Question For You Vegetarians?

Question

Why do you guys oppose eating meat? IF our ancestors didnt eat meat, we would still be hitting stuff with rocks. Scientists have said that meat was the main reason our brains grew so big from the protein or some thing.

i guess another question would be would you rather have it like this: What if humans never ate meat in their history? would that make you happy? I think having our brains develop is worth it at the expense of some animals.

@ godself, what im saying is exactly that, before we had fire our ancestors were well....not as bright as us right? well, eating that cooked meat helped us also, to prove you wrong about the 10% thing, here is a link http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html
also, why would our brains develop that big unless we had a use for it? evolution doesnt work that way. unless you are a religious person, you have no excuse to combat that finding

yes, our brain is a tool, and we have pretty much a complete mastery of it. We can use 100% of it and its capibilities. And meat made that possible, so i guess the new question is would you rather save wild animals and not have advanced intellectual capabilities or would you rather be as smart as we are now and harm some animals

okay i have done some more reasearch and yes here are my findings:
Milton argues that meat supplied early humans not only with all the essential amino acids, but also with many vitamins, minerals and other nutrients they required, allowing them to exploit marginal, low quality plant foods, like roots - foods that have few nutrients but lots of calories. These calories, or energy, fueled the expansion of the human brain and, in addition, permitted human ancestors to increase in body size while remaining active and social. To put it short, people needed meat to get nutrients and remain healthy, cause the herbivoreic diet they used to thrive on only produced a mass of calories with little nutrients.

ah, but our ancestors probably did not eat as much meat as we do, probably with the accesability of the substance, with most of their calories coming from plants. Also, could these figures be from the fact that our domestically grown cows have a higher fat to muscle ratio than wild ones of the past? Also, could the chemicals we use to grow them that fat and big be of any cause? Maybe you have already proven me wrong, but i am just a 12 year old boy, so excuse me if i dont understand some of what you are saying

Answer 1

The same scientists say we only use about 10% of our brain, too, so that argument doesn't hold water.
The human body is fundamentally designed not to eat meat, since none of our internal organs have the same protective materials to allow us to eat raw meat. This is why we must bombard our meat with heat to kill all the bacteria, to tenderise it, etc, etc. So getting back to your argument, what do you think our ancestors ate before they discovered how to make fire? The answer is ofcourse that they were vegan.
Personally I don't oppose eating meat, I just choose not to. There is a big difference. I answer your question for educative purposes, not agressive or argumentative purposes.

To answer your additional information;
The brain is a tool. What good is a tool if you don't know how to use it correctly. Without proper training, would you rather fumble around with a chainsaw, that could potentially cause injury, or take hold of a blunt butter knife that you've used all your life? If your answer depends on the project at hand, your task is to cut gelatine (jelly) into equal parts so you can spoon it into several bowls for your family dessert after a meal (That should put things into perspective).

I looked at the webpage you offered. This is what I found:

The Man:
Eric H. Chudler, Ph.D.
Director of Education and Outreach
University of Washington Engineered Biomaterials (UWEB)
Department of Bioengineering
BOX 355061
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-5061
[e-mail]

His qualifications:
Ph.D., Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, 1985
M.S., Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, 1983
B.S., Psychobiology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1980

His opinion:
"There is no scientific evidence to suggest that we use only 10% of our brains." This may be because he simply hasn't found any yet, or because he chooses not to display it. Remember, the meat industry will pay big money to buy the opinion of reputed experts to support their advertising, and a professor has to pay his bills aand keep his department at the university in operation. That takes $$.

And yet in his own statement he mentions the names of all the people who have actually tested and experiemented in this area. He is clever, however, not to provide exact quotes attached to names, as this would provide a means to refute his argument. Remember, he studied psychology, so he's aware of how to manipulate thoughts and opinions. Very convincing page, on the surface. I don't have time to delve deeper and disprove his claims here, but I'll make a premature start:

From the page: "We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources" (from The Energies of Men, p. 12).

The idea that we only use a small percentage of our brain refers to the potential that the brain is physically capable of, in terms of the number of neurons firing simultaneously. Over millenia, our laziness has become accustomed to having "room to move" in our heads with an excess of brain matter, so we use all the neurons at some point in our lives, but almost never all at the same time, and almost never even a majority, for any extended period. Tests conducted on sinaptic activity show that brain function at it's highest level recorded were at times when extraordinary mental ability was being conducted, such as telepathics, telekinetics, clairvoyance, etc, and a statistical analysis of these recordings compared to the general population provided a rough scale of potentiality.
these analyses showed that we are, on average, using about 10% of our potential sinaptic ability (our brain, for short).

It is true that meat has many positive ingredients for the body to grow, however scientifically speaking the negatives outweigh the positives. Statistically speaking, the highest death rates on earth are malnutrition and disease, however in the western world the stats are far different. The National Geographic Magazine did a study that showed 1 in 4 people in the US die of Stroke, 1 in 5 die of heart failure, 1 in 6 die of cancer, and the list goes on. This means that people are dropping like flies from an excess of fat in their bloodstream, and chemicals which lead to the mutation of free radicals which causes cancer. Meat retains the highest level of chemicals of any food matter for the longest length of time, and contains the highest fat content. Obesity is the third greatest threat to the US after Global warming and terrorism. Diabetes is at it's highest level every recorded, with children as young as 5 being diagnosed with type 2, the potentially lethal type. This problem is accentuated with popularity of smoking, excessive alcohol drinking, prescription and illicit drug use, particularly xanax, prozac, viagra, asprin and pain killers, and ice, marijuana, caffiene, guarana, aspartame, ... the list is VERY long, all of which are potentially fatal and contribute to the 3 killers listed earlier. Clearly, however, the number 1 contributor is animal foods that are supposedly edible.

My choice to not eat meat includes the compassion I hold toward other living beings, but that's not the point of this conversation. My choice also includes my desire to eat healthy, and that is the point of this conversation, however it is not my defining motivation, nor is the evironment that lives as a result of choosing not to fund the companies that want to destroy it for the promotion of this industry, or the food that I'm not eating that could be sent to malnourished impoverished people around the world, helping them to live. My fundamental principle motivations lie in my right as a human being to choose not to eat meat, and my desire to see other life forms enjoy the same rights I do, to choose as they wish. Therefore, it would be hipocritical of me to impose my choice on others, through criticism, condemnation or complaint of their choices. This is about education, not obedience. Only those willing to become veg*n after instruction, or choose on their own should be veg*n, and those who choose otherwise should be free to do so without fear of reprisal from veg*ns. The consumer has all the power!

Answer 2

Vegetarian

Answer 3

Our ancestors worked a lot harder than we do just to stay alive. Even most of our -great-grandparents put in a hard day on the farm or at a labor-intensive job, and they burned a lot of calories. They didn't have the options of fresh vegetables all year around and imported fruits and grains like we do.

Today, the average person doesn't work nearly as hard as our ancestors did. People tend to eat too much meat and take in too many calories that don't get burned up in the course of a day. We can eat healthier than ever before, due to a constant supply of fresh vegetables, fruits, and grains.

Personally, I don't like the taste or smell of meat any more -- probably something to do with my age. I do know that in the seven months since I stopped eating meat, I've lost over 45 pounds, my joints don't ache as badly, and I'm in much better health overall.

Vegetarianism is a personal choice -- I don't care if someone else eats meat, but it's just not right for my body any more.

Answer 4

Thue, it was only because of meat that human's developed the way they did mentally, but in other physical ways too. Without meat it's unlikely that proto humans could have secured enough energy and nutrition from the plants available in their African environment at that time to evolve into the active, sociable, intelligent creatures they became. Receding forests would have deprived them of the more nutritious leaves and fruits that forest-dwelling primates survive on.
This is not just the opinion of a few fringe scientists, but quite a popular view these days.

But many vegetarians dispute that eating meat is even natural to us, despite overwhelming scientific opinion to the contrary, so you can't expect them to believe this can you?

Answer 5

I don't have a problem with people eating flesh if they hunt for the animal themselves and KILL it for sure, not just injure it and then it runs away injured, only to suffer.

It's the meat industry that I'm totally opposed to. Meat industries, dairy industry, fur industry, leather industry, silk industry, etc.

People may have eaten meat before, but they hunted the animal and ate all of it. Nowadays there are factory farms, which are cruel cruel cruel.

Early man might have eaten meat (probably less than we eat), but they did it out of necessity. Nowadays, we have such an abundance of crops, there is no need to eat meat. Meat eating is a luxury, not a need, certainly not a biological need. We weren't even designed to be omnivores, only herbivores. Look at our teeth, no fangs there. We don't have talons or big jaws either. We're designed for vegetation. Sure, we can adapt to meat, but we're much more suited for vegetation. Meat eating causes us to get sick.

It's the various industries that exploit and abuse animals that I am against. I'm cool if you hunt for food, just make sure you 1) actually need it for survival, and not for luxury, and that you 2) KILL IT IMMEDIATELY.so it doesn't suffer.

Answer 6

I'm going to be to the point.

Let's assume for one moment that eating meat DID enable our ancestors' brains to grow big and smart. (I'm not going to argue that it didn't because I don't know.)

Okay, that was a reasonable assumption.

Now, do you really think my decision not to eat meat is going to erase thousands upon thousands of years of evolution? Do you think because I don't eat meat I'm going to become stupid? That my children are going to become stupid?

I don't think so. For one thing, we humans have learned the science of nutrition - what we need to stay healthy and develope our bodies and minds properly. We now know how to be as strong and smart as our ancestors without eating meat.

Asking "what if our ancestors had never eaten meat and had never become smarter?" is pointless. The fact is: they (as civilizations, at least) ate meat and got smarter. NOTHING we vegetarians can do can change that.

Answer 7

I chose not to eat meat because it is fattening and I do not really like it anymore. It was getting boring and bland to me. I do think it is sad we eat other living things, but I understand that is life. That is the way things are. I am not opposed to it though.

Answer 8

I am not a strict vegetarian but it seems to me that if we have these big brains we can use them to learn how to combine plant foods for complete nutrition and also to discover that eating this way is healthier for our bodies as well as more economical and kinder to the other inhabitants of the planet. But maybe that's just me.

Answer 9

I don't care what anyone in the past did. I am here in the present and it is not necessary for me to eat meat. And are you sure about that study? "our brains grew so big from the protein **or some thing**"

Answer 10

I am a vegetarian because everytime i took a bite of chicken i remembered that it used to be alive...think about it you are eating FLESH off of something that used to LIVE! the more I thought about it...the more grossed out I got and now i don't eat any meat!

Answer 11

Come on my friend, you seem science based, do a bit more research. If you really want to know the truth, it won't take long for you to find all the facts, then you can make a real choice. Courage, to look at both sides of the argument, and then trust yourself to see the truth.

may the force be with you. God Bless.