Hey Ex-Vegetarians...

[basserino]

Originally Posted by AdamS

Quite a few "meat eaters are better than vegetarians" posts were written before I wrote my post. Read the first page.

Proving something wrong is not about the references, it's about the assertions. I made a few. Try to prove those wrong.

FACT: Bacon is awesome.

[golgi body]

Originally Posted by andsoitgoes

I posted an article before that talks about the function of our teeth and such, if you look at the canines of a human versus the canines of a meat eating animal, you'll notice one HELL of a difference. To me, that points to not eating meat. /shrug..

It also has to do with our jaw makeup, ability to digest animal flesh while in the mouth, etc, etc.

Here's the link again - mind, this is FAR from conclusive and it's a theory, but then so is the believe we are omnivores...

Humans: Are We Carnivores or Vegetarians by Nature?

For the record, I don't care about anyone's diet, but that 'article' (actually a blog) you linked is a joke. It sounds like it was written by a middle school PETA recruit. Here are some of my favorite excerpts (which constitute 70% of the article).

A popular statement that meat eaters say is; “In the wild, animals kill other animals for food. It’s nature.” First of all, we are not in the wild. Secondly, we can easily live without eating meat and killing, not to mention we’d be healthier. And finally, as I have already shown, we weren’t meant to eat meat.

Come on, what the fuck is this.

The final point I would like to make on how we as humans were not meant to eat meat is this. All omnivorous and carnivorous animals eat their meat raw. When a lion kills an herbivore for food, it tears right into the stomach area to eat the organs that are filled with blood (nutrients). While eating the stomach, liver, intestine, etc., the lion laps the blood in the process of eating the dead animals flesh. Even bears that are omnivores eat salmon raw. However, eating raw or bloody meat disgust us as humans. Therefore, we must cook it and season it to buffer the taste of flesh.

You can't argue with that logic can you. It's very scientific.

If a deer is burned in a forest fire, a carnivorous animal will NOT eat its flesh. Even circus lions have to be feed raw meat so that they will not starve to death. If humans were truly meant to eat meat, then we would eat all of our meat raw and bloody. The thought of eating such meat makes one’s stomach turn. This is my point on how we as humans are conditioned to believe that animal flesh is good for us and that we were meant to consume it for survival and health purposes. If we are true carnivores or omnivores, cooking our meat and seasoning it with salt, ketchup, or tabasco sauce would disguise <I don't even know what he/she meant here> and we as humans would refuse to eat our meat in this form.

This has to be a joke. Anyone that is convinced by this sort of crap shouldn't laugh at Creationists/Intelligent Design folk. Those wackos have better arguments to support their theories than anything presented here. The only attempt in this blog to provide an unbiased argument comes in the form of two quotes and some very generalized characteristics of different species. Here are the quotes:

• Carl Linnaeus, a 16th century botanist: “Man’s structure, external and internal, compared with that of the other animals, shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food.”

• The American Dietetic Association: “most of mankind for most of human history has lived on vegetarian or near-vegetarian diets.”

And the bullet points are credited to some guy named A.D. Andrews from the article 'Fit Food for Men' (Chicago: American Hygiene Society, 1970). I can't find the article via Google and the only results that turn up are pro-veg and PETA sites that refer to the same information you linked (a few geocities websites too, I enjoyed those). Also, the American Hygiene Society doesn't appear to exist anymore, but perhaps it was renamed. Googling them produces nothing but the same bullshit websites like the ones already mentioned.

Again, I realize you said the blog was "FAR from conclusive", but there was nothing in it that goes into any scientific detail about the biological functions of the human digestive system and our teeth. For you to say that this sort of evidence, for you,

points to not eating meat. /shrug..

concerns me a bit. You're not alone though. Lots of websites cite the aforementioned blog article as substantial evidence that humans are not meant to eat meat. I'm not saying that the theory is wrong, but as the famous Illusionist Gob Bluth once said, "COME ON". There has to be much better sources to back these sort of claims. Everything I've read so far is purely anecdotal.

[NoArmsJames]

Originally Posted by golgi body

Lots of words

But Adams already told us that you don't need any proof for your claims, it's everyone elses job to disprove it. He seems pretty smart to me.

[empathy]

There are some serious dogmatic beliefs going on here. Just saying. But I guess it is the forums.

[andsoitgoes]

Golgi - that whole link took all of about 5 seconds to find, and yes - there was a fair bit of rhetoric in it, however there were also some points to at least look at - the teeth/digestive structure is much more clear than the "Eating meat is just icky!"

Just because the blog author is an idiot, some of the points made regarding claws, pores, etc may not have been deeply seated in scientific backing, but they're good points, regardless.

This was just a quick find from Google, and there are countless others:

humans designed to eat meat - Google Search


Just as with ANYTHING, you're going to find an insane amount of extremists one way or another. And unfortunately being an animal hugger generally implies that you're an idiot peta supporting meat-eater-hater, which a lot of people are.

That said, they are not always wrong. It isn't the same as a thelogy discussion, you can easily pull scientific fact on both sides of this.

[motownguy]

Originally Posted by andsoitgoes

Golgi - that whole link took all of about 5 seconds to find, and yes - there was a fair bit of rhetoric in it, however there were also some points to at least look at - the teeth/digestive structure is much more clear than the "Eating meat is just icky!"

Just because the blog author is an idiot, some of the points made regarding claws, pores, etc may not have been deeply seated in scientific backing, but they're good points, regardless.

This was just a quick find from Google, and there are countless others:

humans designed to eat meat - Google Search


Just as with ANYTHING, you're going to find an insane amount of extremists one way or another. And unfortunately being an animal hugger generally implies that you're an idiot peta supporting meat-eater-hater, which a lot of people are.

That said, they are not always wrong. It isn't the same as a thelogy discussion, you can easily pull scientific fact on both sides of this.

It's early and I haven't done the research, but simply from a logical standpoint:

Doesn't it stand to reason that, given the arguments on both sides of this question, humans were obviously evolved to be adaptable to a varied diet? I've alway felt that one of the most interesting things about humans in the world of natural science is that we live in every possible environment out there and our food choices are a reflection of that fact. How many other organisms out there get to make food choices at all?

Pass the steak lettuce wraps.

[Imatami]

Facts can be used to prove anything.

I prefer not to eat meat now even though I used to think that was what humans were surposed to eat...protein etc rarara. I really like cooking though and meat happened to be all I knew how to cook. I have evolved / learned how to cook much healthier meals which don't have meat in them and I would highly recommend it. I still eat family roasts sometimes but I am definitely healthier since I cut down on my meat consumption. As much as I used to enjoy meat and still do occasionally, you can easily be healthy and vegetarian and get more than enough protein etc. and eat a fucking awesome variety of food.

To Mariana - bad chicken broth would make most people sick. If you eat an unhealthy meat or vegetarian diet and don't teach yourself how to balance your diet and cook awesome food you'll be sick either way.

Flexitarian all the way!

[marina]

Originally Posted by Imatami

To Mariana - bad chicken broth would make most people sick. If you eat an unhealthy meat or vegetarian diet and don't teach yourself how to balance your diet and cook awesome food you'll be sick either way.

Flexitarian all the way!

You sound reasonable and awesome. GOY.

I know the chicken broth wasn't bad on every occasion, because a few times I was eating with friends and they ended up fine. I think I have a more sensitive stomach than a lot of people, it's the only explanation I have to the fact that I puke so much. I can't cook to save my life. I always try, and it ends up being an expensive habit, because all the food goes straight into the trash. I lack the attention span that vegetarian cooking requires. My boyfriend cooks, and he'd really like to be able to cook meat and include me in those meals.

[Grapist]

Originally Posted by andsoitgoes

teehee.

I take it all back!

/throws a pound of meat and a brick of tofu into the center ring for NAJ and Adam to fight over.

/realizes that as NAJ has NA, this might be a bit of an unfair fight.

/however, Adam is a hippie vegetarian, so maybe NAJ MIGHT have a chance

My money's on NAJ, it's not how many limbs you have, it's how you use them.

[NoArmsJames]

Thanks for the support!