Is becoming a vegetarian/vegan worth it?

[palou]

scrapking said:

palou said:
Could you link a source for that 98% stat (specifically for anything pre-agriculture. That early agricultural societies mostly ate what they grew is both evident and irrelevant to the point.) I did not find any reliable souces on that. Thanks! 

 

Anyways, back to the subject. You assume that prehistoric humans had access to alternatives to the mostly unedible predecessors of our modern crop. However, there is a reason why said ancestors were unedible in the past - anything but the fruit of the plant is something said plant does not want to get eaten, and they generally have some form of deterentto prevent animals from eating them - be it poison or simply bad nutritional value. Any modern animals that consume, in big part, natural vegetable matter has specifically evolved to surcomvent these hurdles. Rats, for example, can develop their caecum to digest fibres, if their environnement makes it necessary. Humans have nothing of the sort. Instead, we evolved crops to be increasingly fitting to our digestive capacities, removing poisons from beans, almonds, etc... As well as reducing fibers and increasing digestible sugars in roots, stems and leaves (which, in my opinion, is quite awesome.) 

Check out this video for that 98% figure:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgc-6zZj034  (As always, check the video's several citations and decide for yourself based on the cited evidence).  Another 98% plant-based population was the traditional diet of the Okinawans in Japan (1% fish, 1% all other animal products):  http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-okinawa-diet-living-to-100/

And I don't assume anything.  With the rehydration of human stool, we can know with near-certainty what ancient peoples ate.  And it was predominantly fruit, flowers, and certain leaves, which gets around the concerns you cite.

The Okinawa example is irrelevant to the context, as it is a (fairly) modern example. I did not contest that a modern vegan/near vegan diet can be very healthy - I most definately consider it to be healthier than getting excessive amounts of meat, as is common in the west. "Paleo Diet" is stupid, and even would be so if ancient humans did eat what it claimed, as it tries to solve diseases that come at an advanced age, and thus, evolution does not give a fuck about (most people of the time being either dead or unable to further reproduce beyond, let's say, 60.)

 

 

Your video does not state any specific source reffering to a 98% plant-based diet (note the 480mg cholesterol). All the sources below talk about specific cases where humans do eat grains, never stating that meat was near-absent from the menu. 

 

 

 

That we in a large part survived from plant matter is quite obvious - our brain can't function properly without a decent intake in sugars. What I was, as a whole, contesting is the implication (of your first comment) that it was somehow not natural for humans to eat meat, that we weren't true omnivores. This remains false. Humans do have the evolutionary tools to consume meat, tools which were, in many contexts, quite necessary. I did not contest that SOME populations had access to a fully sufficient vegan diet. It was however not the case of all human populations, and not at all times possible - making our natural capacity to consume meat quite valuable.