Veggies vs Meat

Okay, another string got hijacked by meat eaters which wasn't fair to the OP who was just trying to get vegetarian recipes. However, my wife did not want to be messed with by the meat lovers so I suggested opening this thread. Let's talk about the merits of vegetarianism, or if you prefer, carnivorism. And let's talk about why we are all vegetarians by design, or if you prefer, carnivores. Let's throw in physiology, anthropology, and paleo-ism. Open team tag match. GO!

... Humans can't really be carnivores. The word implies that you only eat meat.

Look up the definition of carnivore;

A carnivore ( /ˈkɑrnɪvɔər/) meaning 'meat eater' (Latin, carne meaning 'flesh' and vorare meaning 'to devour') is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue,

Mainly or exclusively.

I will look at these, but from your description they appear anecdotal or hypothetical. Also there is the problem of what stage of evolution do you look at to find what the "historical" human diet was. Australopithecus, for example would be the ancestor I would choose to show how our genome developed. Even then Australopithecus had 98% of our genome. If you go back to only 10,000 years ago, you are scarcely talking about evolution, but more like recent humans. Again, as you say Anatomically Modern Humans' diets varied considerably depending upon where they lived. The vast majority were vegetarian, however. If you go back 6,000 years to the Fertile Crescent, they relied mostly on Barley and other grains. Eventually they became pastoralists, but the mainstay of their diet was still grains.

Primal/Paleo diets attempt to reconstruct the nutritional profile of a human diet prior to agriculture.

It's a difficult area to study, the tools don't give us exact results and it's probably not exactly a priority in terms of funding. Modern hunter gathers are sometimes used as a proxy but that has it's issues as well of course. I've seen stable isotope studies for example looking at the mineral composition of bone suggesting high protein intake.

Here is one:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440399905204

There are others. It's obviously not conclusive but then neither is support for a vegetarian diet based on paleolithic evidence.

One debate is how much our genome could have adapted since we were able to harvest grain in large quantities (10,000 years or so I believe). If you believe we have evolved sufficiently to consume the large amounts of grain we now consume then the Paleo diet is null and void. Of course, it's complicated by the fact that we eat grain that has been cross bread, genetically modified and highly refined in many cases and that has happened more recently.

And I frankly doubt you have any prospective longitudinal studies of that time period, as you do for the modern China Study. May I suggest that even if you have a few dozen studies relying upon analysis of what certain individuals consumed during your selected period, you are relying upon anecdotal inferences, and that certainly has far less value, in my opinion than a longitudinal study of a huge population followed for years. Also, if you know your paleoanthropology, you know that in the period 10000 to 6000 BCE, agriculture developed, at least in Mesopotamia. But then, you could say agriculture developed with Horticulturalists who preceded this period. You have to go back to the Hunter Gatherers.

Yes, hunter gatherers is usually the assumed model. We do have a fair amount of information on what modern hunter gatherers ate and their health prior to many of them being taintedby Western civilization. As I said they are often used as a proxy.

I don't agree, I think your reasoning is flawed. The china study did not set out to prove that a vegetarian diet is healthier (at least I early hope not, if so, we have nothing more to discuss and I win - lol) it merely showed some correlations that some interpret as meaning a plant-based diet results in better health outcomes. Thus, to compare it we don't need a study of primal eaters (although that would be interesting) just a study of similar macros and nutrient intakes. There are plenty of those although none would be exactly equal to primal but then most vegetarians wouldn't be able to reproduce the exact nutritional profile of a family from some province in China. In fact the China Study shows no direct correlation between animal protein and CVD in fact in same cases it show's a negative association. Whatit does show is a correlation between animal protein and cholesterol levels. That's just one example but ti's telling because it took the introduction of a third variable to to support the hypothesis yet what matters is the actual outcome not another variable which may or may not be correlated with bad health. I suggest you google for some critical analyses of the china study and read some opposing points of view. You can then draw your own conclusions.

Beyond that In our discussion regarding the validity of the conclusions around the China Study it's not relevant to question the validity of my diet choices. The question is about the study, whether primal is well supported by evidence or not it has no bearing on the validity of the conclusions dawn from the china study. Saying that it's interesting to discuss primal/Paleo diets although they could well just be called moderately low carb whole food diets and remove Paleo from it completely. Sometimes I think it would be a savvy move since very few people will argue against that sort of diet other than the saturated fat aspect although there are low fat Paleo diets. The Paleo food concept is a useful framework though and I hope more research is done on ancestral nutrition either way, knowing what we ate for a good part of our recent evolution would be useful.

No, the China Study did not set out to show the superiority of a vegetarian diet, but that study in combination with many others (I mentioned the Framingham Study before) clearly does in my opinion. There have been other studies which show that when families with vegetarian diets move to, say the United States, the incidence of heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis increases. Yeah, you could claim it is because they are learning to speak English, but I think the more likely reason is because they changed to a meat centered diet. There is an impressive study of German Vegetarians (http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/vegetarians-live-longer.html) which shows that Germans, from a normally meat eating culture, who become vegetarian, live longer than other Germans who remain with a meat centered diet. Of course, that study was criticized because the German Vegetarians were demographically from the upper class, better educated and much wealthier than the average German. I believe they had higher IQs as well. But there it is a question of chicken or the egg. Do brighter people choose to become vegetarian because it is the more logical choice and appeals to brighter people, or does being vegetarian make them brighter. Serious question. Animal fat occludes arteries, including those to the brain, and causes the death of brain cells, among others. In any event there are an OVERWHELMING number of studies that all point in the same direction: vegetarians live longer healthier lives. You might object to one of these studies, but the shear number of them and the overwhelming amount of evidence must be considered, and as a logical person, which you seem to be, it would seem that the conclusion in favor of vegetarianism is mandated.

And yes, my asking you about your reasons for selecting the primal diet is quite justified and logical after your attack on the China Study. If you are not a hypocrite, you will apply the same standards to yourself as you apply to others.

Finally, having said all that my own reasons for being a vegetarian have nothing to do with any of the studies. Vegetarianism is the moral way to live. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do not kill. Do not claim to be ethical if you believe in murder. Sorry. But nothing riles me up more than the hypocrites who claim they love animals and then go out and eat a burger. If someone is going to eat meat. let them be honest - they do not believe in the Golden Rule, and they do not love animals.

Okay, another string got hijacked by meat eaters which wasn't fair to the OP who was just trying to get vegetarian recipes. However, my wife did not want to be messed with by the meat lovers so I suggested opening this thread. Let's talk about the merits of vegetarianism, or if you prefer, carnivorism. And let's talk about why we are all vegetarians by design, or if you prefer, carnivores. Let's throw in physiology, anthropology, and paleo-ism. Open team tag match. GO!

... Humans can't really be carnivores. The word implies that you only eat meat.

Look up the definition of carnivore;

A carnivore ( /ˈkɑrnɪvɔər/) meaning 'meat eater' (Latin, carne meaning 'flesh' and vorare meaning 'to devour') is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue,

Mainly or exclusively.

Are dogs classified as carnivores? They eat plants and grains too.

I was being dismissive and somewhat flippant when I categorized the meat eaters on this board as carnivores. In reality, assuming they are normal human beings, they are living in a body designed to eat vegetables. Physiologically, humans are a vegetarian species. Yes, vegetarian species can eat meat, just as carnivores can eat fruit. However, as studies of heart disease, cancer and other chronic diseases show, we were not designed to eat meat.

As for the dog, they are carnivores. Open their mouths and look at their teeth, and look at their incisors. My dog (a vegan by the way) has incisors that are about three times longer than mine. Dogs large intestines are much shorter than humans as well allowing them to expel animal waste quickly. unlike humans where eating meat causes colon cancer. So carnivores are physiologically different than vegetarian species.

A good site to visit if you are confused by whether we are a carnivore species or a herbivore species:

http://www.peta.org/living/vegetarian-living/the-natural-human-diet.aspx