Subject: batty cats, screaming cows

From: Jack Rowe <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 21:48:17 -0400

David Fuller wrote:

"Cats deprived of [taurine] develop poorly, with neurological and other
abnormalities."

Don't all cats have neurological and other abnormalities? No, really, some
of my best friends are cats...

I think the 'Great Vegan Problem' is a no-thing, unless the vegan person
requires everyone to conform to their eating habits. In any food system
capable of feeding a number of people in a balanced, sustainable way, there
are plenty of dietary niches, so neither reliance on meat nor avoidance of
such would not be 'de rigeur' for any particular individual.

Vegans can get the dietary nutrients they need by including a healthy
proportion of fermented foods in their diet... in fact all of us can
benefit from foods containing the added nutrients of fermentation. 

'Course, there is a quasi-semantic, anthropocentric line being drawn
somewhere here, since all foods are living now or were in the recent past.
I once accidentally made a dear friend cry, bombastically arguing that to
eat yoghurt was to kill billions of little animals... but as Mr. Shaw said
of killing carrots for food, "... cows scream louder". Got a point.

Jack