soilman

The reason people want to regulate guns, but don't want to regulate sulfuric acid the same way, is cultural.. Same with gasoline. Sulfuric acid and gasoline are just as handy to use as weapons as guns are, but guns are thought of as weapons, sulfuric acid and gasoline are thought of as cleaning agents and fuel, respectively. This is a illusion fostered by linguistic customs, and not a fact. The way people see things seems to be altered, colored, by the names they have in their mind for the things they see. The desire to regulate guns, or sulfuric acid, is borne out of fear out of what the regulator would do with the item. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

AndyMan I don't agree. A gun without cartridges is less dangerous than a baseball bat. A gun plus suitably fitting cartridges is perhaps more dangerous than a baseball bat plus a small knife. But it not a more effective weapon at close range. And it is less dangerous than a bottle of sulfuric acid. Careless handling of either can have awful consequences. Anybody can go into a plumbing supply store and legally buy a bottle of sulfuric acid without any legal regulation to sort out the knowledgable and careful users from those that aren't. In my state, New York, in the Untied States, many plumbing supply stores have a policy of not selling sulfuric acid to just anyone, but this is their own policy, and not a legally required policy. It is really easy to accidentally kill someone with sulfuric acid. Just be stupid enough to transfer it to an unmarked container, and leave it around and wait for someone to think the container is a food container. It is even easier for someone to splash it in their eyes and adversely affect their eyesight. jeez, if anything should be regulated, sulfuric acid should be regulated. it looks awfully innocuous in that bottle that looks just a a bottle of spring water. I sure would not want to be around a mean-spirited or malicously crazy person who had a bottle of sulfuric acid. it would be easier to get a loaded firearm away from them, without getting shot, then to get a bottle of sulfuric acid out of their hands, without getting splashed. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

I don't think they are blocking the receptors in the brain (and elsewhere); the article appears to be gone, but i seem to recall reading that the micro-organisms are going to intefere with the drug itself, decomposing it sufficiently, metabolizing it (the way the liver does) so that active drug or active early breakdown products never get to the brain. With opioids this wouldl mean that they will not cause euphoria, and also they will not cause analgesia. Instead of waiting for the drug to pass thru the liver a few time, the chemicals produced by the viruses, produced by the viral infection that they have infected you with, will be metabolizing the drug as soon as it gets into your blood. This will essentially mean, the way to get high is to take about 10 times as much. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

AndyMan writes Err, I'm pretty sure sulfuric acid is largely unregulated, same with lye, and hydrochloric acid. Also, firearm cartridges appear to be largely unregulated. Want a bomb? Just empty out the nitrocellulose from a bunch of cartridges. Want a gun? Get a machinist to make you a piece of steel tubing that has the right inside (and outside) diameter for whatever cartridge you select. Furthermore, nitrating cotton waste (read, used cotton underwear) -- how difficult can it be? Gasoline -- you can do more damage to life and property with gasoline, and a match, than you can with explosives. Both gasoline and matches are not exactly highly regulated. Want to kill someone? Put some gasoline in your supersoaker, soak your target, make a trail of gasoline, light the trail. Put lye, hydrochloric acid, or sulfuric acid in their water glass, coffee cup, whatever. Hit them over the head with a baseball bat, knocking them unconscious long enough to cut their throat (carotid artery), with a small paring knife. Get a bow and a bunch of arrows. Not regulated. All a firearm does is allow you to do the same kind of thing with a little less preliminary target practice. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

I think adults who make a choice to vaccinate themselves should be allowed to, but this should not be foisted on children. The scaryest part is the plan is to vaccinate only "selected" children at "high risk." This is almost certainly is code for cultural intolerance and culture war. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

The NRA has stated that it would not be against mandatory training and licensing as being a requirement for gun ownership, as long as licensing can be done without registering and keeping track of who is licensed and who is not licensed -- as this would be anti second amendment, which describes ownership of arms as something we need to have to protect us from armed forces that would keep a citezenry unarmed and thus unable to form an armed rebellion to overthrow a non-representative government: if the armed forces know who has a gun or who can be expected to be likely to have a gun, they can target those individuals for "special treatment." I think it is about time we came up with a licensing scheme that protects our anonymity and that can be supported by the NRA. I like responsible gun owners; I don't like criminally minded gun owners and I don't like incompetant gun owners. The right kind of anonymous licensing will reduce their numbers, and possibly even increase the number of armed citizens who know how to use their firearms safely and for protection rather than harm. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

According to the article it is not. It is to prevent people from ever getting on them. Why don't habitual drug users stop? Do they feel ill when abstaining? For as long as they abstain? If so, wouldn't something that causes them to not get the effect of the drug, make them feel just as ill while taking their favorite drug, as they feel while abstaining from it? And like lawrocket noted: what about people who benefit from these or related drugs? I am extremely anti-tobacco. I am against people putting tobacco smoke in other people's air. But this is not the way to stop them. I consider opioids a godsend. I would never want to do anything to interfere with its ability to do what it does. Also, there is the possibility that this might completely backfire. Instead of making people immune to the effects of these drugs, it might simply mean they have to take a humongous dose. Result -- they take more, to get the same high, and their livers and kidneys and perhaps their brains too, suffer more. Instead of just "addicts" now we have super addicts with kidney and liver problems costing the socialized medical system in Britain a fortune to treat. Plus there are going to be biochemists working on drugs and vaccines to kill or weaken the virus that causes the decreased sensitivity to cocaine, tobacco, and "heroin." Interesting that heroin, acetylated morphine, is not used medically in the US but is used in Britain. I think we should free up acetylated morphine for medical use in the US. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

Perhaps it might be better if I try as many tandems as are necessary to find something that I think adequately protects my face, before I try my first AFF? I'm not sure. It is possible I'll never find something that I feel works as well as I would like, and that I will need to go ahead and do the first AFF before I am completely happy. I've considered neoprene ski mask or snow-mobile mask type things. I could try using one of these without a helmet. And it would fit my budget better. Not sure how soon i'll be able to come up with enough tradables for my next jump. Number of hours I'll be working and rate of earnings can vary, and is hard to predict now. I still haven't solved the problem of keeping comfortable on cold windy winter days. An acrylic knit ski mask, or polyester fabric baclava, without goggles, is not enough. By the way Nightingale I love your skydiving web site. I think the indescribable smile on your face, seen in some of the photos, seems to be as informative as your "why" page. I was wincing in discomfort and a bit of pain during freefall. I knew beforehand that this might happen so I wasn't alarmed. But I was glad when freefall was over. I had a ridiculous ear-to-ear grin when I landed safely. The feeling of the air on my face during freefall was so intense that I can hardly remember anything else about freefall. I don't remember seeing anything much during freefall. I don't remember seeing the ground during freefall. I only barely remember the sound of the air. I don't remember feeling air anywhere else, except on my face. I remember going thru a cloud and seeing the "fog" of the cloud, but I don't remember seeing much else. I didn't even realize I was experiencing freefall, until the parachute opened, and then I realized that the minute of very uncomfortable air on my face, that was finally over -- that was freefall. It started when the man I was attached to instructed me to move toward the exit door, and to place my foot on the footrest just outside the door. I placed my foot on the footrest, but it blew right off; so I diligently tried to move it back on again; it blew right off again; I tried to get it back on again, and the next thing I knew I was waiting for the distressing rush of air on my face to stop and the freefall to start -- and then the parachute opened and I realized freefall was already over. I don't remember feeling any fear as I inched toward the exit door -- I assumed the man I was attached to was an expert and that I had nothing to worry about -- just relax, and fall. Nor do I remember feeling any fear during the freefall -- just the very unpleasant sensation of air on my face. Which again, was not unexpected. Freefalle, thanks for the info. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

I have "atypical facial pain believed to be of neurpathic origin with signs of reflex sympathethic dystrophy of the face, sympathetically maintained through the sphenopalatine ganglion." In short, in my first (tandem) jump, air rushing by my face during freefall hurt quite a bit and the pain continued for a minute or 3 after the chute opened. Should I just get a helmet with a face protector included? I have avoided winter wind for years, because of my face. I thought the much warmer air of a skydive might not hurt, but apparently the high speed was enough to cause pain. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

Unfortunately, these lists of "vegetarian atheletes" or "famous vegetarians" that one or another magazine publishes, seem to be based on information gleaned from similar reports from similar magazines -- all the articles seem to have the same misinformation. I wouldn't be surprised if one magazine makes a mistake, the reporter for another magazine reads it and reports it as fact, and then the reporter for the first magazine reports what he read in the second magazine -- as it this was a good source. If you go to Jack LaLanne's own web site, you will see that he states that he was a vegetarian for many years, but that he no longer is. Though he says he eats flesh in moderation. People often find out that these circularly circulataed lists contain misinformation, and in the long run their publication does more harm than good, toward persuading people to go vegetarian. Or worse, some celebrety that people are prone to emulate goes vegetarian one week, and decides to go on the pork-only diet the next week -- and those people who choose their diet based on emulation of sports celebreties, or entertainment celebreties, rather than on knowledge about diet, or concern about what is really cool (in other words, they watch what I eat) follow right along on the celebrety's next diet. OK, here is my favorite link, about the utility of a vegetarian diet. It is the position paper of the American Dietetic Association and Dieticians of Canada which are organizations of food and nutrition professionals, that disemminate scientific knowledge about human nutrition. They are not a vegetarian organizations, and have no reason to be biased in favor of a veg diet. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

Zennie writes Goodness gracious. I've been vegan for 35 years. I wonder why I was up and walking around 4 hours after my bilateral inguinal hernia surgery, done with an anterior approach suture technique. A Shouldice repair was done, no mesh was used. Why was I climbing stairs and doing situp, leglifts, and a few deep knee bends, the next day, lifting tool boxes and moving furniture 3 or 4 days later, and back to moving pianos 3 weeks later? And yes, jumping out of an airplane less than a year later though I could have done it a week later? And yes, I told my surgical group, before the surgery, that I was a vegetarian, and my surgeon didn't comment about it relative to my surgery, and only commented about it relative to what I needed to be fed during my week in the hospital. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

peacefuljeffrey writes Ha ha. Good way of putting it. Yes. Absolutely. That is what I think: people should choose their diet based on how cool it makes them seem, and a vegan diet is the coolest. Because I like to? Because whenever a non-vegan reacts hostilly to an amiable challenge of this sort, and the vegan, in turn, responds amiably, it demonstrates that vegans are, indeed, cooler than non-vegans? ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

The graphs on this page, conmparing how many animals were killed for food, and how many were killed for all other reasons combined, indicate why I think that, at this time n history, changing one's diet is so far and away the simplest and most effective thing one can do to reduce animal suffering, that making any effort to do anything else is just a waste of time. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

OK freeflybella, I think it was you who said something about petting one's pet, but in the PETA video, they said "and remember, never eat [this, that,] your dog." This will not be any help toward that end. Like the Jay Leno used to say about Doritos "eat all the Doritos you want; we'll make more." Shelter operators could just as factually say: "Adopt all the dogs you want from us; we'll get more." Dog owners could just as factually say "adopt all the dogs you want, we'll make more dogs." The shelter operators will keep the same number of cages filled with the same number of dogs, and euthanize the same number of dogs, no matter how many dogs people rescue. Irresponsible dog owners will evaluate the fact that people "adopt" dogs from shelters, as an indication that they can continue doing an inaddequate job of spaying or neutering their dogs, or continue to otherwise neglect controlling the dog population, or continue to by dogs from breeders and then decide they don't want them and abandon them or give them to shelters. Adopting a dog may be a kindness to the individual dog, but it does nothing whatsoever toward ending the cultural phenomenum of dog ownership. Rather, it is a way of participating in the cultural phenomenum, and maintaining its continued existence. Do you mean does what PETA does really affect how people think of me? Yes. Of course it does. When people hear, or notice, that I am vegan, some of them may assume that I am an animal rights activist, because PETA has to some extent led people to believe that animal rights activism and veganism just "go together." People who, rightly or wrongly, have disdain for animal rights activism, and also have disdain for animal rights actvists, may have disdain for me -- assuming I am an animal rights activist, even though I am not an animal rights activist. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

The persuasive element, the key point: being vegan doesn't cramp my style. Rather, it is part of my style. It is not intended as a limitation, rather, it something I do because I believe that, ultimately, it is broadening. In my continuing effort to feed my face, I may have stopped eating the limited number of animal products that I had been eating, and I may have neglected making any effort to find new animals to eat, animals that I hadn't eaten before, but I have discovered lots of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds, to eat. Especially those luscious fruits. There are always more to discover. Just as a matter of style: which presents better style, looking for new fruits, berries, seeds, nuts, leaves, stems, shoots, and roots, growing in the trees, bushes, vines, or soil of new terrain, or looking for new animals running or crawling among the trees, bushes, and vines of new terrain? I both (1) try to practice being practical and living on what's readily available locally, and also to (2) broaden my horizens regarding what is available in all parts of the world, and get a taste of everything. It has been a tremendous learning experience. I even, in an attempt to get more delicious foods, learned a bit about agriculture and gardening, that I wouldn't have bothered learning if I been willing to be content with eating just "what my momma feeds me." I've left my momma in the dust. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

I have been staunchly vegan for about 35 years. For the last few years I have had a web site dedicated to informing people about whether various materials are animal, vegetable, or mineral, or some combination of thiese, in their earthly origin. You can find it via my profile. Yet I have to agree with the following comments by peacefuljeffrey In my opinion the way to persuade people to go vegan is to simply be vegan oneself, provide an example of a vegan lifestyle that they can emulate, if they wish to, make it as broad and fulfilling a lifestyle as possible so that people will feel good about it, feel that it is a lifestyle they would like, and educate interested people, in a natural dialogue, rather than "lecture" them, as to what you are doing to set an example, and how they can follow your example, totally or in part, if they want to. This means stressing what is on your menu. Not stressing what is off your menu. Beyond that, I don't really think there is much that can be done. Not that the above isn't a big job. When people see the variety of delicious things I eat, they get the picture that I am not at all deprived in what I eat. Also the amount of raw fruits and vegetables and steamed vegetable I devour, is impressive. And I don't think it hurts to tell people that I'm 56 years old and jump out of airplanes. While that isn't strictly true (I only fall out of airplanes attached to a jumper), the amount of embroidery and embellishment involved in telling people that I "jump" isn't usually enough to influence them to debate the distinction. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

In another video, they suggest that one be kind to one's pet. Or pet one's pet, or something like that. This implies approval of pet ownership -- something they say elsewhere, that they are basicaly against. These mixed messages, contradictory messages, are absurd, and influence me, and I believe most people, to discount their opinions. If pet ownership is not generally a good idea; and i think that pet ownership is not generally a good idea, and agree with PETA when PETA says that pet ownership is basically not a good idea, then saying "be kind to your pet" is kind of like being against punishment without due process of law and saying saying be kind to your political prisoners, or being against kidnapping and saying be kind to the people you kidnap. They are good at getting media coverage, at getting people to pay attention to them. Getting media coverage is not sufficient to persuade people who view the media. Getting people's attention is not the same as persuading them to do what you are ostensibly trying to persuade them to do. PETA's attempts at persuading people to stop "eating meat" are so lame, that I can't help but wonder if they are really run by meat eaters. Because I am a vegan, and because PETA gets so much publicity and because more sensible vegans like myself don't get so much publicity, when they hear that I am a vegan, many people seem to make assumptions about me, that aren't true. While this is primarily their fault, for erroneously assuming that PETA is representative of all vegans, rather than PETA's fault, it still happens, and PETA's actions are a contributory factor. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

freeflybella noted This ad is not going to convince any redblooded football-watching male to stop eating penis-shaped chopped meat and start eating penis-shaped squashes instead. Doesn't matter whether it is true or not that eating meat can conceivabley contribute to the develpment of erectile disfunction. The ad is not persuasive. It seems obvious that are even intentionally preaching to the choir rather than making a sincere effort to persuade someone, anyone, to substitute some plant food for some animal food. They are wasting their contributer's money. They are actually, it seems quite clear, antagonizing people who might otherwise go vegetarian, if simply left alone. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

Just some larger-capacity magazines, if larger capacity magazines become available. I am hoping to be able to afford to buy a Ruger PC9 (9mm carbine) to put them in. I heard these are a good balance of cost and quality, for practical self-defense use in a suburban neigborhood. I'd be taking a course in gun use and safety. I don't think its enough to just have the tools; one needs to learn and practice how to use one's tools safely and effectively. Of course, I'd really like a fully automatic weapon. I recently upgraded from a push-type rotary lawnmower to a self-propelled rotary lawnmower. I don't know why I waited so long. It is just so much easier to mow my lawn now. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

peacefuljeffrey writes The sensible people among the vegans (we may really be the "silent" majority) don't "forbid" anything. We educate and inform. You make your own choices; we treat you respectully if you make different choices than us -- no PETA-style harrassment. I personally believe in non-participation in animal husbandry. So I don't acquire fecal matter from people who raise animals -- the source of most commercial fecal matter -- except perhaps bat guano. I'm not sure but I think the reason people get salmonella from sprouts is due to contamination by fecal matter, or decaying animal tissue. I think that carrots with soil clinging to them would be less likely to transmit salmonella, if no fecal matter was added to the soil. Fecal matter is basicly compost where the compost bin was an animal. Compost from wooden bins is, like feces, a source of usable nitrogen. Of course industrially-produced (by the Haber process) ammonia is a more concentrated source of usable nitrogen than either. Also you might want to be aware that cattle, these days, are often fed straw used for chicken bedding, straw which is still filled with chicken urine and feces -- for the valuable protein in the chicken feces. They are also fed slaughterhouse waste of slaughtered cattle. And of course you ought to be aware that the (properly aged and prepared) feces of animals fed vegetable matter is considered a safe soil amendment by Cooperative Extension; the feces of carnivorous animals is not. Vegetable matter composted in a wooden bin or plain pile, rather than inside an animal, is even safer. It has also long been known that different kinds of feces differently affect the flavor of plants grown in them, and now we know this flavor comes from chemicals in the feces that are taken up by the plant, through its roots, and will still exist even if no traces of externally clinging feces are present. I believe you are correct, if you believe that one can have a long active life on an omnivorous diet, provided you eat animal matter in moderation. The reason I am nuts about avoiding it altogether is I hate participating in hunting and slaughter, and especially in factory farming, and I consider buying the products of these pursuits to be participation in the pursuits. I just feel better and happier about my place in the world, if I don't particpate in something that I consider rather ugly -- organized ugliness. It makes me happy, puts a smile on my face -- much the same way falling out of an airplane does (I say "falling" because I have only done one tandem "jump" so far; the other half of the tandem jumped; I just went along for the ride). As Leo Tolstoy said about war, the way to end it is not to protest against it; the way to end it is to not participate in it. I might add that the plant kingdom is a source of endless variety. A vegan diet never gets boring. Most of the "difficulty" in being vegan is not due to any physical, "technical configuration" difficulty, but is, rather, due to cultural factors. For example if want to rely on highly prepared commercially prepared food, "ready to eat" items from the supermarket, instead of preparing ones' food from scratch, there are fewer of these prepared foods available, and they are often higher priced. If more people were vegan, this situation would rectifiy itself, and I've noticed that gradually, over the last 35 years, the situation re prepared foods has improved. Personally, I would avoid such prepared foods even if I were a meat, dairy, and egg-eater. I solve the problem by, having a chest freezer, and when I have time, making fairly large batches of my own "frozen Stouffers." Then if I am in a hurry, I grab what I want and microwave it. Configuration is pretty simple. You need proteins, carbohydrates, fats and micronutrients. It is usually obvious, by taste, which foods have which macronutrients. If you get the macronutrients, the micronutrients tend to take care of themselves, though you might want to make an effort to make sure you eat enough of the leafy greens, and the almonds or sesame seeds, that supply calcium. Contrary to popular belief, getting protein is not at all difficult. The only thing that needs special attention is b12, and this only needs special attention in the part of the "first world" that is obsessed with being clean, hygienic, and "germ-free." Not that there aren't advantages to "germ-obsession" as well as disadvantages. Grains, root vegetables, legumes, nuts, other seeds (for example squash seeds, sunflower seeds) and an endless variety of fruits and an endless variety of vegetables, and an endless variety of herbal flavorings, and spices. Much of what people seem to think is the flavor of "meat" -- is really the flavor of herbs and spices that have been added to meat. I might add that while supermarkets in the United States tend to carry only 1 cultivar of garbanzo bean, chik pea -- large ones that take about 2 horus to cook -- there are worldwide, many distinct varities, in different shapes, sizes and colors, including small ones that cook in 1/2 hour, ones that pop like popcorn, and purple ones. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

Some animal rights groups may, technically speaking, be definable as terrorists, but i don't think there really are any animal rights groups that fall in the same class as the terrorists that destroyed the world trade center, or the federal building in Oklamhoma city, or who blow up targets in the middle east. It is like comparing grapes with grapefurits. Or comparing toothpicks with baseball bats. They are obnoxious enough to warrant law enforcement efforts to prevent their actions, but they don't warrant the same kind of manpower that the bigger nastier terrorists warrant. I think that pretending they do is just that -- pretension -- the same kind of pretension that the animal rights activists display. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

freeflybella writes It seems to me that all that PETA's actions do is give PETA's "activists" a little rush. Makes them feel good about themselves for a short time. They have a little fun for themselves. It doesn't stimulate a beneficial dialog. I think their actions generally discourage a beneficial dialog. I didn't understand your analogy with the door and the house, by the way. I think most PETAists are self-centered people who own pets and love their pets and who make a habit of being inconsiderate to other people -- as well as uncaring about other people. They often believe they are "not speciesist" and that "humans and other animals are equal" just the way "people of different races are equal." I don't believe humans and other animals are equal. For me, not harming animals is not what I do because I think animals are equal to people and therefore I should treat them just like I treat people. Not harming animals is what I do only because I know it is not necessary to harm animals, in order to live, and live well, too. Basicly: it is no skin off my back to give them a break. But humans come first. This is absolutely crucial and seems to be something that most PETAists don't get. When all the children in the world have good homes and loving care and always enough to eat, then I'll worry about animals. Until then, I won't kill them unnecessarily, if it is no skin off my back to eat a plant instead of an animal -- but neither will I go out of my way to protect them or help them. Let's get children taken care of first, huh? This includes population management of people as well as trying to grow enough food for all the existing people. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

Lindsey writes: Thanks for clearing up how b12 is absorbed, by the way. If you accept cyanophytes (blue-green bacteria) as being part of a purely vegetarian diet, then it seems to me you can get b12 from a purely vegetarian diet. Much B12 can be made (and is made this way commercially) by fermenting plant-sourced carbohydrates with strains of bacteria. I don't know for sure, but I suspect they may use cyanophyte cultivars. Cynaophytes are widespread in soil and and some species help fix aerial nitrogen in the soil, if I recall correctly. I have no idea if these are the same soil species that produce b12, or what metabolic process b12 is a product of. But b12 should be plentiful in natural soil, in composted plant matter, and in agricultural soil if it it isn't heavy treated with chemical that surpress normal soil processes (and indeed some agribusiness soils may be little more than sand with industrially-produced plant nutrients added, and chemicals that surpress soil-life added). Tho i haven't tested my own soil for b12, i can see what I believe are cyanophytes growing in it. But again, tho I do taste tiny samples of soil from time to time, I do not trust this as a source of b12. i would need to investigate further before trusting my garden soil or compost pile as a source of b12. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

Lindsey wrote Oh, I see. I suppose I confused "B12 must enter the stomach and combine with intrinsic factor found there" with "B12 is absorbed by the stomach." Still, it sounds like you must get b12 into your stomach some how, in order to utilize it -- and that is why even tho b12 is synthesized by micro-organisms living in the small or large intestine, this b12 won't be of any value -- unless you eat your feces or your gastro-intestinal system isn't functioning normally, or well, and chyle from the small intestines backs up into the stomach. ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.

Lindsey wrote: That doesn't appear to be true, if you include the soil clinging to root vegetables, and our own feces, as natural parts of our diet, and as being, loosely, "vegetarian." True, strictly speaking, soil is not entirely made of vegetable matter, it has lots of mineral matter and lots of near-microscopic animals (soil nematodes). Also the small insects and insect eggs that cling to leafy greens, and get ingested unnoticed, may contain some B12. If you wash your leafy greens thoroughly, you won't get these in your diet. Such thorough washing is not necessary if you eat veganically grown greens, that, additionally, have been grown without pesticides. Tho personally I use pesticides (if necessary), and prefer to get my B12 from commercial carbohydrate fermentation extract. I knew the stomach secreted intrinsic factor but I didn't know B12 could be absorbed (by the villi?) of the terminal ileum. I had thought B12 was absorbed only thru the stomach lining. But I am not an expert. It is possible i could have been misinformed, or mis-remembered what I read from a reliable source (http://veganoutreach.com). Which part of the ileum (one of the 2 or 3 main segments of the small intestine?) is the "terminal" ileum? ____________________________________ Animal husbandry may not be necessary. We can maintain soil quality, for plant husbandry, with green manures and cover crops.