FreedomPhilosophy Posted July 18, 2014 Share Posted July 18, 2014 The journalist Gary Taubes torn to shreds (1 of 16): Humans have the anatomy and physiology of a frugivorous primate that has not evolved to consume meat like chimps have. It's hopeless to label human omnivores, the term has no useful application in terms of selecting an optimal human diet. My free ebook exploding the urban myth that humans are omnivores:http://freedomphilosophy.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Are-Humans-Omnivores-2nd-Ed.pdf How can you so called rational people honestly believe in a diet that was unfeasible before the B12 vitamin pills were invented. A vegan diet that included B12 is possible historically. Primates can derive B12 from numerous sources under natural conditions including:1) copraphagia - http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v283/n5749/abs/283781a0.html 2) invertebrate matter (insects etc.) on/in fruits and leaves http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e06.pdf 3) presence of bacterial in plant matter http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1016/S0168-6496(04)00003-0/full 4) carrion (technically road kill is vegan so long as killed accidentally)Most of these sources are unacceptable to modern humans because of sanitation, use of pesticides and bug resistant crops. These boards used to be a lot more paleo but ever since stef went vegetarian all the paleo people have either left or been quiet. They couldn't win Stef over with their BS and pseudoscience, that must of left some butthurt. 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray H. Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 I'm not watching a 16 part youtube series, and I'm not reading your e-book. I did watch the middle video, though. You cited one "research" paper done by a physicist. He wrote another "research" paper in 2008 entitled "You Are a Primate: Live as One". In it he writes, Here, for about twenty million years, evolution had superbly developed (our human ancestors') fruit spying and picking skills to a degree that their numbers increased to taxing the limited food resources. This in turn encouraged some of their more adventurous members to venture out into the surrounding savannas and scavenge the carcasses of large grazing animals brought down by predators and to ignore the shortcomings of this new diet that they were less well adapted to. This group probably originated the line leading to Homo sapiens, us. He recognizes the evidence that hominids ate meat. Oddly, he only sees this as having "shortcomings." He apparently sees no connection between higher energy food and the increase in brain size that clearly occurred in the evolution of hominids. I mean he points out a grand change in lifestyle (meat-eating) that correlates with a grand change in anatomy (brain size) and even states that this group (the one that eats meat!) probably led to Homo sapiens. But somehow he interprets this to mean our optimal diet should be close to chimps', since he says, They did not fall for the extremely unhealthy practice of cooking their food. Correct, their ancestors stayed in the forest with the fruit and adapted to that diet. Our ancestors ventured away from the forest and adapted to a lifestyle and diet that partly involved eating meat. As I pointed out in my first post, our brains increased in size, because we ate meat. Chimps brains have not increased, because they eat less meat. They didn't have the selective pressures our ancestors did to figure shit out. My head spun when, in the appendix to this paper, Dehmelt proposes a sample meal plan. Here ya go: STEAK TARTAR - 8 MEALS FOR 4 DAYS 250g-ground grass fed bison, Round Cut Egg yolks 4, raw Flaxseed 5T ground + 5T Flax husks Sharp onions 250g chopped Salt 2t Coriander 2t Vitamin D 4000 I.U Mix all in slowly rotating mixer and store meals in refrigerator If this ain't omnivorous, you don't know what omnivorous means. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Bill Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-library/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-ii/ Interesting article that makes a strong argument that it was eating meat that allowed us to evolve our powerful and energy-hogging brains. (Note: I tried to paste it directly but was not allowed due to "too many blocks of quoted text", whatever that means). 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mags Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 I think the distinction between processed meat and inhumainly-treated meat versus humanely-treated and naturally-raised (pastured etc depending on the animal) is very important. I am not surprised that meat with: processed marinades, processed batters, fried in vegetable oil, pumped with antibiotics to keep them from getting sick in their utterly horrid artificial environments (cages, cramped etc), fed an unnatural diet of corn/whatever, all creates negative health effects if said animal products are consumed. I steer well clear of these meats not only for the humane issues but because of the health reasons! I eat the highest quality meat I can find: grass-fed, zero additives, fed natural diet etc AKA a happy life and healthy animal. Also as local as possible. I would also like to point out that animals in the wild, as opposed to organic or the-like farms, would be killed a lot more savagely by predators, possible malnutrition or disease. Kept by humans and treated humanely (I am with you 100% against factory-farming etc) the animals live a much less stressful life, with abundant food and their predators are kept at bay by humans. All that said I believe a vegan or vegetarian diet can be healthy if you're diligent in finding the necessary vitamins & minerals elsewhere. For example not enough fat sources can lead to dental problems because the fat-soluble v&m's aren't utilised without enough said fat-sources - PaleoLeap: "Preventing and healing tooth decay", PaleoMama: "How I'm Healing My Cavities Without Dentistry". I see my diet as basically vegetarian with clean unprocessed meats added. I don't eat anything with non-paleo/whole ingredients or added sugar. I do have some condiments with added sugar or a dodgy ingredient or three, but only because I cant find a better version and I always use stuff like that in small quantities. I don't eat wheat/gluten. I will keep dairy to a minimum but I do sometimes have cheese or yogurt. Eggs = yep. I'm convinced that naturally-rasied animal products are a healthy addition to the diet. I am however more unsure of the moral side of things. "So to get back to the moral question. I don't know if killing an animal is as bad as killing a human. But I'd say that killing an animal simply because you like the way his flesh tastes is very bad." - Tyler Durden "Lastly, as for you going vegetarian/vegan, here are my thoughts. I think killing anything is wrong and like I have heard Stefan say, if children were raised properly/kindly, then even though morality cannot apply to animals, they still wouldn't kill or harm them. So, in order to raise a child that way, you cannot be feeding them dead animals because there would be a contradiction and if you eat meat as the parent, then you are being a hypocrite in raising them that way" - Abcqwerty123 These are both statements I will have to ponder. To clarify I don't see anything wrong with a vegan/vegetarian diet if one is well-informed about it all. At the very least it's worlds better than the typical modern diet of high-carb and processed-foods. It doesn't need to be said that one diet doesn't fit all. Some people can handle lactose and some cant. Bentb had a good point about the inuit doing better on high-fat. Compare them to, say, an Australian aboriginal who only had fairly lean animals to hunt. I think the key is experimenting and seeing the effects on yourself. Something I admittedly haven't done nearly enough of. I think exercise (type, intensity & duration) is also a factor in deciding the best diet for oneself. I'm very happy for you, Abcqwerty123, that your new diet is having such a benificial effect I too wasn't taught shit about healthy eating/life-style, and due to being in school I was depressed and used food as a bit of a crutch. Luckily I never got too overweight, but nonetheless my condition improved so much when I educated myself and changed my lifestyle. I would also talk about what I know of cholesterol ≠ heart disease incase anyone is concerned about that, but I don't feel like going into it. If anyone'd like me to then ask. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreedomPhilosophy Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-library/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians-part-ii/ Interesting article that makes a strong argument that it was eating meat that allowed us to evolve our powerful and energy-hogging brains. (Note: I tried to paste it directly but was not allowed due to "too many blocks of quoted text", whatever that means). It's not peer reviewed. I'm not watching a 16 part youtube series, and I'm not reading your e-book. I did watch the middle video, though. You cited one "research" paper done by a physicist. He wrote another "research" paper in 2008 entitled "You Are a Primate: Live as One". In it he writes, That's fine, you are of course free to do with your time as you wish. However, both science and philosophy require that you examine and account for evidence that is contrary to your views. Failing to do so is known confirmation bias, which is the stuff of creation theorists and other crackpots like Taubes.If you watch my video, you will see that I correct Miltons concept of using great apes as models because they are derived species. I have given my source and that provides compelling evidence.If you are not interested in being rigorous with disciplines such as science or philosophy, that's fine, but then do not try to present yourself as having useful knowledge on the topics in question. He recognizes the evidence that hominids ate meat. Oddly, he only sees this as having "shortcomings." He apparently sees no connection between higher energy food and the increase in brain size that clearly occurred in the evolution of hominids. I mean he points out a grand change in lifestyle (meat-eating) that correlates with a grand change in anatomy (brain size) and even states that this group (the one that eats meat!) probably led to Homo sapiens. But somehow he interprets this to mean our optimal diet should be close to chimps', since he says, Evidence that our ancestors ate meat is not evidence that they were adapted to such a practice, nor is it evidence that this practice is health or necessary. Extant humans consume all manner of unhealthy things, someone would look foolish to suggest in 10,000 years that eating Krispy Kreme was healthy adaptive behaviour on the basis that people did it centuries ago.Your point about increasing brain size is very questionable. Firstly the evidence is for decreased somatisation, not increased encephalisation (see The Symbolic Species, Deacon). And the expensive tissue hypothesis is discredited see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22507754 http://paleovegan.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/its-curtains-for-expensive-tissue.html If this ain't omnivorous, you don't know what omnivorous means. I freely admit I don't know what omnivorous means, it's rather the point of my book that it has no scientifically useful meaning. The wild boar is classified as an omnivore, it's diet is 99% plant matter and 1% earth worms. What does that tell me about what I should eat? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NGardner Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 This is going to come down to a disagreement. Thankfully we have freedom to choose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abcqwerty123 Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 This is going to come down to a disagreement. Thankfully we have freedom to choose. Yah. I asked a few questions, got some good answers and somehow started an epic debate hahaha. Since I was so "stoopid" with this topic, I couldn't really jump into the debate. Overall though from the debate and sources everyone provided, as an onlooker, I came to the conclusion that we can and have to eat stuff grown from the ground and that we can but at least now, don't have to eat animals. People can argue what is healthiest, not healthiest, and all that but from my understanding, there just isn't a definitive answer to that and there doesn't really seem to be even a close answer. So the answer I came up with is since I don't understand how if we can get the nutrients we would normal get from meat, in other sources, then how can a diet with meat be healthier then a diet without meat, therefore, a vegan diet when done correctly will be either as healthy a diet as it would be with meat or healthier. Keep in mind, I am 25 years old and have been eating meat my entire life and way to much of it and even though I feel I am bettering my life and acting on my own believes, I don't feel I have the "right" to push veganism (not sure if that is even a word) onto anyone else until I have been doing it for a good stretch of time and am completely comfortable with it myself. Lastly, thanks for the great debate everyone. A lot of great things were said and points made, as well as some very silly/pointless thing said. Overall though, I came out with what I see as a good choice based as an onlooker to the debate and I couldn't ask for anything more then that aside from getting a 100% agreement on a sound science/philosophy of diet. Thanks again! =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LovePrevails Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Humans have the anatomy and physiology of a frugivorous primate that has not evolved to consume meat like chimps have. It's hopeless to label human omnivores, the term has no useful application in terms of selecting an optimal human diet. John can you please comment on my posts on this thread and say if I have said anything misleading or incorrect since you seem to be the resident expert on the position I was advancing. I'm not reading your e-book. Dude - it's like, 16 pages. This is going to come down to a disagreement. Thankfully we have freedom to choose. well we can agree to discontinue the investigation, but it doesn't really come down to disagreement. Two mutually exclusive positions cannot both be true so unless we live in a relativistic multiverse where we're each right in our own world - one of our positions must be incorrect. How can you so called rational people honestly believe in a diet that was unfeasible before the B12 vitamin pills were invented. the amount of B12 you need to get you through your entire life is like the size of 4 grains of rice B12 was created by bacteria on vegetables since like, forever, it's just because our foods are not just grabbed straight from the ground we don't get it 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soren Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Was there ever even a chance that you would have said yes I am gonna continue eating meat? As a former food focused person of the Paleo/ extreme low carber variete I would warn against focusing on diet other than not eating to optain comfort. I approach dieting in the same way Stef approachs marrige, what did more free people come up with. I have used Weston A Price as inspiration and what I take away form that ist a Spectra around "omnivorism" with no vegans or straight meat eaters to be found in nature. To focus on this platonic ideal of the "perfect" diet I think is a distraction. Akin to a boob job, some external change to try and resolve an internal problem. You start lying to yourself to justify your choices, "I feel so much better, than I used to". And as your gut flora changes you will actually feel worse for some time if you for some reason eat what you used to eat. If you wanna loose cravings I found that when I weened my self of sugar and carbs I did it over a month and it was no problem. If I had sugar cravings I would buy a small piece of chocolate to satisfy that craving but no more. I guess you can do the same with meat. like some small portion of dried meat I guess? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raquel Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 People don't want to hear bad things about their bad habits! People who defend eating meat, eggs and dairy don't want to stop eating them and just try to ignore true information because the truth makes them feel uncomfortable. Remember that the truth will set you free but first it will piss you off! Eating animal products is immoral, because we are killing them just because they taste "good". We are not born to eat animals, we are not carnivores, not even omnivores! Maybe a long time ago it was a matter of survival so people ate meat, but that doesn't mean it is healthy. The body is very strong and resistant and can survive eating almost anything, but now we are living in a times where we have a lot of options so choosing to eat meat is violent. (It is the violation of the non aggression principle). People are not only killing innocent animals but are destroying their health, and are destroying the environment. we need to be responsible of the world, for the animals and for our health. please check out this books that are written by real doctors who are saving people and are making a difference in this world: The China Study, Eat to Live, Reverse Heart Disease, The Starch Solution, Dr. Neal Bernard´s program for reversing diabetes 2 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soren Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 People don't want to hear bad things about their bad habits! People who defend eating meat, eggs and dairy don't want to stop eating them and just try to ignore true information because the truth makes them feel uncomfortable. Remember that the truth will set you free but first it will piss you off! Eating animal products is immoral, because we are killing them just because they taste "good". We are not born to eat animals, we are not carnivores, not even omnivores! Maybe a long time ago it was a matter of survival so people ate meat, but that doesn't mean it is healthy. The body is very strong and resistant and can survive eating almost anything, but now we are living in a times where we have a lot of options so choosing to eat meat is violent. (It is the violation of the non aggression principle). People are not only killing innocent animals but are destroying their health, and are destroying the environment. we need to be responsible of the world, for the animals and for our health. please check out this books that are written by real doctors who are saving people and are making a difference in this world: The China Study, Eat to Live, Reverse Heart Disease, The Starch Solution, Dr. Neal Bernard´s program for reversing diabetes No it is not, the non aggression principle doesn't apply to animals. People who grow up away form animals have no idea about them, they think they are pets. I have been rammed assaulted a couple of times by peaceful vegetarian sheep as a child. And this environment thing. Right now we are spraying dead dinos to grow plant food which makes it so cheap that they feed it to animals too instead of gracing. Its a cicle of life animals can't live with out plants and plants can't live with out animals. You need to a lot of animals to grow food plants au naturel. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J. D. Stembal Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 I watched more of his videos, also debates with other people, and the more I watched the more unanswered questions came up. He's very slick so it's hard to see but once I started paying attention to it I noticed that he simply evaded every question that he didn't want to answer. I'm just curious what specific unanswered questions you have based on Gary Taubes' position on nutrition. He's a journalist and writer, not a physician or nutritional researcher. He's a communicator, not a scientist, Calling him slick and evasive is not an argument against the lipid hypothesis, you realize. If you want to see a presentation by someone who has actually been in the trenches of nutritional medicine, watch Dr. Phinney here: (if you want you can skip to about 11:00 for his explanation of the keto-adaption experiment, which is essential to dispelling the myth that eating meat is not beneficial to humans) Or, read anything by Dr. Robert Atkins, the most popular selling nutrition book author of all time. Alternatively, former lab technician, cross fit trainer, and fellow Paleo-libertarian author, Robb Wolf, has a no non-sense layman's approach to exercise and nutrition. Here's the first video in a series called the Grocery Store Tour: I want you to notice that none of these people are claiming that eating meat is a poor lifestyle choice that has negative consequences. The vegetarian ethos is based on myth. It's science-fantasy. Sure, I agree with your right to choose not to eat meat for whatever reason you dream up, but don't irresponsibly claim that it's healthier using aesthetic arguments about being nice to animals (or whatever pseudo-science you can cook up) in order to sucker other people that don't know any better. It's not a healthy lifestyle choice and it never will be, especially in today's grocery stores where we are showered with an overwhelming selection of processed junk claimed to be "heart-healthy" that actually kills people. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray H. Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 It's not peer reviewed. He linked to a blog post discussing a peer-reviewed paper. Is that youtube series peer-reviewed? Is the Hans Dehmelt article peer-reviewed? Is your e-book peer-reviewed? No? Then, after your own example, we should dismiss them. Here are some some articles and papers with lots of citations. Diet influences evolution Scientists use the term "omnivore" and find that humans and other primates have been such for a very long time. Eating meat allowed humans to reduce gut size, increase brain size, and reproduce faster. Wild boars eating a really big earthworm. You're right: you shouldn't base your diet on what a wild boar eats. You could base it on what genetically equivalent, healthy, and flourishing, ancestral H. sapiens ate, though. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler Durden Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 I'm just curious what specific unanswered questions you have based on Gary Taubes' position on nutrition. He's a journalist and writer, not a physician or nutritional researcher. He's a communicator, not a scientist, Calling him slick and evasive is not an argument against the lipid hypothesis, you realize. If you want to see a presentation by someone who has actually been in the trenches of nutritional medicine, watch Dr. Phinney here: *video* Or, read anything by Dr. Robert Atkins, the most popular selling nutrition book authors of all time. Alternatively, former lab technician, cross fit trainer, and fellow Paleo-libertarian author, Robb Wolf, has a no non-sense layman's approach to exercise and nutrition. Here's the first video in a series called the Grocery Store Tour: *video* I want you to notice that none of these people are claiming that eating meat is a poor lifestyle choice that has negative consequences. The vegetarian ethos is based on myth. It's science-fantasy. Sure, I agree with your right to choose not to eat meat for whatever reason you dream up, but don't irresponsibly claim that it's healthier using aesthetic arguments about being nice to animals (or whatever pseudo-science you can cook up) in order to sucker other people that don't know any better. It's not a healthy lifestyle choice and it never will be, especially in today's grocery stores where we are showered with an overwhelming selection of processed junk claimed to be "heart-healthy" that actually kills people. I really tried to be nice to you, but I give up. You're not curious at all. You gave me a video about Gary Taubes and I gave you a review that clearly shows that Gary Taubes has lied and misrepresented information in at least one of his books. The guy is a fraud, I know that calling him slick is not an argument that's why I provided the link. If the only way you can respond to that is by throwing more youtube videos my way and using words like "myth", "science-fantasy", "dream up", "irresponsibly", "aesthetic arguments", "pseudo-science" and "cook up" to describe my point of view, even though I gave you several actual scientific publications, then you're just a lost cause. I'm not responding to any more of your posts and I don't expect you to understand. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pepin Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 A vegan diet that included B12 is possible historically. Primates can derive B12 from numerous sources under natural conditions including: 1) copraphagia - http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v283/n5749/abs/283781a0.html 2) invertebrate matter (insects etc.) on/in fruits and leaves http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e06.pdf 3) presence of bacterial in plant matter http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1016/S0168-6496(04)00003-0/full 4) carrion (technically road kill is vegan so long as killed accidentally)Most of these sources are unacceptable to modern humans because of sanitation, use of pesticides and bug resistant crops. Ah, the part about pesticides makes a lot of sense as B12 is produced almost exclusively from bacteria, and pesticides would decrease that. B12 isn't really a big deal anyway as it is one of the few supplements that works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abcqwerty123 Posted July 20, 2014 Author Share Posted July 20, 2014 Was there ever even a chance that you would have said yes I am gonna continue eating meat? As a former food focused person of the Paleo/ extreme low carber variete I would warn against focusing on diet other than not eating to optain comfort. I approach dieting in the same way Stef approachs marrige, what did more free people come up with. I have used Weston A Price as inspiration and what I take away form that ist a Spectra around "omnivorism" with no vegans or straight meat eaters to be found in nature. To focus on this platonic ideal of the "perfect" diet I think is a distraction. Akin to a boob job, some external change to try and resolve an internal problem. You start lying to yourself to justify your choices, "I feel so much better, than I used to". And as your gut flora changes you will actually feel worse for some time if you for some reason eat what you used to eat. If you wanna loose cravings I found that when I weened my self of sugar and carbs I did it over a month and it was no problem. If I had sugar cravings I would buy a small piece of chocolate to satisfy that craving but no more. I guess you can do the same with meat. like some small portion of dried meat I guess? If I would have received an argument making meat worth eating, I would have continued to eat meat. The problem is, I have yet to hear an argument that had something to do with eating meat and that wasn't countered. I admit, I was leaning towards being vegan anyways, but I wanted to be informed before I made my decision final and this huge debate made it pretty simple. When I said before how I feel better physical after my first week, it wasn't a lie to you guys or myself. I really did feel better and still do, but I also won't blame that purely on what I am eating. I can throw in there that it has to do with my weight loss so I can already start to move around easier, my hard work with my career in which I have been progressing it much faster and cleaner then I have yet to do, and more.... But the fact is, I DO feel better after my first week and eating vegan was one of the things that changed in the week. I have actually been losing my cravings. When I am hungry, I think about how great a super large unhealthy chipotle burrito or pepperoni pizza sounds, but then I force myself to eat something else and those craving disappear. However, I do not trust myself to eat a small piece of meat when I have cravings and even if I did, it doesn't change the fact that I don't have to eat the meat because eventually cravings will subside, especially after I just simply eat. People don't want to hear bad things about their bad habits! People who defend eating meat, eggs and dairy don't want to stop eating them and just try to ignore true information because the truth makes them feel uncomfortable. Remember that the truth will set you free but first it will piss you off! Eating animal products is immoral, because we are killing them just because they taste "good". We are not born to eat animals, we are not carnivores, not even omnivores! Maybe a long time ago it was a matter of survival so people ate meat, but that doesn't mean it is healthy. The body is very strong and resistant and can survive eating almost anything, but now we are living in a times where we have a lot of options so choosing to eat meat is violent. (It is the violation of the non aggression principle). People are not only killing innocent animals but are destroying their health, and are destroying the environment. we need to be responsible of the world, for the animals and for our health. please check out this books that are written by real doctors who are saving people and are making a difference in this world: The China Study, Eat to Live, Reverse Heart Disease, The Starch Solution, Dr. Neal Bernard´s program for reversing diabetes I agree that people don't like to hear about their own bad habits/wrong doings. Eating meat isn't against the non-aggression principle though because animals cannot understand the non-aggression principle, therefore it cannot apply to them. That does NOT make it right though. Eating animal is also not immoral. Again, they cannot understand morality so it cannot apply to them. People do not need to be responsible for the world, they need to be responsible for themselves. See, that is a HUGE problem in the world. Everyone pushes this responsibility for everything except the one and only thing people actually need to be responsible for, themselves (and their own children). I constantly hear, we need to be responsible for all the children in the countries education, for the environment, for your neighborhood, and so much more, but I never hear that people need to be responsible for themselves. THIS IS A QUESTION FOR ALL PEOPLE WHO STILL EAT MEAT!!! -First, I am not accusing you of being evil or anything like that, just proposing a different thinking on this. If you have any pets, let's say a dog for example. Would you eat your dog? For me, I have 2 dogs, love them to death and I would absolutely never eat them. If you say yes, then I can only assume that your value on life in general is a little shaky. If you said you wouldn't eat them, then why does that change with any other animal? It is only because you don't raise those pigs, cows, lamb, etc... You don't form an attachment to them and you aren't the one killing/chopping the animal up, but because you won't eat your own pet, you know the value of animals. Sooo you are literally under the mindset of, out of site out of mind. But hey, maybe I am wrong. Don't know how I can be wrong, but maybe you have some crazy way of wording that justifies it. However, this debate is pretty much over because everyone arguing for eating meat has either said something along the lines of "We have always eaten meat for tons of evolutions, therefore it is a must" or "we need to eat meat to get these specific nutrients". For the first one, WHO CARES!! We also used to own slaves. It doesn't make it right, especially when talking about evolution. WE EVOLVE!!! WE ADAPT!!! That isn't an argument to the current. You are basically stating that dinosaurs ate meat so we have to eat meat. NO! If we have to eat meat, then prove it through science with the hear and the now, through our current evolution. As for the need for specific nutrients. All the vegan supporting argument have proven exactly how to get all the nutrients the meat eaters said we need, through other sources aside from meat, so that argument, no matter how many times you type it out in different words, has already been countered. So, if you have an actual argument to defend eating meat, that pertains to the here and now, that hasn't been countered 10 times over again, then I would love to hear it, but please stop repeating yourself! If you can't come up with an argument, then that is fine, you can simply say that you enjoy eating meat because it tastes good no matter what animal has to suffer. But stop acting like a mistreated child or an adult in current society by arguing something while being constantly proven wrong. Thank you! 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Bill Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I found this to be a fascinating account... this is part 1 of 3, go to the link to access the other 2 parts: http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm Eskimos Prove An All Meat DietProvides Excellent HealthNews You Can Use Adventures in DietPart 1 By Vilhjalmur StefanssonHarper's Monthly Magazine, November 1935. In 1906 I went to the Arctic with the food tastes and beliefs of the average American. By 1918, after eleven years as an Eskimo among Eskimos, I had learned things which caused me to shed most of those beliefs. Ten years later I began to realize that what I had learned was going to influence materially the sciences of medicine and dietetics. However, what finally impressed the scientists and converted many during the last two or three years, was a series of confirmatory experiments upon myself and a colleague performed at Bellevue Hospital, New York City, under the supervision of a committee representing several universities and other organizations. Not so long ago the following dietetic beliefs were common: To be healthy you need a varied diet, composed of elements from both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. You got tired of and eventually felt a revulsion against things if you had to eat them often. This latter belief was supported by stories of people who through force of circumstances had been compelled, for instance, to live for two weeks on sardines and crackers and who, according to the stories, had sworn that so long as they lived they never would touch sardines again. The Southerners had it that nobody can eat a quail a day for thirty days. There were subsidiary dietetic views. It was desirable to eat fruits and vegetables, including nuts and coarse grains. The less meat you ate the better for you. If you ate a good deal of it, you would develop rheumatism, hardening of the arteries, and high blood pressure, with a tendency to breakdown of the kidneys - in short, premature old age. An extreme variant had it that you would live more healthy, happily, and longer if you became a vegetarian. Specifically it was believed, when our field studies began, that without vegetables in your diet you would develop scurvy. It was a "known fact" that sailors, miners, and explorers frequently died of scurvy "because they did not have vegetables and fruits." This was long before Vitamin C was publicized. The addition of salt to food was considered either to promote health or to be necessary for health. This is proved by various yarns, such as that African tribes make war on one another to get salt; that minor campaigns of the American Civil War were focused on salt mines; and that all herbivorous animals are ravenous for salt. I do not remember seeing a critical appendix to any of these views, suggesting for instance, that Negro tribes also make war about things which no one ever said were biological essentials of life; that tobacco was a factor in Civil War campaigns without being a dietetic essential; and that members of the deer family in Maine which never have salt or show desire for it, are as healthy as those in Montana which devour quantities of it and are forever seeking more. A belief I was destined to find crucial in my Arctic work, making the difference between success and failure, life and death, was the view that man cannot live on meat alone. The few doctors and dietitians who thought you could were considered unorthodox if not charlatans. The arguments ranged from metaphysics to chemistry: Man was not intended to be carnivorous - you knew that from examining his teeth, his stomach, and the account of him in the Bible. As mentioned, he would get scurvy if he had no vegetables in meat. The kidneys would be ruined by overwork. There would be protein poisoning and, in general hell to pay. With these views in my head and, deplorably, a number of others like them, I resigned my position as assistant instructor in anthropology at Harvard to become anthropologist of a polar expedition. Through circumstances and accidents which are not a part of the story, I found myself that autumn the guest of the Mackenzie River Eskimos. The Hudson's Bay Company, whose most northerly post was at Fort McPherson two hundred miles to the south had had little influence on the Eskimos during more than half a century; for it was only some of them who made annual visits to the trading post; and then they purchased no food but only tea, tobacco, ammunition and things of that sort. But in 1889 the whaling fleet had begun to cultivate these waters and for fifteen years there had been close association with sometimes as many as a dozen ships and four to five hundred men wintering at Herschel Island, just to the west of the delta. During this time a few of the Eskimos had learned some English and perhaps one in ten of them had grown to a certain extent fond of white man's foods. But now the whaling fleet was gone because the bottom had dropped out of the whalebone market, and the district faced an old-time winter of fish and water. The game, which might have supplemented the fish some years earlier, had been exterminated or driven away by the intensive hunting that supplied meat to the whaling fleet. There was a little tea, but not nearly enough to see the Eskimos through the winter - this was the only element of the white man's dietary of which they were really fond and the lack of which would worry them. So I was facing a winter of fish without tea. For the least I could do, an uninvited guest, was to pretend a dislike for it. The issue of fish and water against fish and tea was, in any case, to me six against a half dozen. For I had had a prejudice against fish all my life. I had nibbled at it perhaps once or twice a year at course dinners, always deciding that it was as bad as I thought. This was pure psychology of course, but I did not realize it. I was in a measure adopted into an Eskimo family the head of which knew English. He had grown up as a cabin boy on a whaling ship and was called Roxy, though his name was Memoranna. It was early September, we were living in tents, the days were hot but it had begun to freeze during the nights, which were now dark for six to eight hours. The community of three or four families, fifteen or twenty individuals, was engaged in fishing. With long poles, three or four nets were shoved out from the beach about one hundred yards apart. When the last net was out the first would be pulled in, with anything from dozens to hundreds of fish, mostly ranging in weight from one to three pounds, and including some beautiful salmon trout. From knowledge of other white men the Eskimos consider these to be most suitable for me and would cook them specially, roasting them against the fire. They themselves ate boiled fish. Trying to develop an appetite, my habit was to get up soon after daylight, say four o'clock, shoulder my rifle, and go off after breakfasts on a hunt south across the rolling prairie, though I scarcely expected to find any game. About the middle of the afternoon I would return to camp. Children at play usually saw me coming and reported to Roxy's wife, who would then put a fresh salmon trout to roast. When I got home I would nibble at it and write in my diary what a terrible time I was having. Against my expectation, and almost against my will, I was beginning to like the baked salmon trout when one day of perhaps the second week I arrived home without the children having seen me coming. There was no baked fish ready but the camp was sitting round troughs of boiled fish. I joined them and, to my surprise, liked it better than the baked. There after the special cooking ceased, and I ate boiled fish with the Eskimos. II By midwinter I had left my cabin-boy host and, for the purposes of anthropological study, was living with a less sophisticated family at the eastern edge of the Mackenzie delta. Our dwelling was a house of wood and earth, heated and lighted with Eskimo-style lamps. They burned seal or whale oil, mostly white whale from a hunt of the previous spring when the fat had been stored in bags and preserved, although the lean meat had been eaten. Our winter cooking however, was not done over the lamps but on a sheet-iron stove which had been obtained from whalers. There were twenty-three of us living in one room, and there were sometimes as many as ten visitors. The floor was then so completely covered with sleepers that the stove had to be suspended from the ceiling. The temperature at night was round 60*F. The ventilation was excellent through cold air coming up slowly from below by way of a trap door that was never closed and the heated air going out by a ventilator in the roof. Everyone slept completely naked - no pajama or night shirts. We used cotton or woolen blankets which had been obtained from the whalers and from the Hudson's Bay Company. In the morning, about seven o'clock, winter-caught fish, frozen so hard that they would break like glass, were brought in to lie on the floor till they began to soften a little. One of the women would pinch them every now and then until, when she found her finger indented them slightly, she would begin preparations for breakfast. First she cut off the head and put them aside to be boiled for the children in the afternoon (Eskimos are fond of children, and heads are considered the best part of the fish). Next best are the tails, which are cut off and saved for the children also. The woman would then slit the skin along the back and also along the belly and getting hold with her teeth, would strip the fish somewhat as we peel a banana, only sideways where we peel bananas, endways. Thus prepared, the fish were put on dishes and passed around. Each of us took one and gnawed it about as an American does corn on the cob. An American leaves the cob; similarly we ate the flesh from the outside of the fish, not touching the entrails. When we had eaten as much as we chose, we put the rest on a tray for dog feed. After breakfast all the men and about half the women would go fishing, the rest of the women staying at home to keep house. About eleven o'clock we came back for a second meal of frozen fish just like the breakfast. At about four in the afternoon the working day was over and we came home to a meal of hot boiled fish. Also we came home to a dwelling so heated by the cooking that the temperature would range from 85* to 100*F. or perhaps even higher - more like our idea of a Turkish bath than a warm room. Streams of perspiration would run down our bodies, and the children were kept busy going back and forth with dippers of cold water of which we naturally drank great quantities. Just before going to sleep we would have a cold snack of fish that had been left over from dinner. Then we slept seven or eight hours and the routine of the day began once more. After some three months as a guest of the Eskimos I had acquired most of their food tastes. I had to agree that fish is better boiled than cooked any other way, and that the heads (which we occasionally shared with the children) were the best part of the fish. I no longer desired variety in the cooking, such as occasional baking - I preferred it always boils if it was cooked. I had become as fond of raw fish as if I had been a Japanese. I like fermented (therefore slightly acid) whale oil with my fish as well as ever I liked mixed vinegar and olive oil with a salad. But I still had two reservations against Eskimo practice; I did not eat rotten fish and I longed for salt with my meals. There were several grades of decayed fish. The August catch had been protected by longs from animals but not from heat and was outright rotten. The September catch was mildly decayed. The October and later catches had been frozen immediately and were fresh. There was less of the August fish than of any other and, for that reason among the rest, it was a delicacy - eaten sometimes as a snack between meals, sometimes as a kind of dessert and always frozen, raw. In midwinter it occurred to me to philosophize that in our own and foreign lands taste for a mild cheese is somewhat plebeian; it is at least a semi-truth that connoisseurs like their cheeses progressively stronger. The grading applies to meats, as in England where it is common among nobility and gentry to like game and pheasant so high that the average Midwestern American or even Englishman of a lower class, would call them rotten. I knew of course that, while it is good form to eat decayed milk products and decayed game, it is very bad form to eat decayed fish. I knew also that the view of our populace that there are likely to be "ptomaines" in decaying fish and in the plebeian meats; but it struck me as an improbable extension of the class-consciousness that ptomaines would avoid the gentleman's food and attack that of a commoner. These thoughts led to a summarizing query; If it is almost a mark of social distinction to be able to eat strong cheeses with a straight face and smelly birds with relish, why is it necessarily a low taste to be fond of decaying fish? On that basis of philosophy, though with several qualms, I tried the rotten fish one day, and if memory servers, like it better than my first taste of Camembert. During the next weeks I became fond of rotten fish. About the fourth month of my first Eskimo winter I was looking forward to every meal (rotten or fresh), enjoying them, and feeling comfortable when they were over. Still I kept thinking the boiled fish would taste better if only I had salt. From the beginning of my Eskimo residence I had suffered from this lack. On one of the first few days, with the resourcefulness of a Boy Scout, I had decided to make myself some salt, and had boiled sea water till there was left only a scum of brown powder. If I had remembered as vividly my freshman chemistry as I did the books about shipwrecked adventurers, I should have know in advance that the sea contains a great many chemicals besides sodium chloride, among them iodine. The brown scum tasted bitter rather than salty. A better chemist could no doubt have refined the product. I gave it up, partly through the persuasion of my host, the English-speaking Roxy. The Mackenzie Eskimos, Roxy told me, believe that what is good for grown people is good for children and enjoyed by them as soon as they get used to it. Accordingly they teach the use of tobacco when a child is very young. It then grows to maturity with the idea that you can't get along without tobacco. But, said Roxy, the whalers have told that many whites get along without it, and he had himself seen white men who never use it, while the few white women, wives of captains, none used tobacco. (This, remember, was in 1906.) Now Roxy had heard that white people believe that salt is good for, and even necessary for children, so they begin early to add salt to the child's food. That child then would grow up with the same attitude toward salt as an Eskimo has toward tobacco. However, said Roxy, since we Eskimos were mistaken in thinking tobacco so necessary, may it be that the white men are mistaken about salt? Pursuing the argument, he concluded that the reason why all Eskimos dislike salted food and all white men like it was not racial but due to custom. You could then, break the salt habit as easily as the tobacco habit and you would suffer no ill result beyond the mental discomfort of the first few days or weeks. Roxy did not know, but I did as an anthropologist, that in pre-Columbian times salt was unknown or the taste of it disliked and the use of it avoided through much of North and South America. It may possibly be true that the carnivorous Eskimos in whose language the word salty, mamaitok, is synonymous with with evil-tasting, disliked salt more intensely than those Indians who were partly herbivorous. Nevertheless, it is clear that the salt habit spread more slowly through the New World from the Europeans than the tobacco habit through Europe from the Indians. Even today there are considerable areas, for instance in the Amazon basin, where the natives still abhor salt. Not believing that the races differ in their basic natures, I felt inclined to agree with Roxy that the practice of slating food is with us a social inheritance and the belief in its merits a part of our folklore. Through this philosophizing I was somewhat reconciled to going without salt, but I was nevertheless, overjoyed when one day Ovayuak, my new host in the eastern delta, came indoors to say that a dog team was approaching which he believed to be that of Ilavinirk, a man who had worked with whalers and who possessed a can of salt. Sure enough, it was Ilavinirk, and he was delighted to give me the salt, a half-pound baking-powder can about half full, which he said he had been carrying around for two or three years, hoping sometime to meet someone who would like it for a present. He seemed almost as pleased to find that I wanted the salt as I was to get it. I sprinkled some on my boiled fish, enjoyed it tremendously, and wrote in my diary that it was the best meal I had had all winter. Then I put the can under my pillow, in the Eskimo way of keeping small and treasured things. But at the next meal I had almost finished eating before I remembered the salt. Apparently then my longing for it had been what you might call imaginary. I finished without salt, tried it at one or two meals during the next few days and thereafter left it untouched. When we moved camp the salt remained behind. After the return of the sun I made a journey of several hundred miles to the ship Narwhal which, contrary to our expectations of the late summer, had really come in and wintered at Herschel Island. The captain was George P. Leavitt, of Portland, Maine. For the few days of my visit I enjoyed the excellent New England cooking, but when I left Herschel Island I returned without reluctance to the Eskimo meals of fish and cold water. It seemed to me that, mentally and physically, I had never been in better health in my life. III During the first few months of my first year in the Arctic, I acquired, though I did not at the time fully realize it, the munitions of fact and experience which have within my own mind defeated those views of dietetics reviewed at the beginning of this article. I could be healthy on a diet of fish and water. The longer I followed it the better I liked it, which meant, at least inferentially and provisionally, that you never become tired of your food if you have only one thing to eat. I did not get scurvy on the fish diet nor learn that any of my fish-eating friends ever had it. Nor was the freedom from scurvy due to the fish being eaten raw - we proved that later. (What it was due to we shall deal with in the second article of this series.) There were certainly no signs of hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure, of breakdown of the kidneys or of rheumatism. These months on fish were the beginning of several years during which I lived on an exclusive meat diet. For I count in fish when I speak of living on meat, using "meat" and "meat diet" more as a professor of anthropology than as the editor of a housekeeping magazine. The term in this article and in like scientific discussions refers to a diet from which all things of the vegetable kingdom are absent. To the best of my estimate then, I have lived in the Arctic for more than five years exclusively on meat and water. (This was not, of course, one five-year stretch, but an aggregate of that much time during ten years.) One member of my expeditions, Storker Storkersen, lived on an exclusive meat diet for about the same length of time while there are several who have lived on it from one to three years. These have been of many nationalities and of three races - ordinary European whites; natives of the Cape Verde Islands, who had a large percentage of Negro blood; and natives of the South Sea Islands. Neither from experience with my own men nor from what I have heard of similar cases do I find any racial difference. There are marked individual differences. The typical method of breaking a party into a meat diet is that three of five of us leave in midwinter a base camp which has nearly or quite the best type of European mixed diet that money and forethought can provide. The novices have been told that it is possible to live on meat alone. We warn them that it is hard to get used to for the first few weeks, but assure them that eventually they will grow to like it and that any difficulties in changing diets will be due to their imagination. These assertions the men will believe to a varying degree. I have a feeling that in the course of breaking in something like twenty individuals; two or three young men believed me completely, and that this belief collaborated strongly with their youth and adaptability in making them take readily to the meat. Usually I think, the men believe that what I tell of myself is true for me personally, but that I am peculiar, a freak - that a normal person will not react similarly, and that they are going to be normal and have an awful time. Their past experience seems to tell them that if you eat one thing every day you are bound to tire of it. In the back of their minds there is also what they have read and heard about the necessity for a varied diet. They have specific fears of developing the ailments which they have heard of as caused by meat or prevented by vegetables. We secure our food in the Arctic by hunting and in midwinter there is not enough good hunting light. Accordingly we carry with us from the base camp provisions for several weeks, enough to take us into the long days. During this time, as we travel away from shore, we occasionally kill a seal or a polar bear and eat their meat along with our groceries. Our men like these as an element of a mixed diet as well as you do beef or mutton. We are not on rations. We eat all we want, and we feed the dogs what we think is good for them. When the traveling conditions are right we usually have two big meals a day, morning and evening, but when we are storm bound or delayed by open water we eat several meals to pass the time away. At the end of four, six or eight weeks at sea, we have used up all our food. We do not try to save a few delicacies to eat with the seal and bear, for experience has proved that such things are only tantalizing. Suddenly, then we are on nothing but seal. For while our food at sea averages ten percent polar bear there may be months in which we don't see a bear. The men go at the seal loyally; they are volunteers and whatever the suffering, they have bargained for it and intend to grin and bear it. For a day or two they eat square meals. Then the appetite begins to flag and they discover as they had more than half expected, that for them personally it is going to be a hard pull or a failure. Some own up that they can't eat, while others pretend to have good appetites, enlisting the surreptitious help of a dog to dispose of their share. In extreme cases, which are usually those of the middle-aged and conservative they go two or three days practically or entirely without eating. We had no weighing apparatus; but I take it that some have lost anything from ten to twenty pounds, what with the hard work on empty stomachs. They become gloomy and grouchy and, as I once wrote, "They begin to say to each other, and sometimes to me, things about their judgment in joining a polar expedition that I cannot quote." But after a few days even the conservatives begin to nibble at the seal meat, after a few more they are eating a good deal of it, rather under protest and at the end of three or four weeks they are eating square meals, though still talking about their willingness to give a soul or right arm for this or that. Amusingly, or perhaps instructively, they often long for ham and eggs or corned beef when, according to theory, they ought to be longing for vegetables and fruits. Some of them do hanker particularly for things like sauerkraut or orange juice; but more usually it is for hot cakes and syrup or bread and butter. There are two ways in which to look at an abrupt change of diet - how difficult it is to get used to what you have to eat and how hard it is to be deprived of things you are used to and like. From the second angle, I take it to be physiologically significant that we have found our people, when deprived, to long equally for things which have been considered necessities of health, such as salt; for things where a drug addiction is considered to be involved, such as tobacco; and for items of that class of so-called staple foods, such as bread. It has happened on several trips, and with an aggregate of perhaps twenty men, that they have had to break at one time their salt, tobacco, and bread habits. I have frequently tried the experiment of asking which they would prefer; salt for their meal, bread with it, or tobacco for an after-dinner smoke. In nearly every case the men have stopped to consider, nor do I recall that they were ever unanimous. When we are returning to the ship after several months on meat and water, I usually say that the steward will have orders to cook separately for each member of the party all he wants of whatever he wants. Especially during the last two or three days, there is a great deal of talk among the novices in the part about what the choices are to be. One man wants a big dish of mashed potatoes and gravy; another a gallon of coffee and bread and butter; a third perhaps wants a stack of hot cakes with syrup and butter. On reaching the ship each does get all he wants of what he wants. The food tastes good, although not quite so superlative as they had imagined. They have said they are going to eat a lot and they do. Then they get indigestion, headache, feel miserable, and within a week, in nine cases out of ten of those who have been on meat six months or over, they are willing to go back to meat again. If a man does not want to take part in a second sledge journey it is usually for a reason other than the dislike of meat. Still, as just implied, the verdict depends on how long you have been on the diet. If at the end of the first ten days our men could have been miraculously rescued from the seal and brought back to their varied foods, most of them would have sworn forever after that they were about to die when rescued, and they would have vowed never to taste seal again - vows which would have been easy to keep for no doubt in such cases the thought of seal, even years later, would have been accompanied by a feeling of revulsion. If a man has been on meat exclusively for only three or four months he may or may not be reluctant to go back to it again. But if the period has been six months or over, I remember no one who was unwilling to go back to meat. Moreover, those who have gone without vegetables for an aggregate of several years usually thereafter eat a larger percentage of meat than your average citizen, if they can afford it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray H. Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I just want to point out that I have at no point said how anyone should eat. I don't care what you eat. (Don't eat other people.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soren Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 THIS IS A QUESTION FOR ALL PEOPLE WHO STILL EAT MEAT!!! -First, I am not accusing you of being evil or anything like that, just proposing a different thinking on this. If you have any pets, let's say a dog for example. Would you eat your dog? For me, I have 2 dogs, love them to death and I would absolutely never eat them. If you say yes, then I can only assume that your value on life in general is a little shaky. If you said you wouldn't eat them, then why does that change with any other animal? It is only because you don't raise those pigs, cows, lamb, etc... You don't form an attachment to them and you aren't the one killing/chopping the animal up, but because you won't eat your own pet, you know the value of animals. Sooo you are literally under the mindset of, out of site out of mind. But hey, maybe I am wrong. Don't know how I can be wrong, but maybe you have some crazy way of wording that justifies it. However, this debate is pretty much over because everyone arguing for eating meat has either said something along the lines of "We have always eaten meat for tons of evolutions, therefore it is a must" or "we need to eat meat to get these specific nutrients". For the first one, WHO CARES!! We also used to own slaves. It doesn't make it right, especially when talking about evolution. WE EVOLVE!!! WE ADAPT!!! That isn't an argument to the current. You are basically stating that dinosaurs ate meat so we have to eat meat. NO! If we have to eat meat, then prove it through science with the hear and the now, through our current evolution. As for the need for specific nutrients. All the vegan supporting argument have proven exactly how to get all the nutrients the meat eaters said we need, through other sources aside from meat, so that argument, no matter how many times you type it out in different words, has already been countered. So, if you have an actual argument to defend eating meat, that pertains to the here and now, that hasn't been countered 10 times over again, then I would love to hear it, but please stop repeating yourself! If you can't come up with an argument, then that is fine, you can simply say that you enjoy eating meat because it tastes good no matter what animal has to suffer. But stop acting like a mistreated child or an adult in current society by arguing something while being constantly proven wrong. Thank you! I do not have a dog but I would not eat my dog no. Why because I did not buy the dog to serve the purpose of acquiring energy or nutrients for me, I can use it as a guard dog, for emotional comfort, for getting me of the couch and out walking etc. Cats, dogs and pets can fulfil those tasks to varying degree. Farm animals are not pets they cannot provide the same functions and value as pets can. Wild animals are even less capable. All pets are animals, not all animals are pets, Why is it that you keep dogs and not cobras and lions (look up Christian the lion if you haven’t already) as you know the value of animals? And why are you posting on a web forum if all animals have the same value then why trouble yourself by communicating to humans when you have dogs in your house maybe you have rats or mice somewhere they can provide value too. You do know how evolution work right? A lot of death of the mal adapted is how. A slave is an immoral tool not a nutrient. And we are not dinosaurs clearly, and wait dinos ate plants too are you not casting your lot with those who say the same thing only about plants? ”dinosaurs ate plants so we have to eat plants”. So humans of all cultures have been eating some form of animal products since humans, and now you come about say prove that we need to eat meat. Of cause, this is impossible as you do not have to eat meat, you do not have to eat anything at all in fact. However, maybe that is not what you meant. From what I understand, no group of humans in nature is vegan, that of cause does not prove animals products are required but it is a clue, as surely it would be easier skip hunting or farming animals. There the trouble with children, there is quit a few cases of children killed by their parents vegan diets. The problem with establishing the viability of a diet is that unless it has very rapid negative consequences (like all protein, rabbit starvation) you might be able to live a long long time on a deficient diet. Look at breatharians they believe that you can live on air and water and starve them self for a long time only to go back to eating food again and then starve them self again and over and over in a merry go round of misery. They then make the excuse that it is only because they had food as a child that they cannot lose the habit. Because they feel so much better when they are not eating. Now this behavior is just stupid if you want to live anyway. But Vegans and other focused diets have the same propensity to make excuses and find sinners. “They touched a piece of animal matter once”, “they did not follow the diet right”. This is a problem in the case of children because how can you feed them with this apparently highly technical diet, which is difficult to follow and make sure you get enough nutrients in the right amounts. And small children have no health reference to reflect on they can’t express clearly how they feel in a detailed way. They are trapped by their parents and you don’t know if they would chose this diet if they had a choice later. Meat and dairy is an easy and convenient way to make sure they obtain the required nutrients. In addition, it is a time proven method. And how do you know that: “All the vegan supporting argument have proven exactly how to get all the nutrients the meat eaters said we need, through other sources aside from meat, so that argument, no matter how many times you type it out in different words, has already been countered”. I mean here we have vegans arguing that eating animals dead by accident, road kill, is okay to obtain B12. I mean I cannot stop laughing. Or that eating dirty plants is the answer, good luck with em teeth. Also just because there is the presence of nutrients it doesn’t meant that you are going to absorb them as they pass through your body. The whole problem is that a lot depends on interpretation of the data if you want to see it as supporting veganism then you can do that, I guess, like “FreedomPhilosophy” does in his paper totally disregarding the influence of fat. I haven’t been convinced by vegan arguments and have read a lot of counter arguments so I guess I could say: “if you have an actual argument to defending eating only plants, that pertains to the here and now, that hasn't been countered 10 times over again, then I would love to hear it, but please stop repeating yourself! If you can't come up with an argument, then that is fine, you can simply say that you eat plants because it makes you feel righteous no matter the health consequences. But stop acting like a mistreated child or an adult in current society by arguing something while being constantly proven wrong. Thank you!” But I am not going to do that because I don’t know which is the best diet for the life I want to lead. I can only observe that a lot of vegans/vegetarians look unhealthy and unattractive, they often describe nature as some great place to be saved, use lousy arguments like, this person got old because plants while this other unhealthy person got old as a fluke. Eating meat is okay if it died by accident or age. They often equate humans to animals while trying to moralize only humans. I think I will just pass on by. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NGardner Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 please check out this books that are written by real doctors who are saving people and are making a difference in this world: The China Study, Eat to Live, Reverse Heart Disease, The Starch Solution, Dr. Neal Bernard´s program for reversing diabetes The China Study -- http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/the-china-study-myth/ Dean Ornish -- It all comes from a single study done on 35 people published back in 1998. Twenty people were randomly selected to receive the Ornish diet – a low-fat, vegetarian diet rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, and soybean products. They were also placed on a lifestyle modification program which had them exercise regularly, go to stress management training, stop smoking, and do psychosocial support group meetings. That was the experimental group. The other fifteen – the control group – were not counseled in this manner, instead being told to merely “keep listening to their physicians.” How did this all play out? The experimental group was exercising five hours a week; the control group was exercising two and a half hours a week. The experimental group was spending 87 minutes per week performing stress management techniques like meditation; the control group was spending less than five minutes a week doing it. The experimental group lost almost 24 pounds after a year and managed to keep 12 of them off after five years. The control group lost little to no weight. Sure enough, by the end of the study, the experimental group had reduced atherosclerosis. After five years, the experimental group had experienced 0.89 cardiac events per patient, while the control group had experienced 2.25 events per patient. Things definitely improved. So, what was it? Was it the diet alone that improved the experimental group’s health, as Ornish loves to emphasize? Or could it be that the weight loss, the meditation, the stress reduction, the exercise, and the lack of smoking also played a role in improving their heart health? We already know that weight loss improves health, and a recent study even suggests that the type of diet isn’t very important for improving the function of blood vessels so long as you’re losing belly fat on it. We know that meditation and stress reduction can lower hypertension and reduce mortality from heart disease (and it can even increase telomerase, which Ornish again says his diet is responsible for). We know that regular exercise fights heart disease. And everyone knows that smoking tobacco is a terrible choice (PDF) for patients with heart disease (and anyone else, really). So why does Ornish feel the need to reduce the benefits of his program to the composition of the diet while deemphasizing and often failing to mention the other aspects of the lifestyle modification program he recommends? Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dear-mark-ornish-strikes-again-vitamin-d-from-light-boxes-and-kimchi-and-cancer/#ixzz380e3yUTq Eat To Live -- http://www.westonaprice.org/book-reviews/eat-to-live-by-joel-fuhrman/ The Starch Solution -- http://www.westonaprice.org/book-reviews/the-starch-solution-by-john-a-mcdougall-md-and-mary-mcdougall Debunked! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LovePrevails Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Re: "Eating meat isn't against the non-aggression principle though because animals cannot understand the non-aggression principle" I really wish people would stop parroting this retarded argument (no offense meant, I am not saying you or Stef are retarded but the fallacy in it is abundantly obvious) I am not saying that killing animals or eating meat is immoral - but this argument stinks to high heaven by this argument is is perfectly reasonable to factory farm and eat retards because they can't understand the NAP the argument does not work because it confuses Perpetrator with Victim The point is not whether the victim understands the NAP or not (for example we call killing retards murder) The point is whether the perpetrator understands the NAP (which is why if an insane person kills someone we don't) call it murder Saying because animals don't understand the NAP it is not immoral to kill them is the logical equivalent of saying it is immoral to have your wallet stolen from you I am not against people arguing for the morality of eating meat in general but surely they can do better? the argument is STUPID. stupid stupid stupid. 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreedomPhilosophy Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Overall though from the debate and sources everyone provided, as an onlooker, I came to the conclusion that we can and have to eat stuff grown from the ground and that we can but at least now, don't have to eat animals. People can argue what is healthiest, not healthiest, and all that but from my understanding, there just isn't a definitive answer to that and there doesn't really seem to be even a close answer. ) People do argue about this topic and you are right that it remains a contentious issue, but maybe not as contentious as you think. We can measure directly the immediate unhealthy effects of consuming animal products using empirical methods. Two examples come to mind, the inflammatory response after consuming animal products and the impact on vasodilation after consuming fatty foods (particularly animal products) - there are more examples too. Endotoxin Inflammation Thoery Empirical evidence of animal products in vascular pathology: What confuses the issue is genetic variations that may mean that some people fail to thrive in the long term without animal products. That does not mean that these people could not do better on a vegan diet, but finding all the nutrients they need in the right amounts might be much harder on a vegan diet for some people. For example I know someone with a polymorphism that increases their need for choline which is abundant in eggs but only in a few plant foods and supplements - so this person cannot casually go vegan, they must plan their diet to include the right foods for their individual genome. I don't express this gene polymorphism so I find being a vegan much easier. My philosophy when I started going vegetarian was simple, I will try it and if I don't thrive I will find out what I was missing and include that again. I found this to be a fascinating account... this is part 1 of 3, go to the link to access the other 2 parts: http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm Eskimos Prove An All Meat Diet Provides Excellent Health This has been throughly debunked by plant positive. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soren Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Re: "Eating meat isn't against the non-aggression principle though because animals cannot understand the non-aggression principle" I really wish people would stop parroting this retarded argument (no offense meant, I am not saying you or Stef are retarded but the fallacy in it is abundantly obvious) I am not saying that killing animals or eating meat is immoral - but this argument stinks to high heaven by this argument is is perfectly reasonable to factory farm and eat retards because they can't understand the NAP the argument does not work because it confuses Perpetrator with Victim The point is not whether the victim understands the NAP or not (for example we call killing retards murder) The point is whether the perpetrator understands the NAP (which is why if an insane person kills someone we don't) call it murder Saying because animals don't understand the NAP it is not immoral to kill them is the logical equivalent of saying it is immoral to have your wallet stolen from you I am not against people arguing for the morality of eating meat in general but surely they can do better? the argument is STUPID. stupid stupid stupid. OMG. Animals are not just victims they are perpetrators also. The NAP dose not apply to them because they can't abide by it, and they don't have the potential of doing so. Only humans have the ability to chose to abide by the NAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray H. Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I got voted down for a post that (1) pointed out the hypocrisy in another post, and (2) cited multiple research papers refuting said post. Of course, neither was acknowledged. Vote me down again. Evidence that red meat decreases inflammation. Neu5Gc as a risk factor for atherosclerosis is still in the research stage. The article cited in the video was not a trial study. It was proposing hypotheses for further study. The phrases "may facilitate", "could include" and "may exacerbate" are all inconclusive statements. The jury is out on this issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raquel Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 What I meant when I said that we need to be responsible for the world, for the animals and for our health, is that I do care about me, but when you start caring about yourself, you start also caring about others and the world we live in... The world we live in is an extension of ourselves. I know I can not change anybody but I know I can change myself and when I change and I start to understand what´s true and what´s not , what is right and what is wrong, I can help others understand it as well... We are all creating the world we live in so I think it is very important to care about yourself but also care about this world. caring just about you is very selfish and destructive, that is why the world we live in is so chaotic... But please correct me if I am wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powder Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I have studied nutrition for many years and I am not convinced that there are any clear winners in the debates or that there is a 'one size fits all' diet. That said, I have personally come to the conclusion that for health a 'whole food' (unprocessed the way it comes out of the ground or off the tree), mostly raw diet is ideal and most closely matches the diet our ancestors had for the majority of our existence. I am not entirely opposed to eating meat but I do think it is absolutely horrifying the way factor farmed animals are treated. I am convinced however that the central issue for the human diet is more about raw vs cooked than anything else. By necessity, eating a mostly raw diet, would eliminate much of the meat, particularly flesh meat, from our diets. The modern meat centered diet is primarily flesh meat and relies on farm raised, genetically bred species that are killed young and 'tenderized' using unnatural dietary supplements so that our not-so-well-suited-to-shred-flesh teeth can chew and break up the meat for easier digestion. These practices are very recent in the history of human evolution. If we had to eat what we could catch then we would more often than not end up with the older, slower, less tender meat animals. For thousands of years humans mostly fed on the raw organs rather than flesh when eating animals. The flesh was reserved for starvation situations and dried and kept for easy storage and carrying. The raw organs are where the bulk of the nutrients are and can mostly be eaten fresh and raw with fewer health concerns. The flesh is invariably too tough to eat raw and that is where most of the parasites and nasty things hang out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LovePrevails Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 OMG. Animals are not just victims they are perpetrators also. The NAP dose not apply to them because they can't abide by it, and they don't have the potential of doing so. Only humans have the ability to chose to abide by the NAP. Neither can retards or insane people. So the NAP does not apply to them according to your argument. Therefore they can be factory farmed. Cows, sheep, horses, are vegetarian so they are not perpetrators, they are vegetarian animals 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitcoin Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Watch "Forks Over Knives". Basically goes into detail how cooked meat is carcengonic, etc. Interesting to watch if anyone is interested. And GMOs are bad. (for all you folks who said previously "If you dont support GMOs, you support world starvation" & who are now posting on this forum). Once again, the only point of FDR is to get you to research and question things. Either do it, or please do not categorize yourself as an anarchist, philosopher, etc. Anarchy is as much a philosophy and if you choose to not do the simple things it teaches us; question things as an example, it is truly heartbreaking. Fortunetely, I am not the only one on this forum here, so if you choose to attack again with your false, non-sequiters, lack of information and lack of rational thought, atleast there are others to watch and tell you off... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soren Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Neither can retards or insane people. So the NAP does not apply to them according to your argument. Therefore they can be factory farmed. Cows, sheep, horses, are vegetarian so they are not perpetrators, they are vegetarian animals How do you know that they can't when they are biological humans, they have the faculties required? Just because somebody is insane or retarded doesn't stop them from making human choices they act the same as us non retards, to remove uneasiness. How do your factory farm retards? I don't see what the NAP has to do with food anyway, do you think its a NAP violation to eat carrots too? The NAP is a strictly human concept and doesn't pertain to non biological humans.How do you get off saying that vegetarian animals can't be perpetrators? Being vegetarian does not remove the ability to kill other beings or attack others with out killing them. Once again, the only point of FDR is to get you to research and question things. Either do it, or please do not categorize yourself as an anarchist, philosopher, etc. Anarchy is as much a philosophy and if you choose to not do the simple things it teaches us; question things as an example, it is truly heartbreaking. Fortunetely, I am not the only one on this forum here, so if you choose to attack again with your false, non-sequiters, lack of information and lack of rational thought, atleast there are others to watch and tell you off... Who are you talking too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LovePrevails Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I have not made any case at all against killing animals, so your questions are irrelevant. I have simply logically debunked the argument: "you have to understand the NAP to be protected by the NAP." it doesn't work unless you think that insane people and retards should not be protected by the NAP. You need to go away and find a better argument to justify killing animals since this argument is transparently poor as my reductio ad absurdum reveals. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dean Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 Of course that doesn't mean that it's impossible to eat healthy with little meat. But it does mean that eating meat is not a necessity. You can leave it out completely and live in very good health. If you eat a balanced vegetarian/vegan diet then there is nothing in meat that will make you healthier. Yes, I 100% agree, it is an amoral personal choice. However it's important to point out that this is a recent reality, it would not have been feasible before both vitamin supplements and the global agricultural market (and for a while, even when we had international trade, only the richest echelon of society could enjoy foreign fruits/veggies.) So far as my research has shown humans are scavengers rather than omnivores, that is to say we developed the capacity to digest meat because it's convenient in scarcity but not to thrive on it. If that were the case, we would expect there to no evidence of human hunting at all, because they would only have scavenged other animals kills. The comparison with a cats claws is valid, both are tools. Tool: a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function. I think that it's fair to say both a cat's claws and a human spear are implements used to carry out a function. So if our digestive systems are able to get nutrients out of meat, and we have the physical capacity to catch prey, how does that not make us an omnivore? I don't have particular links at the moment, I've just been drawing on the knowledge of my previous education. That's what their teeth are designed to do, chew, not tear. We have molars and bicuspids that are adapted to masticate plant matter but your incisors, and canines are adapted to tear and chew meat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soren Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I have not made any case at all against killing animals, so your questions are irrelevant. I have simply logically debunked the argument: "you have to understand the NAP to be protected by the NAP." it doesn't work unless you think that insane people and retards should not be protected by the NAP. You need to go away and find a better argument to justify killing animals since this argument is transparently poor as my reductio ad absurdum reveals. No you need to go away or stop arguing against your own strawman argument. I don't use the NAP to justify killing animals what I am trying to say is that NAP only applies to Humans. To human interaction. Not Human to animal interaction. And you think you can just walk away from defining vegetarian animals as impossible to be perpetrators. because you haven't made a case against killing animals I don't see how that follows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitcoin Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 By the way, yes killing bugs and animals are all bad. People DO try very hard to kill all insects. Ever heard of pesticides and insecticides. The mass murder of any population creates a decrease of biodiversity which has negative impacts on all ecosystems, populations and general health. Animal have as much of a right as we do to live. Why shouldn't they ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soren Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 By the way, yes killing bugs and animals are all bad. People DO try very hard to kill all insects. Ever heard of pesticides and insecticides. The mass murder of any population creates a decrease of biodiversity which has negative impacts on all ecosystems, populations and general health. Animal have as much of a right as we do to live. Why shouldn't they ? Rights is a human concept and does not exist in reality. Humans don't have a right to live, they do what they have to too survive in nature, and animals do the same. Insects facilitate mass murder of humans too what is it 60 mio during DDT ban. And no people does not try to kill all insects only those which are in the way of our enjoyment of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powder Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 If you haven't seen this yet it is worth watching. I don't know if this was rehearsed or staged but if it was, it is brilliantly done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNntUXyWvw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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