scrapking said:
I believe you're correct that quality and quantity are part of the problem, but not the only problem. It can be argued from an evolutionary biology point of view that we're very, very, very poorly suited to eating meat. Our biology couldn't have known that we were going to invent knives, or discover/control fire. Without tools and fire we'd be trying to kill animals with our bare hands, and then eat large chunks of meat raw. If we could actually catch and kill the animal without weapons, and if we could actually chew the meat without utensils to a small enough chunk that we could eat it without choking, and if we didn't die from all the risks humans have from eating raw meat, then you'd have an argument. Our intestines have approximately a 10:1 ratio with our "trunk" length (the distance from shoulders to hips), which is typical of an herbivore. That means we absorb too much of the fats and cholesterol from meat, and we get disease from it. Omnivores are far, far more likely to have heart disease and diabetes than vegetarians, and whole food vegans are essentially immune to both. We are capable of practicing an omnivorous diet, but so is a cow. But like a cow, we don't thrive on an omnivorous diet to the degree we do a whole food, plant-based diet. The oldest living populations on the planet are the most plant-based populations. Look at the Okinawans in Japan, they ate mostly plants and were the longest-living people in Japan. The U.S. set up a bunch of military bases there, the available foods in grocery stores and local restaurants shifted heavily towards the western diet, many people in Okinawa shifted towards a western diet, and now they're some of the least healthy and shortest-living people in Japan. |
Poorly suited for eating meat, your canines tell me the opposite... Our Biology isn't a sentient entity that gets offended if we do something that isn't natural, it simply adapts to it changing us: the massive consumption of milk causes height to increase and bones to be stronger. A well trained human, even without tools is fully capable of killing with his bare hands small and medium sized animals but instead they decided to use tools because they are more suited from an evolutionary standpoint:
1-tools are more efficent than bare hands, making it possible to kill an animal quicker and reducing the time of pain of the animal which is better from a moral standpoint;
2-tools can be used by any human and decrease the ammount of calories needed to hunt down the same animal, ending up in a larger profit in the ammount of energies gained from the food compared to the ones used to kill the animal.
Saying that we'd eat raw meat is again explained by evolution: Humans evolved--->discovered that Cooked meat is better than raw meat, Lions didn't evolve---> they can't use fire---->they can't find out the benefits of cooked meat.
I'd need some sources for the second half of your comment to give you a full response for example what species have that 10:1 ratio and if it even matters (but I have to say that humans are exceptions in many things, we are mammals but we don't go in lethargy, our Cubs don't start moving on their own right after birth etc. etc.) or the proves against eating meat because your comment is clearly full of Utopistic talk, and again, I like to make the example of Sardinia since I know it more it beeing part of my country to argue your Okinawa example: Sardinians are among some of the longest living human beeings in the world, their diet is full of meat and cheese (to be specific Pork, Sheeps and Salame are the most consumed foods by them) and one of their specialities is Casu Frazigu, a really fat cheese containing living worms...
