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Eating Meat Helped Early Humans Reproduce
PolygamousRanchKid writes "If early humans had been vegans we might all still be living in caves, Swedish researchers suggested in an article Thursday. When a mother eats meat, her breast-fed child's brain grows faster and she is able to wean the child at an earlier age, allowing her to have more children faster, the article explains. 'Eating meat enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births to be shortened,' said psychologist Elia Psouni of Lund University in Sweden. 'This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution.' She notes, however, that the results say nothing about what humans today should or should not eat."
Indeed it doesn't seem to indicate much at all as regards what mothers should eat today. I know two vegan mums and their (vegan) kids weaned off early and are very bright, healthy little 5 and 9 year old kids.
I like how the researcher feels the need to close off with a "don't antagonise vegetarian groups" political-correctness statement, lest she risks being eaten alive (pun intended).
Even today, children of vegans still die occasionally due to malnutrition. While careful vegetarians (such as many Hindus whose cuisine has adapted to this) can get everything they need from normal food, vegans need supplements to stay healthy. This is especially the case for children, who haven't built up a store of, for example, B12 yet. Childhood malnutrition quickly leads to retarded development and hence eventually poor intelligence.
Man was never made to be vegan and, judging from our closest relatives the Chimps, probably not vegetarian either.
Because we need to have children faster, right? Completely useful in a world with over 7 billion humans!
Some feminist psychos will nuts of those results, and not over the mens' nuts. Here is an example of meat and sex, gone wrong... Seriously and dangerously wrong:
"The sexual politics of meat: A feminist-vegetarian critical theory" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Sexual-Politics-Meat-Feminist-Vegetarian/dp/0826411843)
"First published in 1990, The Sexual Politics of Meat is a landmark text in the ongoing debates about animal rights. In the two decades since, the book has inspired controversy and heated debate. The Sexual Politics of Meat argues that what, or more precisely who, we eat is determined by the patriarchal politics of our culture, and that the meanings attached to meat eating are often clustered around virility. We live in a world in which men still have considerable power over women, both in public and in private. Carol Adams argues that gender politics is inextricably related to how we view animals, especially animals who are consumed. Further, she argues that vegetarianism and fighting for animal rights fit perfectly alongside working to improve the lives of disenfranchised and suffering people, under the wide umbrella of compassionate activism."
That book can be seen as part of the ongoing degradation of general observations and science into something very dangerous - views and opinions based on random whims, often with a feminist, religious, sexual or otherwise subjective world-view.
One can hope these new results will help raising the arguments to a decent intellectual level.
And have any opinion on his distillation of the research on weight gain and the optimal diet?
It seems compelling, and without any sort of effort other than cutting out carbs I've dropped nearly 20 pounds in two months.
Curiously, it doesn't seem to have helped me.
you can't even spell vegetarian right.
btw it comes from the latin vegetus (vigorous)
'Breathing air enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births to be shortened from infinity to a few years', said slashdot reader Capta1n Obvi10us. 'This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution'.
An Anonymous Coward noted in a reply, however, that the results say nothing about what humans today should or should not breathe.
I'm looking forward to this. Nothing like vegans and meat eaters going at it emotions cranked up to eleven. I think I'll make a nice batch of non-GM popcorn in the microwave and watch the shitstorm unfold.
You don't need historical analysis. I've seen first-hand that buying a woman steak or lobster helps me reproduce.
Pre-agricultural societies fed meat to breastfeeding mothers!
Moreover, if they hadn't fed them meat, they might have starved!
WOW!
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
her breast-fed child's brain grows faster
The question becomes: do you want your child grow bigger brain faster, or do you prefer your child to have a smaller brain and getting picked on by the children with bigger brain? Choices, choices.
Meat, it's what's for dinner!
Obligatory:
"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?!"
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
.....bacon.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Rather than parrot some trendy position or swap anecdotal information, get the facts before you decide.
Google for "essential amino acids" and "essential nutrients"; those are the things that you MUST eat to maintain your health.
It's possible to get everything you need from a strictly vegetarian diet - but it's very, very difficult. Deficiency disorders are no fun at all; know what you're doing.
For a long time, humans were pretty dumb doing little but make "the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years," says Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. Then, 150,000 years ago, our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials. We started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, researchers examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism. The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances although definitive claims of causation are premature. In most animals, the gut needs a lot of energy to grind out nourishment from food sources. But cooking, by breaking down fibers and making nutrients more readily available, is a way of processing food outside the body. Eating (mostly) cooked meals would have lessened the energy needs of our digestion systems, thereby freeing up calories for our brains. Today, humans have relatively small digestive systems and allocate around 20% of their total energy to the brain, compared to approximately 13% for non-human primates and 2-8% for other vertebrates. While other theories for the brain's cognitive spurt have not been ruled out, the finding sheds light on what made us, as Khaitovich put it, "so strange compared to other animals."
Ponca City, We Love You
We absolutely co-evolved with cattle. Do you have some nutritional basis with which to reject milk as being a valid source of food for an adult?
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
"Childhood malnutrition quickly leads to retarded development and hence eventually poor intelligence."
Hence they develop into Vegans at an early age.
Forget breast feeding. If our ancestors were vegans and thus cared about animals feelings and were too "nice" to eat them, we'd all be toast as well.
But since non-human animals can't give us consent to take the milk they produced for their own offspring, that stolen cows' or goats' milk is not vegan.
Well, if you go into that, plants cannot give consent either. It seems like the only way out for vegans is starving to death.
"Giving consent" assumes being aware of the implications of what is happening. Unless you assume animals have the mental capability of understanding the abstract notion of property and the difference between stealing and buying, the act of giving consent has no meaning for them.
It allows for faster brain development, and thus shorter infancy. Given the trouble women have with taking maternity leave, and given how long making a kid into a productive adult takes *anyways* it's an extremely good thing the period needed isn't any longer.
But since non-human animals can't give us consent to take the milk they produced for their own offspring, that stolen cows' or goats' milk is not vegan.
Well, if you go into that, plants cannot give consent either. It seems like the only way out for vegans is starving to death.
"Giving consent" assumes being aware of the implications of what is happening. Unless you assume animals have the mental capability of understanding the abstract notion of property and the difference between stealing and buying, the act of giving consent has no meaning for them.
please remember this topic started with breast-feeding. there is a huge leap from a mother "consenting" to give her own child her own breast milk and attempts at interpreting cow behavior as "consenting" the being treated in the industrialized way by which milk is largely obtained (in the u.s. anyway).
also, isn't it a bit absurd to think property has anything to do with consent? i suppose if you want to drape the term "property" over an animal's desired treatments of their own body, i'd have to believe any animal is mentally capable.
The article presents evidence that human diet seems to correlate with a shorter breastfeeding period than that for animals which are quite a lot like us but eat something completely different
If you believe this is of equal weight than someone pulling pompous claims out of their arse, and attempting to blame "patriarchy" for yet another from a line of utterly disjoint things, then you have been thoroughly hoodwinked by ideology
There was an old joke in the eastern block where i'm from that the main problems of a socialist society are five - spring, summer, autumn, winter, and western imperialism. Feminists seem to take the stance this was poking fun of up to eleven.
Raw? Just wondering if humans really consumed meat throughout history
Vegans are wrong. There is no evidence i know of for any traditional societies being vegan. if veganism was so good for people, you would find at least some tribes practicing it. they dont. meat is highly concentrated nutrition, esp. fish and its omega 3's, and is only harmful the way modern people indulge in poor quality sources. no way primitive man harvested flax seeds for the oil. The book "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon gives lots of evidence for the benefits of a diet high in meat, animal fat, and sprouted/fermented foods (free range, organic, bla bla bla always better, and olive/coconut/palm oils over all other veggie oils). The ethical problems with meat are real, though. Animals are semi-sentient, and have feelings just as real as ours. We do not have a right to kill them. but nature didnt consider our feelings about this when letting us evolve. can you imagine if we were obligate carnivores, like cats? to evolve an ethics of meat would be challenging beyond belief. The best i can come up with is a combination of the ethics behind "Should Trees Have Standing", the idea that we are stewards of the earth, and the work of Temple Grandin. Species deserve legal standing in our courts, even more so than "endangered", as should ecosystems. Domesticated animals are now under our stewardship. in exchange for a short but stress free life, we can argue that we can kill them for our needs (requires strict adherence to humane practices). We need to research our humane animal practices to really understand what can help them to avoid suffering (as Grandin does). Vegans are right about factory farming, so they are like hardcore Marxists and other religious nuts. not afraid to point out a social ill (thank you, sincerely), and batshit crazy in their dogmatic application of a narrow, fixed set of ideas to the problem.
You hear about the person who didn't rely on anecdotal evidence to support his belief system?
It's not a FRAUD ALERT, it's a Slashdot editor ignorance alert. Slashdot editors once ran a story about some method of file compression that was far better than the ones we currently have. Slashdot editors ran a story about cell phone radiation causing chemical changes. There have been articles about "breakthroughs" by Israeli companies wanting investors. All were quickly shown to be dishonest.
Comment to the L.A. Times story by Tython at 8:59 AM April 22, 2012: "This 'hypothesis' is full of holes?"
From the abstract of the "scientific" article: "Our large brain, long life span and high fertility are key elements of human evolutionary success and are often thought to have evolved in interplay with tool use, carnivory and hunting." Translation: We already believe!
Guess: The Swedish Research Council got money from meat producers to counteract an earlier study: Meat Production and Climate Change: an Ethical Investigation.
Eating Meat Helped Early Humans Reproduce
Slashdot, your innuendos are getting worse.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
I see ~300 comments and nobody has gone the route of "first she eats my meat, then we reproduce" ? What happened to all the /. pervs today anyway?
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
In his book "Why We Get Fat", author Gary Taubes makes the point (which the Paleo diet advocates also make) that humans didn't develop anything like organized agriculture until about 8,000 years ago, too recent in our physical evolution to have developed a predominantly grain-consuming physiology.
Actually, at least two.
First being the implication that humans are somehow not adapted/meant to eat grain. As if were talking rocks and not plants.
Plants, which humans found SO tasty, they decided to plant them.
We planted what we could eat already. We did NOT plant random things and then tried to eat them.
Second error lies in the fact that not only did we not need to evolve the ability to digest each kind of food one at a time, we actually simply picked up the ability to digest locally available food.
How? By ingesting such food (as in trying to eat it). Along with the bacteria already feeding on it.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100413072046.htm
So, instead of evolving our own abilities to digest certain food for thousands and thousands of human generations - we picked it up from the millions and millions of generations of the local bacteria.
Who adapted to living in our intestines where it's warm and safe and the food is plentiful all year round.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Pre Homo Sapiens had an accelerated development cycle, Closer to that of a Chimpanzee, and undoubtedly a very similar diet.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
The healthy eating debate is only one side of this whole argument. Although, I tend to agree we American's need to eat way less meat for health reasons. The real issue is that the meat industry in the U.S. alone produces 15% of the WORLD'S green house gases, which is much more than the entire world's transportation. Maybe instead of making hybrid cars we should be looking at the meat industry to cut down on green house gases, it would certainly be more effective. Again, 15% of the entire world's green house gas emissions come from the U.S. meat industry, which shows how ridiculous the amount of meat that we eat is compared to the rest of the world. America is also the most overweight country, wonder if there is any correlation here? Rhetorical question, overeating meat is a large contributor to our unhealthiness in America and has been linked to increasing all sorts of health risks. Meat is not bad, I really REALLY love meat, but we need moderation for, not only our individual health, but the health of the entire planet.
http://saveourbones.com/osteoporosis-milk-myth/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/lean-challenge_b_1432765.html http://www.llli.org/FAQ/bflength.html http://www.notmilk.com/ http://www.naturalnews.com/031255_milk_health.html Hell, http://lmgtfy.com/?q=why+milk+is+bad+for+humans Cow's milk is essential only for their calf, and only when they are growing, just like human breast milk for their children. It is a myth that more milk is good for our bones and yadda yadda. The USDA pushes the milk campaign to keep making money.
I'd rather talk to Jehovah's Witnesses than vegans.
Why thank you. If you're interested in the Bible and how you can apply God's principles to your life, you can always search the JW web site for pages that mention vegetables. You can start with a few verses from the Bible: it's OK to do so (Genesis 9:3), but make sure to drain the blood out first (9:4), and don't try forcing other people into eating what they don't want (Romans 14:2-3).
Eating meat helped early humans reproduce...when it wasn't helping them not reproduce.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I sure do. Look at rates of osteoporosis as it relates to milk consumption and tell us what you find.
Yes, it's called 'evolution', look it up some time...
"Do you have some nutritional basis with which to reject milk as being a valid source of food for an adult?"
LOL.
Are you serious? Even the Slashdot morons will have to admit that milk is a special food source, designed specifically for babies, of the SAME SPECIES, and as you are neither, why are you drinking it?
I see you couldn't actually address anything I'd written in my previous post... and neither could any other non-vegan Slashdotters...
...then what is all the argument and furor about? This just means that PETAscum and anorexic Hollyweird types who think their opinions about what the rest of the world eat and wear will eventually Darwinize themselves out of the gene pool. In the long run they and the rest of their population subgroup will not-eat themselves out of propagating the species, and once more logic and rationality will rule the human psyche. People will gleefully eat red meat to their hearts' content, and the odd idiot who makes a fuss about how cows and pigs and chickens are people, too, will be laughed into nonreproductivity.
Truly, it's a bright bright future we can look forward to.
Life, ultimately, boils down to the Four Fs: Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding, and Mating.
Just because you buy her a steak, doesn't mean she's GOT to sleep with you!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"I have mod points...."
The moderation system on /. sucks. Mostly because moderators punish those of politics with which they do not agree.
When i had mod points they vanished before i found suitable targets.
I suggest that mod points last for weeks, and that the count of negative points be restricted to 1/5 of allocations.
We absolutely co-evolved with cattle. Do you have some nutritional basis with which to reject milk as being a valid source of food for an adult?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance
"Lactose intolerance, also called lactase deficiency and hypolactasia, is the inability to digest lactose, a sugar found in milk and some dairy products.
Lactose intolerant individuals have insufficient levels of lactase, the enzyme that metabolizes lactose into glucose and galactose, in their digestive system. In most cases, such individuals will experience symptoms such as abdominal bloating and cramps, flatulence, diarrhea, nausea, borborygmi (rumbling stomach) and/or vomiting[1] after consuming significant amounts of lactose.
Most mammals normally become lactose intolerant after weaning, but some human populations have developed lactase persistence, in which lactase production continues into adulthood. It is estimated that 75% of adults worldwide show some decrease in lactase activity during adulthood.[2] The frequency of decreased lactase activity ranges from 5% in northern Europe through 71% for Sicily to more than 90% in some African and Asian countries.[3]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence
"Lactase persistence is the continued activity of the enzyme lactase in adulthood. Since lactase's only function is the digestion of lactose in milk, in most mammals species the activity of the enzyme is dramatically reduced after weaning.[1] However in some human populations lactase persistence has recently evolved[2] as an adaptation to the consumption of non-human milk and dairy products beyond infancy. The majority of people around the world remain lactase non-persistent,[1] and consequently are affected by varying degrees of lactose intolerance as adults – though not all genetically lactase non-persistent individuals are noticeably lactose intolerant, and not all lactose intolerant individuals have the lactase non-persistence allele."
Despite being descended from milk drinking Europeans, since I ceased being a child, drinking milk has been nothing but an unpleasant experience, and I suffer from many of the symptoms mentioned above.
On the plus side, on the rare occasion that I get constipated, if I then drink a liter of chocolate milk, my problem soon is solved.
So how many people here have actually researched human nutrition for at least 15 minutes before posting their precious opinion?
There's a lot of ignorance here. A society's diet becomes so much a part of it's culture and so much of a part of each individual's identity that people will irrationally defend it in a similar fashion as their theist beliefs.
Go look for some facts. You might find that:
- Being a Vegan is the healthiest diet there is.
- Nutritional deficiencies are no more common amongst vegans than it is amongst meat-eaters.
- Milk is a crap source of calcium as it's animal proteins make your blood more acidic which your body counters by leaching calcium-phosphate to balance.
- Humans are not any more carnivorous than cows (which have much bigger canine teeth).
- There are many ignorant, obnoxious and preachy meat-eater 'cunts' in the world too (see above).
- Not all vegans are extremist hippies. I became a vegan on my own accord after extensive research made me reluctantly choose to be one so as to not feel like a hypocrite. This was a rational decision supported by just about every major heath organisation (including the WHO) in the world. It was much a choice about ethics as it was about health.
- People from vegan cultures are smaller because they've generally been starving for ages. You think Indians are skinny because they're vegan or are they vegan because there's not enough food to go around over there?
- Nutritional concerns with Veagnism is a lack of B12 and a lack of a couple fatty acids that are not produced enough in the body unless you eat algae like fish do. B12 used to be in all fresh water supplies but the sterilisation process which prevents cholera also kills the bacteria that makes B12. B12 making bacteria enjoys making love on meat carcasses though, so that's why meat eaters get it; though all demographs in western societies could use much more B12 in their diet. In regards to the fatty acids only coming from fish sources; good nutrition and not being too much of an alcoholic allows your body to produce these long-chain polyunsaturated n-3 fatty acids in more than sufficient quantity. Being defficient in these essential fatty acids is just as common amongst meat eaters.
- Being a vegan does not mean munching on rabbit food for the rest of your life. I miss steak and cheese
- Many vegans are simply too well informed of the kind of practices used in the mass-production of animal products to continue eating meat in good conscience.
- Most meat eaters seem blissfully ignorant (I certainly was) of many aspects of industries producing animal products. The fact that 800,000 'bobby' calves are killed each year just so I can drink milk and eat cheese cannot be justified as an ethical practice not a necessary one.
I used to be a barbecue-loving steak-munching Australian; I still am, but without the steak. I don't preach at you, and I don't even want to talk about it- you won't be able to tell that the sausages I bring to your barbecue aren't meat. If you're a rational person who asks me about it I'll just tell you to >>> Go research the facts without bias academic sources here, but instead I'll just recommend people try out Google Scollar for the first time in their lives! It's great; you get to read interesting things that are actually true!
Like Douglas Hofstadter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter
Oh no, vegans and non vegans disagree on what to eat. Whatever shall we do.
I say, we let the vocal minority of non vegans and the vocal minority of vegans who would attack people on what they do or don't eat fight to the death. Then the rest of us vegans and non vegans who would rather play Dota 2 can enjoy life without people commenting that our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago ate meat and therefore are superior.
By the way, our ancestors weren't as smart or developed as us. Why is it that claiming our ancestors are superior only applies when you disagree with the topic? If a person hates computers, they instantly use the argument that they didn't need in Their Day. Also known as the Get Off my Lawn argument. If a person dislikes vegans, they instantly state that our ancestors, including Chimps, ate meat. And yes, chimps did partake in meat as snacks. Usually bugs.
Finally, everyone has topics that they would readily defend. Here's two from Slashdot.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/03/21/177221/tennessee-passes-bill-that-allows-teaching-the-controversy-of-evolution?sdsrc=popbyskidbtmprev
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/04/12/1511255/lack-of-vaccination-sends-babies-in-oregon-to-the-hospital?sdsrc=popbyskidbtmprev
A vegan defends veganism, we defend Evolution, CS, maybe our operating system of choice, hey, it's called being human.
Yes!!!! Cats are viscous and nasty... we should eat them!!!
In any case, its not the milk but the products derived from milk that most adult people are interested in... cheese, yogurt, cream, butter, etc.
Even today, someone eats a little meat... and before you know it, surprise, babies happen!!!
Paleo man may have been a meat eater, but also had a relatively short life span, so lifestyle diseases related to diet did not have time to manifest as they do now when we are living longer.
There are so fairly active and impressive vegans around, including the Badwater Ultramarathon multi winner Scott Jurek. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Jurek
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864
Abstract
It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes. A vegetarian diet is defined as one that does not include meat (including fowl) or seafood, or products containing those foods. This article reviews the current data related to key nutrients for vegetarians including protein, n-3 fatty acids, iron, zinc, iodine, calcium, and vitamins D and B-12. A vegetarian diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients. In some cases, supplements or fortified foods can provide useful amounts of important nutrients. An evidence- based review showed that vegetarian diets can be nutritionally adequate in pregnancy and result in positive maternal and infant health outcomes. The results of an evidence-based review showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease. Vegetarians also appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than nonvegetarians. Furthermore, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates. Features of a vegetarian diet that may reduce risk of chronic disease include lower intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol and higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, soy products, fiber, and phytochemicals. The variability of dietary practices among vegetarians makes individual assessment of dietary adequacy essential. In addition to assessing dietary adequacy, food and nutrition professionals can also play key roles in educating vegetarians about sources of specific nutrients, food purchase and preparation, and dietary modifications to meet their needs.
We need more meat to become even smarter, yummy, fire up the BBQ and lets see what we can cook up tonight! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=meatatarian
Our teeth are more like veg eating animals that meat eating ones. We do not have teeth for tearing away flesh. Our interstines are more like veg eaters. Long to extract max neturents. Meat eaters have short interstines as meat rots quickly. Ask any Hare Kriahna.
Here. http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/smallgut/lactose_intol.html
"appropriately planned vegetarian diets"
That's really the issue, isn't it?
I don't have to spend any real time planning my diet. A vegan does.
If the vegan doesn't, then he/she risks serious physical and mental harm.
This alone should tell us that a hard vegan diet may not be the most sensible idea. A pure meat eating diet isn't brilliant either. How about a balanced omni diet? Well, turns out that then the ONLY thing you have to think about is eating appropriate amounts when you're hungry. All nutrients are covered, all energy requirements are covered. We're not talking about large doses of meat either. You could almost fit the daily dose of meat into a shotglass... voilá, all your nutritional needs are now met.
Nice share...
Distribution of people on earth because of early humans began eating meat
http://nulissuka.blogspot.com
I gave up meat 5 years ago as I simply didn't like how the big food processors treat animals. I'm still 18st and over 6 foot tall, I am not one of your palid, scrawny vegetarians that we're often painted to be. My wife's a vegetarian too but our kids are not, we cook meat for them and they eat it and hope they continue to eat meat, I ate meat when I was growing up and it's good for you as part of a balanced diet. I simply choose not to eat it anymore but that's no reason to force it on others, like my kids. I don't preach to those who love eating meat, I don't try to change anyone and I don't insist on anyone making exceptions for my choice. if there is no vege option then I simply go without, why should I make life difficult for others? Yeah it all sounds a bit hypocritical but I life is not black and white, life is a billion shades of grey.
My kids have asked us why we don't eat meat and as they're only around 8 years old we've given them the sanitized version of how meat gets to the table, they just accept it and still enjoy it all the same. I have no problem when friends take my kids to McDonalds, Burger King and KFC, I personally won't eat anything they make but that's no reason why my kids should go without, they will have to make their own choices one day when they have the full facts.
You know my favourite food smell on the planet? The smell of freshly cooked bacon and steak on an open grill, those smells just still send me heaven as they always did! I still love the smell of cooked meat, I just don't want to eat it anymore. I respect people's wishes to eat meat, leave me alone with my choices and I'll leave you alone with yours.
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-meat-eating-reproduction-20120420,0,2388092.story
Leave off the shotglass of meat, and all your nutritional needs are still met, and you're healthier because you ate what your body is optimized for, and left out the crap that that stresses the system and provides no benefit.
What is this .. science for idiots? This has been known for decades, but what's this got to do with computers or tech?
Is that we don't need to be eating meat. We don't need to raise billions of animals for slaughter, we shouldn't be subsidizing meat production and we pollute the planet terribly trying to raise so much meat. Further, almost half the water we use is to raise meat. /. is pretty Earth friendly as a rule but most people here are dancing around this one.
All these people that say "well I get my meat from a local guy I trust" is a poor argument. It takes far more land and resource to raise meat organically and humanely. It's ultimately impractical. Google "The Myth of Sustainable Meat". Further, would you ever let someone kill you just because they were really nice to you and fed you well? I know there's a joke coming in the comments, but no, you wouldn't. Why should we kill these animals?
A lot of arguments here are trying to frame vegetarians and vegans as either arrogant, inconsistent or hypocrites. You know, we're not some political party or religious group. Some join the ALF, but most of us are just trying to do as little harm as possible while on this planet. That's a noble goal. We're not going to be perfect at it. I'm not a perfect husband, father, son or brother, either. But damnit I try every day.
Further, you are all guilty of the same. We all love our dogs and cats and can't bare to see them hurt, yet we love eating pigs, which are more intelligent than both. We love the earth but not if it means less hot wings. And meat eaters start arguments with vegans at equal rates. People are irrational *no matter* their leanings, big surprise.
Most likely the humans originally living by the sea in equatorial Africa eating Omega-3 rich fish allowed the brain to become what it is.