People for the Eating of Tasty Animals

[marisa]

I have also been on the Atkins diet for about four months now.

Before, I was not a big fan of meat, especially red meat, just because I didn't find it very good. But on Atkins you must eat a lot of meat.

Not only have I lost unwanted extra weight, but my hair and nails have DOUBLED in growth (growing twice as fast) I have energy, my blood sugar is normal, I sleep AMAZINGLY well, my skin is clear, I get to eat many many times a day if I want and there are so many other benefits. I love the Atkins diet, and I cheat once in awhile too! (Once in awhile being twice per week when I must have some timbits or Wendys chicken strips LOL )

Anyways.....LOL. ....MEAT RULES! hahaha

Marisa

[Classic]

This is fact: I ate dog burgers for 4 days straight in Budapest, Hungary while on a drunk. You would be surprised what you are missing.
Before you pass judgement on me....remember that N. America is one of the few places that don't eat dog. It is good. I can tell you some of my other dishes from world travels if you wish. Deep fried rooster heads on a stick in Koh Samui, Thailand were also very good when leaving the bar at 5am. Deep Fried Octopus on a stick was not so good when drunk.

[J-Man]

Btw, I just found out that Atkins didn't really suffer a heart attack. He had heart problems because he had a viral infection and had nothing to do with what he ate at all.

[Linds]

Originally posted by ohh_kristina

I am also vegan because of the healthy aspect of it.

Interesting. I have never met one vegan or veggie that was defficient in some sort of nutrient. Do you have any unbiased, medical articles to prove this? I would be interested in reading them.

Originally posted by MouseKilla
There are laws concerning the slaughter of farm animals (they usually have to be bled to death) though I don't know if they apply to our feeder rodents. Anybody know about that?

I'm not sure if it an actual law, but I know that the only accepted method is CO2. I forget who it is accepted by, whether it is just the lab community, activitsts of sort, or actual law... I personally do not believe any meat animals are killed humanely... or anything close. Doesn't stop me from eating meat though... its something I believe is necessary (and tastes yummy :flick: ). I don't consume a huge amount of meat, but I do eat enough to keep me going I have a high protein diet, and get a lot of it from other sources, but I still don't think that meat alternatives can cut it

Originally posted by Invictus
ooh_kristina - I can probably show you just as many studies, written by meat eaters, about how NOT eating meat will kill you 10 years sooner. (And in fact, I have read scientific studies that show that meat eaters do outlive vegans by an average of 10 years.) Your sources are biased. So are mine. There is just as much proof against veganism as there is in favor of it.

I think the key word here is biased. In order for a good arguement, we need to start posting ubiased studies. Of course the vegans will say you will live longer, and the meat eaters will say the same about their lifestyles - eacho obviously believes they are right or they wouldn't be making that choice. I personally have never met a vegan or veggie that wasn't malnourished. I also don't understand how people can argue that we were not designed to consume meat. I forget the type of protein, but it is essential to our health and is only available from meat or kidney beans (this is coming from a doctor)... people cannot be designed to receive it from one sole source like a bean... it must be a bit broader than that due to factors like preferences, location, etc. - meat however is available everywhere, and everyone is able to consume one meat or another

[Classic]

I've seen chicken farms that use electric shock. They are hung by the feet and given a few jolts. They are then skinned while still hanging.

[Invictus]

Eating meat is about more than just protein - let's not forget Zinc and Iron, which cannot be found in any better quantities than in meat.

[eyespy]

In human opthalmology we used to treat a lot of vegans for B 12 deficiencies that caused corneal dystrophy. We used to treat a lot of heavy red meat eaters for arcus, a disease in which saturated fats build up in the limbus, the area where cornea meets iris.

I'm a fan of moderation. I'm disabled because I have allergies so severe that my immune system and heart have suffered significant damage. I've tried both the Atkins diet (got very weak and confused and constipated and had abnormal kidney tests from all the ketones) and veganism (my asthma flared up like crazy and my blood pressure dropped to the point I couldn't regulate my heart beat) and found that neither is best for me. I eat a high fiber, high complex carb, low simple carb diet with 4 to 6 ounces of good quality red meat per week and that is the diet that suits my own particular biochemistry.

There are many fruits and vegetables that can kill me because of all the cross-reactive proteins that aggravate my anaphylactic allergies so meat is a must for me. But too much meat means too much protein and allergies are an immune system over-reaction to protein so you need to severely limit protein intake if you have severe allergies.

I don't believe that any one diet is best for all people, we all have different biochemistries and need different things to keep our bodies well.

[MouseKilla]

Linds,
I have heard of, I think it was a pet store, being charged with animal cruelty because they tossed live rodents into the deep freeze to kill them. I was more or less wondering what the laws were on this because I bonk my own rats and mice that I feed to my snakes. I don't know if this is considered cruel or not, not that I care what anybody that can't charge me has to say about it I want to know if I'm breaking the law.

[brig]

Interesting debate!!!
I'm neither vege, nor a meat eater!!! At least not committed to either, having wavered back and forth for the last 20 years!!!

I did wonder if anyone has been to visit an abattoir/slaughterhouse? Especially those who are really strongly callous in their comments on animal welfare?

In the UK, smaller animals such as pigs and sheep are stunned before slaughter and larger animals such as cows and horses (yes, we have an equine abattoir about 50 miles from where I live, but not many people around here realise this!) are shot with a 'captive bolt' through the skull. The meat regulations give special exceptions when animals are killed according to various religious beliefs.

For me, it is just the grand scale of the whole thing which is shocking and horrific, rather than the 'principle' of raising animals for food.

Pushing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of animals PER DAY through the production line is an assault on every sense - although especially the noise and the smell. And I guess in the US and Canada the scale is multiplied many-fold!

Just to be contraversial for a moment - why not ensure that a trip around the slaughterhouse is a must on every schoolchild's curriculum, or at least a video, just like the ones on the milk bottling factory, or the chocolate factory, or the cookie factory... shouldn't our children learn about all the sources and processing of their food?

But many of us adults don't want to know what goes on 'behind closed doors', let alone show our children.
To me, if a practice needs to be 'hidden' from the majority of society, then there is something inherently wrong with some element of it. And having dealt with abattoirs for a few years of my working life, I can say that I feel that there IS something wrong with it. I honestly don't know what the answer is, but I don't like what goes on.

I don't think for a minute that everyone should suddenly become vege - but I do think a better approach to the industry should be sought.

I agree with everyone so far who has spoken of eating less meat - I'm a believer of 'everything in moderation'. To me that would seem the logical way to a healthier lifestyle.

A little bit of everything... yum, yum.

peace,
Brig

[hip]

The brain is a greedy organ that consumes a tremendous amount of energy. By weight, brain tissue uses about 16 times more energy per minute than does muscle tissue. Even when resting or sleeping, the human brain still consumes about 25% of the total energy being used by a human. During similar resting stages the smaller brains of most non-primate mammals use only 3-5% of the total body's energy. These data have lead anthropologists such as William Leonard of Northwestern University to suggest that human brains probably grew larger only after our earliest ancestors became skilled at finding sufficient amounts of high-calorie foods (protein and fats) to feed the voracious needs of their expanding brains. Even though an improved diet played a critical role, he notes that it was not the only factor that probably led to an increased brain size in humans.

The archaeological evidence left by our ancient ancestors attests to their skills as hunters and gives us important clues about their lifestyles, diets, and nutrition. In addition, when comparing the skeletons from ancient hunting and gathering societies to the skeletons of early farming cultures we find chilling evidence of what happened to the lives and health of most of the world's early agricultural, and later urban populations.

According to anthropologist George Armelagos of Emory University, high levels of bone porosity in the vault of the skull and around the eye orbits, called porotic hyperostosis, are considered good indicators of long-term anemia, commonly attributed to iron deficiency. Although porosity might be caused by other conditions, such as severe hookworm infections, the most frequent link is to long-term reliance on diets that are low in meat and high in carbohydrates; a common occurrence in early farming cultures where diets consisted mostly of cereal grains.

When Dr. Armelagos compared human skeletons from pre-agricultural foraging peoples who lived in the Illinois and Ohio River valleys with those of later farming cultures in the same region, the evidence of anemia in the farming group was overwhelming. He found a 400% increase in the occurrence of porotic hyperostosis among skeletons from the farming period, whose diets consisted mostly of maize.

[hip]

Animal Protein: All primates eat some type of animal protein but humans eat the highest amounts. Protein is a high-calorie food that our ancient ancestors needed to feed the high-energy needs of our large brain. When eaten, 3.5 ounces of meat produces about 200 calories of energy while the same amount of fruit yields less than 100 calories and 3.5 ounces of leaves produces only 10-20 calories.

Anthropologist Richard Lee of the University of Toronto has spent a lifetime studying the diets of contemporary foraging societies. He estimates that most of today's foraging societies obtain about one-third of their daily calories from animal protein, with the other two-thirds coming from plant foods. That amount is considerably higher than the average diet of 5-7% animal protein eaten by our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. William Leonard and others note that larger-brained humans need more high-calorie foods than do the smaller-brained chimps. Lee also notes that among contemporary foragers a significant percentage of their meat often comes from small reptiles, birds, and mammals. My examination of ancient human coprolites confirms that reliance on meat protein mainly from small animal hunting seems to be thousands of years old and may represent an essential pattern even from the beginning of humankind.

Humans need a constant supply of protein because unlike fats and carbohydrates, our body cannot store protein as protein. Instead, humans store excess protein as fat. Meat from animals, fish, and fowl contains from 15-40% protein by weight and is called "a complete protein source." By contrast, most plant foods often contain meager amounts of about 2-10% protein and are termed "incomplete proteins" because plant sources often lack at least one or more essential amino acids needed by all humans.

The increased need for protein to feed our larger brains may explain why Homo erectus, the first of our species with a brain nearly as large as modern humans, left the grasslands of east Africa and soon ranged over much of Europe, Asia, and the rest of Africa. Anthropologist Susan Anton of Rutgers University and others estimate that by the time Homo erectus emerged somewhere between 1-2 million years ago, the human needs for food and especially protein meant that this new species needed eight to ten times more room to search for food than did their smaller-brained ancestors who were restricted to the continent of Africa.

How much protein do humans really need? Nutritionists say about 10-20% of our diets should come from meat protein, a percentage that is within the minimal average eaten by most non-poverty-level Americans. For many of our ancient foraging societies about one-third of their daily calories came from animal sources and most of that came from meat. Nevertheless, archaeological records also indicate that some of our ancient ancestors, especially the ones we call the "big game hunters", probably relied on meat sources for as much as 50-60% of their total dietary calories.

Humans need protein because it provides the essential amino acids used by our bodies to build new tissues such as muscles, tendons, ligaments, and the walls of blood vessels. All of our growth from birth to death, as well as all repairs to our body, depends upon the amino acids we obtain from protein sources. Even our skin, hair, and nails cannot form properly without the correct amount and mixture of amino acids

[hip]

oops sorry here is the author of the above articles


by
Vaughn M. Bryant
Department of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843, USA

[jaybox_reptiles]

Hell yea that all i eat is meat and i feal that farming and raising food products is a part of life that is needed for 1 it gives old farmers a job cuz that is basically the only thing they no how to do and for 2 it keeps us healthy i think without out meat that we wouldent be near as healthy

[MouseKilla]

Hip,
So what you're saying is that if you're smart you eat meat? LOL! Those are all good reasons but even if it wasn't essential I'd still need a steak or some bacon every now and then.

[Classic]

yumeeeeeee. Bacon.