13 Reasons to Limit Meat Consumption

[Kumquatv1]

Two things children.

1. Humans are omnivores and it is proven that our diet, while it should contain some meat, is currently filled with too much. We need to incorporate less meat and more veggies and legumes into our diet. The Mediteranean diet is actually a really good guide to follow. And yes, I don't follow it as well as I should myself cause I do like meat but I and most other Americans need to get better about that.

2. I wonder how long till we can actually produce meat without needing the animals. Something along the lines of growing the meat by splicing DNA and growing it on a scaffolding in a nutrient soup type thing. Think of the possibilities. If we can do something like this we can make meat that is incredibly lean and good for you and still tastes like meat.

[5x10]

excellent list. factory farming meat is depleting our resources. not to mention the health problems that come with eating meat (though these aren't enumerated here). the health reasons to cutting back on meat are equally convincing, if not more.

about to cook 5 lbs of beef tenderloin

[Klippymitch]

But the enjoyment of life would drop if meat was unobtainable. Meat is very enjoyable to eat.

[Minotaur]

and yes, we did evolve eating meat, but we also didn't live beyond 30. meat causes chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease.

That is totally false. The average lifespan is calculated to be about 30-40 years. That average includes high infant mortality and extreme old age. There is archaeological and fossil evidence for it. Early deaths are attributed to hunting accidents, untreated diseases and infections. The genetic lifespan of humans has been the same for millions of years. There is no difference in the genetic lifespan of a "caveman" and a modern man.

The studies pointing to heart disease and cancer from a meat diet were done incorrectly and are skewed and flawed. It's simply a cultural meme that keeps getting parroted.

[Minotaur]

That is only what the nutjobs are saying. Our natural diet relies heavily on wild plants (very different than the nutritionally sterile ones we eat today). Meat is difficult to obtain on a reliable basis and poses a greater risk to the consumer. We are designed to and should eat meat, we need the protein to sustain our brains and essential amino acid intake. However, we are additionally designed to digest fruits, vegetables, and other plant tissues not rich in cellulose. Our modern plant diet of grains and seed oils is just as bad as our over consumption of red meat and antibiotic injected poultry.

We and the Earth would both be a lot better off if we adapted a diet more rich in vegetative plant tissue, fruit, and meats raised on a natural diet, with a little less red meat overall.

Misguided propaganda is what is, but our food production challenges and nutritional problems are not the imaginations of tree loving hippies run amok.

Homo sapiens evolved on a diet high in fat. It's what caused our brains to grow as they did. During the last glaciation, which lasted several tens of thousands of years, plants were hard to come by in the northern hemisphere. Only animals were to be had.

Any fruit that was available after the glaciers retreated was nothing like we have today. There were no bananas or citrus, being that they are native to the tropics, and man had not yet migrated there. Apples, if available were tiny sour things; wild berries were abundant but didn't have the sugar that today's berries have; there were no peaches or plums.

Green plants were tough and fibrous. Everything we think of today as a vegetable has been domesticated and bred for their current properties. Given the choice, paleo man opted for animal products, the fat in particular. Green plants were not the mainstay of primitive man's diet. Not to say they shouldn't be eaten. Archaeological sites show the long bones of animals smashed open and scraped clean. Of what... ? The fatty bone marrow.

http://www.paleodiet.net/

[drpurple]

there is evidence to suggest that calorie-deficit diets, limiting people to around 1800 calories per day can significantly prolong life. shoule we all start doing that too?

[VAPlowhorse]

Homo sapiens evolved on a diet high in fat. It's what caused our brains to grow as they did. During the last glaciation, which lasted several tens of thousands of years, plants were hard to come by in the northern hemisphere. Only animals were to be had.

Any fruit that was available after the glaciers retreated was nothing like we have today. There were no bananas or citrus, being that they are native to the tropics, and man had not yet migrated there. Apples, if available were tiny sour things; wild berries were abundant but didn't have the sugar that today's berries have; there were no peaches or plums.

Green plants were tough and fibrous. Everything we think of today as a vegetable has been domesticated and bred for their current properties. Given the choice, paleo man opted for animal products, the fat in particular. Green plants were not the mainstay of primitive man's diet. Not to say they shouldn't be eaten. Archaeological sites show the long bones of animals smashed open and scraped clean. Of what... ? The fatty bone marrow.

http://www.paleodiet.net/

I wasn't looking to go that far back. The time period I was addressing was the dawn of civilization and agriculture by Homo sapiens sapiens (our current subspecies). More specifically, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle . Neanderthal and probably Cro-Magnan man were the ones pigging out on the meats. We are slightly different from both, I was only looking 10000 years or so back. Everything you said about modern crops and ancient fruits is very true.

Anyway, I was not implying we should not eat meat either. Simply a more diverse selection of non-industrialized meat coupled with healthier plants and larger quantities of the latter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

[Minotaur]

Neanderthal and probably Cro-Magnan man were the ones pigging out on the meats. We are slightly different from both, I was only looking 10000 years or so back. Everything you said about modern crops and ancient fruits is very true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

Not to split hairs, but we are Cro-Magnon. Cro-Magnon refers to the area of France were the first anatomically modern human remains were found. Btw, I don't believe Neanderthals went "extinct" in the traditional sense. I believe we interbred. I know what geneticists say... there's no DNA evidence. But maybe too small a sampling was done. They readily admit Neanderthal DNA is hard to come by. And look at humans v. chimpanzees: 98% DNA in common and so anatomically and morphologically different. Why not the same with Homo neanderthalensis (or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) and Homo sapiens?

What many paleo-diet advocates maintain is that 10,000 years is not enough time v. 200,000 years to adapt to being able to digest grains effectively.

But my take on it is the same as Poliquin's: If you can eat pasta and other grains without any problems, go for it. You may be one of those who are adapting. I'm jealous of you. If you can't handle them, don't try eating them.

[hooked4life]

Well factory farming is very dangerous.

I'm not going to post a million links, but anyone with any amount of honest curiosity to google it up.

You don't need to concern yourself with heart-throb sites, pictures of a million animals crammed into a wire cage or care about the animals themselves. However, the 1) extremlly narrow biodiversity that now constitutes the lion share of our food combined with 2) the extreme amount of antibiotic medication that these animals are given to survive is a disaster waiting to happen.

If you can't figure out why ... well I won't be able to help you.

I'm not against eating meat, and as a student I too eat what is cheap most of the time. However, at least be aware of the tightrope we are treading on this one.

[Enso]

and yes, we did evolve eating meat, but we also didn't live beyond 30. meat causes chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease. and you forgot that early man was running around 24/7, burning ****tons of calories, so he actually needed food like meat. we certainly don't need meat in the way our ancestors needed it.

Meat back then was free range/grass fed. The problems with meat started when farmers switched over to grain fed to keep up with demand (and also started injecting them with GH and steroids).

http://www.eatwild.com/

So, naturally, if we were to lower demand, farmers could perhaps go back to free range/grass fed by default.

[Enso]

Basically, American politics has gotten so polarized that anything proposed by anyone can now be safely called propaganda and ignored.

Against socialized medicine = corporatist propaganda, you are clearly in bed with the insurance companies
For socialized medicine = communist propaganda, you are clearly a Marxist

Against environmental protections = Republican propaganda, you are clearly in bed with big oil
For environmental protections = Leftist propaganda, you've been brainwashed by socialist professors

Amirite?

Uarriteasfasict

[whodatbe]

anybody besides me craving steak right now?

[lightningwatche]

Hahahaha. PREPOSTEROUS. The average life expectancy and physical stature of the paleolithic era wasn't matched again until recently- agriculture ruined human health and longevity, not meat.

milling wheat with grinding stones ruined our teeth. And farmers who just ate their wheat instead of a variety of plants, of course were less healthy.

But today you can get a variety of plants at the store. That is why we live so long today. It is inaccurate to say the meat is our reason for longevity. Many vegans live long healthy lives.

I'm healthy, my only animal product is milk and cheese.

[lightningwatche]

2) the extreme amount of antibiotic medication that these animals are given to survive is a disaster waiting to happen.

If you can't figure out why ... well I won't be able to help you.

They will breed anti-biotic resistant bacteria. And spread viruses from animal to animal very fast for fast breeding.

[lightningwatche]

there is evidence to suggest that calorie-deficit diets, limiting people to around 1800 calories per day can significantly prolong life. shoule we all start doing that too?

No, just take resveratrol instead. Affects the same gene activity.

I personally just eat around 2000 calories per day. 2 sets per muscle group, with all muscle groups twice a week, and some cardio, is plenty for me. I suspect if you eat and burn 5000 calories per day every day, it will shorten your life.

[hooked4life]

They will breed anti-biotic resistant bacteria. And spread viruses from animal to animal very fast for fast breeding.

Combined with a world-wide food supply limited to a half dozen breeds of animals. Very very bad.

[SomeRandomName]

brb eating meat

[Enso]

there is evidence to suggest that calorie-deficit diets, limiting people to around 1800 calories per day can significantly prolong life. shoule we all start doing that too?

I thought those people kept their calories around 1200 or less. 1800 calories a day is not so drastic, though you will definitely not be able to be 225lbs ripped doing so.

[yoj]

Being at the top of the food chain, this is not news. No matter what we eat, we are the .001% on this diagram and we still need to produce the 10% chunk somewhere. A far more interesting and helpful proposition is to reduce the growth of the human population. Choosing to have no kids is going to "do more for the environment" than buying a Prius and going vegan ten times over. Go on now, do whats best for the environment!

Also, our ancestors didn't only live until 30. A life expectancy of 30 is calculated based on high infant mortality rates, which bring the average way down. There were still 60, 70, and even 90 year olds kicking around in the savannah hundreds of thousands of years ago.

I will give it to you that the viral/bacteria superbug breeding grounds is a very big concern. But at this point there really isn't any turning back. Buying local is probably the best you can do about it.

[OatsandSteak]

Meat is good.

Mass producing animals for consumption could be bad, I don't know enough about agriculture.

[darkblood]

Two things children.

2. I wonder how long till we can actually produce meat without needing the animals. Something along the lines of growing the meat by splicing DNA and growing it on a scaffolding in a nutrient soup type thing. Think of the possibilities. If we can do something like this we can make meat that is incredibly lean and good for you and still tastes like meat.

We already have this kind of technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat

In vitro meat, also known as laboratory-grown meat or cultured meat, is animal flesh that has never been part of a complete, living animal. Some scientists are currently experimentally growing in vitro meat in laboratories, but no meat has yet been produced for public consumption. Potentially, any animal could be a source of cells for in vitro meat.

Many biologists assert that this technology is ready for commercial use and simply needs a company to back it. Production of lab-grown meat could even be much cheaper than regular meat. For in vitro meat, costs only apply to the meat production, whereas for traditional meat, costs include animal raising and environmental protection (meaning there are fewer negative externalities associated with in vitro meat). However, there is disagreement over whether in vitro meat can be made economically competitive with traditional meat.

In vitro meat should not be confused with imitation meat, which can be a vegetarian food product produced from vegetable protein, usually from soy or gluten. The terms synthetic meat and artificial meat are synonymous, and they may refer to either, or both, rather.

One of the great things about in-vitro meat is that the meat can ebe customized with more nutrition and healthy fats.

[anonymous]

I wasn't looking to go that far back. The time period I was addressing was the dawn of civilization and agriculture by Homo sapiens sapiens (our current subspecies). More specifically, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle . Neanderthal and probably Cro-Magnan man were the ones pigging out on the meats. We are slightly different from both, I was only looking 10000 years or so back. Everything you said about modern crops and ancient fruits is very true.

Anyway, I was not implying we should not eat meat either. Simply a more diverse selection of non-industrialized meat coupled with healthier plants and larger quantities of the latter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer

the Agrarian revolution was actually a huge step backwards for us as a species.. skeletal records show lifespans shortened dramatically, growth was stunted and a whole host of diseases ravaged the malnourished agricultural societies.

We lived shorter, miserable lives but the increased amount of ****ty food we ate meant those grain-consuming groups outbred the hunter/gatherers considerably.

It's funny as there is absolutely no merit or rationale with the traditional western grain-based diet, beyond 'we have done this for thousands of years'

[anonymous]

I thought those people kept their calories around 1200 or less. 1800 calories a day is not so drastic, though you will definitely not be able to be 225lbs ripped doing so.

The reduced-cal idiocy makes me angry.. it's extrapolated from studies on mice who lived longer on starvation diets.

Know why? In starvation their sex drive shuts down, so they don't have sexual stress to deal with. Anyone who's owned a small animal knows that neutering prolongs an animal's lifespan considerably.

But the point was compleletly missed and thousands of old people are busy starving themselves at a time in their lives where they need high quality nutrition the most...

[hooked4life]

the Agrarian revolution was actually a huge step backwards for us as a species.. skeletal records show lifespans shortened dramatically, growth was stunted and a whole host of diseases ravaged the malnourished agricultural societies.

We lived shorter, miserable lives but the increased amount of ****ty food we ate meant those grain-consuming groups outbred the hunter/gatherers considerably.

It's funny as there is absolutely no merit or rationale with the traditional western grain-based diet, beyond 'we have done this for thousands of years'

1) I suppose, unless you actually like ... well having anything like what we consider civilization. I'd imagine you could go buy a shack somewhere in Alaska and come close to hunter/gather for the rest of your life. Chop chop.

2) It's not just Western. See number 1.

[anonymous]

1) I suppose, unless you actually like ... well having anything like what we consider civilization. I'd imagine you could go buy a shack somewhere in Alaska and come close to hunter/gather for the rest of your life. Chop chop.

2) It's not just Western. See number 1.

No, it was. Civilization has nothing to do with our genetic health as a species

We preserved bad genetics that otherwise wouldn't have made the cut, bred in millions of faults and diseases and pretty much raped the planet in the process.

True, it's global.. it's just we in the west have diet 'experts' who try to enshrine it in science. the rest of the world eats like that because they can't afford anything else.

I remember reading some WHO stats on baby health.. one thing that struck me was the country with the world's worst diet (india) has children born with the least muscle and most fat.

[reyalp]

lol at citing Alternet (and the UN).

does anyone have any other citations?



brb asking Iran for facts about the Holocaust.

[hooked4life]

No, it was. Civilization has nothing to do with our genetic health as a species

We preserved bad genetics that otherwise wouldn't have made the cut, bred in millions of faults and diseases and pretty much raped the planet in the process.

True, it's global.. it's just we in the west have diet 'experts' who try to enshrine it in science. the rest of the world eats like that because they can't afford anything else.

I remember reading some WHO stats on baby health.. one thing that struck me was the country with the world's worst diet (india) has children born with the least muscle and most fat.

Civilization as we know it is based on agriculture. You're right, in on very limited version of 'bad genetics' civilization doesn't necessarily help the species in that sense.

Is that your only criteria for 'help the species?'

[Vitalshok44]

That is totally false. The average lifespan is calculated to be about 30-40 years. That average includes high infant mortality and extreme old age. There is archaeological and fossil evidence for it. Early deaths are attributed to hunting accidents, untreated diseases and infections. The genetic lifespan of humans has been the same for millions of years. There is no difference in the genetic lifespan of a "caveman" and a modern man.

The studies pointing to heart disease and cancer from a meat diet were done incorrectly and are skewed and flawed. It's simply a cultural meme that keeps getting parroted.

Homo sapiens evolved on a diet high in fat. It's what caused our brains to grow as they did. During the last glaciation, which lasted several tens of thousands of years, plants were hard to come by in the northern hemisphere. Only animals were to be had.

Any fruit that was available after the glaciers retreated was nothing like we have today. There were no bananas or citrus, being that they are native to the tropics, and man had not yet migrated there. Apples, if available were tiny sour things; wild berries were abundant but didn't have the sugar that today's berries have; there were no peaches or plums.

Green plants were tough and fibrous. Everything we think of today as a vegetable has been domesticated and bred for their current properties. Given the choice, paleo man opted for animal products, the fat in particular. Green plants were not the mainstay of primitive man's diet. Not to say they shouldn't be eaten. Archaeological sites show the long bones of animals smashed open and scraped clean. Of what... ? The fatty bone marrow.

http://www.paleodiet.net/

nice

[drpurple]

I thought those people kept their calories around 1200 or less. 1800 calories a day is not so drastic, though you will definitely not be able to be 225lbs ripped doing so.

it differs person to person, im no expert on it, but it just sounds like pseudo-scientific nonsense tbh.

[jimbob007]

Been a vegan since March.