The wisdom of children

Just one word: INCREDIBLE!!!!! but are we sure it's a child and not an alien?

The video is really cute but I didn't like the sentence written underneath very much.

"A child of only a few years old arrives on his own at an extremely important conclusion." It gives me the impression that the video wants to convey that one must be vegetarian... something I do not agree with!

You won't believe it, but just yesterday I had a similar conversation but in reverse with my nephew (he was eating meat: mutton arrosticini to be precise).

I was talking with his parents about the fact that I no longer eat rabbit since, as a child, I saw my grandmother kill one. It was something that shook me so much that I practically haven't eaten rabbit meat since I was 6 years old. Children usually don't connect the act of eating meat to the death of the animal, and perhaps that is as it should be. My nephew, speaking about this, looks at me and says: "But then did this little sheep die too?" and I answer him as I would anyone else... "Even animals that kill each other in order to live, it's part of nature; killing an animal for subsistence is one thing, but it is illogical and absurd to kill for fun like some hunters do. You are small and you need to eat meat too because it contains proteins that make you grow strong and healthy, but when you eat this meat you must thank God, because a little animal was sacrificed to help you grow well, and you must never waste food for this reason as well."

He looked at me perplexed... And he continued eating.

Ahahah funny vision!

I don't agree with killing an animal for pure amusement, but for nourishment, yes. I have also seen rabbits being killed and sometimes I have done it too. It doesn't excite me, but I find it natural...

But Simone, do you feel "pity" only for the rabbit or also for the chicken?? she is also killed, but perhaps because she is less cute, she leaves people more indifferent.

TheSimon wrote:

You are small and you need to eat meat too because it contains proteins that make you grow strong and healthy

Which in itself is not true, given that meat proteins are not necessary. Everything else can be debated, but the idea that eating a steak is necessary for one's sustenance is untrue. Your nephew was right: the sheep died for nothing, since it could have easily been done without it. And the parallel with other animals does not hold up. The issue is very complex. It is enough to say "I like meat and I eat it because it is good," without justifying one's diet with biological/nutritional reasons. It is more honest.

sisifo1987 wrote:

Ahahah, funny vision!

I don't agree with killing an animal for pure amusement, but for nourishment, yes. I have also seen rabbits being killed and sometimes I have done it too. It doesn't excite me, but I find it natural...

But Simone, do you feel "pity" only for the rabbit or also for the chicken?? She is also killed, though perhaps since she is less cute, she leaves people more indifferent.

I love animals, but I also like eating meat. The thing about the rabbit, I explain it perhaps as a trauma I had as a child.

Carlos wrote:

Which in itself is not true, given that meat proteins are not necessary. Everything else can be discussed, but that eating a steak is necessary for one's sustenance is untrue. Your nephew was right: the sheep died for nothing, since it could have easily been done without it. And the parallel with other animals doesn't hold up. The issue is very complex. It is enough to say "I like meat and I eat it because it tastes good," without justifying one's diet with biological/nutritional reasons. It is more honest.

What you are saying I believe is right, I don't understand nutrition at all anyway; there is also something to be said, as far as I know, that all children eat meat, even in the form of baby food, so I wouldn't take this for granted at such a tender age; but beyond the nutritional factor, getting more practical, wanting to reuse the term you used, being honest, what do you think I should have said to a 5-year-old child? "Angelo, I will be honest with you... Before putting that little roast in your mouth, know that that little sheep was killed, hung in the air by a hook under its neck (in the best case scenario, I'm not saying the worst), skinned, decapitated, disemboweled, vivisected, analyzed, transported, butchered, packaged, sold, and cooked... Enjoy your meal."

His face went from this...

s it would have transformed into this...

TheSimon wrote:

I believe what you are saying is correct, I don't understand nutrition at all anyway; there is also something to be said, as far as I know, that children all eat meat, even in the form of baby food, so I wouldn't take this for granted at such a tender age; but beyond the nutritional factor, getting more practical, wanting to reuse the term you used, being honest, what do you think I should have said to a 5-year-old child? "Angelo, I'll be honest with you... Before putting that little roast in your mouth, know that that little sheep was killed, hung in the air by a hook under its neck (in the best case scenario, not to mention the worst), skinned, decapitated, disemboweled, vivisected, analyzed, transported, butchered, packaged, sold, and cooked... Enjoy your meal".

No. It would have been enough to answer "yes" to his question "but then is this little sheep dead too?" exactly as the mother of the child in the video did. The story that "animals also kill each other etc etc" is a "preventative" answer to a question that you did not allow your nephew to ask you...

PS apart from the fact that if you are aware that you have on your plate pieces of animals that underwent what you describe in such detail above and you eat them calmly, perhaps, you should ask yourself some questions. But let's drop it...

When talking about children, everything becomes more difficult because they express themselves without filters, and telling them something (in fact, anything) that takes this into account is very taxing.

Children listen without filters, so they do not perform underlying reasoning to look beyond the words.

That being said, removing a type of protein during growth is something to be seriously evaluated and followed by a specialist. By changing the "type" of food, the "quantities" change, and with a child, quantities are not decided arbitrarily; there are "physiological" thresholds in terms of quantity/time to "respect" to have reasonable certainty that the meal will be consumed; other mechanisms come into play, such as the fact that you will never get a child to eat 1 kg of peas instead of a steak... thinking about iron.

As adults, the mechanisms change... and that is how one can become vegetarian by eating vegetables from morning till night (and that's it).

Since this is a music forum, I won't start discussing vegetarian and vegan diets with you (Frank, those who eat "just plants" don't exist: vegetarians don't eat meat - sometimes they eat fish, vegans don't eat any product derived from animals. Those that eat just plants are goats... ). Furthermore, everything you say about children's diets is a flawed reasoning, given that there are vegans from birth who have grown up and live very well (one of them is 102 years old and runs 15 km every day). I repeat: let's leave nutritional discussions etc. alone. We are used to considering the protein intake from meat as essential in the diet from a young age, and diets are measured against that. Margherita Hack never ate a piece of meat in her life and it seems that, even if she hasn't been feeling very well lately, she has reached a considerable age without major problems, what do you say?

In effect, I was referring to the extreme, just to use a hyperbole, vegan diets (to be clear, not even eggs).

Surely the discussion about filters when interacting with children is valid and often underestimated (even by parents, I'll be first in line).

Nowadays, children's nutrition is based on eggs, fish, meat, and cheese... all regularly alternated. The idea of only meat perhaps held true in my generation, children of parents who came from the post-WWII era... where meat was a luxury or a rarity. Today, any general pediatrician provides very different information from "only meat"... in fact....

I don't know about you, but I have a couple of small children... to answer Giovanni, my first (at 4 years old) doesn't make arguments that are all that different from the one in the video... maybe he doesn't talk about animals but about something else, but the way he expresses himself is quite analogous even in terms of richness of vocabulary, sentence structure, and mastery of "grammar."

As is natural, children today are much sharper than when I was 4 years old... and I dare you, mine could unlock an iPhone at 6 months; when I was 6 months old, it was a lot if there was even a TV in the house (and there wasn't). Do you know how many more stimuli they have compared to children of the past?

Frank wrote:

In effect, I was referring to the extreme, just to use a hyperbole, vegan diets (to be clear, not even eggs).

Yes, I know, but (as I repeat to you, to be clear) vegans exclude everything that comes from animals, but they don't eat "just vegetables" (unless for you pasta, rice and legumes, various nuts and dried fruit, soy, etc. are not "just vegetables"). There is, as always, a lot of misinformation and superficiality.

I'll post a nice link, maybe it's useful for learning something new, right?

www.vegfacile.info/mangiare-vegan.html

And yes, I should have been clearer... flora/fauna... plants/animals... etc.

Frank wrote:

And yes, I should have been clearer... flora/fauna... plants/animals... etc.

In effect, 'vegetali' (plants) includes: vegetables, produce, I think plants, etc ... so perhaps it is the most exhaustive term, if one were looking for a single word.

Frank wrote:

And yes, I should have been clearer... flora/fauna... plants/animals... etc.

Frank, sometimes instead of using a certain type of subtle irony, it is enough to say “I didn't know and I was wrong”. Plant life is not “everything that is not animal” (that goes in “Italian lessons” if you want) and I am a pitbull if provoked... you should know that well!!!

And indeed I was writing ...

Frank wrote:

And yes, I should have been clearer... flora/fauna... plants/animals... etc.

Where is the irony?

Carlos wrote:

No. It would have been enough to answer "yes" to her question "so did this little sheep die too?" exactly as the mother of the child in the video did. The story that "animals also kill each other etc etc" is a "preventative" answer to a question that you did not allow your nephew to ask you...

PS apart from the fact that if you are aware that on your plate there are pieces of animals that suffered what you describe in such detail above and you eat them calmly, perhaps, you should ask yourself some questions. But let's drop it...

Look, I don't want to start a debate with you on whether eating meat is right or wrong; I could answer that if you only eat vegetables, that's your business. Furthermore, life doesn't follow a script, for which a person must answer exactly what you would have answered. My tact led me to opt to tell him a truth through eyes different from a blunt: "it died". It is clear anyway that we are different people and, as a consequence, we will have different sensitivities. One thing I absolutely do not accept, however, is you coming here to lecture me because I eat meat. Those might be my problems... Or am I wrong?

Regarding the fact that being vegetarian allows one to live up to 102 years, it proves nothing at all. I could also tell you the story of a great-grandfather who died at the venerable age of 95 because he was run over by a motorcyclist, not from old age. At the autopsy, the doctors saw that his organs could have guaranteed him at least, "in theory", another 20 years of life. His background was that of a carpenter (he breathed wood dust for a lifetime since back then masks like we have today did not exist, and even if they did in woodworking fields, they were not used), he smoked 40 cigarettes a day, drank like a sponge, and never considered the issue of eating vegetarian, or even vegan, yet his life was cut short by a motorcycle. I believe that everything is written in genetics; if you have a robust physique resistant to genetic modifications, you die in very old age. Just to say that there are people who have never smoked a cigarette and died of lung cancer at 40. Statistics are not made on single cases taken here and there with a Hack or with the gentleman who died at 102. A serious way to do statistics is to do them on a large sample.

The fact remains that in case of iron deficiency, especially when young, many pediatricians advise feeding meat to children; there must be a reason. All this talk is independent of what I think about animals and I go back to saying: killing an animal to feed oneself is one thing, for fun is quite another thing.

In fact, Frank was very clear

http://dizionari.cor.../vegetale.shtml

Concerning plants: organism v.; life v. || kingdom v., one of the three kingdoms (with animal and mineral) into which the natural world is divided

Even if rice is a mineral ... but please...

Frank wrote:

Where is the irony?

Ah, there wasn't any? Ok, then, definitely, you need to be clearer!

PS In the meantime, I am reading Simone's reply. It seems to me that he always gets too defensive and it's not nice. So I am quickly abandoning the discussion because I want to avoid responding badly myself. Greetings to you all, take care!

PPS I also read Ettore's: pasta, is that a vegetable too? Please!!! Wake up!

PPPS Oh, if only someone had thought to ask what I eat! Hahahaha everyone is born knowing, eh!

I forgot

Consisting of or derived from plant organisms, often in opposition to animal or mineral: broth v.; coal v.