Vegans have upper hand? Seriously?

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
Actually we evolved our great big brains because we stopped being largely vegetarian, moved out of the trees and began to eat meat. If it wasn't for our ancestors eating meat we'd no doubt be having this conversation via poo flinging, rather than on the internet.

So far as I understand, we ate meat because it was a more steady food source. However, the nutrients necessary to human brain development are found in veggies.

Milton argues that meat supplied early humans not only with all the essential amino acids, but also with many vitamins, minerals and other nutrients they required, allowing them to exploit marginal, low quality plant foods, like roots - foods that have few nutrients but lots of calories. These calories, or energy, fueled the expansion of the human brain and, in addition, permitted human ancestors to increase in body size while remaining active and social.

"Once animal matter entered the human diet as a dependable staple, the overall nutrient content of plant foods could drop drastically, if need be, so long as the plants supplied plenty of calories for energy," said Milton.

The brain is a relentless consumer of calories, said Milton. It needs glucose 24 hours a day. Animal protein probably did not provide many of those calories, which were more likely to come from carbohydrates, she said.
...
Since plant foods available in the dry and deforested early human environment had become less nutritious, meat was critical for weaned infants, said Milton. She explained that small infants could not have processed enough bulky plant material to get both nutrients for growth and energy for brain development.

Source

Meat, in and of itself, did not do anything for the development of the brain -- it merely kept our monkey butts alive!

I prefer to eat higher on the food chain myself. Let the bovines, pigs, chickens and ostriches pre-digest the vegetables for me.

I hope you're not suggesting that the calories ingested by a cow transfers into its meat -- most of those calories go to keeping the cow alive! If I eat a peach, those nutrients are not going to just sit in my body, going un-used, to make my flanks taste 'peachy'!! My body uses those nutrients, just as each creature's body does.


P.S. Another thread has some interesting information, although not always directly related to medical-ness. thread

[edit on 30-7-2007 by Diseria]

Originally posted by Cloak and Dagger

That's not true.

Some sure. Hell maybe even lots.

I am a vegetarian myself. I am also an amateur pit fighter, and a competitive artist in eskrima. I am not scrawny at all. Would you like some pics?

Sorry no offense, but that has been my personal experience with almost all vegetarians I come across.

Oh and there is more to muscle growth then protein, although that point is erroneous since I think you're suggesting you can't get protein from a vegetarian diet? If that's the case then you are simply not qualified to make any judgments on vegetarianism.

[edit on 30-7-2007 by Cloak and Dagger]

I am very aware that there are some plants that contain protein, such as soy protein found in beans.

The problem is that protein does not contain the creatine found in meats.

Oh, and it ridiculous to say meat is bad for you. It just like smoking, there are some people who have smoked their whole life and nothing has happened to them.

[edit on 30-7-2007 by thehumbleone]

lol ... scrawny vegetarians?

You need to come to where I live.

I, myself, am a 275 part muscle part stomach near-vegan.

I know a vegan that weighs nearly 400 lbs.

I know many more that have a healthy weight ... not that super skinny, bone-showing stuff in ads.

If you took the time to look at a link provided early in the thread, you would see that there are a lot of professional athletes, assumingly much more in shape and muscular than you may ever be in your life (they are professionals). You misguided beliefs should be more researched before saying them as facts ... just state 'you believe' something to be so ... because I get plenty of protein, plenty of vitamins ... and I don't take pills for supplements ... I just learned from research what to put in my body.

It is ignorant to say that meat is required in a diet. It is a bold lie actually. You can get any and all nutrients without every touching a meat product ... including products derived from meats.

I have said I support your decision to eat meat ... I suggest you make healthy decisions with it and buy appropriately, instead of just what is available. Organic meas they don't pump it up with stuff ... in essence, a cleaner meat than the drugged up majority. But hey, it is your body, I just try to inform you.

If you want to get technical ... eat hemp products, they have more nutritional value than most other sources, and a major source of several of the omega fatty acids proven to help reduce cholesterol. That doesn't meat go smoke a joint, hemp is THC-free and is quite a great product for very many purposes including nutrition.

If you are serious about being a vegetarian, then you know where to get your vitamins ... and if you don't eat only heads of lettuce, then I will also say, the average vegetarian diet is far more nutritious and far more varied than an average onmivorous or carnivorous diet.

To make snide remarks about someone's choice that is not your own is quite a shallow thing to do, regardless of their reason why they choose to eat as they do. Especially when those same people support your choice to eat as you choose without the same lack of respect.

I also hope that no alien life of greater intelligence doesn't pass upon this planet and see us as grazing cattle ... a caviar of a space community. Just because they cannot communicate with us, or we are not as advanced of a species as they are. Essentially that is a good argument as to how we treat life forms we don't communicate with.

I agree, plant life is life, and it is a shame we cannot sustain ourselves without the death of life itself. I personally wish there was a way. You can eat only things that produce things that either a) don't kill the plant to remove it or b) the plant is seasonal and dies anyway, so you are not killing it prematurely but eating what it has produced in its short lifespan.

How about that meat-eaters? How about eating animals that die of natural causes instead of slaughtering animals in their prime (or baby animals such as veal)? Is this not acceptable? I will assume not ...

Again, it is your choice. It is not for me to decide what you eat ... I can ask that the processes, procedures, and even chemical treatments be humane or eliminated respectively ... for the animal and for the consumer of the animal. What is wrong with humane treatment and humans not eating meat saturated with chemicals? I feel that is the best for both of you.

For me, I will continue on my personal decision of not eating meat and the OCDs behind it. I cannot promise I will never eat meat again ... but I don't ever plant to.

[edit on 30-7-2007 by FreeThinkerIdealist]

Originally posted by thehumbleone

I am very aware that there are some plants that contain protein, such as soy protein found in beans.

Some is incorrect. There is many. Protein is found in veggies, beans/seeds, milk (not all veggie-killers are Vegan) and even... fruit. It's rather easy to get alot of quality protein from a vegetarian diet... like any diet you can do it right and you can do it wrong. Just requires some proper research.

The problem is that protein does not contain the creatine found in meats.

But...

The liver, pancreas and kidneys can synthesize a limited amount of creatine from amino acids they get from the vegetarian diet.

I myself supplement additional vegetarian friendly creatine. Yes there is indeed vegetarian freindly synthetic creatine supplements

I wouldn't even need to take it for health, I only do because of my highly active lifestyle.

Oh, and it ridiculous to say meat is bad for you. It just like smoking, there are some people who have smoked their whole life and nothing has happened to them.

You missed my point. And I can elaborate if you wish, or point you to many good ATS threads which discuss this very point.

I am not saying meat is bad for you. I am saying what the meat industry does to the meat is bad for you. Big, big difference.

[edit on 31-7-2007 by Cloak and Dagger]

Originally posted by Cloak and Dagger
John I think I can help, I have an extensive amount of knowledge in this area. Is it just about everytime you eat one? Is this fast-food or storebought? Both? If store bought then what brand?

Local grocery store, meat department. It's ground sirloin. I don't eat fast-food burgers (I stick to the chicken when I go, which is rare) so I wouldn't know about that. I notice it maybe half the time I eat burgers, but it's slight and hard to notice if I'm doing something.

for me its not really about anything but compassion, which is a forgotten nutrient in so many diets. try feeding your soul a bit more, you'll be surprised how strong it can grow.

and i always like to hear someone argue that plants are life too so therefore vegetarians must be hypocrites. irony make me laugh.

Originally posted by FreeThinkerIdealist


If you took the time to look at a link provided early in the thread, you would see that there are a lot of professional athletes, assumingly much more in shape and muscular than you may ever be in your life

LOL More in shape and muscular than me? Dude, you don't even know who you are talking to.


I'm glad you respect my choice to eat meat. I never said that I don't respect vegetarians choice not to eat meat. For all I care they can eat whatever leaf they want. All I did was merely point out that a lot of them appear to be malnourished.

[edit on 31-7-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by Johnmike
As a side note, I notice that I get a slight headache shortly after eating a hamburger. Could it be the fat content, or something else?

It could be a number of different factors which contribute to your noticeable headache, but the first thing that comes to mind is Thyrotoxicosis. When you eat hamburger meat, whether it be from the grocery store or a fast food chain you may be consuming parts of ground up Thyroid tissue from the neck of cattle. However, I believe that this practice has been banned in the United States because of this very reason, and I wouldn't normally think that this should be much of a problem if you are from the U.S. so I would pretty much rule this factor out.

Headaches usually occur when veins and blood vessels in the brain or neck constrict (caffeine does the same thing, which is why migraine medication is often loaded with it), and there are a number of factors which can cause this to happen. If you notice that these headaches only occur when you eat hamburger meat as you mentioned, it would be wise to talk with someone that can visibly examine you. I mention this because there are several different types of headaches including Tension, Migraine, Chronic, etc. that are all triggered by different things, so it would be advisable to know which one you are seeing the side-effects from. Since you mention that a noticeable occurance of your headaches spring up when you eat red meat I would not generally think this would be a migraine headache, as food related migraines are primarily triggered by Monosodium Glutamate, chocolate or citrus fruits. Therefore, you probably suffer from food induced headaches which are not all that uncommon, and red meats are a general contributor to this. In all honesty there are a number of things that can trigger a headache and there are a plethora of foods one normally wouldn't think of a being a possible cause...such as red meat.

On a side note, you may want to try organic meats and see if you notice any difference. This way you can easily rule out your symptoms being caused by added chemicals in the meat you consume.

I don't remember what program it ,Nova or History Channel, was but they had a paleontologist on and they said that once early primates began to hunt and eat a more diverse diet, basically everything from grains, to fruits, nuts, shellfish, bugs, eggs to meat, then their brain size started to grow. The added protein along with the skills necessary for hunting spurred brain growth.

Can you eat a totally vegan diet and be healthy? Sure, in fact you are probably healthier than a modern "eat whatever they want" human since you diet is markedly lower in fat and other bad things. I am sure a modern human is better off eating much more unprocessed fruits and vegetable and less fatty meats than the other way around. That doesn't mean there aren't good choices of "healthier" meats out there, just that we don't choose our diets very well. A Turkey or Buffalo burger is much better for you than a hamburger but what do most of us eat?

But back at the dawn of primates becoming our ancestors, they didn't know what vegetable had more protein or this or that vitamin or mineral. A drought would have taken down a population of vegan primates quicker than a population of omnivores. A vegan gatherer population/culture would have grown slower than an omnivore hunter/gatherer/scavenger since they would have spent more time looking for food.

Truth is we are omnivores and that is probably one of the major things that helped our line of primates advance to where we can just sit in front of a TV and eat Pizza and Drink Beer.....wait maybe we advanced too far?

Eating proper foods in proper amounts is probably the best "diet" you can have. Eating all meat or all vegan is probably not the ideal mix, some where in between is.

Originally posted by thehumbleone

For all I care they can eat whatever leaf they want. All I did was merely point out that a lot of them appear to be malnourished.

Erroneous to isolate vegetarians, as malnourishment is fairly common amongst people in general. Eating healthy requires a little bit of homework, for both vegetarians and mear-eaters. It can be done right, it can be done wrong. Period.

Perhaps you might say there is more malnourished vegetarians then meat-eaters? Which could very well be true. However, I wonder if there is more obese meat-eaters? Last time I checked caloric restriction was a big part of life longevity. Something to consider

I'm glad you respect my choice to eat meat. I never said that I don't respect vegetarians choice not to eat meat.

Nay. You didn't point out anything. All you did was poke fun and make your silly opinion known.

Is this the 'merely pointing out' that you were speaking of?...

Have you noticed that most vegetarians look like scrawny weaklings?

www.veganbodybuilding.com...
www.veganbodybuilding.org...


[edit on 31-7-2007 by Cloak and Dagger]

I thought Id post this really interesting site called The Meatrix, its about factory farming and corporations in a matrix style cartoons, pretty funny and backs up what ANOK has been saying.

It doesn't back up anything. It makes claims, that's it. No statistics, no data. Could be true, could be false.

@ Cloak and dagger,

My original post was not meant to be as rude as it seemed, infact immediately after writing that I researched veganism and vegetarianism, and even convinced my wife to join me on our journey of starting a vegetarian diet. The thoughts that I had posted were just that, thoughts.... I didn't mean to offend or even sound offensive in anyway. I do realize after seeing your opinion on my thoughts that you don't appreciate the fact that not everyone sees things the same, some people have to make mistakes for themselves in order to truly find out how to live. I have even went as far as to buy multi vitamins and all vegetables for my next week of eating, However that will now change the fact that I will be commemorating my start to a new life by attending a family turkey diner this sunday. That will be the last peice of meat I eat, This was planned longer than before I read this thread. I am not going to overindulge or anything. But I have taken into consideration the lives of sentient beings as you put it. If you wish to go that far however it has been prooven even though we cant tell, plants have their own intelligence aswell as animals.

Why stop at veganism, why not just attempt to eat nonsentient objects....
you really dont have to answer that question, it's what they call Rhetorical.

Even if this still doesn't please you it really doesn't matter, I have never met you and I do not seek to please the needs or wants of anyone here. I make my decisions on my own free will as do you, so I do not expect you to jump through my hoops at command. Just know I have changed my ways and will be enjoying the life of eating only plants soon enough....

John Mike

I easily found a link within the meatrix site that took me to this page which had a nice list sources. Oh and heres another site. So, Im winging for ture.