Belated Introduction.

Hi, this is Rob Carroll. I started this blog in order to get a handle on my research project for English 201. Throughout the course, which has sped by with lightning-like speed, I've had some struggles in settling on a topic. Struggles might even understate it a bit. I've gone from; "how do dogs process reality(?)," "What contributions have primates made in the field of neuroscience (?)," "If primates were worshiped by people thousands of years before your God, then what's so great about yours?" I've run the gamut of trying to think originally for a good topic; each time falling flat. Ultimately, I settled for a reasonably safe research topic; the vegetarian diet, and ask "why is adopting vegetarian diet a better and more reasoned way to live?" Chopping away at the topic, I've decided the main consideration should be health concerns, though I won't altogether throw out the ethical concerns of the topic.
 Watching "Food Inc." really caused me to feel something inside for these poor creatures. Especially the scene in which the process of the "kill floor" was demonstrated. It was extremely upsetting to me, and as a combat vet, blood and life and suffering and death as reality of the nature of the world, is something with which I'm well acquainted. I've been trained to push feelings aside and contain them until an analysis of the present situation can be taken. Not with this. The conditions of the present situation with regard to the way these animals live short, miserable, lives; only to be mechanically executed and treated with all manner of weird juices before hitting my plate, was something that was put right in my face. It hit me as immediately as if it were shot out of a cannon.
What I'm getting at with this, is that until I was sufficiently informed about what was going on in places like this; right here in the U.S., I had a only a small idea of it-- and no visual reference to it, and therefore couldn't have cared less. I had this neolithic sort of nonchalance to meat, like a lot of people do, "Cheeseburger taste good... huge cheeseburger taste better!" "me real man... me eat bacon like real man." This attitude, this ignorance was immediately replaced by a heavier sense of shame; not only for myself, but for my species. Too busy to look, too proud to question ourselves, too afraid to even face the possibility of our errors. For the last few weeks I've been avoiding meat products; processed and unprocessed (if that even exists anymore, I wouldn't know because "I not real man, I no hunt for meat"). It has been rewarding thus far. No guilt involved either.
The American Dietetic Association, an authority on all things diet, says that vegetarians have quite a few rewards that come with making this choice, and as such they're one of my sources for my research paper. Here is a link where the pdf download of their position statement is available:

Winston J. Craig, et al. "Vegetarian Diets." 22 July 2009. Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 7:50:17 Pm June. Web 2014 <http://www.eatright.org/About/Content.aspx?id=8357&terms=vegetarian%20diet>.

From older ideas to modern problems.

Some of my sources, due to the time of publication, show a glimpse into the historic outlook on the benefits of the vegetarian diet. Additional sources with whom I've been working are from much more recent days; as today the science and of much greater concern, the type of meat we regularly eat has changed tremendously. Geared only toward easy profit, such the way most things are today. Taylorism as expected,  has eventually yielded to near complete automation. The process of food production is every bit devoid of a soul, as the ones who benefit from the product sales. And to this end, what results is a lack of concern with many health implications assumed by the consumers who buy it. Processed meat is quickly produced, cheap, easy to find and easier to prepare and eat. Slaughterhouse employees, of the human type remaining, no longer have to look into the eyes of the animals which are fated to be salami and hamburger. The modern means of the dirty work being done are called "kill floors." We've seen this on the in-class documentary "Food Inc." It's only fitting that we now see directly correlated diseases like diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases and colon cancer being linked to its consumption and thus the continuation of the production cycle. Processed meat is bad for more reasons than just ethical reproaches and culpability of corporate slime. It can kill a person.

Renata Micha et al, Sarah K. Wallace, Dariush Mozaffarian. "Harvard School of Public Health." 17 05 2010. Harvard School of Public Health Press Releases. 22 June 2014 <http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/processed-meats-unprocessed-heart-disease-diabetes/>.

Raphaëlle L. Santarelli et al, Fabrice Pierre, Denis E. Corpet. "HAL Archives Ouvertes- France." 25 March 2008. US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. 22 June 2014 <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661797/>.

The Most Outstanding Article that I Couldn't Possibly Use

My research paper is heavily geared toward the health aspects involved with giving up meat as sustenance.
I plan on incorporating at least one or two sources to give some play to the ethical concerns, and in search of these, I found it difficult to find information that wasn't sourced from animal rights groups which have an agenda-driven interest in people becoming vegans for the groups' reasons. However I did find a phenomenal article on the BBC website, written from the vegetarian side of the argument, and giving asserted perspectives from deontological, utilitarian,consequentialist and virtue ethics.

The rub of it, there was absolutely no information that I could find about the author, when it was written, who to credit etc. It was just floating there.

Here's a link to it. It was a great read for anyone who enjoys philosophy and ethics.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/eating_1.shtml

More Streamlined topic with a Wealth of Sources

The latest and greatest on the research paper is that the topic is now set. It's going to be about the vegetarian diet, and the health aspects of such. I found some very compelling (and some very old) literature to make a case for the benefits of abandoning a flesh-diet. This is just to put an historical context to the way people though about vegetarian diets with regard to health.

I found an article written in 1857 by which gives a rather enthusiastic approach to adhering to a meatless diet. The claims made in this piece really sells the idea of a vegetarian diet as something that is great for a person's health. It hits on longevity, physical and mental strength and endurance, and the freedom of being burdened by life-ending diseases. 

 The next piece was about a study done in Brussels in 1907, which actually studied the effect of vegetarian 

diets on muscular endurance. The findings of the study were positively in favor of vegetarians over those 

test subjects who ate meat in their diets. There was little difference found in strength, but it was no contest 

where endurance was concerned the vegetarian subjects where observed to have three times the muscular 

endurance of their counterparts.

Forster, T. "Inquiry into the Average Longevity of Vegetarians, Compared with that of Persons who Live on 

a Mixed Diet." October 1857. jstor.org. 21 06 2014 .web.<http://www.jstor.org/stable/41134790>.

Fisher, Irving. "Diet and Endurance at Brussels." Science. New Series. Vol 26. No. 669 (Oct.25, 1907): 561-563.

 

Taking Shape

With hardly a moment to spare, we've finally settled on a topic for the paper. The question central to the topic is: "Is a Vegetarian Lifestyle the Right Way to Live?" I'm going to approach the topic as an argument in itself, divided into three portions. First will be a lifestyle/preference portion. Next the debate will move to the ethics of the way our livestock is treated before it meets its end. And finally the debate will focus on the health considerations which should be considered between the meat and vegetarian diets. Both sides of the argument, meat-eater and vegetarian, will be represented. As a way to initiate and maintain the flow of the argument, at least for the lifestyle and preference portion, I'll present a claim from one side or the other which is reasonably out-of-order, but are still readily accepted by people who want to be validated in their choice in dietary content--without doing much thinking about the reasons for their choices.

For example, and this isn't necessarily one that will wind up on the paper, is the way that meat products are advertised as symbols that demonstrate gender strength. Picture your run-of-the-mill, dumb, burger chain commercial for some hypothetical product like the "gargantuan burger" a six-patty, mayo slathered, bacon laden, jalapeno detonation, with an ounce of extreme potato chips under the top bun.

Of course, a burger this caliber could only appeal to the manliest of manly men; so naturally the model they hire to take an ever-so-dramatic, slow-motion bite of this monstrosity has to be a six-foot-four, blond guy, with a three-inch-beard and a huge neck exploding forth from the collar of a tattered old football jersey. As if eating a greasy mass of processed meat, cheese, bread and toppings is suddenly the equivalent of climbing to the summit of some alpine mountain, to spend a year by oneself hurling boulders down the slope and reading a well-worn book of viking poetry.

My point is, a lot of the nonsense that is shown in advertisements carry over into the culture in real-life, and there are quite a few people who really think that some of these ridiculous notions, which were only meant to sell fast food, speak some truth about who they choose to be as individuals. Even on the smallest level, any acceptance of this, should be countered with some reasoning. On the other hand, if it's manly to eat copious amounts of meat, it's obviously not an exercise of free will and a product of rational thought for a man to choose a vegetarian diet, but merely a case of a boy who used to like wearing his mommy's shoes. That kind of thing.

I probably wont spend a lot of time giving play to these kinds of misconceptions, I don't want to spend hours at a time spinning my tires in the mud because I mistakenly felt the right approach was to attempt the socratic method on myself and my sources. I'm just playing with ideas to find out what will work. The next post will be about some of the sources I've found.

Ideas running thin.

Another one bites the dust. Three proposals and not one was satisfactory. My grades are in the toilet and I'm totally fried. I just don't know what it is about this that I'm not understanding and the rest of the class is. This wasn't supposed to happen. Anyway, let's shift mindsets and figure out a new topic before it's really too late.

It should be obscure, but not too obscure. It should be narrow, but not too narrow. It should be neutral, but argumentative. It should be a topic of interest.  It should have a question at its core. I should be able to find enough sources on it for which to do a 1500 word literature review i.e. a diet research paper. It should be 3000 words long in its final form.

Squirrels: Crucial to the Ecosystem or Worthless Vagabonds?
Why are Bears Suddenly Migrating to Western New York?
How Much More Polluted Can the World's Oceans Become Before Everything Inhabiting It Dies?

And the Lord Said... "A-booga-booga-booga... Ah-ah-ah!"

I've finally figured out what my professors for this summer sesh want from me. They want me to bang my head against the wall until it loses its round shape, my mouth hangs open on the right side and dribbles, and so that I can no longer control my bodily functions in public. Kidding. That isn't what they want from me, but thankfully, I figured out  a sweet topic for my research paper.

I like, no, I love primates, apes, monkeys, whatever their distinctions or designations. They're hilarious. I've always had this fantasy of having a pet chimp; in fact Dane Cook stole part of it and put it on one of his albums. Since since I can't sue him, I might as well let whoever reads this in on it. I would have this pet chimp, and I'd dress him up in a little Karate uniform so we could fight. I would take him out and let him eat ice cream, and all the women we meet would fall in love with him, and thus they would also fall in love with me by proxy. God what a great little daydream. But through a clustering exercise an idea hit me, and by chasing a few leads on the internet, I learned that Dane Cook and I aren't the only ones who think primates are really cool. As it turns out, there are several cultures from different parts of the world that have worshipped our furry friends as deities (some still do). Archaeological excavations have proved that primate worship has been evident in at several ancient civilizations.

I'm still chasing down leads, but this promises to be a very interesting project. More to come.