Why do we eat meat?

[email protected] - Dr. Steven R. Leigh, professor at the university of Illinois. I usually trusted what he tought without feeling the need to look it up.

Also, I think "Understanding Physical Anthropology and Archaeology Eighth Edition, William A. Turnbaugh, Robert Jurmain, Lynn Kilgore, Harry Nelson" - it may not be in there, but I don't remember.



Well, I have, at the zoo. And it is *huge* compared to a human's. It's not fat, it's intestine. It makes them look very fat, though, even though they're not.



Not the primary part, but it was definitely a part.



Well, certainly the vegetarians haven't been .



There is quite a bit of evidence that early tools were used on animal flesh. Also, I don't know if the thing on CrazyVegan about chimps getting sick from eating meat is true or not, but we can see that they *do* in fact eat it today. And I understand that they actually kill their prey, unlike baboons, who merely start chowing down once they get a good hold.
 
http://www.ecologos.org/meat-eating.htm

The interesting part of this site, is that the author says that humans are not herbivores, but in fact, frugivores (which is the actual term for apes), which I have seen alot in my research.

Check out this book, written by Virginia and Mark Messina, The Vegetarian Way.





http://www.medicaltalk.org/HUMANS_NOT_DESIGNED_FOR_EATING_MEAT-22057-9-a.html

http://www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm

http://www.animalvoices.org/vegetarian.htm

http://www.vegan-straight-edge.org.uk/taxonomy.htm

http://www.newveg.av.org/anatomy.htm

click on the link,Are humans naturally carnivore, herbivore, omnivore or frugivore? at this site for a downloadable document-
http://www.freenutritionreport.com/...//www.vegan-straight-edge.org.uk/taxonomy.htm
 
This is a good article from what seems to be an objective and credible source. Thanks for posting it.
 
Well, I can't look now, since it's 2:54 AM, and I have to leave for school at 9:00 AM (thanksgiving break just ended), so I'll sort out the possibly reputable ones for later use.



The only one that I suspect might contain a link to a peer reviewed paper is the second one.

edit: hm. . . Dr. Jai Maharaj, sounds like he might have an agenda. Must resist urge to stay up later and read more. . . still doesn't look like an article from a peer reviewed journal, though. And for the record, no the New York Times is not a peer reviewed journal (from which there is a small exerpt). They have less reputability when it comes to science than my next door neighbor's two year old son.
 
Protein doesn't provide energy unless there are no carbs present, but what it does provide are the building blocks for the repairing and growth of tissues, especially muscle. Which is very important for the survival of the human being.



http://www.georgiaeggs.org/pages/biologicalvalue.html

As you can see plant proteins are far inferior to animal ones. They aren't good enough for me not only because of this, but because of how much soy I'd have to eat. In this world I am an omnivore to obtain the best nutrients from a variety of sources in the most easily available way. Surely showing a natural advantage due to being omnivorous?
 
These seem to be sound sources, but I think even you will concede you may have gotten the facts mixed up on this particular matter. I won't hold it against you, though. If you happen to find some sound research on the subject, I'd be interested in reviewing it. I am, above all, most interested in reaching the truth of the matter. I certainly have my beliefs, and I feel the evidence has so far supported those beliefs (or at least failed to refute them), but I always try to remain open to new insights.

On that note, I must confess that my brain is completely frazzled from spending most of the night sifting through endless articles on this subject. Many of the articles are conflicting, very few are from reliable sources, and most are hopelessly biased in support of an underlying agenda.

So, I'm calling it a night. Thank you for the spirited debate.
 
I think that is basically what I said. I agree protein is important. This is very different from the implication that protein is somehow lacking in a vegetarian diet. It isn't. I think I have adequately demonstrated this point in past posts. This is a highly researched and well-documented subject, so it shouldn't be difficult for you to find further evidence supporting the abundance of high-quality protein in a vegetarian diet.Biased though your link was (the Georgia Egg Commission no doubt has a vested interest in promoting the nutritional value of eggs), it does little to improve your position. Eggs are a great source of protein (good stuff). I have no argument with this. Eggs are also a great source of cholesterol (bad stuff). Soy protein is comparable to beef in quality and completely free from saturated fat and cholesterol (both of which are linked to an increased risk of heart disease).

I applaud your desire to eat a nutritious, well-balanced diet. If you feel the need to supplement your protein intake with animal products like eggs, do so intelligently and try to minimize your fat and cholesterol intake. As the link you provided shows, soy protein is nearly as efficient as beef protein, with none of the associated risks. It's worth considering.
 
Lots of vegitation needs processesing,
Rutabegas, Potatoes, Yucca (a major proponent of the Southwestern Native American Diet, it took about a week in a rock oven to make it digestable to humans), Taro (a mojar component of the Southasian diet), Acorns (you have to remove the tanic acid, also a major food source for Native Americans in Texas). Give me a day to pull out my notes again and I will give you more. Believe me, I have worked enough burnt rock middens (what is left from the rock ovens) to know that agave and yucca were major food sources for natives.
Meat is easier to digest raw.
And its not 98.8% genetic simularity with all apes, its with Chimps, its very specific. We share fewer genes with Gorillas because we have been separated from them longer. And yes, we do share 50% of our genes with bananas. Its called evolution. Deal with it.
 
Not to split hairs, but potatoes can be eaten raw. I don't know if yucca root can be eaten raw or not, I have never tried. Yucca is a remarkable and versatile plant, however, and has been a staple in the diets of many indiginous people of South and Central America. Cooked or not, this underlines the dominant role of plant-based food in human society.Okay. Not everything we eat is meant to be easily digested, however. If we could digest everything we ate, we would have major problems. We need undigestable cellulose and rougage (i.e., fiber) to keep our digestive systems clean and healthy. Furthermore, even herbivores CAN digest meat, but it is not good for them. Is it good for us? Here's the scoop. From what we know so far about ape DNA, the average genetic difference between humans and other primates is about 2%. The difference between human DNA and chimpanzee DNA is only about 1%. We are arguing over a difference of only 1% here, and all the facts aren't even in yet. Furthermore, that 1% difference may not seem like much, but it's actually very significant, even more so when you consider that chimpanzees actually have a 20% longer DNA strand than humans (meaning, in a nutshell, that chimps are more genetically diverse than humans). We're comparing apples and oranges here.Thanks for the news flash, Darwin. Oh, wait...that was MY point, wasn't it?

Edit: I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm pretty sure I didn't evolve from a banana.
 
You try eating raw yucca. Like I said, takes about a week for the cellulose to be broken down enough for it to become edible. Sure, you can eat it, but your not going to get much out of it. Most of the nutrients are locked inside the cellulose wall of the cell. Got to be able to break that down to really get the nutrients. Fire or heat is the best way to do that. I never argued that plants did not make up the majority of the native diet. They do. 85-95% I would guess. Look up the corprolite studies. (I just slaughtered the spelling, but basically, its ancient human poo. The upper Pecos area has the perfect environment for preservation so many anthropologists have been able to do extensive studies using preserved human feces.)
I'm not argueing your genetics. Less the one percent genetic difference is highly significant. Its enough to prevent the production of viable offspring, so yep, that's significant. All the percent differences tell you is how long the populations have been separate species. So the .02% just states that we diverged rather recently on the scale of geological time (or generational time, if you prefer, though I would go with geological in this case).
I didn't say you evolved from a banana, I said its evolution. The fifty percent difference between human DNA and banana DNA just means that at some point in the exceedinly distant past, there was a divergence. One line lead to a banana, the other to animals and primates. This is also why we share genes with yeast. So do bananas. You might want to do some reading up on your evolutionary theory while your spouting off. Gould's a good one to start off with, not always correct, but he's readable.
Why does raw meat being easier to digest then cooked have anything to do with the inability to digest cellulose, which yes, we do need.
Man, do you realise your fighting with someone who generally agrees with you? Your so busy argueing, it seems, that you just keep doing it, no matter what the person says. Kinda makes you lose credibility in my eyes, but what the heck. Knock yourself out.
 
I said raw meat is easier to digest, you said we needed fiber. I just didn't understand your point. Maybe you didn't have a point, of course, maybe neither did I, but I am fine with pointlessness, you?
Because I never could figure that you had an cohesive arguement about the genetics. And you were wrong about it being great apes in general. Its chimps. The other apes diverged long before the human-chimp line did. And they are true herbivores (ok, for the most part) but they have a completely different alimentary anatomy and physiology then humans and chimps, which I think was what you were talking about.... what with the discusion involving if humans evolved from herbivores or omnivores. Oh, and as another side note arguement for omniverous human evolution, human teeth are almost identicle to pig teeth (close enough that they get mistaken all the time and cops are called in on "corpses").
I do have doubts about many of the things you state. You have many of your own misconceptions, hidden agendas, and myths which you need to look at more objectively.
Like I said before, I used to be a vegitarian and will probably go back to it when I move out from my current living arrangements, but that doesn't mean I will throw out years of research from competant professionals not to mention the research and comparisons that I have conducted myself. Just because something sounds nice, doesn't make it true.
 
Whatever the point was originally, it has long since been lost.Let me run this down ONE more time. Human DNA is, on average, about 98% similar to the apes. Human DNA is about 99% similar to chimpanzees, specifically. Chimpanzee DNA is about 98% similar to the other apes. Chimpanzee DNA is about 99% similar to human DNA. [AND, let us not forget, human DNA is about 50% similar to banana DNA.] Now that we have the facts sorted out...

...what does all this actually prove? In a word, nothing. Not a blessed thing.

Certainly, we are primates, with similar dietary needs as other primates. Whether our "naturally intended" diets are more like chimpanzees (who eat some meat) or gorillas (who barely eat any) cannot be determined by DNA comparisons. We are humans, a very distinct species with a seperate evolutionary path.

If we use other primates as guides, we are probably best suited to eat a plant-based diet supplemented by occassional meat. My feeling is that this is probably closest to the truth, but DNA relatedness is not particularly helpful in either proving or disproving this theory. That was my point in a nutshell.You don't know me. If you did, maybe we could have a nice chat about what my misconceptions or motivations may be. While I am flattered that you want to talk about me, personally, I think the nice people here would be more interested in hearing your viewpoints on the subject at hand, instead.
 
I'll find a better site. http://www.2-fit.com/miscellaneous/proteins.html - that do? Technically, Whey is better than eggs (and I do supplement with it), but eggs, meat and fish are still following up.



http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=461709

No soy for me I'm afraid...
 
That is all fine, I'm familiar with the protein charts. There are two points I have to make, however. One is that, for the average person, high levels of protein are not needed. Bodybuilding is a very specialized area of fitness. Unless you are undergoing a complete, well-rounded program for building mass, you simply don't need outrageous amounts of protein. Excess protein is not used by the body, and extreme excess can even be harmful. Second, there are plenty of great sources for protein that don't involve meat (which is what we were discussing). Note, whey is NOT meat. Most vegans will avoid it, but it is no problem for vegetarians who allow some dairy into their diets.
Okay, there's a lot of very scientific sounding stuff here designed to scare everybody off soy. I've heard this stuff before, but none of it is really conclusive. A lot of it involves infants being given soy formula, which to me is pretty obviously not a great idea anyway. The rest is based upon huge amounts of soy protein, much more than the typical person consumes.

A diverse diet comprised of many different foods is best, including protein sources. I love soy, in various forms, and certainly intake a good deal of it, but I also get protein from nuts, other kinds of beans, vegetables, grains, etc. Soy is certainly not the only game in town.

My ultimate point is simply that vegetarianism is a perfectly healthy lifestyle. I have shown how protein is easily available in a vegetarian diet. I have also given shining examples of vegetarian athletes, including some pretty impressive bodybuilders. Clearly, protein is not an issue.
 
Ok - let's say for the sake of it, that the 'average' person will do fine on a vegetarian diet. Now bearing in mind that a large amount of protein is needed (and preferably of a high BV) for mass above 'normal' levels, and that a human being with bigger muscles will be stronger and more likely to 'survive' in an evolutionary sense, don't you think that this points towards humans being omnivores, because of the fact that it is an advantage over many other species to be able to eat both types of food and benefit from each?

I still don't trust it - what have T-Nation got to gain from tarnishing the name of soy? They don't sell meat or have any reason to be unfair to soy - they could even sell it if they wanted to. They are fairly well reknown for a no-BS approach to weight training and for using sound science behind articles.



I disagree, if it wasn't the issue then there would be a very large number of vegetarian bodybuilders, because of the high cost of meat/whey compared to vegetable sources.
 
No one said that being a vegitarian is inherently unhealthy. As with any "diet", it can be made to be unhealthy depending upon what the practitioner chooses to do. Yes, humans are inherently omnivorous, but we can easily subsist upon vegitable proteins.

You don't think genetics is a valid arguement, ok, I disagree, but you can try on dentition if you like. Human teeth are decidedly omnivorous in nature. Preditors have small, peg like incisors, large canines for piercing and sharp molars for tearing away chunks of flesh. Herbivores have sharp, strong incisors for cutting, none existant canines (except for horses) and large flatened molars that are generally ridged for grinding vegitation.
Our teeth are directly in between. Our canines (as I said once, if I remember correctly) are left overs from when they were used as a form of communication (most primates have inlarged canines for communicating things like, "I am male" or "I am not happy and I am about to bite you in the butt"). We have general sized incisors which to look more like herbivour incisors and pre-molars which are sharp (used for tearing meat mainly). Our molars are also half way between those of herbivours and carnivours. Such mid-range teeth indicate onmivore origins and use. Also, if you look at the course of human evolution, hominids started out with very heavy skulls with massive muscle attachments for chewing vegitation. As Homo erectus populations began to spread over the planet you'll have noticed that this species is much more gracile and no longer has the huge ridges where the muscle attached. Conceivabley, one can argue two ways about this, 1. by this time fire had been "mastered" as well some basic tool use was in place, so vegitables could have been cooked (cooking makes veggies softer so huge jaw muscles wouldn't be needed) or 2. hominids had begun eating more meat and so no longer needed the huge jaw muscles. Personally, I think its a combination of the two, but then I rarely pick one camp or the other when it comes to evolutionary or anthropolical theories.
Don't be silly of course you have hidden agendas and misconceptions. Doesn't everyone? Most of us don't even know we have them.
 
Me? What did I do now?

Like I said, I have seen it done well and I have seen it done in an unhealthy manner, just as I have seen people who eat meat do so healthfully and unhealthfully. There are so many variables that to say it is bad or good, end full stop is to wash over a lot of grey areas.
 
All research is funded by someone (advertisers), and alot of the time the people with the money want the researchers to find specific things and prove them. I am not saying these guys did that, I am just saying that sometimes the reasons aren't clear.

The biggest problem with this whole argument, and why we go 'round and 'round, is that there is biased research done on both sides of the battle, and no one knows if there is even an unbiased opinion or research done out there.

So it finally comes down to what each individual is willing to believe, and respecting others decisions based on their own research and ideals.

Ok, now that I said that, I don't buy the teeth argument, as it has been done to death, with no conclusive evidence saying one way or the other. The Ape also shares similar teeth, and they do not eat meat. They are herbivores. So the teeth angle does not prove anything.
 
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