Meat Eaters Club

[Virgil]

Look, I don't want to disrupt the Veggie Club thread. I'm starting this thread because I wish to dispell this myth that eating meat is bad for you or the converse that vegetarianism is better for you. I've got some steaks on the barbecue, some ribs, chicken, and juicy hot dogs. Help yourself to some wine, or grab a bottle of beer and lets talk about this. Even you Vegetarians, I'll have some roasted vegies for you. Stop by and disagree with me. I won't mind.

First, I said it elequently on that other thread, so here's what I said there:

I don't understand why we must applaud vegetarianism. What is so noble about it? I can understand vegetarians who do it for religious reasons. And I do beleive that in the U.S. we probably eat more meat than is healthy for us. But that does not mean that no meat is healthier than some meat. I have never seen a statisitic that showed vegetarians having a longer life expectancy. Human beings have teeth designed for both meat and vegetables and a digestive system that accomodates both. It is natural for humans to eat meat. There is a higher concentration of nutrition packed in meat than in fruits and vegetables. It is healthy to have meat. It is human to have meat.

Let me also say I do not deplore vegetarianism. Those that do it for religious reasons have my deepest respect. Those that do it out of choice, OK, you do it. But two things raised the hair on my back. One is that there is some moral virtue in vegetarianism, and of course the the converse would apply that there is some moral vice in eating meat. Based on what? My religion doesn't seem to think so, and most religions (other than Hindu I don't know any other) don't think so. Second, there is this illusuon that vegetarianism is healthier than than having meat. Well, the modern world has not extinguished old wives tales; we create myths just as much as previous eras, and this is one of them. I believe the contrary. I believe it is less healthy to be a strict vegetarian. And I'll prove that as this thread continues.

[bluevictim]

OK, I brought some meat:


As for the topic, I don't know whether eating meat is healthier or not, but I do think people who choose not to eat meat because they feel it is unethical deserve some respect. It may not be much, but they are making a real sacrifice for what they believe in. I don't think that this necessary implies that people who eat meat deserve disrespect.

[Virgil]

I posted a couple of articles in that other thread that should go here. They show how eating meat was part of human diet from the very begininng.

NEW TESTING ON FOSSIL REMAINS INDICATES PREHISTORIC MAN ATE BALANCED DIET
By ROBERT REINHOLD, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: January 9, 1982
A rich new understanding of the evolution of the human diet is beginning to emerge as a result of sophisticated chemical and microscopic tests on the fossil remains of prehistoric humans.

The results of these tests are challenging some long-held notions about the daily life of prehistoric people, particularly on the importance of meat in the ancient diet. According to one study, early man was neither so carnivorous nor so herbivorous as some previous studies have indicated, but instead had a more balanced diet. When Did Meat Enter the Diet?

Reports on the new tests were present ed at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which ended today, at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Glynn L. Isaac, an anthropologist at the University of Californi a at Berkeley, said the session was aimed at stimulating interest in this neglected aspect ofhuman evolution. Until now, research has been limited because the evidence was fragmentary and because direct e xperimental tests were not available.

Since today's primitive people who depend on hunting and gathering consume four to five times as much meat as nonhuman primates, a major question is when and how meat became a substantial part of the human diet.

One school of thought has held that early manlike creatures that flourished in Africa two million years ago were carnivores with males playing the key role in food gathering; the other has held that the diet was based more on vegetation, with females playing a dominant role.

Neither view is correct, according to Professor Isaac and two associates, Richard B. Potts, a lecturer at Yale University, and Henry T. Bunn, a doctoral student at Berkeley. Th e team has been examining the tools and food refuse in early hominid sites in Kenya and Tanzania. Microscopic examination of animal bones and stone toolsshowed signs of butchering and scraping of meat.

''We have direct evidence that early hominids did leave stone cuts on a variety of animals,'' Mr. Bunn said. But while this indicated meat eating was important, he said that the team advocated a ''balanced view,'' stating that the evidence did not suggest meat was used to the exclusion of plants. ''There is no reason to jump to the conclusion that early hominids, with half our brains, could successfully hunt and kill large animals,'' he said.

''Most of us who study early prehistory,'' Professor Isaac said, ''are firmly convinced that fruits, nuts and perhaps tubers, dug up with simple tools, were the mainstay of life.

''The interest in confirming that meat, too, had become more important than it was for monkeys and apes is that this may have helped produce a situation in which collective social acquisition of food was more advantageous than the individualistic feeding characteristic of our primate relatives. Strontium Levels Examined

''Collective acquisition of food may in turn have stimulated the development of language ability and of intricate social patterns.'' Other new techniques involve examining fossil teeth under an electron microscope for ''microwear'' clues to the type of food chewed and how it was obtained, and making chemical and carbon isotope analyses of skeletal remains for indications of lifetime diet.

For example, Margaret Schoeninger of the Johns Hopkins University and Andrew Sillen of the Smithsonian Institution have seized on new techniques of geochemistry to indicate that carnivores could be expected to have much lower levels of strontium in their bones than herbivores. Strontium, a major component in the earth's crust, is retained at different rates by animals and plants.

The two scientists theorized that fossil humans, as omnivores, would show strontium levels between those of carnivores and herbivores. This is exactly what was found when Dr. Sillen analyzed 10,000-year-old remains of humans and animals found in a cave in the western Galilee section of Israel. However, the strontium analysis was useless when attempted on 20,000-year-old specimens.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...52C0A964948260

[Virgil]

Here's the other:

The Fossil-Record Evidence
about Human Diet

Introduction
Meat a part of human diet for ~2.5 million years

The evidence of the fossil record is, by and large, clear: Since the inception of the earliest humans (i.e., the genus Homo, approximately 2.5 million years ago), the human diet has included meat. This is well-known in paleoanthropological circles, and is discussed in Setting the Scientific Record Straight on Humanity's Evolutionary Prehistoric Diet and Ape Diets.
The current state of knowledge regarding the diet of our prehistoric ancestors is nicely summarized in Speth [1991, p. 265]:


[S]tone tools and fossil bones--the latter commonly displaying distinctive cut-marks produced when a carcass is dismembered and stripped of edible flesh with a sharp-edged stone flake--are found together on many Plio-Pleistocene archaeological sites, convincing proof that by at least 2.0 to 2.5 Ma [million years ago] before present (BP) these early hominids did in fact eat meat (Bunn 1986; Isaac and Crader 1981). In contrast, plant remains are absent or exceedingly rare on these ancient sites and their role in early hominid diet, therefore, can only be guessed on the basis of their known importance in contemporary forager diets, as well as their potential availability in Plio-Pleistocene environments (for example, see Peters et al. (1984); Sept (1984). Thus few today doubt that early hominids ate meat, and most would agree that they probably consumed far more meat than did their primate forebears. Instead, most studies nowadays focus primarily on how that meat was procured; that is, whether early hominids actively hunted animals, particularly large-bodied prey, or scavenged carcasses...
I fully concur with the view that meat was a regular and important component of early hominid diet. For this, the archaeological and taphonomic evidence is compelling.

Early hominid diet was mixed, not exclusive

The comments in Mann [1981, pp. 24-25] further illuminate the above:

Nevertheless, given the available archaeological evidence and what is known of the dietary patterns of living gatherer/hunters and chimpanzees, it appears unlikely to me that all early hominids were almost exclusively carnivorous or herbivorous. It is more reasonable to suggest that the diet of most early hominids fell within the broad range of today's gatherer/hunter diets, but that within the wide spectrum of this adaptation, local environmental resources and seasonal scarcity may have forced some individual populations to become more dependent on vegetable or animal-tissue foods than others.

The remarks by Mann remind us of the obvious: that early hominid diets, like hunter-gatherer diets, are a function of local flora and fauna; such diets are limited to the local food base (and to food acquired via trading).

"Natural" behavior a function of evolution

The evidence that meat has been part of the human diet for ~2.5 million years, thus, directly implies that meat is a "natural" part of the human diet, where "natural" is defined as: those foods one is adapted to consume by evolution. (Side note to vegetarians: The fact that meat is a natural part of the evolutionary diet does not imply that one must, or even should, eat meat.)
Some raw dietary advocates, in apparent denial of the evolutionary evidence, try to turn "opportunistic feeding" into a straw-man argument. The straw-man argument they construct is that the claim meat can be a natural part of the diet is based solely on the idea that humans can (and do) eat meat; they then claim it is circular logic, asserting that the "possibility" is not evidence it is "natural." However, this type of criticism or straw-man argument is based on a rather astonishing ignorance of--or at least certainly a denial of--evolutionary adaptation and how it occurs (discussed below). As such, the anti-"opportunistic feeding" straw-man argument is logically invalid.

http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/...-anat-3a.shtml

Like I said, it is human to eat meat.

[Virgil]

OK, I brought some meat:


As for the topic, I don't know whether eating meat is healthier or not, but I do think people who choose not to eat meat because they feel it is unethical deserve some respect. It may not be much, but they are making a real sacrifice for what they believe in. I don't think that this necessary implies that people who eat meat deserve disrespect.

Yes, I agree. If vegetarians do it for how they rationalize it as ethical, then they deserve respect. But I will show that they are kidding themselves if they think it's healthier.

Barbecue looks great!

[kathycf]

Hi Virgil.

I have posted in the veggie thread, and I really don't see anybody there who has adopted some holier than thou attitude. I certainly hope I haven't conveyed that attitude, because that would make me a hypocrite.

I am not a vegetarian, I just have my personal prefereces and beliefs and I don't try to shove them down anybody's throat. Just as a personal anecdote (nothing scientific) the only change in my diet I made was cutting out meat (although not dairy) and I lost 35 pounds in 5 months. I still ate my popcorn on Friday nights, still had M & M's, just not burgers or steaks. I was not a big meat eater before I did this, but still...35 pounds and 10 points of my cholesterol is nothing to sneeze at.

So, what kind of beer do you have here?

[Virgil]

Myth number one:

Meat-Eaters Have Higher Rates of Heart And Kidney Disease, Cancer, Obesity and Osteoporosis Than Vegetarians
Such stupendous claims are hard to reconcile with historical and anthropological facts. All of the diseases mentioned are primarily 20th century occurrences, yet people have been eating meat and animal fat for thousands of years.

Further, there are several native peoples around the world (the Innu, Masai, Swiss, Greeks, etc.) whose traditional diets are very rich in animal products, but do not suffer from the above-mentioned maladies (18). This shows that other factors besides animal foods are at work in these diseases.

Several studies have supposedly shown that meat consumption is the cause of heart disease, cancer and bone loss, but such studies, honestly evaluated, show no such thing (19).

For example, the studies that supposedly proved that meat consumption among the Innuit caused high rates of osteoporosis, failed to note other dietary factors that contributed to bone loss (and to the other chronic diseases listed in myth #5). Things such as refined sugar consumption, alcoholism and a junk food consumption equalled more bone loss were not done with real meat but with fractionated protein powders (20).
Certainly, when protein is consumed in such an unnatural fashion, separated from the fat-soluble nutrients required for its absorption and assimilation, it will lead to problems. Because of this, the current use of fat-free protein powders as "food supplements", and low-fat or non-fat dairy products should be avoided. Trimming off visible fat from meats and removing duck and chicken skin before eating should also be discouraged.

Despite claims that studies have shown that meat consumption increased the risk for heart disease (21), their authors actually found the opposite. For example, in a 1984 analysis of a 1978 study of Seventh Day Adventists (who are largely vegetarian), H. A. Kahn concluded, "Although our results add some substantial facts to the diet-disease question, we recognize how remote they are from establishing, for example, that men who frequently eat meat or women who rarely eat salad are thereby shortening their lives" (21). A similar conclusion was reached by D.A. Snowden (21). Despite these startling admissions, the studies nevertheless concluded the exact opposite and urged people to reduce animal foods from their diets.

Further, both of these studies threw out certain dietary data that clearly showed no connection between eggs, cheese, whole milk, and fat attached to meat (all high fat and cholesterol foods) and heart disease. Statistician Dr. Russel Smith concluded, "In effect the Kahn [and Snowden] study is yet another example of negative results which are massaged and misinterpreted to support the politically correct assertions that vegetarians live longer lives." When all of the data are taken into account, the actual differences of heart disease between vegetarians and non-vegetarians in these studies was less than 1%: hardly a significant amount (22).

It should be noted here that Seventh Day Adventists are often studied in population analyses to prove that a vegetarian diet is healthier and is associated with a lower risk for heart disease and cancer (but see the last paragraph in this section). While it is true that most members of this Christian denomination do not eat meat, they also do not smoke, drink alcohol, or drink coffee or tea, all of which may be factors in promoting cancer and heart disease (23).

The Mormons are a religious group often overlooked in vegetarian studies. Although their Church urges moderation, Mormons do not abstain from meat. Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, declared a diet devoid of animal products as "not of God." As with the Adventists, Mormons avoid tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine. Despite being meat eaters, a study of Utah Mormons showed they had a 22% lower rate for cancer in general and a 34% lower mortality for colon cancer than the US average (24). A study of Puerto Ricans, who eat large amounts of fatty pork, nevertheless revealed very low rates of colon and breast cancer (25). Similar results can be adduced to demonstrate that meat consumption by itself does not correlate with cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, kidney disease, or obesity (26). Obviously, other factors are at work.

It is usually claimed that vegetarians have lower cancer rates than meat-eaters, but a 1994 study of California Seventh Day Adventists (who are largely vegetarian) showed that, while they did have lower rates of some cancers (e.g., breast), they had significantly higher rates of several others (brain, skin, uterine, cervical and ovarian)! (27)

http://www.vegetarian-diet.info/vege...es-disease.htm

[Virgil]

Hi Virgil.

I have posted in the veggie thread, and I really don't see anybody there who has adopted some holier than thou attitude. I certainly hope I haven't conveyed that attitude, because that would make me a hypocrite.

I am not a vegetarian, I just have my personal prefereces and beliefs and I don't try to shove them down anybody's throat. Just as a personal anecdote (nothing scientific) the only change in my diet I made was cutting out meat (although not dairy) and I lost 35 pounds in 5 months. I still ate my popcorn on Friday nights, still had M & M's, just not burgers or steaks. I was not a big meat eater before I did this, but still...35 pounds and 10 points of my cholesterol is nothing to sneeze at.

So, what kind of beer do you have here?

Thanks for stopping by Kathy. Are they adoting a holier than thou attitude? No, but when one states a position, the converse is implied. How about a Bass?

[Virgil]

Myth number two: You can get all your nutrition from vegetables.

Can The Body Convert Omega-6 Fatty Acids Into Omega-3 Fatty Acids As It Needs?
Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fats of which two, linolenic (an omega-3) and linoleic (an omega 6), are essential to human life and must be obtained from food as the body cannot synthesise them. Although very small amounts of omega 3 linolenic acid are found in whole grains and dark green leafy vegetables, it is principally found in animal foods (especially fish and eggs), as well as flax seed oil. Omega 6 linoleic acid is mostly found in vegetables, but small amounts are present in certain animal fats.

To assuage vegans who fear they may not get enough omega 3 linolenic acid, some vegetarian sources assert that the body can simply convert excess omega 6 linoleic acid into omega 3 linolenic acid, and other omega 3 fatty acids such as EPA and DHA, two fatty acids intimately involved in the health of the brain and immune system.

Renowned lipid biochemist Dr Mary Enig, of the University of Maryland, and other authorities have shown that the body cannot change the omega number of fatty acids.

The body can change the fatty acid's degree of saturation and also its molecular length, but not its omega number (12). In other words, omega 6 fatty acids can only be converted into other omega 6 fatty acids; omega 3s only into other omega 3s.

Again, I have seen the results of this misinformation in my practice. I've had several patients of Northern European descent with severe mental and immune problems caused by a lack of EPA and DHA, two omega-3 fatty acids not found in plant foods (DHA is found in small amounts in some algae). People native to warmer climates in the world can manufacture these fatty acids from other omega-3s, but those of Northern European or Innuit descent cannot. Since their ancestors ate so much EPA- and DHA-rich fish, their bodies eventually lost the ability to manufacture these fatty acids (13). For these people, vegetarianism is impossible; they must consume either eggs or fish in order to survive.

There is also a very real danger from consuming too many omega-6 fatty acids, principally found in vegetables. The body requires both omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. However, when the body's cells are overloaded with omega-6s, their ability to utilise the omega-3 is inhibited (14).

Chronically low levels of omega-3 fatty acids are associated with higher cancer rates and immune dysfunction. Excessive levels of omega-6 fatty acids are also strongly correlated with a high incidence of cardiovascular disease (as is excessive consumption of refined sugar and trans-fatty acids) [15].

http://www.vegetarian-diet.info/vege...atty-acids.htm

[kathycf]

Bass is very good, but only half a bottle for me...alcohol is bad for you.

*ducks at the barrage of hotdogs being thrown at her*

I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. Just teasing you. Actually beer and wine in moderation are pretty benign, I say half a bottle because that is all I can drink without getting tipsy.

[Virgil]

Myth number two, continued:

Can Vitamin B12 Be Obtained from Plant Sources?
Vegans who do not supplement their diet with vitamin B12 will eventually get anaemia (a fatal condition) as well as severe nervous and digestive system damage (6). Claims are made that B12 is present in certain algae, tempeh (a fermented soy product) and brewer's yeast. All of them are false.

Like the niacin in corn, the B12 analogues present in algae and tempeh are not bioavailable. We know this because studies done on people's blood levels of B12 remained the same after they ate spirulina and tempeh; there was no change, clearly indicating no absorption by the body (7). Further, the ingestion of too much soy increases the body's need for B12 (8). Brewer's yeast does not contain B12 naturally; it is always fortified from an outside source.

Some vegetarian authorities claim that B12 is produced by certain fermenting bacteria in the intestines. This may be true, but it is in a form unusable by the body. B12 requires intrinsic factor from the stomach for proper absorption in the ileum. Since the bacterial product does not have intrinsic factor bound to it, it cannot be absorbed (9).

It is true that vegans living in certain parts of India do not suffer from vitamin B12 deficiency. This has led some to conclude that plant foods do provide this vitamin. This conclusion, however, is erroneous as many small insects, their eggs, larvae and/or residue, are left on the plant foods these people consume, due to non-use of pesticides and inefficient cleaning methods. This is how these people obtain their vitamin B12. This contention is borne out by the fact that when Indian Hindus migrated to England, they came down with pernicious anaemia within a few years. In England, the food supply is cleaner, and insect residues are completely removed from plant foods (10).

The only reliable and absorbable sources of vitamin B12 are animal products, especially organ meats and eggs (11). Though present in lesser amounts, milk products do contain B12. Vegans, therefore, should consider adding dairy products into their diets. If dairy cannot be tolerated, eggs, preferably from free-run hens, are a virtual necessity.

That vitamin B12 can only be obtained from animal products is one of the strongest arguments against veganism being a "normal" way of human eating. Today, vegans can avoid anaemia by taking supplemental vitamins or fortified foods. If those same people had lived just a few decades ago, when these products were unavailable, they would have died.

http://www.vegetarian-diet.info/vege...itamin-b12.htm

[kathycf]

Are they adoting a holier than thou attitude? No, but when one states a position, the converse is implied.

See, I don't agree with that. People can have subjective opinions about something without making the opposite bad. I can say that I am not a follower of religion, and that does not mean I think religion is bad or that people who follow a faith are bad. It simply means I choose not to have an organized faith.

[Virgil]

Bass is very good, but only half a bottle for me...alcohol is bad for you.

*ducks at the barrage of hotdogs being thrown at her*

I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. Just teasing you. Actually beer and wine in moderation are pretty benign, I say half a bottle because that is all I can drink without getting tipsy.

Oh I would never throw food at people.

[Virgil]

See, I don't agree with that. People can have subjective opinions about something without making the opposite bad. I can say that I am not a follower of religion, and that does not mean I think religion is bad or that people who follow a faith are bad. It simply means I choose not to have an organized faith.

OK, perhaps they are not all. I don't want to put motives into people's mouths. Nonetheless there is this politically correct notion out there that is developing.

[Virgil]

Myth number three: It is more natural to be vegetarian:

The "Cave Man" Diet Was Low-Fat and/or Vegetarian
Our Neolithic ancestors were hunter-gatherers, and two schools of thought have developed as to what their diet was like. One group argues for a high-fat and animal-based diet supplemented with seasonal fruits, berries, nuts, root vegetables and wild grasses.

The other argues that primitive peoples consumed small amounts of lean meats and large amounts of plant foods. Once again, such notions of a "low-fat diet" are hard to reconcile with what we know of modern-day hunter-gatherer societies. Present-day African tribes readily consume the fatty portions of animals, especially organs such as the brain, liver and tongue. The Aborigines, another hunter-gatherer society, also have a diet rich in saturated animal fats (47).

Explorers such as Stefansson reported that the Innuit and North American Indian tribes would worry when their caches of caribou were too lean: they knew sickness would follow if they did not consume enough fat (48).

Canadian Indians would deliberately hunt older male caribou and elk, for these animals carried a 50-pound slab of back fat on them which the Indians would eat with relish. Native Americans would also refrain from hunting bison in the springtime (when the animals' fat stores were low, due to scarce food supply during the winter), preferring to hunt, kill and consume them in the fall when they were fattened up.

More interesting is the way political prisoners are sometimes tortured in South and Central America: they're fed a diet of lean meat and they die quickly. Why? Without the fat-soluble vitamins contained in animal lipids, the body is unable to utilise and synthesise the proteins and other nutrients present in the meat (49).

On his journeys, Dr Price never once found a totally vegetarian culture. Anthropological data support this: throughout the globe, all societies show a preference for animal foods and fats and people only turn to vegetarianism when they have to (50). Nutritional anthropologist H. Leon Abrams, Jr, has shown that prehistoric man's quest for more animal foods spurred his expansion over the Earth, and that he apparently hunted certain species to extinction (50).

Price also found that those peoples who, out of necessity, consumed more grains and legumes, had higher rates of dental decay than those who consumed more animal products (51). Archaeological evidence supports this finding: skulls of prehistoric peoples who were largely vegetarian have teeth containing caries and abscesses and show evidence of tuberculosis (50, 51).

Based on all of this evidence, it is certain that the diets of our ancestors, the progenitors of humanity, ate a very NON-vegetarian diet that was rich in saturated animal fat.

http://www.vegetarian-diet.info/vege...s-cave-man.htm