What should we really be eating...This is not for the faint hearted

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  • MoveitlikeManda
    MoveitlikeManda Posts: 846 Member
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    Iwantahealthierme30 wrote: »
    Why do we have canine teeth if we weren't meant to eat meat? That documentary sounds like a complete waste of time.

    I was gonna say this,they are for ripping meat off the bone,

    Now, where did I put that lamb leg :D

  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    My thoughts are that you should research and get your information from more than one source... preferrably as unbiased as possible. It sounds like this piece had an agenda of pushing a plant based diet.
    I don't believe every major health organization is lying about healthy diet.
    I don't believe ancient humans ate only plants or that our bodies are adapted to only thrive on plant material. That does not match other evidence and how our bodies work.
    Humans are very adaptable to a variety of foods. We can choose what we want to eat from what is available and thrive. What we do need are certain nutrients. If you want to follow a plant based diet make sure you meet your nutritional needs just like if you eat animal products.

  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,959 Member
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    AnvilHead wrote: »
    Silly propaganda mockumentaries like to talk about the ecological impact of raising animals for food. Imagine the ecological/agricultural impact if the entire world transitioned to a vegan/plant-based diet. The amount of land required to grow the necessary crops would be staggering, as would the amount of manpower and machinery required.

    I suppose it’s feasible if we can convince/force the entire world to regress from industrial to agricultural societies. Good luck with that.

    I also wonder what would happen to the existing animals. With no financial incentive to care for them, they wouldn't be fed or cared for... if everyone changed to a veggo/vegan diet tomorrow, would PETA just put down all the livestock, the way they do pets at their shelters?
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
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    Iwantahealthierme30 wrote: »
    Why do we have canine teeth if we weren't meant to eat meat? That documentary sounds like a complete waste of time.

    I agree it's a waste of time, but musk deer, peccaries, and gorillas (all herbivores) have impressive canine teeth. Having big canines doesn't correlate very well with diet.
  • shaumom
    shaumom Posts: 1,003 Member
    edited January 2018
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    Lemurcat12 pretty much said everything I could even think of saying about this production...plus a lot more. :-)

    But I really wanted to say one thing about people being designed to be vegetarian, or vegan, etc...

    That attitude is just plain ignorant of the very plants they suggest people eat. So much so that it kind of boggles the mind.

    It's like people who say this forget that if people don't have supermarkets, plants aren't available year round. They are eaten when available, and seasons for many plants are a LOT shorter than many people are aware of.

    And with naturally growing plants, as opposed to farmed ones, the plants are not cared for. So a late or early freeze can wipe plants out so a type of plant food isn't available that year, a storm can destroy blossoms so some fruit trees have nothing that year, a drought can make food scarcer so you have to compete more with OTHER animals.

    And yes, there are going to be some plant based foods that can be preserved for later usage. But first, there is the difficulty with storage that has to be protected from predation by other animals - again, this is when we were developing as a species, so there's no canning or jars, you know? And second, if a tribe moved they had to carry their food with them, and in many areas of the world, winter lasts for months - that's a LOT of preserved plant food to theoretically try to carry around until plants start blooming and producing again.

    Not to mention, the higher calorie plant based foods may not preserve easily (some berries present problems, for example) or the plant type only existed in small groups or clusters (aka - no large orchards or fields of wheat, say) until cultivation and farming developed. Which was long after people were roaming the world, obviously, so we can't claim that people were 'made' to have a diet that would only work after we developed farming.

    Or better, the vegan diet, where it would only work after we developed farming and vitamin supplements.


    Although I would not argue that our meat industry is pretty horrendous right now. Like, truly horrendous. There is a reason that companies that sell animals for meat really want to (and have in some cases) make it illegal for anyone to get cameras in to see what goes on in their farms(seriously - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag ).





  • wizzybeth
    wizzybeth Posts: 3,573 Member
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    CMS_3049 wrote: »
    I take more issue with the inhumane treatment of animals used not only for food but for clothing as well than believing it will or will not benefit me from eating meat or not. I do eat meat products but feel very guilty if part of those products go uneaten. Those are my own internal feelings and I don’t judge others for what they eat and wear. I am not anti-slaughter but I do wish for the animals’ sake, their life and death wasn’t as disgusting as I’m assuming it to be.

    And that is certainly a fair and reasonable position.
  • CMS_3049
    CMS_3049 Posts: 20 Member
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    AnvilHead wrote: »
    CMS_3049 wrote: »
    I take more issue with the inhumane treatment of animals used not only for food but for clothing as well than believing it will or will not benefit me from eating meat or not. I do eat meat products but feel very guilty if part of those products go uneaten. Those are my own internal feelings and I don’t judge others for what they eat and wear. I am not anti-slaughter but I do wish for the animals’ sake, their life and death wasn’t as disgusting as I’m assuming it to be.

    Ever seen a lion (or even a smaller animal such as a coyote) take down their prey? Human methods, while they’re admittedly not perfect and could stand to be improved, are several orders of magnitude more merciful and humane than any predator in the wild.

    To be clear, I have nothing against veganism, nor am I against the ethical treatment of animals. What I do have trouble with is some of the fanatical propaganda surrounding it - such as most of what’s contained in fakeumentaries such as What the Health.

    I agree with you. Speaking as someone whose cat used to go outside, I stopped that after the first baby bird incident. But the duckling that was eaten alive be by a hawk didn’t live in a barn with 20,000 other chicks for its entire life. It’s life was cut short by the natural food chain not because I Chicken/egg farmer needed to maximize profits. I feel it’s about the conditions they live in as well as the suffering from the slaughter. Such as the difference between the life of a farm-raised fish in a vat versus a fish caught in the open water.

  • nowine4me
    nowine4me Posts: 3,985 Member
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    Has anyone had any success on a plant based diet and is the transition easy?

    Yes, Ive had transition success. And no, it’s not easy. At all. Especially if you have a life.
  • theabsentmindednurse
    theabsentmindednurse Posts: 405 Member
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    As an “Accidental vegetarian” (yes there is such a thing), I found the transition relatively easy.
    I didn’t have a choice.
    I was a happy carnivore for almost 5 decades, than suffered a stroke. I could no longer swallow or digest meat.
    So I had to learn how to walk, talk, cook and make vegetarian meals for myself as well as cook meat for my Butcher husband. ( True)
    While I have no problem cooking meat, I am concerned how our planet can sustain this huge hunger for meat. Such a massive use of resources.
    Whereas plant based diets require less resources to produce.
    Just a thought.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited January 2018
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    I'd say vegetarian is pretty easy, 100% plant based is harder, but certainly possible if you have an ethical commitment or serious health reasons. How hard the latter is probably varies based on lifestyle (do you mostly cook at home) and where you live (some places tend to have way more vegan options than others when you eat outside of the house).

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