Is eating a raw diet ethical? (oppinions please)

[LePatron7]

What do you think? Arguments for, against?

Against cooked food?

For raw food?

[TylerDurden]

*sigh*. At the very least,  this ought to go into the hot topics forum! Done so, now!

[dariorpl]

It's not an ethical issue. You are free to do whatever you want with your own body and property. If anything, you could argue that eating a cooked diet creates toxins that could potentially damage others or their property, but it's comparable to smoking cigarettes in your own property. Again, it's not an ethical issue.

[Alive]

It's the right thing for me to do because it makes me a better person.

It's most ethical to feed all creatures a beneficial approximation of their natural evolutionary diet.

[Iguana]

It's not an ethical issue. You are free to do whatever you want with your own body and property. If anything, you could argue that eating a cooked diet creates toxins that could potentially damage others or their property, but it's comparable to smoking cigarettes in your own property. Again, it's not an ethical issue.

Sorry, it's not quite so. Smoking pollutes the atmosphere all over: the smoke doesn't stop at your property limits. Tobacco production takes agricultural land, fertilizers and pesticides.

Moreover nothing “belongs” to you exclusively: private property is a pure neolithic concept born with farming. Cutting all the trees on “your property” will cause environmental changes it time and space reaching beyond your land boundaries and your lifetime. Damaging your body with noxious drinks or foods may compel others, perhaps nurses and doctors, to care of you and treat you with drugs which will pollute your urine and feces to finally find their way in the environment. Hospitals are a huge source of pollutants. 

Cooking requires the energy provided by electricity or burning of gas or wood, leading to emissions of pollutants and deforestation. In turn, cooking pots, frying pans, etc. need to be washed with hot water and detergents, further increasing the consumption of energy and the pollution of rivers, lakes and seas. Cooking leftovers and feces of cooked food eaters pollutes the environment, as the plastics packings of many processed foods and as the toothpastes, deodorants, cosmetics used by cooked food eaters.

Farming and cooking have caused the depletion of all natural resources, not only fossils fuels, but also wildlife on land and in seas. Farming and cooking are the root cause of the destructions and degradations mankind has generated on this planet.   

That's just for starters. GCB has written a whole book (unpublished yet) about the human and environmental damages due to cooking and farming.

Thanks, Le Patron, very relevant topic!   

[TylerDurden]

Yes, and by eating cooked foods one is more likely to need lots of financial support from the State etc., thus resulting in much higher  health-insurance  premiums for everyone else. Arguably, one is also causing epigenetic damage to one's future children by eating cooked foods.

[dariorpl]

Sorry, it's not quite so. Smoking pollutes the atmosphere all over: the smoke doesn't stop at your property limits.

Lots of things affect other's properties. Playing music or even shouting can cause mild noise pollution, breeding cattle can cause manure smell pollution, etc, but when the damage is so miniscule, the intersubjective consensus is such that those are not considered violations of anybody's rights, unless the pollution is extreme.

Tobacco production takes agricultural land, fertilizers and pesticides.

So? The owners decide what to do with their their land.

Moreover nothing “belongs” to you exclusively:

If my body and property don't belong to me, then who do they belong to??

private property is a pure neolithic concept born with farming.

Yes it is, and it's also the reason you and I are alive.

Cutting all the trees on “your property” will cause environmental changes it time and space reaching beyond your land boundaries and your lifetime.

Everything causes environmental changes. When you build a house, that changes the environment. When you cut down grasses to plant trees, or cut down trees to plant grasses, that changes the environment. Everybody decides how the environment of their property will look like.

Damaging your body with noxious drinks or foods may compel others, perhaps nurses and doctors, to care of you and treat you with drugs which will pollute your urine and feces to finally find their way in the environment. Hospitals are a huge source of pollutants.

Again, the damage to others and their property is minimal and it can't be ascertained who polluted who's property and to what extent. Besides, you're not even talking about cooked or raw food here, but about drugs, which is an unrelated matter.

In an ideal world, everybody would eat only raw and there would be no drugs. But we don't live in an ideal world, and you can't say it's unethical to engage in these behaviors, anymore than those who adhere to the bacteria theory of disease can claim that raw food eaters are unethical because they could spread disease by eating raw foods.

Cooking requires the energy provided by electricity or burning of gas or wood, leading to emissions of pollutants and deforestation.

Using an electrical device required to post in these forums also requires those. So is posting in this forum unethical too?

In turn, cooking pots, frying pans, etc. need to be washed with hot water and detergents, further increasing the consumption of energy and the pollution of rivers, lakes and seas. Cooking leftovers and feces of cooked food eaters pollutes the environment, as the plastics packings of many processed foods and as the toothpastes, deodorants, cosmetics used by cooked food eaters.

All of these are unrelated to cooked or raw foods. And do you use no disposable plastic whatsoever? Because if you do, that would be unethical by your own standards.

Farming and cooking have caused the depletion of all natural resources, not only fossils fuels, but also wildlife on land and in seas. Farming and cooking are the root cause of the destructions and degradations mankind has generated on this planet.

So then I guess you don't consume any farmed foods either, because if you did, that would be unethical. And you wouldn't want to be a hypocrite now, would you?

[dariorpl]

Yes, and by eating cooked foods one is more likely to need lots of financial support from the State etc., thus resulting in much higher  health-insurance  premiums for everyone else.

What's unethical here is the State stealing from producers in order to provide medical services to leeches. Acting in such a way that you become more of a leech and less of a producer is not in itself unethical. In fact, with the incentives in place, it makes sense to disregard one's health if you believe the State will take care of you for free (which is a lie, but assuming you believe it...)

This is why you can't insure against health problems. Insurance only works for things you have little to no control over. You can't insure against losing your job, against underperforming athetically, etc. Health insurance as it exists today in most of the world is not really an insurance, but a tax. In some countries, it's a service rather than a tax. But never an actual insurance.

Arguably, one is also causing epigenetic damage to one's future children by eating cooked foods.

That's not unethical. At most you can say it's not a nice thing to do if you are a caring parent.

[TylerDurden]

DPL, you are being absurdly absolutist/fanatical re definitions.