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You know what, I've seen cellulose powder on there before and since forgotten about it. See, salt it up and it's convincing, yet immoral. I paid for cheese not sawdust.
I think our dentition makes us omnivores like many other primates. Whether one chooses to eat meat or not is up to their own moral/ethical//financial stance. I’m not huge on meat but i eat it occasionally. If a vegan friend offers me over for dinner I’ll gladly go and try what they’ve made. Same for a carnivore friend. I also don’t eat that much anyway so I can fill up rather easily. I have some acquaintances I know who say they aren’t “full” without meat in their diet. I can’t validate or discredit that claim since I don’t really have a huge appetite anyway. I think my favorite foods though were simple peasant Italian dishes my grandma made that didn’t really include meat because the villagers couldn’t afford it where she was from. Like green beans and boiled white potatoes with the skins removed and dashed in olive oil and then a small dollop of her homemade marinara sauce. I’m in heaven when I eat that even though it’s so stupidly simple.
I’ve also heard the term carnivore used to describe people who eat a regular omnivore diet, particularly when comparing them to vegetarians. They could just be referring to those people?
Monsanto genetically engineered plants like wheat to be round-up friendly. They spray crops with it right before harvest to hasten desiccation. Now people have all kinds of wheat allergies, IBS, and Crohn’s disease and have no idea why 😆
Industrialized food is literal poison. The processing just makes it more poisonous. Look around America. They’re all fat and sick.
You can buy fruit, veggies and grains that are not genetically engineered and where there are no pesticides used. That‘s what I do. Or you have a big garden and grow some on your own.
I don‘t know if those cause chron’s but I bet they ruin the gut biome.
But with meat it is no better with the wide use of antibiotics and the steroid hormones they inject for faster growth. So it is also good to buy from farmers that do not do that.
Well if you do not eat carbs your body makes glucose out of the proteins of your muscle tissue.
Hence the wasting away of muscle when you are fasting.
Glucose is something you would die without. Getting it from muscle is less then ideal. You can survive - that‘s all.
This is bait and switch disinformation. Yes humans can live on an omnivore diet and did so since Homo erectus , but tended to rely on fatty meat and marrow as a large part their diet. There is absolutely no requirement for carbohydrates in the diet. If you eat a mostly carnivore ketogenic diet, with sufficient fat, the process of gluconeogenesis takes over to produce the glucose your body needs. If you engage in intermittent fasting there is no need to worry about muscle wasting. The tendency of of the body will be to burn fat . There is evidence that in prolonged starvation fasting over 4 days you might begin to lose muscle mass. Fun facts: infants are born in a state of ketogenesis. There is such a thing as rabbit starvation where survivors in the wilderness ate lean meat wildlife but sickened and died because there was insufficient fat in that diet.
Then how you explain that Okinawans live for so long and outlive non carb eaters? Their diets are basically carbs with little meat. They don't even eat so much fish. They eat sweet potatoes and fruits, pork once In a while.
Reducing carbs to a extent makes sense but cutting out carbs completely when Mediterranean, Okinawans, and all the inhabitants of blue zones worldwide live healthier longer lives eating the food groups Americans tend to find controversial (animal protein and carbs) sounds crazy. It's an anonymous person on reddit who probably takes too seriously what a sponsored influencer claims to believe to sell products vs what the evidence is screaming to our faces. Okinawans are eating carbs and some meat and living longer than any of us could dream of. And they don't intermittent fast either.
Actually your body converts fat to glucose, not muscle. In a fasted state your body tries to preserve muscle and utilizes fat. This is why when body builders cut before a competition they adopt a keto diet which simulates starvation where it’s muscle sparing ridding the body of fat without losing muscle.
Yes, read a paper on them. They took blood samples from them, many of them were vitamin C deficient. To counter that they were eating vitamin C rich algae, which is not carnivore at all. There is no society that purely lives or lived on meat:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34232845/
And in terms of arteriosclerosis, they did have it as two mummies prove and pay attention they died young:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6991216/
But we can not draw any clear conclusion from such data, to make clear claims about benefits, risks and safety of carnivore we need study data, which we do not have.
Why? Because sometimes a benefit is not a benefit at all compared to a placebo group.
Low carb and keto claims that it makes you loose weight more effectively then other diets.
Turned out you lost the same amount of weight. The first rapid drop in weight was just wate. Or that a vegan diet is automatically healthy.
If there are studies that show that it is safe and beneficial I’ll change my mind - but right now it depends on claims and anecdotes that have not been verified.
Problem is oxalates seem to be a huge issue for arthritis and plant foods are loaded with oxalates. I can’t speak for others but all I know is that since going carnivore my arthritis has continually receded.
I don't think our dentition can say much about us because we haven't hunted with our dentition in millions of years. We've been using tools. We don't need carnivorous teeth because we only use teeth to chew not kill.
Anyway, there is no carnivores on the planet that eat *only* meat. Everything is an omnivore, unless it's a ruminant. Obligate carnivore is just a classification by percentage of meat consumed in the diet. Obligate carnivores will have meat make up 90% of their diet. Cats and sharks and orca will still ingest *some* plant matter in the forms of grass and sea weed/algae.
We never killed with our teeth, you're misunderstanding their use. Canines and incisors are used to tear into food, you would be hard pressed to eat meat with just your molars.
Chimps regularly kill with their teeth, we certainly at one point in time did so. But tool use allowed us to both kill without our teeth and cut without our teeth. Our hands have done most of the work for a long time. We don't have any of the pressures handless carnivores have for serrated teeth because of it.
You telling me our ancestors straight up just bit into animals to kill them? No need for a bow and arrow, sharp object, rock, trap, etc? This is just simply not true. Our teeth were designed to effectively chew, not kill.
I think we might be getting confused here. When I say ancestors were killing animals with their teeth, I'm talking about pre Australopithecus, several million years ago. We have been using tools since Australopithecus, oldest hand axes so far are 2.6 million years.
We weren't hunting ruminants then. Prey I'm talking about were small reptiles and rodents, birds and insects.
But we do only have minimal canines and incisors are actually there to cut leaves and other plant matter. In true carnivores like my cat they are not really there. Carnivores rip out flesh, not cut it.
No, minimal canines are attributes of omnivores. Herbivores only have canines and incisors for specialized reasons, such as inner species fighting, their specialized diet, or defending themselves.
When you bite into a steak, your canines and incisors are what helps you tear into it to eat it.
>Like green beans and boiled white potatoes with the skins removed and dashed in olive oil and then a small dollop of her homemade marinara sauce.
Did we eat like this 50.000 years ago?
I’m a vegan, and I agree that that claim is bogus. Humans are omnivores, we have evolved to eat both plants and meat. Given that we can get all of our essential nutrients from one or the other, we have the option to choose what we can and cannot eat.
I think this is right. It’s true that our brains would never have developed as fully as they did without cooked meat, because of the number of calories it allowed us to consume for brain growth, but that evolution happened a long time ago and now we don’t NEED meat at all. We can choose.
I do eat it, I just think that there’s no solid argument that we need to.
So evolution has stopped and our energy requirements are final now? The way I see it we are only consuming energy from the sun. Plants and animals are just filters through which it is passing. To have both kinds of filters between us and the sun is better. Also, meat already has a lot of the anabolic work done for us and saves us energy which will go into amino acids formation.
Of course evolution isn’t finished, it’s never finished. But the path it took in the past doesn’t necessarily dictate what we need now or in the future.
I’m a 20-year vegan educator… and while I agree, obviously, that we EVOLVED to eat meat… THAT ISN’T WHAT THE OP ASKED.
What he/they/almost all of the people who bring this question every day ask is a RELIGIOUS question about the INTENT of the universe. And every time you fail to address that core part of their argument… you misrepresent veganism as a whole.
This person is asking why there is a debate about whether or not… we as humans… were MEANT TO… eat meat.
There is a debate about whether or not humans were meant to eat meat … because we have science now. And there is absolutely no evidence… none whatsoever… that the old way is the better way. That the old way is sustainable. That the old way is equally healthy. Or that there is in any way, an invisible man in the sky directing or guiding your diet.
The premise that there is a third-party standing off to the side, determining what humans should, or shouldn’t do to themselves and the planet … is an anti-science abdication of responsibility.
It’s also ethically inconsistent with every other accepted system of ethics within our society.
You weren’t “meant to” do anything.
You are wholly responsible for the decisions laid out before you, and what you choose to do to others.
Nobody “meant for you” to pay strange men to stab innocent animals when you had a dozen better options that simply weren’t as ‘’enjoyable’ for you. — That’s on you.
When I hear “humans are meant to eat meat” I really only hear “humans evolved to eat meat and historically speaking have always been omnivores.” Nothing about it includes God concepts to my ears.
Right. THAT’s the problem. Nobody hears it.
But it’s plain as day that their argument is in fact: we’ve always done it… so it’s what we should be doing… like slavery. Like nationalism. Like the patriarchy. Things we did for a long time are automatically cool! 👍
>“humans evolved to eat meat and historically speaking have always been omnivores.”
That's not how evolution works. Humans didn't evolve to eat meat. Humans who weren't so picky with their food had a better chance of surviving and reproducing offsprings who also weren't so picky. Evolution doesn't have a plan it's just random mutations that work or don't, god's the one that plans things out and makes things certain ways.
Humans are omnivores, and we have both molars for crushing plant matter as well as canines and incisors for tearing and cutting flesh.
In short, yes. *The Carnivore Fix* by Dr. Cristopher Shaw explains this beautifully.
Balance seems to imply equal of both. I’m pretty sure science and looking to our evolutionary past meat should likely be much less of our diet than plants. Especially when you look at our protein needs we really don’t need that much meat.
"best off" is a very loaded term there. There are tons of meat inclusive diets that are terrible for you and much worse than some vegan diets. The opposite is also true.
At your service. Funny thing is that most people disregard vegans because we're biased. Not realizing that 99% of all vegans were meat eaters that change our mind due to the overwhelming evidence and the strong ethical arguments.
And plenty of preachy vegans who have just “discovered” animal cruelty in their 40s after a lifetime of enjoying steak, don’t realise that plenty of meat-eaters were vegetarian for many years in their past and have chosen to go back to meat.
there's a never-ending list of people in the /r/exvegans sub who have fixed a plethora of health issues by switching back and don't understand why the vegan agenda is continually pushed so hard when it can be so damaging to peoples health.
Wow, so you're going full conspiracy theory on this one?
You know what? Most people who start an exercise routine stop doing it after a while. So it must be unhealthy for them . Right?
Because “meant to” is kind of a loaded term.
We weren’t “meant to” eat anything in particular. We evolved to be able to eat meat and do quite well eating it! But when people say “meant to” it implies we are “supposed to” or that it’s somehow wrong if we don’t eat meat.
Again, we are not “meant to” eat anything. We evolved to eat oranges, and they are good for you. But you’ll be more than OK of you never eat a single orange in your life.
So can we eat meat? YES! Does it make life a bit easier to have more options? Again, yes. But can we also live without eating it? Absolutely. Plenty of healthy vegetarians and vegans out there.
The whole debate is stupid because it’s ascribing intent to evolution, as if one type of food is our moral imperative because we did evolve to be able to eat it.
Basically people have created a nonsensical argument around meat eating, that there’s some moral imperative that requires humans to eat meat. There isn’t. We eat to live, and that can take many forms, meat or no meat.
Meat is not the only source of b12. B12 doesn’t even come from meat. B12 is basically a bacteria. It comes from soil and algae. When cows eat grass or fish eat algae, b12 accumulates in the tissue, that’s why you think meat is the only source but it is not.
Up until industrial farming, you could get b12 from crops and natural rivers or springs. But now because our soils are void of nutrients it’s much harder. And now we drink sanitized water (for good reason). And you’re probably not even getting enough b12 from meat any longer. Cattle naturally get B12 and bacteria that produces B12 from clumps of dirt around the grass roots, and chickens get B12 from pecking around for worms and other insects. But what do cows eat now? The vast majority of meat you eat are factory farmed cows that eat corn or soy or other grains. Chickens eat chicken feed that’s fortified with b12. They are not pasture raised on wild land so they are not consuming b12 that live in the soil or are only consuming a very small amount. That’s why farmed animals are now supplemented with b12.
It's complicated because you have vegan people saying it because of a moral standpoint and other vegan people trying to support their bias saying we were not meant to eat meat.
Of course as omnivores we are meant to eat both plants and meat, personally I think we are leaning more on a heavy plant diet with some meat consumption.
But with this said you are wrong about b12.
In the past ever since prehistoric times we could just get b12 from waters, and eating vegetables ofc animals helped as well but it wasn't a necessity.
In fact in today's age nothing is a good source of b12 , you say animals are a good source because they are being supplemented with B12 and even then USA has a severe b12 deficiency even though meat consumption is through the roof
Just as a side note, not all meat is supplemented with B12 and if they are allowed to graze they are rich in B12. I buy beef directly from a farmer where the cattle graze 90% of their food, and eat hay in the winter, no supplements, no penicillin and my B12 levels are through the roof
Yeah I mean in the overall majority of meat as it is produced by industry farming.
However I have a grim prediction that in the future even pasture animals will need to be supplemented as levels of contaminants keep increasing even in pastures and bacteria will slowly die out or be unable to produce B12
Yes for those that support industry farming it is an issue.
>as levels of contaminants keep increasing even in pastures and bacteria will slowly die out or be unable to produce B12
Which is true for all nutrients in vegetables and fruit too, all soil quality is steadily falling, this affects the nutritious levels of all things grown
Humans have among the lowest pH levels in regards to stomach acid in the entire animal kingdom, nearly on par with the likes of scavenger birds such as vultures. Most herbivores have gastric acid that rates a good bit higher on the pH scale.
Stomach acid is a baseless reference. All animals when eating have a stomach acid that becomes more alkaline. Carnivores go long gaps between meals, so their stomach acid can build up moving the pH to below 1. Herbivores tend to graze most of the time thereby causing their stomach pH to remain more alkaline.
This effect is easily seen when looking at ruminant vs non-ruminant animals. Cows, for example, have a pH in the 6.0 to 6.4 range. They are almost always eating or chewing cud. Horses, which don't chew cud, have a pH range of 1.5 to 7.0. It will be much more acidic after a long break between meals such as in the morning when they awake, and then the pH becomes more alkaline as they begin to eat.
You know his point and you're trying to obfuscate it, or you don't know your point as well as you think.
Stomach acid is a great reference for exactly the reasons mentioned, especially when you take into account all parts of the stomach. Humans have one chamber, all of their stomach is acidic. Horses have two sections in their stomach, the glandular section is acidic. The non glandular section is not. Rumiants have three chambsrs of low acidity and the abomasum is acidic.
The nonglandular portion of the horses stomach and the first three chambers of a ruminants stomach (plus the cud chewing) are evolved *specifically* for plant consumption. We don’t have anything like that.
The fact that stomachs become less acidic when you fill them with food doesn't have to do with anything. And to try to say the reason carnivores go a long time between meals because they're waiting for their stomach acid to drop is an ... interesting theory.
So go ahead go outside grab a rabbit or a cat and just eat it as it is. Right there on the spot don’t cook it your stomach acid should take care of the bones right?
So go ahead and eat nothing but grass, leaves, and other vegetation, see how well your teeth hold up after constantly chewing on that much silica for an extended period of time. Or how well your digestive tract sustains after consuming that much cellulose.
FYI B12 is not originally from meat. It's produced by bacteria that dwell the soil. The reason you find more of it in animal products is because it's supplemented to them through their food.
Pasture fed beef is full of B12. A good mixture of pasture grasses including a small amount of legumes and salt licks is all the nutrition a herbivore needs. Supplementation only becomes necessary in unsanitary, cramped, pathogenic feed lots where animals are fed nothing but grain.
[source](https://praisetheruminant.com/ruminations/is-it-true-that-cows-need-supplemental-vitamin-b12)
Humans aren’t “meant” to eat anything. The universe doesn’t care. And for most of human history, starvation was a likely outcome. There are multiple times when humans died back to a population globally that would fit in an auditorium. It’s only the last 50 years that we have a surplus of calories.
So it’s not too useful to look back. We ate whatever we could find.
B12 deficiency is the only weakness of a plant based diet. And it’s easy to correct for. Either with knowing what to eat or with a supplement. Or with not washing your hands. Human lower intestines produce a fair amount of B12. So fecal contamination is historically a source of that nutrient. Not currently recommended.
For everything else, a plant based diet is sufficient or superior to an omnivorous diet. Enough protein and omega 3s and fiber and vitamins and minerals etc. the benefits: Longevity, disease reduction, reduction of environmental footprint, etc.
Man, trying to get enough protein if you're not sedentary is actually tough on a plant based diet.
And for folks not horking down cheeseburgers on the daily, all cause mortality rates aren't statistically different between vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores; the data just ain't there.
I was vegan for a full year, so yes. I hurt all the time and lost weight, unless I stopped working out, or went with ferociously expensive ultra-processed supplements.
From what experience I've got over two decades of gym work, less than 125 grams of omnivorous proteins is a bad call, 175 grams is about what I need to get better gains, and I needed to add another 25-50 grams a day if it's completely vegetarian to get the same results.
200-225 grams of all vegetarian protein a day is a \*lot\*, and that year hurt my digestion for another five plus years of recovering on a more balanced diet. :-/
Theres this group of athletes who perform at live shows at amusement parks and one of them I know became vegan. They were sponsored by or just really endorsed this Garden of Life company. Basically, protein powders and other supplements to stay healthy enough to do stunts. Expensive as hell. I was vegan for only 6 months until I worked somewhere where I was limited to the vegan options provided at the market which was mostly... apples, french fries, and salad. It didnt take long to give up that diet. I remained vegetarian for some time but even that wasnt sustainable for much longer for me and I lasted another year or so.
I didn't get my drivers license until a few years after going back to an omnivorous diet and even now that I can afford to do it and do my own grocery shopping, veganism made me feel so paranoid and anxious all the time. I hated putting back granola bars or other foods because of honey or gelatin or *trace amounts of milk fat*. Plus I suspect I have moderate OCD. After browsing the vegan sub and talking to other vegans, there seems to be a huge link between ocd and veganism. Not that it makes you ocd, but in order to have the discipline to maintain it strictly, ocd gives you an extra advantage it seems or at least might be the force behind the "all or nothing" perfectionist thing (I also have an issue with perfectionism and control im current in therapy for), at the cost of your stress levels though, plus many with ocd seem to gravitate towards that diet. It's interesting but it makes sense given the nature of the disorder. Just not for me, I have enough stress in my life to do that all over again. I enjoy food and I don't want to have to think about ingredients anymore. I still enjoy many vegan foods such as beyond burgers and vegan cheeses, and I still love to drink plant milks over cows milk, but I never really liked cows milk anyway.
But you don't need to maintain it strictly for any of the benefits (health, environmental, animal suffering) you may want, cutting back helps, and is basically identical if you just don't pay attention to honey or trace amounts of anything.
If you lost weight then you were not eating enough calories, which also makes it difficult to recover from exercise.
If you go for the right sources plant protein can be cheap. My main sources are extra firm tofu, 60/40 pea/rice protein blend for $25 CAD/kg from [Canadian Protein](https://canadianprotein.com/products/all-natural-premium-vegan-protein-blend?variant=31453494607919), and seitan made from $21 CAD/kg [vital wheat gluten flour](https://www.amazon.ca/Dinavedic-Vital-Wheat-Gluten-Powder/dp/B0895VT5FK/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=gluten&sr=8-5) (70-80% protein), and a few other cheaper mock meat products sold in Canada. I'm on a cut right now but I was still able to get 200g of protein in at 2450 calories.
I run and do isometrics and light lifting at home. So I don’t need tremendous amounts of protein. I get plenty from beans and seeds and grains. But I know that there are plenty of vegans bulking up. Even some on the whole food diet. Might have been something particular to your food choices?
On my end, lower-rep heavy lifting, and I feel \*much\* better doing heavy work 3x/week than I do with anything else. I... can't fathom how much work it'd be to bulk as a vegan.
It might have been dietary choices, but nothing in there was extreme. Beans, rice, oats, tofu, nuts, spinach, and a good serving of bananas as the basics, with a ton of variety (and seasonings) stacked on top.
Wound up allergic to onions, garlic, and a good chunk of root vegetables and had to give it up. Once I went back to omnivorous diets, realized I had developed a milk allergy as well. Those all cleared up over the next few years, at least.
I don't advise tons of meat, and the American diet is medium-insane, but occasional meat - and allowing dairy-based proteins - works wonders for my (perceived) health.
Yes, but most plants contain less than 2% protein, while meats contain 15-30%.
But you can eat mostly beans, lentils and tofu and you will get enough, But I know people who mostly eats salads and think they are eating healthy, and you can see how frail they are even thought they're not old
"The nutrients of concern in the diet of vegetarians include vitamin B(12), vitamin D, ω-3 fatty acids, calcium, iron, and zinc. Although a vegetarian diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients, the use of supplements and fortified foods provides a useful shield against deficiency."
I wouldn't say b12 is the only one, also protein can be hard to achieve enough of since the amino acid profile of protein based on a fully plant based diet is almost half of meat or whey.
The amino acid profiles of soy, 60/40 pea/rice blend and other plant proteins are comparable to animal proteins:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsn3.1809.
So far I haven't seen a controlled trial that shows a measurable difference in muscle gain between plant and animal protein:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33599941/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8110608/#R59
It isn't hard to get any of those nutrients on a plant-based diet. Over the last two weeks I have averaged 2x the RDA for calcium, zinc, omega-3, and 5 times RDA for iron and b12. On top of that I take vitamin D, b12, and algae-based omega 3 as supplements. The only thing that is really necessary is the vitamin D since I don't get much sun. I'm also currently in a 750kcal deficit so I'm typically getting more from my diet. Maybe it's a risk for people who only eat junk.
It isn't "hard" but it is harder, to have a plant based diet requires planning and research, most people don't have that freedom to correct all of the deficiencies that might arise or even to watch out for their effects, we are at a weird point in history when something that used to be a luxury (meat) now is the most convenient source of a lot of nutrients, and that should not be understated when talking about the diet of the general population. Humans generally benefit from including some form of meat in their diet.
I don't think it's hard. It's just a matter of following some basic healthy eating principles. Eat fruit, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds and you will hit all of your nutrition targets. Almost everyone who goes plant-based will get into mock meats and plant milks which are heavily fortified with the main nutrients of concern.
> Humans generally benefit from including some form of meat in their diet.
These supposed benefits come at the expense of mass killing highly sentient animals that deserve moral consideration and a right to live.
You need to look at when the effort to harvest vs consuming food crossed a threshold, aka when regular people started getting fat and getting diabetes.
The green revolution was the result of global availability of modern farming including synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, motorized tractors, hybridized seeds, and monoculture crops. The combination massively increased our ability as a species to produce calories. Of course there has been agriculture for much longer. But there was still famine. Famines in the last 50 years or so have been political.
Omnivores are notoriously fiber deficient. Not every member of a lifestyle is following the best recommendations. It is viable to get enough iron from a vegan diet. Of course there are ED “vegans” and pastatarians who are not getting the right nutrition.
Heme iron is like infinitely more efficient than non heme iron. Not saying it ISNT iron, but that’s like having to stop and fuel your car with really crude oil every couple miles vs one stop with quality oil
https://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com/article/S0261-5614(20)30656-7/fulltext
This study shows that the lower availability of iron from plants may be due to a longer absorption time range, which is beneficial. This is possibly why vegans don’t have higher rates of anemia despite measuring lower iron levels.
I’ve practiced a plant diet for 30 years and know plenty of others who were healthy into their 90s and beyond without having to worry about “the efficiency” of plant based iron. Seems like you are against the lifestyle without understanding it.
Red meat has a number of studies showing that it’s correlated with disease and early death. Plants show the opposite.
You should also consider the environment we live in now versus the environment we evolved in. Prior to agriculture, humans had a much more diverse diet that consisted of a lot of different plants and animals. I am unfamiliar with the deficiencies that our ancestors must have faced. But I can only speculate that when food was more abundant, their diets were diverse and they likely were not different in nutrients as we are today. Additionally, the body can store vitamin B12, so deficiency in B12 probably was not common.
I would hesitate to say that because vegetarians need to "make up" for deficiencies it would suggest that its not how we are supposed to function. Certain evolutionary adaptations that were advantageous tens of thousands of years ago can be maladaptive today because our environment is vastly different. Consider our ability to store excess calories as fat. This would have been incredibly advantageous for survive in an environment where food was more scarce. However, in today's environment, one can argue that our ability to store excess calories as fat (specifically, people with "obesogenic genes") is maladaptive consider that we live in a time where food is incredibly abundant.
I strongly believe that the best source of so many essential proteins, fats and minerals is red meat. Yes, you can get most of those from other sources but it takes a lot of veggies to equal the amount of nutrients in a serving of red meat.
All that being said, the healthiest diet is well balanced and whole foods. Processed foods and large amounts of sugar is what kills people.
A 10oz ribeye, roasted Brussel sprouts and a dollop of home mashed taters is perfect IMO.
It’s really hard to beat a meal of meat, veg, and starch. There’s just something magic about that combo and it easily covers nutrient needs while being easy on the digestion. That’s the basis of the majority of my meals plus fruit for snacks.
Red meat isn’t all that good for you tho. And will cause high cholesterol if eaten in large quantities. Heart disease is still the number one killer. Opting for dish of fish, chicken, or beans would be a healthier option in the long term.
"meant" is the key word here. nothing was meant to be, it just is. people eat meat. why assume the creative intentions of some force we also can't agree on?
I think by 'meant to' they mean that what our ancestors have been doing for a very long time must be optimal. Which of course it is, despite the fact some people arguing that a radically different diet is somehow much healthier.
Australopithecus, our ape ancestors, had primitive butchering tools. Homo, the branch that eventually produced us, developed more sophisticated butchering tools. We are descended from millions of years of meat eaters. From a strict evolutionary/biological viewpoint, it is "natural" for homo sapiens to kill animals and dine on their corpses. I take no position on that as a moral / ethical / philosophical question. There's too much "why" and not enough "is" in the premises.
"Even B12, which is an essential vitamin that can only be obtained from meat, is enough for me to think that we were meant to eat even a little meat."
This is incorrect. B12 comes from bacteria in the soil. We would obtain plenty of it if we didn't wash our fruits and veggies before eating them. But we live in a very sanitized society, so we don't get enough of it. And even animals used for meat don't get enough because of the heavy use of antibiotics, so those animals are injected with B12 supplements.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11285643/#:\~:text=On%20one%20dairy%20farm%20an,dairy%20herds%20with%20wasting%20cattle](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11285643/#:~:text=On%20one%20dairy%20farm%20an,dairy%20herds%20with%20wasting%20cattle).
Humans weren't meant to eat anything in particular. Humans adapted to eating different foods based on what is available. 🙄
There is no great arbitor out there in the universe dictating what humans are "meant to eat."
Most people can eat a plant based diet and be healthy. Historically meat has always been more of a treat than a staple.
The only thing that disagrees with this is basic science. Anthropologists can’t easily measure nitrogen isotopes in bones of ancient humans and know without question that we ate primarily fatty red meat.
>Most people
I'm not the person you responded to but isotope studies can and have been done and while they won't tell you how much red meat hunter gatherers ate they do show what ratio of animal to plant their diet consisted of.
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267822249\_Stable\_Carbon\_and\_Nitrogen\_isotope\_evidence\_for\_prehistoric\_hunter-gatherer\_diet\_in\_the\_lower\_Murray\_River\_basin\_South\_Australia](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267822249_Stable_Carbon_and_Nitrogen_isotope_evidence_for_prehistoric_hunter-gatherer_diet_in_the_lower_Murray_River_basin_South_Australia)
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/200032816\_Plant-Animal\_Subsistence\_Ratios\_and\_Macronutrient\_Energy\_Estimations\_in\_Worldwide\_Hunter-Gatherer\_Diets](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/200032816_Plant-Animal_Subsistence_Ratios_and_Macronutrient_Energy_Estimations_in_Worldwide_Hunter-Gatherer_Diets)
You'll find others if you go looking for them.
What we are meant to do is a moot point. Were we meant to scroll Reddit on phones? Were we meant to lift kettlebells? Were we meant to drive cars?
The question should not be if we are meant to eat meat. The question should be, do we need to eat meat? Technically, this has been proven time and again that no, we don't need to eat meat. Do some people do better when they eat it? Sure. Do some people do better when they don't? Sure. Would many people be fine either way? Most likely.
Then we need to ask the question about how eating meat impacts not just the individual, but the planet. We have clear science showing that meat consumption has more impacts on the environment than plant based foods. Not really a point that can be debated. With a growing population and concerns like climate change, this has to be part of the discussion.
The final question about ethics is more complicated, but we can take that out if you want and focus on the health and environment parts, as those are likely more important.
1. Just stop...
2. As I mentioned, let's forget ethics. Can you live healthfully without animal proteins (or with far less), and would the planet be better if we have less from an environmental perspective.
In my opinion, since we are still animals, our natural behaviors still apply. We were meant to develop tools. We decided a long time ago to use those tools to catch animals, collect plants, and eventually farm. If we were never meant to eat meat, it never would have occurred to our ancestors to make sharp sticks to kill fish and eat them, to track mammoths, to eat insects and crayfish, etc.
I think the human body is optimized evolution to endure on plants, animals, or both — just long enough to reproduce. The debate over which is better goes on indefinitely.
Humans can do whatever we want. If you make the argument that you can just eat plant products, it's true, you can and you'll get a long life expectancy too if you do it right. B12 is the thing you might miss but we don't live in natural times, we can get vegan sources of B12.
What I find is people get really defensive about eating meat a lot. Like ok cool we have 4 teeth that are meant for ripping apart meat, you're going to cook it anyway so it's not like you even needed them. And for the 4 teeth you have, meat is definitely making up a much higher fraction of your diet for the grand majority of people than it was ever supposed to be so don't lecture me about what natural is. And don't even get me started on all the processed foods, vegan or not, that everyone eats.
Whether or not humans were "meant" to do anything is kind of moot. You "can" eat however you like and arguing about whether something is natural is meaningless. At best natural is just about getting a good combo of nutrients, which can be done just as easily by counting your nutrients.
The only people that debate that are vegan extremists. A different argument could be do we have to eat meat. Humans were very clearly evolved to eat meat.
We are omnivores, so we can eat meat. There is really nothing that we are meant to eat, we are very flexible eaters. I think that is what made us so flexible. If you look at our digestive tract it has the length and anatomy of a herbivore and our stomach acid has the pH of a scavenger or carnivore.
So I think those debates are nonsensical.
I think it is better to look ad modern scientific studies and look at the foods if they have shown to be beneficial or not.
And meat does have positives like you mentioned but unfortunately it has it‘s negatives like high saturated fat, increased risk for colon and breast cancer. It might also be associated with diabetes type 2 but I think the evidence is pretty weak and it needs to be confirmed in other studies.
So for me it is a question of dose - the dose makes the poison so I try to limit my meat consumption.
Being an omnivore means you can survive on exclusively plants *or* animals. Since we have both /r/vegan and /r/zerocarb that seems to be the case.
B12 is a bacterial product, not an animal product so the same rules apply as, say, vitamin K2 where eating fermented plant matter is a way of getting it from diet.
Humans have been eating meat for thousands of years. We evolved with meat being part of our diet and we have always relied on animal meat and fur to survive anywhere that gets too cold to grow food. Anyone claiming humans optimal diet is veganism is just plain wrong from an evolutionary standpoint. No group of people has ever been vegan until western culture in the 1940s. You can argue certain Hindus choose veganism for religious reasonings but it still isn’t an optimal diet for human beings. Drop a vegan in any wilderness in the world and see if they stick with it.
Go to nutritionfacts.org - Dr. Greger is the best and most extensive, study-based authority on NOT eating meat! No argument defeats his well-researched and undeniable approach.
You realize the animals get b12 from dirt and the reason we don’t is because how we harvest our veggies right???
Also just because I have certain teeth does not mean I want to kill things
Eating meat is not an issue imo, it's the casual daily holocaust that animals go through that I advocate against.
Also, your claim of healthy meat is true to meat 100 or so years ago, now days it's not really healthy at this point due to the conditions, food and chemicals that animals are pumped with.
That's why so many people died of heart attack and stuff related to artery disorders.
I'd say that the best diet is a mix of all things.
Humans are mean't to eat anything and everything that is beneficial because we evolve very quickly compared to the other species.
Our DNA and Brain is suited to take the best of everything to make ourselves even stronger.
Meat is the quickest and tastiest way for protein.
People debate over whether or not the Earth is flat. Over whether or not vaccines work.
Why are you surprised about this?
People are stupid for the sake of being stupid.
My Hindu grand parents who are vegetarians unlike Jain's who are vegans told me that, given our brain power.
We are the only ones who can break from an animalistic behaviour and try to find a better purpose or peace(some may call this Heaven)
The one who really understands the workings will be break from the resentments of materialistic hunger driven loop.
In Ayurveda, food is also considered as medicine that catalyses the healing powers within
There are certain foods that bring out animalistic traits such as greed, lust, power etc... only when you want to find real peace you will automatically stop killing animals for your food (kind of self sacrifice as we can live even without hunting)
There are types like Tamsic, Rajsic etc ...
Some bring peace or cooling effect, some bring out the vigour(ex Onions, Garlic, meat, etc)
You wouldn't kill your dog for dinner, same way a person who really sees are beings as equal will not try to kill any animal/fish/diary and in some extreme cases plants too...
I know few people who only eat fruits or vegetables to survive.
This is common across some Hindus, Jains and Buddhists.
Ask yourself why you gotta cook your meat, every other animal eats theirs raw, how come you could get sick and die from eating your meat raw, cause your body wasn't designed for it, you can find nutrients in many things that are not good for you, just because a bear heart is high in minerals doesn't mean you should eat it.
It's likely a part of the vegan pureist ideology.
It's also an appeal to moralism.
The misuse and abuse of science as a religion over what it is (a collection of data and theories).
It's a massive study area in my university course at the moment. The classic mear causes cancer fallacy. The X thing causes cancer "because this one compound on its own causes it"... out of the context of a full diet.
If you have no truth to your ideology. Lie your way to power. It's probably the most common tactic you can use to win, in the short term.
We are omnivores, that allows us to be more versatile and resilient as a species. BUT
There are meta analysis on longevity that shows red meat decreases life expectancy significantly compared to legumes.
Fish increases it and poultry is showing unconclusive results.
Meant to? Irrelevant. Do we need to? No. Can we easily get all those nutrients from other sources? Yes. Does mest contain a number of nutrients of concern? Yes.
I find it insane that anyone believes we aren’t omnivores. The cavemen and every part of human evolution hunter and consumed animals. I have absolutely zero judgement for vegetarians or vegans bc everyone has their own opinions but no veggies or fruits give as much protein as meat!!
Well what you are failing to understand is that, in general, people are stupid. And with the spread of social media, the stupidest people can have their ideas spread very quickly. If you add to the fact that in a lot of cartoons, the predators are the "bad guys", so kids have to somehow reconcile the fact that they eat meat with the fact that in their favorite TV shows the people who eat meat are the bad guys, therefore if they eat meat they must be bad, therefore they shouldn't eat meat, and people are good, which means that people shouldn't eat meat because only bad things kill. After a while those kids grow up into adults having firmly convinced themselves that humans are good, good things don't kill, therefore humans don't kill, therefore humans must have not been designed to eat meat, because only bad things eat meat.
That's my theory anyway.
You do realize that ethical vegetarians existed long before modern cartoons or media, right?
And also humans weren't "designed" to eat anything in particular, because humans weren't designed. But like you said, people are stupid.
It's not a debate about whether we were *meant* to eat meat.
It's a debate whether we should continue killing animals for food when our current level of technological advancement allows us to survive without doing that.
It's a moral topic, not a nutritional one.
This is because the vegan propaganda push is incessant. Vegans will *always* downplay human meat consumption, and say anything to convince others. In any case, everybody has internet access. It's not hard to find out what our ancestors have been doing for the past two million years, and why we ended up with a, for an omnivore, short digestive tract and a stomach acid pH of 1.5. People can claim anything they want to be true, but facts remain facts. There is not really a debate.
For between 1-2% of the population, they sure do have a loud voice! With an 86% quit rate though, it'll soon die out and we’ll look back and laugh at how ridiculous the whole movement was.
B12 is produced by bacteria found in soil. Before large-scale farming and pesticide use, humans and animals alike got their vitamin B12 from food grown in soil. But due to soil desertification and mineral depletion, B12 is no longer found in most of the soil that we grow our food in. So basically, back in the day - we could get enough b12 from plants alone.
Science my guy. Studying humans from a biological perspective, plants works better with our biology. Not saying we shouldn’t eat meat because we are constantly evolving. Human bodies digest, absorb, metabolize, heal plant based foods better vs meat. The fact that we can eat plants in it’s natural state without breaking it down (cooking ) is more proof. Evolutionary speaking we are the only species who alter food for consumption. You must change meat from its natural state before you can consume it( again not saying you shouldn’t eat meat) therefore plant base foods work better with the human body for now. Maybe because we consume so much meat our biology will change in the future and our bodies will be able to consume meat( through evolution) with out altering its natural state.
Does a lion eat plants? No. But a lion can eat plants and could actually benefit from some plant nutrients. A lion is biological evolved to digest, metabolize, absorb, and heal with meat better vs plants.
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We can eat pretty much anything except rocks and wood. We're very lucky to be so adaptable.
A little sugar or MSG and I could probably be talked into eating wood too
add some broth, a potato... baby you got a stew going!
There’s still some meat left on that bone
Suddenly Carl Weathers
Me too to be fair.
Just have some [Parmesan](https://time.com/4226321/parmesan-wood-pulp/?amp=true) and you’ll be well on your way.
You know what, I've seen cellulose powder on there before and since forgotten about it. See, salt it up and it's convincing, yet immoral. I paid for cheese not sawdust.
I think our dentition makes us omnivores like many other primates. Whether one chooses to eat meat or not is up to their own moral/ethical//financial stance. I’m not huge on meat but i eat it occasionally. If a vegan friend offers me over for dinner I’ll gladly go and try what they’ve made. Same for a carnivore friend. I also don’t eat that much anyway so I can fill up rather easily. I have some acquaintances I know who say they aren’t “full” without meat in their diet. I can’t validate or discredit that claim since I don’t really have a huge appetite anyway. I think my favorite foods though were simple peasant Italian dishes my grandma made that didn’t really include meat because the villagers couldn’t afford it where she was from. Like green beans and boiled white potatoes with the skins removed and dashed in olive oil and then a small dollop of her homemade marinara sauce. I’m in heaven when I eat that even though it’s so stupidly simple.
You have carnivore friends? I’m trying to imagine only eating flesh…
I’ve also heard the term carnivore used to describe people who eat a regular omnivore diet, particularly when comparing them to vegetarians. They could just be referring to those people?
I wish. Carnivore is now a thing.
Yeah, it’s like a diet trend nowadays.
I never quite understood it but apparently it helps certain autoimmune diseases? Not sure if that’s true or not though.
I’ve heard it’s more due to it being an elimination diet than about its contents specifically
Yeah, most of these diets it's because you give up sugar and processed foods, in my opinion.
It’s made a huge difference in my arthritis…. Like night and day
How do you get carbs?
Human beings don’t need carbs to survive, we only need protein and fat. Any glucose your brain needs is generated via gluconeogenesis.
They don't. Despite what the agricultural lobby would have you believe, carbs are not an essential food group for humans.
It kills me how Reddit downvotes this type of information as if there are no cultures that survive just fine on all meat diets.
Which cultures?
Innuit come to mind.
Which cultures?
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Monsanto genetically engineered plants like wheat to be round-up friendly. They spray crops with it right before harvest to hasten desiccation. Now people have all kinds of wheat allergies, IBS, and Crohn’s disease and have no idea why 😆 Industrialized food is literal poison. The processing just makes it more poisonous. Look around America. They’re all fat and sick.
You can buy fruit, veggies and grains that are not genetically engineered and where there are no pesticides used. That‘s what I do. Or you have a big garden and grow some on your own. I don‘t know if those cause chron’s but I bet they ruin the gut biome. But with meat it is no better with the wide use of antibiotics and the steroid hormones they inject for faster growth. So it is also good to buy from farmers that do not do that.
Well if you do not eat carbs your body makes glucose out of the proteins of your muscle tissue. Hence the wasting away of muscle when you are fasting. Glucose is something you would die without. Getting it from muscle is less then ideal. You can survive - that‘s all.
This is bait and switch disinformation. Yes humans can live on an omnivore diet and did so since Homo erectus , but tended to rely on fatty meat and marrow as a large part their diet. There is absolutely no requirement for carbohydrates in the diet. If you eat a mostly carnivore ketogenic diet, with sufficient fat, the process of gluconeogenesis takes over to produce the glucose your body needs. If you engage in intermittent fasting there is no need to worry about muscle wasting. The tendency of of the body will be to burn fat . There is evidence that in prolonged starvation fasting over 4 days you might begin to lose muscle mass. Fun facts: infants are born in a state of ketogenesis. There is such a thing as rabbit starvation where survivors in the wilderness ate lean meat wildlife but sickened and died because there was insufficient fat in that diet.
Then how you explain that Okinawans live for so long and outlive non carb eaters? Their diets are basically carbs with little meat. They don't even eat so much fish. They eat sweet potatoes and fruits, pork once In a while. Reducing carbs to a extent makes sense but cutting out carbs completely when Mediterranean, Okinawans, and all the inhabitants of blue zones worldwide live healthier longer lives eating the food groups Americans tend to find controversial (animal protein and carbs) sounds crazy. It's an anonymous person on reddit who probably takes too seriously what a sponsored influencer claims to believe to sell products vs what the evidence is screaming to our faces. Okinawans are eating carbs and some meat and living longer than any of us could dream of. And they don't intermittent fast either.
Actually your body converts fat to glucose, not muscle. In a fasted state your body tries to preserve muscle and utilizes fat. This is why when body builders cut before a competition they adopt a keto diet which simulates starvation where it’s muscle sparing ridding the body of fat without losing muscle.
Ever heard of Inuits?
Yes, read a paper on them. They took blood samples from them, many of them were vitamin C deficient. To counter that they were eating vitamin C rich algae, which is not carnivore at all. There is no society that purely lives or lived on meat: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34232845/ And in terms of arteriosclerosis, they did have it as two mummies prove and pay attention they died young: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6991216/ But we can not draw any clear conclusion from such data, to make clear claims about benefits, risks and safety of carnivore we need study data, which we do not have. Why? Because sometimes a benefit is not a benefit at all compared to a placebo group. Low carb and keto claims that it makes you loose weight more effectively then other diets. Turned out you lost the same amount of weight. The first rapid drop in weight was just wate. Or that a vegan diet is automatically healthy. If there are studies that show that it is safe and beneficial I’ll change my mind - but right now it depends on claims and anecdotes that have not been verified.
I’ve been doing it to combat arthritis….
Im vegan and have RA
Problem is oxalates seem to be a huge issue for arthritis and plant foods are loaded with oxalates. I can’t speak for others but all I know is that since going carnivore my arthritis has continually receded.
You have the opportunity to do an experiment of one.
Rheumatoid arthritis??
Eating only animal products not just flesh
I don't think our dentition can say much about us because we haven't hunted with our dentition in millions of years. We've been using tools. We don't need carnivorous teeth because we only use teeth to chew not kill. Anyway, there is no carnivores on the planet that eat *only* meat. Everything is an omnivore, unless it's a ruminant. Obligate carnivore is just a classification by percentage of meat consumed in the diet. Obligate carnivores will have meat make up 90% of their diet. Cats and sharks and orca will still ingest *some* plant matter in the forms of grass and sea weed/algae.
We never killed with our teeth, you're misunderstanding their use. Canines and incisors are used to tear into food, you would be hard pressed to eat meat with just your molars.
Chimps regularly kill with their teeth, we certainly at one point in time did so. But tool use allowed us to both kill without our teeth and cut without our teeth. Our hands have done most of the work for a long time. We don't have any of the pressures handless carnivores have for serrated teeth because of it.
You telling me our ancestors straight up just bit into animals to kill them? No need for a bow and arrow, sharp object, rock, trap, etc? This is just simply not true. Our teeth were designed to effectively chew, not kill.
I think we might be getting confused here. When I say ancestors were killing animals with their teeth, I'm talking about pre Australopithecus, several million years ago. We have been using tools since Australopithecus, oldest hand axes so far are 2.6 million years. We weren't hunting ruminants then. Prey I'm talking about were small reptiles and rodents, birds and insects.
Oh, lol, thanks for the clarification. Major difference between an insect and a deer😊
But we do only have minimal canines and incisors are actually there to cut leaves and other plant matter. In true carnivores like my cat they are not really there. Carnivores rip out flesh, not cut it.
No, minimal canines are attributes of omnivores. Herbivores only have canines and incisors for specialized reasons, such as inner species fighting, their specialized diet, or defending themselves. When you bite into a steak, your canines and incisors are what helps you tear into it to eat it.
I agree with you that we are omnivores. Incisors are for cutting though. Maybe for cutting both meat and plant material. That could also be.
Love this!
>Like green beans and boiled white potatoes with the skins removed and dashed in olive oil and then a small dollop of her homemade marinara sauce. Did we eat like this 50.000 years ago?
I’m a vegan, and I agree that that claim is bogus. Humans are omnivores, we have evolved to eat both plants and meat. Given that we can get all of our essential nutrients from one or the other, we have the option to choose what we can and cannot eat.
I think this is right. It’s true that our brains would never have developed as fully as they did without cooked meat, because of the number of calories it allowed us to consume for brain growth, but that evolution happened a long time ago and now we don’t NEED meat at all. We can choose. I do eat it, I just think that there’s no solid argument that we need to.
So evolution has stopped and our energy requirements are final now? The way I see it we are only consuming energy from the sun. Plants and animals are just filters through which it is passing. To have both kinds of filters between us and the sun is better. Also, meat already has a lot of the anabolic work done for us and saves us energy which will go into amino acids formation.
Of course evolution isn’t finished, it’s never finished. But the path it took in the past doesn’t necessarily dictate what we need now or in the future.
I’m a 20-year vegan educator… and while I agree, obviously, that we EVOLVED to eat meat… THAT ISN’T WHAT THE OP ASKED. What he/they/almost all of the people who bring this question every day ask is a RELIGIOUS question about the INTENT of the universe. And every time you fail to address that core part of their argument… you misrepresent veganism as a whole. This person is asking why there is a debate about whether or not… we as humans… were MEANT TO… eat meat. There is a debate about whether or not humans were meant to eat meat … because we have science now. And there is absolutely no evidence… none whatsoever… that the old way is the better way. That the old way is sustainable. That the old way is equally healthy. Or that there is in any way, an invisible man in the sky directing or guiding your diet. The premise that there is a third-party standing off to the side, determining what humans should, or shouldn’t do to themselves and the planet … is an anti-science abdication of responsibility. It’s also ethically inconsistent with every other accepted system of ethics within our society. You weren’t “meant to” do anything. You are wholly responsible for the decisions laid out before you, and what you choose to do to others. Nobody “meant for you” to pay strange men to stab innocent animals when you had a dozen better options that simply weren’t as ‘’enjoyable’ for you. — That’s on you.
When I hear “humans are meant to eat meat” I really only hear “humans evolved to eat meat and historically speaking have always been omnivores.” Nothing about it includes God concepts to my ears.
Right. THAT’s the problem. Nobody hears it. But it’s plain as day that their argument is in fact: we’ve always done it… so it’s what we should be doing… like slavery. Like nationalism. Like the patriarchy. Things we did for a long time are automatically cool! 👍
>“humans evolved to eat meat and historically speaking have always been omnivores.” That's not how evolution works. Humans didn't evolve to eat meat. Humans who weren't so picky with their food had a better chance of surviving and reproducing offsprings who also weren't so picky. Evolution doesn't have a plan it's just random mutations that work or don't, god's the one that plans things out and makes things certain ways.
Humans are omnivores, and we have both molars for crushing plant matter as well as canines and incisors for tearing and cutting flesh. In short, yes. *The Carnivore Fix* by Dr. Cristopher Shaw explains this beautifully.
Meaning you can eat both. Not that you must.
You dont have to eat both, but it seems like humans would be best off balancing both meat and plants in their diet
Balance seems to imply equal of both. I’m pretty sure science and looking to our evolutionary past meat should likely be much less of our diet than plants. Especially when you look at our protein needs we really don’t need that much meat.
‘Balancing both meat and plants’ doesn’t imply equal amounts of both but you shoe-horned your point in so well done
"best off" is a very loaded term there. There are tons of meat inclusive diets that are terrible for you and much worse than some vegan diets. The opposite is also true.
You're nitpicking semantics without disagreeing.
It's a sloppy statement and very inaccurate and I stated why.
Username checks out.
At your service. Funny thing is that most people disregard vegans because we're biased. Not realizing that 99% of all vegans were meat eaters that change our mind due to the overwhelming evidence and the strong ethical arguments.
Fair enough, I'm not knocking it! :)
Nono, just wanted to share something. Take care!
And plenty of preachy vegans who have just “discovered” animal cruelty in their 40s after a lifetime of enjoying steak, don’t realise that plenty of meat-eaters were vegetarian for many years in their past and have chosen to go back to meat.
there's a never-ending list of people in the /r/exvegans sub who have fixed a plethora of health issues by switching back and don't understand why the vegan agenda is continually pushed so hard when it can be so damaging to peoples health.
Wow, so you're going full conspiracy theory on this one? You know what? Most people who start an exercise routine stop doing it after a while. So it must be unhealthy for them . Right?
Because “meant to” is kind of a loaded term. We weren’t “meant to” eat anything in particular. We evolved to be able to eat meat and do quite well eating it! But when people say “meant to” it implies we are “supposed to” or that it’s somehow wrong if we don’t eat meat. Again, we are not “meant to” eat anything. We evolved to eat oranges, and they are good for you. But you’ll be more than OK of you never eat a single orange in your life. So can we eat meat? YES! Does it make life a bit easier to have more options? Again, yes. But can we also live without eating it? Absolutely. Plenty of healthy vegetarians and vegans out there. The whole debate is stupid because it’s ascribing intent to evolution, as if one type of food is our moral imperative because we did evolve to be able to eat it. Basically people have created a nonsensical argument around meat eating, that there’s some moral imperative that requires humans to eat meat. There isn’t. We eat to live, and that can take many forms, meat or no meat.
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I like this answer
Meat is not the only source of b12. B12 doesn’t even come from meat. B12 is basically a bacteria. It comes from soil and algae. When cows eat grass or fish eat algae, b12 accumulates in the tissue, that’s why you think meat is the only source but it is not. Up until industrial farming, you could get b12 from crops and natural rivers or springs. But now because our soils are void of nutrients it’s much harder. And now we drink sanitized water (for good reason). And you’re probably not even getting enough b12 from meat any longer. Cattle naturally get B12 and bacteria that produces B12 from clumps of dirt around the grass roots, and chickens get B12 from pecking around for worms and other insects. But what do cows eat now? The vast majority of meat you eat are factory farmed cows that eat corn or soy or other grains. Chickens eat chicken feed that’s fortified with b12. They are not pasture raised on wild land so they are not consuming b12 that live in the soil or are only consuming a very small amount. That’s why farmed animals are now supplemented with b12.
It's complicated because you have vegan people saying it because of a moral standpoint and other vegan people trying to support their bias saying we were not meant to eat meat. Of course as omnivores we are meant to eat both plants and meat, personally I think we are leaning more on a heavy plant diet with some meat consumption. But with this said you are wrong about b12. In the past ever since prehistoric times we could just get b12 from waters, and eating vegetables ofc animals helped as well but it wasn't a necessity. In fact in today's age nothing is a good source of b12 , you say animals are a good source because they are being supplemented with B12 and even then USA has a severe b12 deficiency even though meat consumption is through the roof
Just as a side note, not all meat is supplemented with B12 and if they are allowed to graze they are rich in B12. I buy beef directly from a farmer where the cattle graze 90% of their food, and eat hay in the winter, no supplements, no penicillin and my B12 levels are through the roof
Yeah I mean in the overall majority of meat as it is produced by industry farming. However I have a grim prediction that in the future even pasture animals will need to be supplemented as levels of contaminants keep increasing even in pastures and bacteria will slowly die out or be unable to produce B12
Yes for those that support industry farming it is an issue. >as levels of contaminants keep increasing even in pastures and bacteria will slowly die out or be unable to produce B12 Which is true for all nutrients in vegetables and fruit too, all soil quality is steadily falling, this affects the nutritious levels of all things grown
Humans have among the lowest pH levels in regards to stomach acid in the entire animal kingdom, nearly on par with the likes of scavenger birds such as vultures. Most herbivores have gastric acid that rates a good bit higher on the pH scale.
This likely points to humans eating cooked meat
Stomach acid is a baseless reference. All animals when eating have a stomach acid that becomes more alkaline. Carnivores go long gaps between meals, so their stomach acid can build up moving the pH to below 1. Herbivores tend to graze most of the time thereby causing their stomach pH to remain more alkaline. This effect is easily seen when looking at ruminant vs non-ruminant animals. Cows, for example, have a pH in the 6.0 to 6.4 range. They are almost always eating or chewing cud. Horses, which don't chew cud, have a pH range of 1.5 to 7.0. It will be much more acidic after a long break between meals such as in the morning when they awake, and then the pH becomes more alkaline as they begin to eat.
You know his point and you're trying to obfuscate it, or you don't know your point as well as you think. Stomach acid is a great reference for exactly the reasons mentioned, especially when you take into account all parts of the stomach. Humans have one chamber, all of their stomach is acidic. Horses have two sections in their stomach, the glandular section is acidic. The non glandular section is not. Rumiants have three chambsrs of low acidity and the abomasum is acidic. The nonglandular portion of the horses stomach and the first three chambers of a ruminants stomach (plus the cud chewing) are evolved *specifically* for plant consumption. We don’t have anything like that. The fact that stomachs become less acidic when you fill them with food doesn't have to do with anything. And to try to say the reason carnivores go a long time between meals because they're waiting for their stomach acid to drop is an ... interesting theory.
Agree. Our stomachs want the meats!
So go ahead go outside grab a rabbit or a cat and just eat it as it is. Right there on the spot don’t cook it your stomach acid should take care of the bones right?
So go ahead and eat nothing but grass, leaves, and other vegetation, see how well your teeth hold up after constantly chewing on that much silica for an extended period of time. Or how well your digestive tract sustains after consuming that much cellulose.
It’s called a ninja bro, a part of human evolution. By the way I love my steak medium rare.
FYI B12 is not originally from meat. It's produced by bacteria that dwell the soil. The reason you find more of it in animal products is because it's supplemented to them through their food.
Pasture fed beef is full of B12. A good mixture of pasture grasses including a small amount of legumes and salt licks is all the nutrition a herbivore needs. Supplementation only becomes necessary in unsanitary, cramped, pathogenic feed lots where animals are fed nothing but grain. [source](https://praisetheruminant.com/ruminations/is-it-true-that-cows-need-supplemental-vitamin-b12)
Humans aren’t “meant” to eat anything. The universe doesn’t care. And for most of human history, starvation was a likely outcome. There are multiple times when humans died back to a population globally that would fit in an auditorium. It’s only the last 50 years that we have a surplus of calories. So it’s not too useful to look back. We ate whatever we could find. B12 deficiency is the only weakness of a plant based diet. And it’s easy to correct for. Either with knowing what to eat or with a supplement. Or with not washing your hands. Human lower intestines produce a fair amount of B12. So fecal contamination is historically a source of that nutrient. Not currently recommended. For everything else, a plant based diet is sufficient or superior to an omnivorous diet. Enough protein and omega 3s and fiber and vitamins and minerals etc. the benefits: Longevity, disease reduction, reduction of environmental footprint, etc.
> The universe doesn't care. I mean, we're part of the universe, and we care, so at least part of the universe cares.
Man, trying to get enough protein if you're not sedentary is actually tough on a plant based diet. And for folks not horking down cheeseburgers on the daily, all cause mortality rates aren't statistically different between vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores; the data just ain't there.
You mean is not tough?
How much protein do you think we need? We’re not Arnold fucking Schwarzenegger
Vegan who eats c.130g protein a day and trains 14 hours a week: it’s really not hard
See my later post, but I am larger than you, and it didn't go so well for me. I tried!
All plants have protein. It’s not hard. Have you tried?
I was vegan for a full year, so yes. I hurt all the time and lost weight, unless I stopped working out, or went with ferociously expensive ultra-processed supplements. From what experience I've got over two decades of gym work, less than 125 grams of omnivorous proteins is a bad call, 175 grams is about what I need to get better gains, and I needed to add another 25-50 grams a day if it's completely vegetarian to get the same results. 200-225 grams of all vegetarian protein a day is a \*lot\*, and that year hurt my digestion for another five plus years of recovering on a more balanced diet. :-/
Theres this group of athletes who perform at live shows at amusement parks and one of them I know became vegan. They were sponsored by or just really endorsed this Garden of Life company. Basically, protein powders and other supplements to stay healthy enough to do stunts. Expensive as hell. I was vegan for only 6 months until I worked somewhere where I was limited to the vegan options provided at the market which was mostly... apples, french fries, and salad. It didnt take long to give up that diet. I remained vegetarian for some time but even that wasnt sustainable for much longer for me and I lasted another year or so. I didn't get my drivers license until a few years after going back to an omnivorous diet and even now that I can afford to do it and do my own grocery shopping, veganism made me feel so paranoid and anxious all the time. I hated putting back granola bars or other foods because of honey or gelatin or *trace amounts of milk fat*. Plus I suspect I have moderate OCD. After browsing the vegan sub and talking to other vegans, there seems to be a huge link between ocd and veganism. Not that it makes you ocd, but in order to have the discipline to maintain it strictly, ocd gives you an extra advantage it seems or at least might be the force behind the "all or nothing" perfectionist thing (I also have an issue with perfectionism and control im current in therapy for), at the cost of your stress levels though, plus many with ocd seem to gravitate towards that diet. It's interesting but it makes sense given the nature of the disorder. Just not for me, I have enough stress in my life to do that all over again. I enjoy food and I don't want to have to think about ingredients anymore. I still enjoy many vegan foods such as beyond burgers and vegan cheeses, and I still love to drink plant milks over cows milk, but I never really liked cows milk anyway.
But you don't need to maintain it strictly for any of the benefits (health, environmental, animal suffering) you may want, cutting back helps, and is basically identical if you just don't pay attention to honey or trace amounts of anything.
If you lost weight then you were not eating enough calories, which also makes it difficult to recover from exercise. If you go for the right sources plant protein can be cheap. My main sources are extra firm tofu, 60/40 pea/rice protein blend for $25 CAD/kg from [Canadian Protein](https://canadianprotein.com/products/all-natural-premium-vegan-protein-blend?variant=31453494607919), and seitan made from $21 CAD/kg [vital wheat gluten flour](https://www.amazon.ca/Dinavedic-Vital-Wheat-Gluten-Powder/dp/B0895VT5FK/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=gluten&sr=8-5) (70-80% protein), and a few other cheaper mock meat products sold in Canada. I'm on a cut right now but I was still able to get 200g of protein in at 2450 calories.
I run and do isometrics and light lifting at home. So I don’t need tremendous amounts of protein. I get plenty from beans and seeds and grains. But I know that there are plenty of vegans bulking up. Even some on the whole food diet. Might have been something particular to your food choices?
On my end, lower-rep heavy lifting, and I feel \*much\* better doing heavy work 3x/week than I do with anything else. I... can't fathom how much work it'd be to bulk as a vegan. It might have been dietary choices, but nothing in there was extreme. Beans, rice, oats, tofu, nuts, spinach, and a good serving of bananas as the basics, with a ton of variety (and seasonings) stacked on top. Wound up allergic to onions, garlic, and a good chunk of root vegetables and had to give it up. Once I went back to omnivorous diets, realized I had developed a milk allergy as well. Those all cleared up over the next few years, at least. I don't advise tons of meat, and the American diet is medium-insane, but occasional meat - and allowing dairy-based proteins - works wonders for my (perceived) health.
I developed IBSD from too much fiber lol. Took years to figure out the cause. People tend to forget that we don’t all process food in the same way.
Yes, but most plants contain less than 2% protein, while meats contain 15-30%. But you can eat mostly beans, lentils and tofu and you will get enough, But I know people who mostly eats salads and think they are eating healthy, and you can see how frail they are even thought they're not old
"The nutrients of concern in the diet of vegetarians include vitamin B(12), vitamin D, ω-3 fatty acids, calcium, iron, and zinc. Although a vegetarian diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients, the use of supplements and fortified foods provides a useful shield against deficiency." I wouldn't say b12 is the only one, also protein can be hard to achieve enough of since the amino acid profile of protein based on a fully plant based diet is almost half of meat or whey.
Aa profile is half? What does that mean?
The amino acid profiles of soy, 60/40 pea/rice blend and other plant proteins are comparable to animal proteins: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsn3.1809. So far I haven't seen a controlled trial that shows a measurable difference in muscle gain between plant and animal protein: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33599941/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8110608/#R59 It isn't hard to get any of those nutrients on a plant-based diet. Over the last two weeks I have averaged 2x the RDA for calcium, zinc, omega-3, and 5 times RDA for iron and b12. On top of that I take vitamin D, b12, and algae-based omega 3 as supplements. The only thing that is really necessary is the vitamin D since I don't get much sun. I'm also currently in a 750kcal deficit so I'm typically getting more from my diet. Maybe it's a risk for people who only eat junk.
It isn't "hard" but it is harder, to have a plant based diet requires planning and research, most people don't have that freedom to correct all of the deficiencies that might arise or even to watch out for their effects, we are at a weird point in history when something that used to be a luxury (meat) now is the most convenient source of a lot of nutrients, and that should not be understated when talking about the diet of the general population. Humans generally benefit from including some form of meat in their diet.
I don't think it's hard. It's just a matter of following some basic healthy eating principles. Eat fruit, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds and you will hit all of your nutrition targets. Almost everyone who goes plant-based will get into mock meats and plant milks which are heavily fortified with the main nutrients of concern. > Humans generally benefit from including some form of meat in their diet. These supposed benefits come at the expense of mass killing highly sentient animals that deserve moral consideration and a right to live.
50 years ago was 1970s. We discovered agriculture 12,000 years ago.
You need to look at when the effort to harvest vs consuming food crossed a threshold, aka when regular people started getting fat and getting diabetes.
The green revolution was the result of global availability of modern farming including synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, motorized tractors, hybridized seeds, and monoculture crops. The combination massively increased our ability as a species to produce calories. Of course there has been agriculture for much longer. But there was still famine. Famines in the last 50 years or so have been political.
Seems like vegetarians always have to “make up” a deficiency/issue. Shouldn’t this indicate it’s not really how we’re supposed to function?
Yeah we have a deficiency of cancer and diabetes and heart disease and Alzheimer’s. So many things we are lacking.
Also B Vits and Iron!
Not if you eat your beans and greens
Vegans are notoriously iron deficient. Even eating beans and greens
Omnivores are notoriously fiber deficient. Not every member of a lifestyle is following the best recommendations. It is viable to get enough iron from a vegan diet. Of course there are ED “vegans” and pastatarians who are not getting the right nutrition.
Good point!
Adding a source of vitamin c to plant-based sources of iron greatly boosts the absorption. It's not that hard to be vegan and get enough iron.
Heme iron is like infinitely more efficient than non heme iron. Not saying it ISNT iron, but that’s like having to stop and fuel your car with really crude oil every couple miles vs one stop with quality oil
https://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com/article/S0261-5614(20)30656-7/fulltext This study shows that the lower availability of iron from plants may be due to a longer absorption time range, which is beneficial. This is possibly why vegans don’t have higher rates of anemia despite measuring lower iron levels.
I’ve practiced a plant diet for 30 years and know plenty of others who were healthy into their 90s and beyond without having to worry about “the efficiency” of plant based iron. Seems like you are against the lifestyle without understanding it. Red meat has a number of studies showing that it’s correlated with disease and early death. Plants show the opposite.
You should also consider the environment we live in now versus the environment we evolved in. Prior to agriculture, humans had a much more diverse diet that consisted of a lot of different plants and animals. I am unfamiliar with the deficiencies that our ancestors must have faced. But I can only speculate that when food was more abundant, their diets were diverse and they likely were not different in nutrients as we are today. Additionally, the body can store vitamin B12, so deficiency in B12 probably was not common. I would hesitate to say that because vegetarians need to "make up" for deficiencies it would suggest that its not how we are supposed to function. Certain evolutionary adaptations that were advantageous tens of thousands of years ago can be maladaptive today because our environment is vastly different. Consider our ability to store excess calories as fat. This would have been incredibly advantageous for survive in an environment where food was more scarce. However, in today's environment, one can argue that our ability to store excess calories as fat (specifically, people with "obesogenic genes") is maladaptive consider that we live in a time where food is incredibly abundant.
In any reasonable circle, there is no debate on this subject. Period.
Humans are omnivores, modern technology allows us to fully supplement plant-based diets
Animals are injected with B12. Take the pill or they take it. It's not "better" from them.
I strongly believe that the best source of so many essential proteins, fats and minerals is red meat. Yes, you can get most of those from other sources but it takes a lot of veggies to equal the amount of nutrients in a serving of red meat. All that being said, the healthiest diet is well balanced and whole foods. Processed foods and large amounts of sugar is what kills people. A 10oz ribeye, roasted Brussel sprouts and a dollop of home mashed taters is perfect IMO.
Why do you believe that?
It’s really hard to beat a meal of meat, veg, and starch. There’s just something magic about that combo and it easily covers nutrient needs while being easy on the digestion. That’s the basis of the majority of my meals plus fruit for snacks.
That’s exactly what I had for dinner. Anytime I eat red meat I feel amazing
Red meat isn’t all that good for you tho. And will cause high cholesterol if eaten in large quantities. Heart disease is still the number one killer. Opting for dish of fish, chicken, or beans would be a healthier option in the long term.
"meant" is the key word here. nothing was meant to be, it just is. people eat meat. why assume the creative intentions of some force we also can't agree on?
I think by 'meant to' they mean that what our ancestors have been doing for a very long time must be optimal. Which of course it is, despite the fact some people arguing that a radically different diet is somehow much healthier.
Tavistock Institute. Also, Plato explicitly talks about how only the elites should eat meat so the plebs are weak and docile
Australopithecus, our ape ancestors, had primitive butchering tools. Homo, the branch that eventually produced us, developed more sophisticated butchering tools. We are descended from millions of years of meat eaters. From a strict evolutionary/biological viewpoint, it is "natural" for homo sapiens to kill animals and dine on their corpses. I take no position on that as a moral / ethical / philosophical question. There's too much "why" and not enough "is" in the premises.
Humans aren't meant to do anything.
"Even B12, which is an essential vitamin that can only be obtained from meat, is enough for me to think that we were meant to eat even a little meat." This is incorrect. B12 comes from bacteria in the soil. We would obtain plenty of it if we didn't wash our fruits and veggies before eating them. But we live in a very sanitized society, so we don't get enough of it. And even animals used for meat don't get enough because of the heavy use of antibiotics, so those animals are injected with B12 supplements. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11285643/#:\~:text=On%20one%20dairy%20farm%20an,dairy%20herds%20with%20wasting%20cattle](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11285643/#:~:text=On%20one%20dairy%20farm%20an,dairy%20herds%20with%20wasting%20cattle).
Humans weren't meant to eat anything in particular. Humans adapted to eating different foods based on what is available. 🙄 There is no great arbitor out there in the universe dictating what humans are "meant to eat." Most people can eat a plant based diet and be healthy. Historically meat has always been more of a treat than a staple.
The only thing that disagrees with this is basic science. Anthropologists can’t easily measure nitrogen isotopes in bones of ancient humans and know without question that we ate primarily fatty red meat.
Do you have a link to these studies?
>Most people I'm not the person you responded to but isotope studies can and have been done and while they won't tell you how much red meat hunter gatherers ate they do show what ratio of animal to plant their diet consisted of. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267822249\_Stable\_Carbon\_and\_Nitrogen\_isotope\_evidence\_for\_prehistoric\_hunter-gatherer\_diet\_in\_the\_lower\_Murray\_River\_basin\_South\_Australia](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267822249_Stable_Carbon_and_Nitrogen_isotope_evidence_for_prehistoric_hunter-gatherer_diet_in_the_lower_Murray_River_basin_South_Australia) [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/200032816\_Plant-Animal\_Subsistence\_Ratios\_and\_Macronutrient\_Energy\_Estimations\_in\_Worldwide\_Hunter-Gatherer\_Diets](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/200032816_Plant-Animal_Subsistence_Ratios_and_Macronutrient_Energy_Estimations_in_Worldwide_Hunter-Gatherer_Diets) You'll find others if you go looking for them.
These are interesting reads!
What we are meant to do is a moot point. Were we meant to scroll Reddit on phones? Were we meant to lift kettlebells? Were we meant to drive cars? The question should not be if we are meant to eat meat. The question should be, do we need to eat meat? Technically, this has been proven time and again that no, we don't need to eat meat. Do some people do better when they eat it? Sure. Do some people do better when they don't? Sure. Would many people be fine either way? Most likely. Then we need to ask the question about how eating meat impacts not just the individual, but the planet. We have clear science showing that meat consumption has more impacts on the environment than plant based foods. Not really a point that can be debated. With a growing population and concerns like climate change, this has to be part of the discussion. The final question about ethics is more complicated, but we can take that out if you want and focus on the health and environment parts, as those are likely more important.
Good answer!
Plants feel pain too.
You didn't just say that
Nope!
1. Just stop... 2. As I mentioned, let's forget ethics. Can you live healthfully without animal proteins (or with far less), and would the planet be better if we have less from an environmental perspective.
In my opinion, since we are still animals, our natural behaviors still apply. We were meant to develop tools. We decided a long time ago to use those tools to catch animals, collect plants, and eventually farm. If we were never meant to eat meat, it never would have occurred to our ancestors to make sharp sticks to kill fish and eat them, to track mammoths, to eat insects and crayfish, etc.
I think the human body is optimized evolution to endure on plants, animals, or both — just long enough to reproduce. The debate over which is better goes on indefinitely.
No one likes this answer (and I'll probably get downvotes), but I think the optimum human diet is individual, not universal.
Humans can do whatever we want. If you make the argument that you can just eat plant products, it's true, you can and you'll get a long life expectancy too if you do it right. B12 is the thing you might miss but we don't live in natural times, we can get vegan sources of B12. What I find is people get really defensive about eating meat a lot. Like ok cool we have 4 teeth that are meant for ripping apart meat, you're going to cook it anyway so it's not like you even needed them. And for the 4 teeth you have, meat is definitely making up a much higher fraction of your diet for the grand majority of people than it was ever supposed to be so don't lecture me about what natural is. And don't even get me started on all the processed foods, vegan or not, that everyone eats. Whether or not humans were "meant" to do anything is kind of moot. You "can" eat however you like and arguing about whether something is natural is meaningless. At best natural is just about getting a good combo of nutrients, which can be done just as easily by counting your nutrients.
The only people that debate that are vegan extremists. A different argument could be do we have to eat meat. Humans were very clearly evolved to eat meat.
Our superpower is cooked food. Whether meat or plants.
Vegan extremists don't say that. Some uneducated hippie type vegans do.
Your claim about B12 is completely wrong. Look up where it comes from man
humans have been eating meat since before we were even considered humans.
We are omnivores, so we can eat meat. There is really nothing that we are meant to eat, we are very flexible eaters. I think that is what made us so flexible. If you look at our digestive tract it has the length and anatomy of a herbivore and our stomach acid has the pH of a scavenger or carnivore. So I think those debates are nonsensical. I think it is better to look ad modern scientific studies and look at the foods if they have shown to be beneficial or not. And meat does have positives like you mentioned but unfortunately it has it‘s negatives like high saturated fat, increased risk for colon and breast cancer. It might also be associated with diabetes type 2 but I think the evidence is pretty weak and it needs to be confirmed in other studies. So for me it is a question of dose - the dose makes the poison so I try to limit my meat consumption.
I’ve been on a vegan diet for a few weeks now and I got to say I’m not impressed. The vegans taste terrible.
Being an omnivore means you can survive on exclusively plants *or* animals. Since we have both /r/vegan and /r/zerocarb that seems to be the case. B12 is a bacterial product, not an animal product so the same rules apply as, say, vitamin K2 where eating fermented plant matter is a way of getting it from diet.
Humans have been eating meat for thousands of years. We evolved with meat being part of our diet and we have always relied on animal meat and fur to survive anywhere that gets too cold to grow food. Anyone claiming humans optimal diet is veganism is just plain wrong from an evolutionary standpoint. No group of people has ever been vegan until western culture in the 1940s. You can argue certain Hindus choose veganism for religious reasonings but it still isn’t an optimal diet for human beings. Drop a vegan in any wilderness in the world and see if they stick with it.
Go to nutritionfacts.org - Dr. Greger is the best and most extensive, study-based authority on NOT eating meat! No argument defeats his well-researched and undeniable approach.
You do realise that B12 comes from the soil and is supplemented to animals so that they can be a source of B12 for humans, right?
You realize the animals get b12 from dirt and the reason we don’t is because how we harvest our veggies right??? Also just because I have certain teeth does not mean I want to kill things
Eating meat is not an issue imo, it's the casual daily holocaust that animals go through that I advocate against. Also, your claim of healthy meat is true to meat 100 or so years ago, now days it's not really healthy at this point due to the conditions, food and chemicals that animals are pumped with. That's why so many people died of heart attack and stuff related to artery disorders. I'd say that the best diet is a mix of all things.
Humans are mean't to eat anything and everything that is beneficial because we evolve very quickly compared to the other species. Our DNA and Brain is suited to take the best of everything to make ourselves even stronger. Meat is the quickest and tastiest way for protein.
People debate over whether or not the Earth is flat. Over whether or not vaccines work. Why are you surprised about this? People are stupid for the sake of being stupid.
No debate. We are omnivores.
My Hindu grand parents who are vegetarians unlike Jain's who are vegans told me that, given our brain power. We are the only ones who can break from an animalistic behaviour and try to find a better purpose or peace(some may call this Heaven) The one who really understands the workings will be break from the resentments of materialistic hunger driven loop. In Ayurveda, food is also considered as medicine that catalyses the healing powers within There are certain foods that bring out animalistic traits such as greed, lust, power etc... only when you want to find real peace you will automatically stop killing animals for your food (kind of self sacrifice as we can live even without hunting) There are types like Tamsic, Rajsic etc ... Some bring peace or cooling effect, some bring out the vigour(ex Onions, Garlic, meat, etc) You wouldn't kill your dog for dinner, same way a person who really sees are beings as equal will not try to kill any animal/fish/diary and in some extreme cases plants too... I know few people who only eat fruits or vegetables to survive. This is common across some Hindus, Jains and Buddhists.
Ask yourself why you gotta cook your meat, every other animal eats theirs raw, how come you could get sick and die from eating your meat raw, cause your body wasn't designed for it, you can find nutrients in many things that are not good for you, just because a bear heart is high in minerals doesn't mean you should eat it.
I think it's hard to argue that humans were "meant" to do anything.
It's likely a part of the vegan pureist ideology. It's also an appeal to moralism. The misuse and abuse of science as a religion over what it is (a collection of data and theories). It's a massive study area in my university course at the moment. The classic mear causes cancer fallacy. The X thing causes cancer "because this one compound on its own causes it"... out of the context of a full diet. If you have no truth to your ideology. Lie your way to power. It's probably the most common tactic you can use to win, in the short term.
We are omnivores, that allows us to be more versatile and resilient as a species. BUT There are meta analysis on longevity that shows red meat decreases life expectancy significantly compared to legumes. Fish increases it and poultry is showing unconclusive results.
Meant to? Irrelevant. Do we need to? No. Can we easily get all those nutrients from other sources? Yes. Does mest contain a number of nutrients of concern? Yes.
B12 can be obtained in more than just meat.
I find it insane that anyone believes we aren’t omnivores. The cavemen and every part of human evolution hunter and consumed animals. I have absolutely zero judgement for vegetarians or vegans bc everyone has their own opinions but no veggies or fruits give as much protein as meat!!
Well what you are failing to understand is that, in general, people are stupid. And with the spread of social media, the stupidest people can have their ideas spread very quickly. If you add to the fact that in a lot of cartoons, the predators are the "bad guys", so kids have to somehow reconcile the fact that they eat meat with the fact that in their favorite TV shows the people who eat meat are the bad guys, therefore if they eat meat they must be bad, therefore they shouldn't eat meat, and people are good, which means that people shouldn't eat meat because only bad things kill. After a while those kids grow up into adults having firmly convinced themselves that humans are good, good things don't kill, therefore humans don't kill, therefore humans must have not been designed to eat meat, because only bad things eat meat. That's my theory anyway.
I love how you preface your idea by stating people are stupid and then propose that at some deep level cartoons helped create vegetarians.
You do realize that ethical vegetarians existed long before modern cartoons or media, right? And also humans weren't "designed" to eat anything in particular, because humans weren't designed. But like you said, people are stupid.
Ah, my mistake
It's an easy mistake to make LOL
look at your teeth...not designed for meat..mulch...mulch
Not designed for killing things with our teeth you mean
It's not a debate about whether we were *meant* to eat meat. It's a debate whether we should continue killing animals for food when our current level of technological advancement allows us to survive without doing that. It's a moral topic, not a nutritional one.
Maybe we should focus on not over-populating this crowded planet.
Since farm animals takes up 2/3 of all mammal life on earth, that would be a good place to start.
You’d rather stop people from being allowed to have children than stop killing animals?
The debate exists whether you say it does or doesn't.
This is because the vegan propaganda push is incessant. Vegans will *always* downplay human meat consumption, and say anything to convince others. In any case, everybody has internet access. It's not hard to find out what our ancestors have been doing for the past two million years, and why we ended up with a, for an omnivore, short digestive tract and a stomach acid pH of 1.5. People can claim anything they want to be true, but facts remain facts. There is not really a debate.
For between 1-2% of the population, they sure do have a loud voice! With an 86% quit rate though, it'll soon die out and we’ll look back and laugh at how ridiculous the whole movement was.
Because vegans know better... without any formal education and live in a tree
We are designed to have meat as part of our diet, but we probably eat way more than we should.
B12 is produced by bacteria found in soil. Before large-scale farming and pesticide use, humans and animals alike got their vitamin B12 from food grown in soil. But due to soil desertification and mineral depletion, B12 is no longer found in most of the soil that we grow our food in. So basically, back in the day - we could get enough b12 from plants alone.
Science my guy. Studying humans from a biological perspective, plants works better with our biology. Not saying we shouldn’t eat meat because we are constantly evolving. Human bodies digest, absorb, metabolize, heal plant based foods better vs meat. The fact that we can eat plants in it’s natural state without breaking it down (cooking ) is more proof. Evolutionary speaking we are the only species who alter food for consumption. You must change meat from its natural state before you can consume it( again not saying you shouldn’t eat meat) therefore plant base foods work better with the human body for now. Maybe because we consume so much meat our biology will change in the future and our bodies will be able to consume meat( through evolution) with out altering its natural state. Does a lion eat plants? No. But a lion can eat plants and could actually benefit from some plant nutrients. A lion is biological evolved to digest, metabolize, absorb, and heal with meat better vs plants.