We Weren't Designed To Eat Meat, Here Is Proof

Originally posted by Roper
reply to post by Danger Girl

 

Then why is meat so tasty?

"True carnivores (and omnivores) salivate about the idea of eating whole prey animals when they see them. "

When i run my hand over the tenth rib of a steer I'm thinking "nice ribeye",yum.

Roper

Exactly.

I salivate when I see a pig or cow. I even got hungry when I saw a giraffe on TV the other day.

If we weren't meant to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat?

It's perfectly possible to live healthily on vegetarian and vegan diets...I'm even going to indulge *that* arguement...we can get all the nutrients we need from the correct selection of beansprouts if we need to...

It's possible, but only in an advanced society where technology has evolved an ability to compensate for the lack of certain nutrients. There is no anthropological or physiological reasoning to say that it is 'natural'. This theory has been debunked several times over and only remains in play as baseless propaganda. It is disinfo.

I am not saying there are not ethical or other reasons for veganism, but the OP's claim does not hold water against real scientific evidence.

This type of irrational zealotry for veganism is its biggest turn off.

reply to post by cosmicstorm


I have brought up the milk issue before, and totally agree with you. We are socially conditioned to believe that cow milk is good for us. If we WERE to embrace milk, one would think it would be human milk, however that notion is repugnant to the majority of us..... why? Social standards and conditioning. Suggest drinking human milk and people think you're a whackamole. I'm not suggesting doing so, just using it for an example. Both myself and Bride avoid dairy, even though we both loved cheese.

Most of our animal protein comes from fish, which I believe is healthy for us, not to mention plentiful. We don't eat pork, not from any religious ideals, but because we both believe it to be less than savory and health-inducing. We'll occasionally eat poultry and beef, but only if it is locally grown -- not chemically "enhanced".

Really enjoying the various views of ATS folks on this thread. Really makes one think about what we consume. We both avoid bleached and severely processed foods. I once had a junk carbohydrate addiction. It was a tweak hard to break, and I'm never going back.

A perfect meal? Wahoo steamed with onions, seasoning peppers, Jamaican thyme, pepper, garlic and lime, accompanied by a salad of tomatoes, spinach, avocado, summer pursalane, mushrooms, and a side of homegrown pumpkin squash.

I'm a vegan and I disagree with the thread title!

Whether we were "designed" to eat meat matters not. The questions are - should we eat meat? should we factory farm? and have we always eaten meat?

I believe this following excerpt from the Mahābhārata about the Kali Yuga (the Hindu "Age of Kali", "age of vice") offers a huge insight which is always overlooked. If you don't want to read the whole thing, just make note of the part in bold:

Avarice and wrath will be common, men will openly display animosity towards each other. Ignorance of Dharma will occur. Lust will be viewed as being socially acceptable. People will have thoughts of murder for no justification, and they will see nothing wrong with that mind-set.

People will be inclined to follow false sciences. Family murders will also occur. People will see those who are helpless as easy targets and remove everything from them.

Many other unwanted changes will occur. The right hand will deceive the left and the left the right. Men with false reputation of learning will teach the Truth and the old will betray the senselessness of the young, and the young will betray the dotage of the old. Cowards will have the reputation of bravery and the brave will be enervated cowards. People will not trust a single person in the world, not even their immediate family. Even husband and wife will find contempt in each other.

In the Kali Yuga even pre-teenage girls will get pregnant. The primary cause will be the social acceptance of sexual intercourse as being the central requirement of life.

It is believed that sin will increase exponentially, whilst virtue will fade and cease to flourish. People will take vows only to break them soonafter.

Alongside death and famine being everywhere, men will have lustful thoughts and so will women.People will without reason destroy trees and gardens. As previously mentioned, men will murder. There will be no respect for animals, and also meat eating will start.

People will become addicted to intoxicating drinks. Men will find their jobs stressful and will go to retreats to escape their work.

Gurus will no longer be respected and their students will attempt to injure them. Their teachings will be insulted and followers of Kama will wrest control of the mind from all human beings.

This is from an ancient tradition, thus proving that once, probably thousands of years ago, meat-eating was a hideous, completely alien concept to a large portion of the world. So the argument "we've always eaten meat" is destroyed. Also note that meat-eating is stated as an example of the depravity that will befall mankind in the terrible Kali Yuga (which we are currently in).

So once upon a time, mankind probably didn't eat meat. Maybe "God" did tell us to after the flood. Maybe we were stupid to listen to him.

I'm a vegan of 4.5 years - almost 14 stone of muscular bulk (most of which I've gained since). A vegan diet is perfectly healthy and I'm sick of the unfounded, mislead propaganda given to the contrary. Granted, many vegans do not know what they're doing diet-wise but there are more examples of extremely fit, healthy, smart vegans.

reply to post by vinrock


I agree with what you're saying, and hereby award you the "creepy AV of the Week award."

No, I have no authority to do so, however, I don't see anyone else making such an award. Enjoy

We are omnivores. Period. We are not herbivores. Period. We are not carnivores. Come on. Get over the desire to convert. IF you do not want eat meat, don't.

From straight dope www.straightdope.com... (which at least isn't a vegetarian site)

Like the hard-core carnivores, we have fairly simple digestive systems well suited to the consumption of animal protein, which breaks down quickly. Contrary to what your magazine article says, the human small intestine, at 23 feet, is a little under eight times body length (assuming a mouth-to-anus "body length" of three feet). This is about midway between cats (three times body length), dogs (3-1/2 times), and other well-known meat eaters on the one hand and plant eaters such as cattle (20 to 1) and horses (12 to 1) on the other. This tends to support the idea that we are omnivores. Herbivores also have a variety of specialized digestive organs capable of breaking down cellulose, the main component of plant tissue. Humans find cellulose totally indigestible, and even plant eaters have to take their time with it. If you were a ruminant (cud eater), for instance, you might have a stomach with four compartments, enabling you to cough up last night's alfalfa and chew on it all over again. Or you might have an enlarged cecum, a sac attached to the intestines, where rabbits and such store food until their intestinal bacteria have time to do their stuff. Digestion in such cases takes place by a process of fermentation--bacteria actually "eat" the cellulose and the host animal consumes what results, namely bacteria dung. The story is roughly the same with teeth. We're equipped with an all-purpose set of ivories equally suited to liver and onions.

Here's my two cents: I've been vegetarian for almost two years now and I've never felt healthier. I sleep wonderfully and I've yet to catch any illness...especially during the cold season when all my friends were sneezing/coughing like crazy. I have two friends with colon "problems"...long story short, their doctor requested they stop eating meat or as little meat as they could for a given amount of time. They're colons are doing much better since they've chosen less meat. My girlfriend's co-worker was influenced to try a vegetarian diet after his doctor told him he had incredibly high blood pressure. He tried it for a month and no longer has to take any pills to combat his blood pressure. Medically speaking, I think it's strange that if we "need" meat why do doctor's recommend not eating it when your health isn't up to par? I've chosen not to eat a pig, chicken or cow because I like the lil' buggers. Funny how offended some people get when you mention you don't eat meat. edited to add: I could be wrong, but once you cook/grill/bake meat, I'm certain the valuable dietary supplements are burned off anyways

[edit on 15-6-2008 by Eighty59]

Originally posted by Johnmike
Then where would we get Vitamin B12 from?

Vegan diets are notoriously deficient. You can generally be healthy if you eat eggs and drink milk, but that's about it.

What total ignorant rubbish! B12 can be got from anything with yeast and also your body can produce it naturally. It takes minute amounts and it is stored. My two sons oldest is 9 has a vegan diet and he lacks nothing but they had the benefit of only breast milk up to ages 3 and 4.

But, the good old meat lobby roll out your sort of anti-vegan rubbish with monotonous regularity and it doesn't make it any truer each time they do. I have never heard of a kidney/liver failing vegan but know plenty of meat eating overweight, heart problem people.

Cythraul,

Thank you for that post...couldn't have said it better myself. We are so insulated from the truth of meat production now, that if the average guy in the street had to capture and kill to eat, or even go fishing, he would make a total mess of it, resulting in a prolonged and painful death for the animal. Sadly, abbatoirs are dirty, cruel places, and if your average meat eater had to witness what went on there, they would be veggie in an instant. We're not talking free range, wild caught livestock at all, and most people choose not to deal with how it's produced because they couldn't handle it. Other great apes have perhaps 3%maximum meat in their diets, which are extremely varied anyway, so I think the "we've always eaten meat" defence isn't really valid.

Humans weren't designed to fly either..(no wings)..but we managed to do it anyway.


And maybe it is just the ones that I have encountered, but most vegans that I have come across seem sickly and weak and frail. I remember when my girlfriend decided to try a full vegan diet, she not only lost weight but she lost muscle mass at a ridiculous rate. Not to mention she was sick twice as often with no meat in the diet.

Eating plants aint all it is cracked up to be. And it always makes me smile to think of the sheer arrogance and the fact that the only reason people like you who are vegan even exist today is because we are so blessed that we have such an over-abundance of food to select from that we have the option of having a moral compass when it pertains to diet.

Ask a starving bush man living under harsh and scarce conditions if he is a vegan. It would be amazing if he even knew what it meant or could even fathom what you were on about. Meat = your friend. If you are staving, a pork chop or a fresh salmon or an antelope carcass will save your life. It is only in modern times that man has become spoiled to the point where being selective is an option.

Me personally, I will eat everything on a pig except the oink and I find that bacon goes well with just about everything

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
Now, I have no problem whatsoever with people choosing to be a vegetarian, a frugivore, a gramnivore, a folivore, an insectivore, a vegan or a carnivore. What they put into their body is their concern. But I do not believe they have the moral duty or obligation to tell me which of those that I should be.

And:

Originally posted by apc
Vegetarian propaganda is so easily dismantled it should be taken as a true indicator of just how these deficiencies affect the human mind.

I could not have said either of those things any better.

But I will add that threads like this drive me crazy!

The utter nonsense that we should be morally obligated to not eat meat is just that...nonsense...and plain silly.

We are biologically designed to eat animal protein.

For me, case closed.

However, that is not to say we shouldn't look more closely at the manner of our food production. The quality of our animal protein is something almost universally ignored, but pretty damned important. If ever there were a silent crisis in the modern world, it would be that one, imo.


[edit on 15-6-2008 by loam]

reply to post by slackerwire


Dear slackjaw, your pitiful exuses for 'canine teeth' are simply useless for ripping and tearing flesh like a true canine..who, by the way, EATS RAW FLESH..as with MOST FLESHFOODS (excepting many fishes, oysters, worms, etc.) if you eat raw hamburger, for instance, you run the risk of many flesh-born diseases associated with uncooked flesh..
Our entire physiology is geared towards fruits, seeds, grain, and vegetables..
Even properly cooked fleshfoods are associated with many chronic diseases of the digestive system, and contribute, due to their high fat and cholesterol content to other diseases- coronary thrombosis, cancer, diabetes, etc.

If you want to live a healthy life, go veg- if you want to live a sick life, eat all the meat you can stuff down!!

This is very true... I am trying to be a vegetarian(not easy) but I can tell you this.. I feel more energy when I don't eat meat... In reality we can live with nuts,grains and plants, If you need your B12 get some vitamins... Or you can eat fish every once in a while as it passes thru and does not rot in your intestines.. people need to realize that meat does rot in your stomache... And the reality is we are eating our distant cousins Cows are mammals... and so are we... we need to stop eating mammalian meat. its not normal... I would say worst case chicken and fish... but no cow meat, have you seen they way the die when they are slaughtered? its truly heartbreaking.. Perhaps posting it here will help you abstain more from cow meat

[edit on 15-6-2008 by thefreepatriot]

While I dont' care much for meat...There's nothing stopping me from having my ice cream, preferably from stone-cold creamery. Best ice-cream EVER

Originally posted by cmongo4
reply to post by cosmicstorm

 

We are the only species that drinks milk, because we are the only species with cookies!
Seriously, you're privileged life has led you astray.
If you had to survive in the wild, you would eat anything to survive. If you didn't you would die, period. Tell me, if you hadn't eaten in a week or two, do you really believe you wouldn't get interested in anything you could put in your stomach? If you answered honestly, you would say yes. If you disagree, I suggest you deposit yourself in the wilderness somewhere for 2 weeks and see if your opinion has changed.
A spoiled, privileged lifestyle is no basis for submitting inane comments such as these. Try starving for awhile and then come and put your 2 cents in.
Humans are omnivorous, get used to it. You can be a "vegan" in this society only by the grace of technology. If this society breaks down, you will either eat whatever you can to survive, or die. Simple fact.

I dont know where you get this ''privileged life'' rubbish from???? please explain....

....if i had to survive in the wild, id eat a plant based diet, as im a VEGETARIAN... would you eat a plank of wood if you were in the wild starving? .....i dont look at animals as food so it would be like you looking at a piece of wood as dinner...... aint gonna happen is it.

...spoiled, priviledged? and need to starve before i can put my ''2 cents in''?

And you tell me to keep my ''insane comments'' to myself?

I would like to add that "Survival" doesn't just mean personal survival in a crisis, but I'm sure most vegans...I think anyway...would go down the route of eating whatever they needed to, including fish, if they had absolutely no choice. Wouldn't like it, but we would do it. Survival also, in my book, refers to our survival as a race, which is looking increasingly dubious with famine and food shortages looming, and still we use the land we're given to produce food in the least economical way...meat production. Meat should be an occasional luxury, produced ethically and humanely, and not 50% of our daily diet.

I know I'm only one example, but look at my avatar...I'm 42 and outrageously healthy, my diet being mostly vegan apart from the occasional bout of Port Salut...I rest my case!

on the surface, the OPs post appears to have merit, but unfortunately, it falls flat on its face.

We're omnivores, get over it. We need nutrients from both meat and vegetables. We're not as adapted to taking on wild game becuase we adapted to using tools.

Sorry, vegetarian agenda is silly and pretty much stupid

Originally posted by cosmicstorm
....if i had to survive in the wild, id eat a plant based diet, as im a VEGETARIAN...

Then you would likely die.

Very few geographic areas provide sufficient diversity of wild edible plants to sustain a healthy human being.

Think about that.

[edit on 15-6-2008 by loam]

first of all i salivate thinking of meat and second (canines!!!why we have them????)

I just wanted say that most primates are omnivorous...but they eat insects...not vertebrates. The only apes that eat meat are the chimpanzee and bonobo, but bonobos are not as active in hunting as the chimp. Even then, meat only makes up 3% of the chimps diet. Gorillas and Orangutans DO NOT eat meat. They are soley vegetarian.


We don't have prominent canines because we simply don't need them. We use tools to kill prey, not our teeth...like predators. "Cavemen" killed animals mostly because of the region they were in. Not all plants can grow in cold ass weather...therefore not enough food to eat. The only option to survive is killing animals.


Having a large meat diet is not healthy. Period. Do your own research ppl.