Pebble, isnt it funny. I'm sure my health has improved by going back to eating only a small amount of meat and then not all the time. But then I also dont eat white bread( or very much bought bread), nor much tinned food either, takeaways only very infrequently,weaned myself off lollies and chips, soft drinks still drink wine and smoke tho. I brought my kids up on a handful of meat per 5 handfuls of veg(my handfuls not theirs) and all the fruit they could eat with no junk food unless they bought it themselves. Also avoided vaccinations if I could get away with it and they were never sick,as far as I know they still have only afew fillings in their teeth. Personally I think processed food and junk non food is more detrimental to health than whether or not you eat meat.
Which cultures are that matto? Are there any cultures that never eat meat? I can't think of any (most buddhist cultures I know of have some people choosing to be vegetarian, but I'm not sure how absolute that is).
By culture I mean a group of people that live and reproduce over many generations. I don't know of any culture that has done that completely vegetarian.
Just had to share this..... My brother is seriously pissed with one of his cats, seems this very carnivorous beast ate all his sweet corn seedlings!!!!
It is so often the case at a BBQ that the carnivours eat the vegetarian fare unless you get in fast. Cats may be turn vego too but I wouldn't count on it.
In the wild, predators go for the stomach first, and internal organs. They need their vitamins too - it is just they are not well suited to get them directly from plants.
Okay... at first I thought I'd skip the whole silly part of this debate -- what should humans eat -- and get right down to the real important stuff, like how vegetarians are bad for the planet. But I couldn't resist a bit of silliness, so I'll get to that in the next post. First, this lovely bit: Okay, now I change it a bit, to prove that humans are carnivores, by the very same faulty "logic": Meat-eaters: no hooves Herbivores: hooves Humans: no hooves Meat-eaters: have eyes facing forward for hunting Herbivores: have eyes on sides of head to watch for predators Humans: have eyes facing forward for hunting Meat-eaters: have one stomach for digestion Herbivores: multiple stomachs, rumen, or other pre/post-stomach processing Humans: have one stomach for digestion Therefore, ipso facto, humans are... ? Creative yet flawed at logic, I'd say. Raw meat doesn't disgust me at all, if I know where it comes from. Raw fish is great. Raw steak, raw hamburger, raw eggs... I love it all. Let's throw in one more thing, shall we? Look at how many vegetables and grains people can be allergic to -- but have you ever heard of a meat allergy? I think not. Impaired brain function from eating meat? I write my own arguments; I don't copy & paste them. Brains are MADE OF FAT. They run on cholesterol. I'll keep mine well-fed, thanks. Now then. Enough silliness. I won't hold your vegetarianism against you. Or will I?
Yes. Vegetarians are bad for the environment. Those aren't my words; they're Bill Mollison's. Vegetables, grains, legumes... take fertility from the soil, which is shipped into cities for vegetarians to eat, and the resulting manure... flushed. The fertility does not return to the land, unless the vegetarian lives on the land where his food is grown, and shits on it. That's to say nothing about all the evils of growing broadacre crops -- machinery, fertilizers, biocides. This is in stark contrast to grazed herbivores as food. Cows, for example, harvest their own food without machinery or fuel, re-fertilizing the pasture as they go. The total input is sunlight. No fertility is lost from the soil. Note I'm not talking about CAFOs here -- that's a bad model as well. So while I don't object to vegetarians on a religious or moral or scientific basis on dietary grounds -- believe what you want -- I must object nevertheless on account of my diet requires less machinery, less fuel, less transport, fewer chemicals; and actually builds topsoil which sequesters carbon rather than tillage which does the opposite -- and is therefore better for the environment. Top that. :rofl:
it could be handy to have a look at how joel salatin at polyface farms is building top soil and improving fertilty using animals
I reckon we are designed to eat both meat and veges.:nod: I thought I'd share a recipe. The ginger, honey and orange rind enhance the flavour of this easy to prepare meal. And beer....well...'cause I like it. Beef & Beer Casserole Ingredients 750g lean topside beef cut into 2.5 cm cubes 2 tablespoons oil 2 onions, chopped 2 carrots, cut into 1cm slices 2 tablespoons flour 1 cup beer 2 cups beef stock 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger 2 tablespoons honey 1 tablespoon finely grated orange rind freshly ground black pepper Instructions Heat oil in a large saucepan and cook beef over a high heat until browned on all sides. Reduce heat to medium and cook onions and carrots for 4-5 minutes or until onions start to soften. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring continuously, then add beer and 1/2 cup stock and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring to lift any sediment from base of pan. Stir in remaining stock, garlic, ginger, honey, orange rind and black pepper to taste. Pour stock mixture over meat, cover and cook for 2 hours or until meat is tender. You'd better not start a thread on how man was not designed to drink beer! I might get rather cross.:
My doctor actually recommended that I lose some weight and suggested the Bodytrim diet. It is a low carb high protein diet were you are required to eat 6 small meals a day instead of 3 larger ones. I have never eaten meat as often as I do at the moment and I have lost 10kg since January. The diet is delivered like a remote course with learning materials and on line support. When you get to your goal weight you go on to the maintenance phase were you can either adopt a moderate carb or a moderate fat diet. It seems that fat (the good fats) are not harmful as the body will only use what it needs and the rest will be disposed of as long as fats and carbs don't meet. If you eat carbs and fats you will put on weight. Eating sugars or more carbs than your body can immediately use spikes insulin which will store body fat and prevent you from accessing those 'emergency' fat stores. I think studies can prove anything can give you cancer, its a matter of eating sensibly.
Grahame, were you referring to the title and first few paragraphs? Or this part, a bit further down, that contradicted the apparent premise? But no, let's not blame smoking, drinking, not exercising, or just plain being fat-ass junk-food-eating, soda-swilling lazy couch-potato Americans. Nope. Culprit must be beef! :think: Ah, the wonders of studies. It is a fact that, in America at least, doctors are the professionals with the shortest life span... and has been that way for a long time. Plenty of lawyers drink, smoke, eat steak, and lech... and live longer. Clearly, more studies are needed. Oh, and by the way... this is how news media deceive the populace. They know that 95% of their readers won't read past the first couple of paragraphs. So they can publish lies and distortion up front, and bury just enough truth at the bottom to keep them free of lawsuits.
Grahame the science is much more complicated than the study that you refer to. The risk depends on how the meat was raised - being force fed grain while you stand still in the excrement of 10,000 of your closest herd mates produces meat high in omega 6 fats - the bad ones and low in the good omega 3 fats. Then it depends on what happens to the meat after you kill the animal - is it stored (possibly frozen) appropriately at every step of the food chain, and do you burn the day lights out of it when you prepare it (that's what generates the nitrites that are harmful - you don't get them in raw or slow cooked meat). If you are eating the fresh meat from grass fed, active mature animals either raw, braised or slow cooked then the game changes. Along with the protein, you get the good fats, and good amounts of magnesium, zinc, iron, copper etc that are missing in the standard western diet. Except that no one has the slightest bit of interest in funding that research project, because who would make money out of it when they proved it was good for you?