to increase production and speed of production.. Always at the expense of quality and environment. It's a pleasure to hear the story of Eduardo and his consideration of his geese as they do what they do. Live.

  • @lesvictor The ecological movement is not without its hypocrites and reactionaries, who glean their understanding of food from a few sensational books and blogs. It's dangerous.

  • be a vegetarian, not a murderer. sorry for the truthful opinion. we have the technology not to have to eat animals now. so why not do it.

    believe that eating animals is along the same lines a believing in creationism.

  • What about insects, or oysters, or crabs? Or is only immoral to eat the cuddly animals?

  • anything that feels or has been subjected to "pain" in order you to benefit i would consider disgusting, unless you had no other option to survive.

    but last time i checked surviving isn't on my list of worries.

  • If you, personally, consider it disgusting then don't partake in meat-eating. Equating the act of taking another human's life to eating fried chicken crosses the line of sane argument.

  • you are arrogant enough to say that an animals life is worth less than a humans life. this is cultural insanity. I'm using logic. your the one adhering to needless traditions and opinions.

  • Culture insanity and arrogance is taking your own personal morals and foisting them upon others. Funny how a plant's life is some how different than a cow's life. Or a bacterium. No one is forcing you to eat meat, why do you feel the need to try and force others not to?

  • yeah but plants don't go through unbearable pain do they.... a bit of a shitty comparison there. i think you and i know the difference between a what a plant feels and what a cow feels when it's getting killed.... stop being so pedantic.

    How can a cultural opinion be a personal moral?

    What you're doesn't make sense ...

    it's like me saying it's ok  to fuck kids because thats my own personal moral, and if anyone wants to tell me otherwise then thats them foisting there personal morals on me

  • to your last question : No one is forcing you to eat meat, why do you feel the need to try and force others not to? which is worse? forcing someone not to eat meat or forcing an animal to die so that you can have a burger that you don't appreciate.

    i believe the upsides to this argument are better than the downsides...

  • Fascism is worse than eating meat. End of story.

  • I'm afraid that when you think with logic instead of greed you will see otherwise....

    would you say that a law that says that i can kill a child and eat it is fascist....

    you don't have an argument....

    you can't edify murder in a culture that has our potential.

  • A lot of animals play with their "meat" before it dies, just for kicks, making it suffer terribly. What do you have to say about that? Sole survival?

  • two wrongs don't make a right...

  • Do you think animals doing that are offensive and evil?

  • the word "evil" has religious connotations attached, so no. how do you mean offensive, offensive to me, to the animal? you don't fully make yourself clear.

    my argument is that if you have a sense of logic and ethics you should pursue that instead of base fetishes.

    We may be human, But we are still animals.

    why do we not cannibalize our own?

  • Why talk about cannibalizing? You talk about "right". A lion playing around with it's victim before killing it off; is that right? If animals were humans they'd do exactly what we do because of course animals have no moral values. Our own sense of value projectet on animals is a somewhat intern thing among our own species and nothing else than that. You can only do this for your own conscience and not for that of the animal.

  • Lions don't make their prey suffer for a life-time.

    And I love how you dodged johnyprestige's "two wrongs don't make a right"

  • But they do make a deeeeelicous pate.

  • This farmer, Eduardo Sousa, is a prime example of the ingenious in-motion. The man wanted to make good fois grois (never wanted to eat the stuff-- especially after they showed that slide) without the cruelty. I don't know what's more amazing, the fact he triggered (almost intuitively) the goose's "thrive & proliferate" instinct, or how he worked out the problems of gene pool-stagnancy by evoking their socialization (hey, food's here!) or that he did this all w/ a reversed electric fence & land.

  • murderer

  • I dare you to visit a group of survivors whom have lost loved ones to murder and see how they feel about your opinion, you spineless twit.

  • I love these TED presentations.

    If I watch 10 in a week, it's like gavage for my mind. lol

    Still feel a bit sorry for these geese though, they think they've found paradise, but they're for the chop.

    Excellent presentation though. Made me yearn for a bit of nature.

  • Jews did not invent Foie Gras.

  • What BS, the Jews didn't invent foie gras. Ancient Egyptians, definitely. jews...no. they've done amazing things, but they don't need to take credit for everything.

  • "This is true right of the internet" I think it was a tongue in cheek parable.

  • You starve someone long enough their morals for the death of a animal dies pretty quick.

  • you starve someone long enough their morals for the death of their own family dies pretty quick too. :)

  • Right about now, I'm visualizing certain vegan's livers with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

    You pseudo-moralistic pricks sit there with all the comforts of the unnatural society you condemn, and pass judgment on huge parts of humanity who absolutely don't have the easy choices of your dietary options. Our branch of primates evolved with meat on the menu - the proof is not only in our dentition, but in digestive enzymes that have no use for processing vegetarian matter.

  • Now I want my blue ketchup and crystal pepsi back starring at neon yellow foie-gras.

    (Yeah, I know this TED is about using natural procedures to improve food, not chemicals)

  • My problem with vegans (vegetarians are usually less obnoxious) is that they take their lifestyle choice and present it to the rest of the world as moral doctrine. I don't like being preached to no matter what the subject.

    Being told by a vegan that eating something tasty is immoral and makes me comparable to a nazi is just as bad as a religious fanatic telling me that having sex when and how I want will earn me a ticket to hell.

  • no it isn't, because one relies on logic and the other relies on ignorance.

  • They still both impose personal morals onto other people, which, to me, seems more wrong than eating a burger.

  • would torturing a human be moral? no.. this would be "wrong"

    what is the difference between animals and humans? there is no difference other than intelligence, language, and thumbs.

    is it moral to breed a sentient being for the sole purpose shoving them into our greedy mouths when when have the technology now to not have to eat meat. Would you like to be eaten by a more intelligent race than humans that doesn't have to eat you?,

    this is not a "personal moral", this is logic and empathy.

  • Foie gras really is very cruel and should be banned outright, but for all you vegans out there if was there ever was prove that humans should be allowed to eat meat without feeling guilt, take a look at those four canines in your gob, which the evolution process has formed for our body to maintain itself properly. The sole purpose of these teeth is to tare flesh. My point being that for a human to be healthy we need both meat and vegetables.

  • I did watch the video. I still dislike it.

    Look, the farmer in this video may treat his animals better than others, but that doesn't make it right.

    Compare it with a honest slave-owner: "Oh, hes such a loving adorable person, he treats his slaves good!" and you just might get the point.

  • well said, krrcan

  • As a spokesperson for ethics, Barber is a cut above

  • I keep a garden, which acts like a band-aid to my open wound caused by 'fast food', microwave dinners, but, this man, goes the extra step to fulfill the vacuum in the culinary status quo. Food in the most pure, most delicate, and most beautiful form is what makes life special.

  • it's a fatty diseased liver from a dead bird body ... it's disgusting ... have you ever looked at road kill and salivated? ... didn't think so ... because it's NOT natural for humans to eat dead bodies ... xoxo

  • don't go vegan on me!

  • As Louross of Hell's Kitchen (Season 4) said, "Make love to the fish!"

    His Foie Gras is about expressing nature, in its purest form, not about romanticizing brutality. As a chef, it brings tears to my eyes seeing such dedication, such love of the earth and its creatures.

  • romanticism of brutality.

  • I thought it was a good talk. Just because I don't agree with the point of view doesn't mean his talk was poorly done.

  • Horrible person romanticizing a horrible practice. How on earth did this end up at TED?

    This is an insult to every viewer.

  • try watching it

  • This man is romanticizing a practice that provides a diseased liver which will be removed from a sentient animal to feed to a human being. It is not only unhealthy, it is unnecessary.

  • Did you even watch the video

  • This is not worthy of TED talks. Foie gras is cruel, pure and simple. Not only that, it is unhealthful. A diseased, fatty liver is NOT health food.

  • c 2 the end b4 the blame

  • watch it

  • I was with him for about 10 minutes ... but this guy is the most gullible and least intelligent speaker I've ever seen at TED.

  • Fact is that foie gras being served in restaurants IS A PRODUCT OF FORCED FED GEESE = EXTREME CRUELTY. To listen to nature is to be vegan. With every human that makes changes towards a vegan lifestyle the earth's environment becomes more stable and fruitful for all humans.

  • Janet, if you really "listened to nature", you'd just go off and kill yourself. I'm sure you'd make wonderful fertilizer.

  • JanetKeleher

    There are 10 essential aminoacids that the human must consume for a correct development, 2 of which only come in meat, add to that that most grains on there own don't contain all of the rest of aminoacids. Plus we also need B12, that is found exclusively in meat (vegans have to receive B12 shots monthly) deficiency = Microcitic or Pernicious Anemia and subacute combined spinal cord degeneration. Also, grains and vegetables are usually a very poor source of Niacin = Pellagra.

  • Ha ha. This is so stupid it's barely worth replying too. Vegans don't get B12 shots. Arguably vegans ought to take a B12 supplement but there are millions of vegans who don't and have no health problems. What vegans have FAR more rarely than people who consume animal products are: heart disease, several types of cancer, including breast, prostate and colon and a host of other diseases that are the truly a problem.

  • Show me the double blind studies that prove your claim, there is no medical proof of cancer reduction (diet is not a risk factor for breast or prostate cancer). I'll concede that a high fiber diet reduces the risk of colon cancer though, and yeah, a good low cholesterol diet = less heart attack (but you can still eat meat!) Yet every so often vegans show up at emergency rooms because they can't feel there feet. I doubt there are millions of vegans to start with, vegetarians yes, vegans, jaja.

  • You're poorly informed about diet and disease. It's pretty easy to verify that vegetarian/vegan diets greatly reduce morbidity and mortality from the most common illnesses in our society. I forgot to mention diabetes. Search the American Dietetic Assoication and American Diabetes Association websites. Also, check out yesterdays NY Times about the profound impact of meat-eating on global warming -- not to mention animal cruelty. All in all, a healthy choice for everyone.

  • HA, my food craps on your food :D

  • Putting aside the inevitable terror these poor creatures experience at slaughter time, Dan Barber's claim of "cruelty-free" foie gras seems kind of ridiculous.

    Regardless of how he treats the animals, he's still robbing them of their most important possession: their lives. And it's all because he likes the flavor of their livers—presumably with some fava beans and a nice chianti

  • What worth is an animal life? There are billions upon billions of little teeming lifeforms out there on this planet and all of them are going to die at some point, including you. Perhaps if you could come to terms with that last point you'd be a little more blasé about eating flesh.

  • How does your criteria hold up when reminded that the very same thing is true of human beings?

  • I actually meant that if you could accept your own mortality then you might find it easier to accept eating something that has died. The simple fact of animal death is not the issue, animal welfare is the issue. We need to improve standards of care in animal husbandry.

  • Welfare is important, but it isn't the only issue. The fact that these birds are mortal doesn't make it okay to kill them, any more than the fact that *you're* mortal makes it okay to kill *you*.

  • I wouldn't hold it against a hippopotamus if it killed me to defend its young, nor would I deem a whacking great saltwater crocodile to be morally wrong if it consumed me for sustenance. If a goose managed to kill me it wouldn't be in the wrong.

    In our society, however, we have submitted to the social contract and we're not permitted to kill or even injure each other whatever the reason.

  • The difference is, no one needs to kill geese and eat their livers in order to survive, much less defend their family. Mr. Barber finds nothing wrong with stealing the life of a sentient being for a comparatively trivial reason (he likes the "unctuous" flavor of liver). That's a problem.

    As to laws about killing humans, they're really irrelevant to the question of ethics. If it became legal to torture and kill neighborhood kids, for example, that obviously wouldn't make it okay to do so.

  • ynless there's oil involved

  • Probably not the healthiest food ever.... I'm sure its tasty but I'd never eat something that actually has fat in the name. ^_^

  • foie = liver

    gras = fatty

  • the diseased fatty liver from a dead bird body ... mmm, yummy ... (not)

  • HOW ABOUT FIND NEW WAYS TO AVOID EATING ANIMAL PRODUCTS. quite boring and uninspiring

  • ...why do they let this boring asshole into TED?

  • Because he cooks for them, cleans their house and gives them the best blowjobs ever. I can imagine no other reason.

  • Worst TEDtalk. Ever.

  • insult to history

  • what..?

  • ah okay. I thought you said that this video proves that god exists. Was about to call you crazy.

  • it doesn't, religious fanatics always want everything to prove that god exists. It doesnt prove that, all it proves is that if you treat animals well they will come to you, even if later they are going to be slaughtered.

  • because goodness exists?

  • If you are arguing against Barber, perhaps you should refrain from the "he said it, so if I do it's fair" logic. No one is suggesting you not hold an opinion, nor denying that you should voice it. However when your opinion includes that Mr Barber is a "cunt" (which is completely unrelated to any argument you make), and base all your statements on character judgment instead of arguing facts, it isn't so much making a point as tossing about insults...

  • you are absolutely right Cypherson, I should not let my tempert come into it and i should not insult people, but some of his comments at the begining of this video i found pretty insulting and offensive. Anyway, you are right, i should argue my point without insulting anyone. I appologize to Mr Barber, but i still find some of what he said deeply insulting, and anger is only a sign of caring. I wasn't so much argueing, i was responding to what i saw as a very unfair attitude towards animals.

  • asdf

  • Lesson for life. Get all the facts before you make radical sweeping generalizations and call someone out. Watch the whole thing and you'll see...

    People eat animals, and your opinion dictates your actions, not anyone else's. You forcing your opinion on a meat eating person would be akin to someone forcing you to eat meat.

  • Why should i not be allowed to give my opinion? I am by no means stoping anyone from eating meat, I am simply voicing my opinion.

    Radical? maybe, but humans (or at least some) have enough inteligence to decide what is moraly right or wrong, and breeding animals to kill and eat them when they are not necesary (and are even detrimental) for our survival, just because they taste good is fuckin selfish, hipocritical and fucking stupid. Also Barber makes sweeping statements like the one quoted avobe

  • oh, so sorry that my spelling is not perfect, maybe if i was speaking to you in my first or my second language it would be better, but as it is English is my third language, sorry if i don't spell everything correctly buddy, and yes, i've got so much time in my hands that i should "bust out a dictionary" whenever i have a spelling doubt when writing a fucking comment on youtube. Take care and fuck off medic007

  • Don't 'buddy' me, you foul-mouthed cretin. And get a better hobby in place of trolling YouTube for content you find personally repugnant. Your unenlightening, hateful commentary is not welcome.

  • hey hey, the idiot who complains about spelling mistakes is back, i hope u enjoy being a dick. take care and good day to you BUDDY!

  • Uh... think about it. If a lion was smart enough to grow his own farm of delicious live stock, he'd do it! Yes there is a sense of animal cruelty because we relate with what we think are animal emotions. This is the cycle of life though. I think you are just an over excited panzy who should realize that animals have been hunting other animals. Gorillas also kinda farm animals too. They eat only enough of ants but leave the rest of the mound to refill with ants. Theres a way to solve everything.

  • An animal inteligent enough to build concentration camps (for cows of for people) and capable of becoming a mass murderer (because someone who hunts to survive is just a hunter, but someone who kills thousands of animals a week is a murderer), this kind of animal, the human animal, with its great intellect, must be responsible of its actions. The human animal's natural diet is, if not completely vegetarian, at least mostly vegetarian, and science will backup this statement time and again.

  • The disregard some of you people have for animals is disgusting, "oh, we are inteligent enough to exploit animals so why shouldn't we?" well, because if you are inteligent enough you are also inteligent enough to realize that it is moraly wrong to do so, specially to the extend that the western world does today.

    It is not the cycle of life, VagabonNinja, it is the exploitation of life.

    A lion can't be held responsible for killing another animal, he can't live of vegetables.

  • Also a human who lives according to its true nature, that is living mainly of vegetables, with ocational meet or fish that he himself has gone and hunted, not the stuff that comes already packaged from a concentration camp. A human like this can not be accused as he is living as part of what you (VagabonNinja) call the cycle of life.

    McDonnalds eating fat bastards who eat in a day 3 or 4 times the maximum recomended meat intake per week are completely outside the cycle of life.

  • If they were in the cycle of life they would have been eaten by a lion or some other large animal, a bear maybe, don't you think? those fat bastards can't run very fast or very far and they would serve as a nice meal to another animal. But unfortuantely they aren't really in the cycle of life, they are just the man made, modified cycle of life, were there isn't much of a cycle, just death by desease, you take tremendous amounts from nature but give little to nothing back. Doesnt seem fare to me.

  • And with this i am leaving this conversation, it is very annoying as there isn't enough space here to elavorate on anything properly and i can't be bothered to write any more messages, i hope you read them in the right order or they wont make any sense.

    Also I can't be bothered with idiots (not you) with no ideas of their own but who dislike what i am saying because it takes them out of the confort of their mindless routines, and who as a result write back complaining about my spelling.

  • It seems to me then, that the difference between a murderer and a hunter, at least using your definition, is the volume of killing. Hunters who kill when they have other foods or social programs available(food stamps, etc.) are exercising a choice: they prefer to kill. For them it's fun, or a "challenge", or compensates for other personal failings. ;-) Ultimately, there's little difference between the consumer, the slaughterhouse worker and a hunter. Except that hunters seem to enjoy killing.

  • I wasnt talking about hunters who kill for fun, those are all bastards in my opinion. I was talking about the possibility of life as nature intended, however anyone who kills animals for food when they dont really need to is disgusting in my eyes.

    I agree about no difference between consumer, worker, hunter, thats why i am so pissed off about it, they are all equally guilty.

    However, my point was that if people had to hunt every meal they wouldnt eat so much meat, they wouldnt have the time!

  • iosuVakerizzo, people who hunt "for fun" as you put it most usually eat the animal they kill, or donate it to charities that use the meat to feed the hungry. Recreational hunting is also helps with population control, since the amount of predators in most places is relatively low nowadays due to human settlement.

  • What about human population control? who is controlling that? i seriously dont think we need to control the population of rabbits, birds or whatever those people hunt for. I know most hunters eat what they hunt, but there are also people who hunt for sport, people who kill foxes for no apparent reason, etc. Besides, meat is not necessary in our diet and anyone who has studied the effects of eating meet will tell you it is detrimental to health, how about you tell those hunters to eat some beans

  • Most sport hunters I know end up using the meat of what they kill. (I don't hunt but deer sausage is actually pretty delicious.) All hunters who do it legally, provide funds towards the conservation of natural habitats. Conservationism in its modern form was pioneered by Teddy Roosevelt, an avid hunter, back when the Republican party was the progressive party. People who write off hunting has simply a blood sport for mental degenerates tend to have a terrible sense of history.

  • i am sorry for not knowing the history of your country as well as you do, but surely you know a lot less about the history of mine, the Basque Country ("where?" you ask? well, well, well).

    Yes i dislike hunting, and it is partially because every hunter i've met in my life was a complete dickhead who although he may have eaten the meat, what he really enjoyed what the killing on an innocent animal. To be honest better hunted than mass produced for mcdonnald's.

  • but anyway, my point being that i think that eating animals when it is clearly not necessary for our survival and is even detrimental to our health, is a barbaric act(specially when it is the kill that we enjoy most). I dont care i Roosevelt did it, he was obviously a selfish cunt who would decide on wether to extinguish an animal's one and only life on the pretence of personal enjoyment. No hunter NEEDS to kill an animal to eat, they can feed on much healthier foods without brutality.

  • eating animals "because they taste pretty delicious" is a very selfish act, it is like a murderer saying "i killed this guy because i found him annoying and it felt really good to extinguish his stupid life". That kind of excuse is not much of an excuse.

    If you are inteligent enough to be sitting at a computer, talking about knowing your history and watching TED, you should also be inteligent enough to step aside from the "i likes" and "dislikes" and start judging your own actions critically.

  • a being of such an amount of inteligence should be capable of choosing what is moraly right over what "tastes good". And by the way if you think that killing animals for food is moraly right, then you are not considering this issue in an objective manner. You are purposely(although possibly without realizing) ignoring the way in which some 99% of the animals you eat are being treated(that's right, knowing that someone in spain treats the animals well doesn't change what you actually eat!) + more

  • Equating eating a burger to murdering a human being. Classy. Anyway, I get it, your utilitarianism makes you SO much more moral than me. I'm sorry you have hangups about death, but it happens all the time. Animals eat other animals. Humans eat animals. Animals eat humans. I only make the distinction between the two because of our extreme intelligence compared to other animals and simple semantics, you however make the demand that we ignore our natural omnivorism for some vague moral obligation.

  • no, i just say that if we are so superiorly intelligence we should also be intelligent enough to make informed choices. Dont even start with that bullshit "animals eat other animals" animals other than humans dont have much of a fucking choice! Besides, there are many reasons to believe that humans are not natuary obnivorous: we only have two canines (animals design to eat meet have ONLY canines, no molars!) we cant process raw meet very well at all, meat eating is very unhealthy for humans, etc

  • Its proposed that our dexterous hands are evolved to pick seeds. We walk upright to watch for predators. We have color, binocular vision for easier hunting of insects (mind you, the species was fairly small at this point). Cats also have binocular vision for hunting. It is a predatory adaptation. We are omnivorous. We can survive on just plants if we want, AND we can survive on just meat if we are adapted in certain ways. Inuits are a good example of an all meat diet, mostly red meat and fat.

  • also fuck you "hangups about death"! fuck you man! we are fucking up the planet for every other living being in it! we have destroyed habitats, killed tons more animals than necessary using horrible methods (from bear traps to fishing with dinamite) FUCK YOU MATE! the dear you kill only has one life, like yourself, you should respect it and not cut it short. Hunt without fire arms, hunt bare handed, then talk about animals killing and dieing in nature. very easy to talk when u r safe in a city

  • Self hatred redirected into guilt about being human, and reinforced by animal rights activism?

    What I'm not getting is whether you're getting more worked up over the fact that animals are killed at all, or that some poachers use unnecessarily cruel methods? Yeah, habitats get threatened, that is why we have systems (funded partly by hunting organizations) that research and protect wildlife. If hunting were illegal, poaching would skyrocket and whole populations would be wiped out.

  • "can we produce a menue that's delicious without foie gras? yeah sure, you can also bike the tour de france without steroids, right? not a lot of people are doing it, and with good reason" Yeah, FUCK YOU DAN BARBER!!! YOU FUCKING CUNT!!! Fucking animal murderers like you should die a horrible death! CUNT!

  • Isn't this shallow?...People torture animals just for culinary pleasures. Today most people do not eat animals because they are in a survival situation. They eat them merely for the pleasures of the palate. People are shallow and hollow.

  • And your judgemental, no one is perfect.

  • nice.

  • lol, i like taste3 so much - thanks TED! :)