On a more serious note, vegetables contain different proteins than meat. Your body breaks them down and reassembles them into what it needs. A vegetarian will point out that it takes a lot of work for your body to do this, which is why you feel sluggish after eating a lot of meat. However, meat does give you a fairly complete mixture of amino acids, proteins, etc. Vegetables, on the other hand, give you an incomplete mixture, and you must carefully select a varied diet of vegetables in order to duplicate the protein intake you would get from meat.
That's why most vegans look like hell. They're often depriving themselves of certain nutrients because their vegan diet is not designed well enough, or they don't have enough discipline to do all the work necessary to duplicate the protein intake that a meat-inclusive diet would give them.
As for the moral issue, she's half right. Meat is less ecologically friendly than fruits, grains, and vegetables because the latter crops require far less agricultural land per pound of finished food than grazing herds of cattle do. This is a fact, and even though I'm a meat eater, I'm not about to go shoving my head in the sand to avoid it. However, it is only a matter of degrees;
all agricultural and human industrial activity impinges upon animals, to the extent that it pollutes their environment, consumes their living space, disrupts their food chain, etc. Accept it. There is not one single major human activity which does not negatively impact some kind of animal somewhere, and those who point the finger are trying to pretend that they've found some magic lifestyle which does not hurt animals at all, which is complete bullshit.
- Does she use electricity? The majority of North American power plants burn fossil fuels and pollute the environment.
- Does she drive a car, ride in a car, or take the bus? Ditto.
- Does she read books? You would not believe the shit that pulp and paper mills dump into the environment (and I used to work for Kimberly-Clark; I'm not just pulling this out of my ass).
- Does she wear leather made from the skin of dead animals?
- Does she live in a house? Anything but high-rise apartment buildings is an inefficient use of land area, and contributes to urban sprawl, which in turn drives animals out of their native habitats.
- Does she eat fruits and vegetables from the grocery store? Where does she think it came from? Does she realize what farmers do to animals which trespass on their property? Does she realize that the first step in establishing farmland is to annihilate all trees and other indigenous life forms, prior to full replacement with manufactured crops?
- Does she have wooden furniture at home? Does she plan to buy a house someday? Where does she think all the wood in furniture and house frames comes from? Does she realize that many animals can't live in deforested land?
Next time you see her, tell her that what she needs is to get fucked up the ass. Maybe it will clear her mind.
