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palou said The argument was about if eating meat is natural (which I personally think isirrelevant to the question of vegetarianism). In contrary to fats and sugars, a very large variety of amino acids is needed by human beings, not something humans can synthesize, unlike some purely vegetarian species. This diversity can be found, without much trouble, in a midern vegan diet, by eating nuts, beans, certain greenery... Together, they have all we need. However, in any given pre-bronze-age environnement, it was far from guaranteed that the edible plants available had everything. Eating animal substance assures this, since just as yourself the animal is constructed from the diverse amino acids. That is why humans at least occasionaly consumed meat (or other animal products) in pretty much all prehistoric societies. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, also primarily consume plant matter, but do go out of the way to hunt smaller animals (insects, if nothing else) from time to time, even if much harder to obtain, and a vegetarian diet readily available. |
I didn't respond to this one immediately because I wanted to check whether you knew someting on this subject that I didn't. However, my research didn't turn up anything new.
There's no such thing as protein, per se. Proteins are collections of amino acids. The claim that when you eat plants you need to combine your proteins originates from 1971, and was retracted by the author in 1981, but has been believed by billions of people ever since. Almost all proteins are complete proteins. With the exception of gelatin, all proteins in all commonly consumed foods contain all essential amino acids. They contain them in different ratios, but since the body has the ability to break down proteins and store amino acids for later combining, the idea that you need to engage in meal-by-meal protein combining is an oft-believed but completely false thing. Here's a good summary of where the myth came from: https://www.forksoverknives.com/the-myth-of-complementary-protein/
In fact, there's some evidence that varying your amino acid ratios from one meal to the next actually has a cleansing effect on the body (which means that always eating so-called "complete" proteins, like animal products and soy, may actually be disadvantageous for health).
So I don't see what problem you're identifying for pre-Bronze age diets, etc. Every commonly eaten plant has every essential amino acid. They have them in different ratios but, that's not only acceptable, that's possibly ideal. If I'm understanding you correctly, what you've articulated here is something that's been believed by laypeople for a long time but that doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.
