If you lived 200 years ago, you would spend your day hunting to provide protein for the dinner table, instead of sitting in front of a computer discussing the attributes of a vegan diet.

It's only modern day advances, that allow us to "hunt" in the aisles of a supermarket, rather than along the tree line in the woods.

Frankly, my wife and I are flexitarians, and we limit our consumption of meat, and concentrate on a plant based diet for our nutritional needs.

But, I would be prepared to eat any animal to survive, if it were necessary, and frankly, so would you.

Not completely. Some of us are lacto-ovo vegetarians where mayo is ok. If I eat fast food, I'm not really paying attention to the health value: I know it's going to suck in that department. But, before I get strangled for saying that, I only eat out once a month or less. (Broke college student that's also taking care of her mother and sister.)

Keep in mind that eating to "survive" isn't the typical everyday situation for most of us. It's a safe bet that anyone posting on these boards isn't likely to starve to death (you have access to a computer, so you probably have food in the house). Nor is it likely they'll be trapped in a butcher's during an earthquake and the only thing to eat until rescue arrives is steak. But, yes, should something like that happen, I would eat meat. I would like to live and wouldn't starve myself in a situation like that for the sake of principals. Granted, I would probably gag and cry while eating the poor cow. :'(

P.S.
The veggie burger at Burger King is a Morningstar garden veggie pattie found at a lot of grocery stores.
For vegans: it contains egg whites, so it's not vegan.
For meat eaters: It's tasty. Try it some time. Even my practically-carnivore-only sister likes them better than hamburgers!

The argument about incisors really doesn't hold much to me... So? Even if that's how we are designed, it doesn't mean we HAVE to, or that there aren't alternatives (especially as far as we are with science).

But regardless, there are species of primates who live off of just fruits and vegetables, varieties of monkeys... Who have incisors. Sometimes evolution leaves artifacts from a point when we needed that organ to survive, but that doesn't give us an excuse.

Someone mentioned iron... Grapefruits have iron... Spinach... Those are just the two I can think off, but a plethora of vegetables contain iron... You can survive healthily on non-animal food. There are cultures that have been doing it for generations.

So the health arguments are kind of non-nonsensical.

My only argument at this point is that it's possible, and not even inconvenient for me to survive on non-animal products. I do, and have for years. I am perfectly healthy too. So when something like that is possible, I figure... Why not.

Your argument: a living, breathing, brain-using animal is expendable
My argument: a few types of food are replaceable...

You may see no point in giving up animals... I see no point in continuing to eat them.

I agree with Wybiral (even though I still use some animal products like eggs and milk derivatives, but not actual milk).
Here's more on iron: Even non-vegetarians get about half of their daily intake of iron from non-animal sources.

Personally, I'd rather have the spinach, broccoli, and sprouts casserole or the fruit and nut trail mix than flesh.

My grandfather mostly ate meat. Not just meat, but a meat that had been saved in salt. He died at an old age because of skin cancer. My grandmother is still alive and in relatively good health. Her food has been the same for last half a century.

It seems to me that the people have distanced from the real life. My grandparents used to grow and slaughter the animals themselves.

Did you look at the Earthling.avi ?

If you had of, you wouldn't have made that statement!

Many vegetables have lots of iron, spinach for example.

Holy shit... I tried watching that video, I couldn't make it through the pet part.

Thats sad

Seeing things like that makes me want to punch someone in the face.

It is the only video that I have ever watched that has made me feel sick in the stomach, & it did that more than once.

I don't want to punch anyone, I would like lots of people to see the Earthlings.avi though, then they can do with the information as they will.

Yes, Earthlings is a very good film. I started to watch it again last night after the link was posted and it made me pretty sad, but at the same time disgusted at our inhumanity to other conscious, feeling beings.

For the record I have nothing against eating meat - it's the way we produce the meat nowadays - factory farming in particular - that upset me.

Anyway when I heard about the movie being released I ordered DVD right away. It's nice to know it's on the net too (hopefully legally!) so that I can direct other people there.

BTW Handy, here's a video with info about Australian farms (if you think you're up for more of it, that is!?)

Thankyou Harry, I think

I have no inclination to watch Earthlings again, I doubt I can ever forget it!

I will look at the vid' that you have linked to, but not tonight I don't want to ruin this day...

Also, I can easily source healthy happy well cared for & humainly slaughtered meat, but I don't have to, I am fortunate to be able to access all of my nutritional requirements without having to eat meat. So my wife & I chose to just not eat it. As I've said before, we eat free range eggs & goats milk, supplied by friends.

[Edit:] I watched the video Harry. The Australian statistics were interesting, the rest of the content was basicaly covered in Earthlings, thankfully it wasn't too long. :-|

That, I'm actually 100% OK with. I wouldn't do it myself (mainly because I lost the taste for animal products years ago)... But, morally, I see nothing wrong with eating eggs IF (and only IF) the chickens are raised humanly, and the eggs are gathered humanly.

If you know the people, thats even better because companies with the label "free range" aren't always honest (there isn't exactly a formal definition).

As far as milk goes, I think it's harder to raise animals as large as goats or cows humanly, but if you have enough land (especially if they are rescued) then I don't see anything wrong with drinking their milk either. I believe lactating animals actually benefit from a small amount of milking.

Personally, I started drinking soymilk and ricemilk (and eating "rice dream" icecream) BEFORE I actually decided to be vegan (because it has a lighter, less fatty taste) so milk was never really an issue for me. Various tofu dishes (like scrambled tofu) are close enough to egg for me.

Are you trying to say that if threatened you wouldn't make an on the spot decision to either run or fight? If you were starving and all that stood between you and food was another person, you wouldn't compete for that food? Do you NEVER have the urge to have sex with someone you fancy? Do you never wash and put on clean clothes when there is a chance you might have to mix with your peers? These are all examples of instinctive rather learned behaviour.

It has been mentioned (both here and elsewhere) that heart disease is on the increase. This is at least in part due to a poor lifestyle of over eating and under excercise. Again a deep seated instinctive thing, from a time when food was scarce and it was a real effort to get it. When it is available we (and I don't mean anyone personally, I mean generally) eat as much as we can because on some level we are not certain when the next chance to eat will arise, and we are fundamentally lazy because we don't want to burn essential calories unnecessarily for the same reason.

My point is, we are somewhat less evolved than we like to flatter ourselves into believing, and while modern society has given us the means to surpress most of our instinctive impulses, they are never far below the surface.

Brave post, Wybiral. I've seen a lot of threads like this, full of misinformation and fear. In my experience, no amount of logic will convince most meat-eaters of the unhealthiness of their diet. Our culture is swamped in myth (meat protein is needed, humans are made to eat meat, etc), and most people simply cannot challenge the depths of that. Further, intentionally changing diet past the age of 6 requires changing habits most people are unwilling to change - too much work (or so they believe). But it's good to discuss - opens a few minds.

Humans are physiologically adapted to a vegan diet - fruit, nuts, vegetables. That is what makes them thrive physically. Incisors? You've got to be kidding - they are dull like all herbivores' teeth are. They are meant to pierce fruit. Try eating a full rat with just your teeth and then tell me how adapted to meat-eating you are. You'll never finish the rat. You'll teeth on it for a bit, decide you can't eat it (and it tastes like shit), and you'll get hungry and go pick a piece of fruit. Cholesterol? A dog can eat meat and not get cholesterol poisoning - their digestive system is adapted to it. Humans eat meat and the cholesterol rises, eventually killing them. Humans also have a long digestive tract, as do all herbivores. Natural meat-eaters like dogs and cats have short digestive tracts. That's why you rarely see a constipated vegan, or a vegan with appendicitis. Blood acidity is another. When humans eat a high protein diet, their blood acidity rises, it leeches calcium from their bones. The result: osteoporosis (as well as diabetes). (If you think osteoporosis is caused by a lack of calcium in the diet, you've been duped by the meat industry's propaganda. Osteoporosis is directly related to a high protein diet, and does not correlate with lack of calcium in the diet. Eskimos are a good example - very high calcium, very high protein diet - very high osteoporosis rates.) There are so many diseases directly and scientifically related to injesting animal products it takes a book to even cover the major ones...

If you would genuinely like more information on diet, and would like to see through some of the myths you were taught to believe, check out John Robbins books... Diet For a New America and Food Revolution. You'll get quite an eyeful, and will know how to eat a lot healthier (even if you continue eating meat).

Humans are animals - just another species. Some species are adapted to meat-eating, some are not. Further, if some humans continue to eat meat their bodies will start to adapt - their intestines will shorten, etc. If they did so in the wild, they might get sharp claws and teeth, but with the current meat-eaters diet, the most they could hope for is to grow a fork. If that is what you want to become in a few millions years, a species adapted to eating meat and ingesting ridiculous chemicals posing as food, then keep eating what you are. You will change (you are changing), in more ways than one. There is a reason the human body naturally takes a fuel of fruits and vegetables. As it adapts, you'll end up with a different body, so you won't be what we call "human". In fact, you may just die off. Extinction is a form of adaptation. The human species may not bend in that direction without failure, as cancer and other diseases is demonstrating.

Why may it not bend? In my view, it has to do with evolution, and part of evolution is the growth of awareness and compassion. Humans feel pain, and can be aware of the pain they cause in others. That is why they feel 'guilty' when they mistreat animals, and why killing animals is repugnant to most people (even most meat-eaters don't like to do it or think about it being done). It is unnatural. A lion is a relatively primitive species, and primitiveness is reflected in its diet and its awareness of what it does. Humans are a more evolved species, and as their awareness grows, they seek to 'tread lightly'. On an individual level, you can tell a lot about a person's 'personal evolution' by looking at their diet, and at what they kill and how they kill it (or hire others to kill it). For an evolved human, animals are friends not food.

A life free of brutality is what most humans desire, but if you think humans can achieve that while being brutal to the animals and planet around them, guess again. What goes around, comes around.

So it is a choice. Further, the human body is an amazing device. You can eat all kinds of garbage and it will keep running as best it can - amazingly well in fact. Just look at what people eat. But the ride won't be as comfortable, and it will fail sooner. Personally, I prefer to put in the manufacturer-recommended fuel, and I've gotten EXCELLENT health results doing so. Plus, I can look a cow in the eye again, and know that I can call myself its friend. That is the natural role of humans on earth - we are the gardeners and healers. We have the intelligence to help lower species - to assist the system, to facilitate life. And that is when we feel great about ourselves.

Is is hard to be vegan? Not at all. There are far more fruits and vegetables than there are meats in the grocery store. It is just a matter of changing old habits. Try that spaghetti and meatballs as spaghetti and zuchini (or whatever). No meat-eater has left my table complaining of hunger, I assure you of that. Usually they love what I make. And I don't have to weigh my foods to have a balanced diet. They key is diversity - just eat lots of different foods, not just the same food over and over, and listen to your (whole) body. Raw and organic is optimum.

Will you be ridiculed and sometimes attacked by the meat-eaters around you? Probably. Meat-eaters are very threatened by vegans. They don't like to be reminded how they are injuring themselves and others - and deep down, no matter how they deny it, they know it. That is why most will not read the books above that I suggested, and why virtually all of them will not finish reading them. They don't want to hear the facts, or consider an(other) 'inconvenient truth'.

But it is only inconvenient in the short term - the benefits are considerable. I even enjoy my food more now, taste and all. I eat like a king! Meat and dairy (drinking a cow's milk is natural for a calf, not a human) is truly repulsive once you're out of the habit.

A philosophy statement I like...
Vegan Values -- Stanley Sapon

How to Win an Argument With a Meat Eater...
How To Win An Argument With a Meat-Eater

Like all animals, humans do have instincts. As species evolve, they continue to have instincts, but they increasingly choose how to express those instincts. This is part of moving from a primitive to a more advanced species (or state of being). It is not a matter of losing instincts, but of creating expressions of them.

You feel that urge to have sex... so do you rape or do you date?

You feel that urge to eat... so do you hunt or do you gather?

I view flesh-eating as a kind of theft. The cow eats not for you, but for itself. It is here, like we are, to live and enjoy life. It eats, digests, and grows its flesh, not so that you can come along and steal it, but so that it can live. It makes milk not for you to steal it, but to feed its calf. The cow says "get your own bag". Go find your own vegetables, digest them, and you'll have plenty of flesh on your bones and be healthier to boot. There is no need to steal the cow's flesh, and doing so is not helping you stay alive - it is killing you.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned vitamin B12 yet. Yes, I know there are vegan sources, but they are all "unnatural" - fortified supplements.

As far as "it's easy to be a vegan" goes, I don't think it is. I don't eat a lot of meat - maybe once a month or so when I go to someone's barbeque or something. I was vegetarian for a year or so, but that was due to health rather than moral reasons. I found it hard socially, and I live in a wannabe hippy university town - I can't imagine how hard it must be in the southern states, for example. By "hard socially", I mean that I didn't want to be the "fussy eater". Dinner with my grandmother, for example - she would be offended if I didn't eat her pork. Ordering a pizza with friends, I don't want to be the person to insist on a veggie option.

I also don't think that meat-eaters are threatened by vegans, only by evangelical vegans. There's this food chain thing where animals eat other animals, so I don't think it's inherently wrong or immoral to eat animals, although I do think that most people eat altogether too much meat. I also don't think it's healthier to be vegetarian - from my experience, I have more energy when I'm eating meat once in a while rather than not at all.

I was surprised at that too, but I see you're misinforming people on that score... There is a natural vegan source of vitamin B12. Go to your organic garden and pull out a carrot, rinse it off, and eat it. You just got B12. It's in the soil, bits of which are trapped in the grooves of the carrot. You don't need a lot of B12, and in a natural environment that's how vegans would get it.

We don't live in a very natural environment. Even if the soil is healthy, most vegetables are now heavily washed and peeled so vegans aren't likely to get sufficient B12 from soil clinging in the grooves of vegetables. So in the modern world of food production and consumption, a multivitamin is recommended.

I meant easy in the sense of getting sufficient nutrition from readily available foods, and also in the sense of preparing your favorite recipes without meat (often it's the sauces and spices that give them the flavors you know).

Socially, it can be very challenging, largely depending on the company you keep. As for family and dinner invites, I find people are very helpful and willing to accommodate. It is also less rare than it used to be - even most restaurants now have a few items that are vegan, or can be ordered vegan (without cheese, etc).

Oh well. That's part of the path, given the culture we live in. It requires a bit of determination, but once people figure out that you won't budge they usually give up trying to convert you back. Then they will just make constant jokes about eating three animals for every one you don't eat, etc. You disagreed with my "threatened" comment, yet that is exactly why you find it hard socially - they make it hard because they feel threatened by it.

Ordering a pizza with friends, I don't want to be the person to insist on a veggie option.

It sounds like conformity is high on your list. I don't really relate to that in the area of diet, but I see how it could make it difficult. I don't let anyone else decide my diet, and if they are not friendly to my choices, I find new friends. In general, I view such conflicts as a chance to demonstrate a healthy diet for people and answer their questions. A living example.

Vegan and proud of it.

Vegetarians and vegans usually far outperform meat-eaters on endurance tests... muscles recover faster and other effects. As for other health benefits, there are many.

Your energy boost from eating meat probably is due to an addiction. When animals are slaughtered they are terrified and their systems are flooded with adrenaline. When you eat the meat, you get this adrenaline. When people stop eating meat and get the shakes or feel they 'need' it, it is not due to protein or carbs (protein doesn't provide energy and carbs are in vegetables and fruits), it is because they 'need' their adrenaline fix, just like a drug addict.

I usually advise new vegans to eat a piece of fruit when they get the meat craving. It goes away after awhile as your body adjusts. This is true of any change of diet or giving up any drug - you need to allow time for your body to adjust. And everyone is different - for example I had no issues giving up meat, and only a little stomach acidity giving up dairy, which went away after a few weeks. And the benefits were considerable - dairy proved to be the source of a lot of lifelong health issues, and life is a LOT easier without it. When I (rarely) get a cold now there are hardly any symptoms - just a dull headache for a day.

In general your body gets energy from carbs, such as fruit. It also helps to eat vegetables rich in the B vitamins - this gives an energy boost.

There were and are vegan and near-vegan indigenous cultures, and their old people are described as amazingly youthful and full of energy. And they probably have a lot more free time than you do. Their cultures are also virtually free of the diseases that plague meat-eaters and modern man in general.

In fact it takes huge resources (human, fuel, water, land) to produce meat compared with what it takes to produce vegetables. Were the world vegan, it would know a prosperity and health you cannot imagine, even without modern machines and technologies. Meat production is an ecological and health disaster, especially in modern form.

Your imagination that primitive peoples got most of their nutrition from hunting is just that - imagination. Hunting wild animals was a part of many cultures, but diets mostly consisted of vegetables, grains, and fruits, even among meat-eaters. If they had tried to survive by hunting they would have starved to death.

How dare you speak for other people, as if you know the choices they would make. Believe it or not, there are people in this world who choose to die rather than kill to survive, and have the control to do so. For your information, I have known hunger, to the point where my health was deteriorating. Not only did I not go kill an animal, I didn't even steal from the local grocery store. It's a thing called principle.

I don't pretend I know what I would do in every situation. In some, I might choose to eat fish or other animals to survive, but not because I imagined my life more important than theirs. More likely, I would not kill. I have that level of control, even if you cannot imagine it. In general I don't view killing as my way, whether it is killing animals justified by being hungry or killing humans justified by national fears.

Vegan/vegitarian people here are ignoring the second probabilistic dependency when talking about health. They forget that the cleverer people tend to become vegan/vegitarian, and those people are more attentive to their health.

Humans do have sharp teeth. Teeth of my dogs are not that much sharper then my own teeth, although my dog may be able to bite harder. Differences are because humans do not hunt with their teeth. We are physiologically, mnivores. Also, that stuff about how long we live: we are not evolved to live long, so what we need to eat to live long is mostly coincidental.
What a FUD, human evolution is an extremely long term problem, and it will cause ethical dillema regardless of diet. Our intestines are already short, we need to cook nearly all our food.
Nothing about chemicals is 'ridiculous' I am just fine eating chemicals as long as it works. Unnatural? Dont whine, we live unnatural lives anyway, and the more independence on the biological earth the better.
The people who keep living naturally naturally will be tied to earth, the rest will conquer space, to make analogous FUD.
We are a differently evolved animal, not more or less. Evolution is not towards ethics, we will have to work on that ourselves. FUD is not the way.

I myself dont buy much meat myself. In restaurants or if i get served meat ill eat it, also if there is a little meat on something i might still buy it.
Non-meat can be more efficient then meat in terms of production. On the other hand, some argicultural by-products can so far only be processed via animals, so to a certain extend meat is efficient. We produce way more then that amount of meat, though, i think.

Actually, it's the bacteria in the soil that is the source, but that's just splitting hairs. And the bacteria got there from the animal manure.
That just isn't true. It's a convenience thing. If we ordered a pizza, I wouldn't insist on not getting onions, even though I don't like them, because I know that my friends like onions. Do they feel threatened by my non-onion eating? I doubt it, I think they just want to be able to eat what they want without having to accommodate the odd one out.
Please don't be condescending. There's a difference between being a sheep and being polite. It's polite to wear clothes, so I do, even though I'd prefer not to most of the time. Does that make me a conformist?

I guess I just feel that if vegetarianism really is all it's cracked up to be, why didn't I notice a change during my year of not eating meat? I think that everyone's body is different, and if eating vegan makes you feel better, then I see nothing wrong with that. It's when vegans look down on meat-eaters that they feel "threatened". I know that I take offense when someone tries to tell me that their way of life is superior to mine, and I imagine everyone else feels the same way.

Oh, and that blurb on B vitamins isn't talking about B12 specifically. There are many B vitamins.

Actually B12 occurs in soil and even in some plants (algae, fungus) without animal manure, so please stop talking as an expert and confusing less knowledgeable people.

"Vitamin B12 is made by bacteria and fungi, but not by yeasts or higher plants. Friendly bacteria resides in large quantities in the gastrointestinal tract of animals and humans. Since the manufacturing site of B12 in humans is not located where absorption occurs, humans cannot rely on its availability."

In a natural environment, vegans get B12 from natural sources - mostly the soil as I described. It is also a micro-vitamin which is not required daily or in large amounts - in fact people have gone 20 years or more without any ill effects. That said, I agree that a vegan living in the modern world should take a B12 supplement - most of us don't pull our carrots from the ground.

But to say that there are no natural vegan sources of B12 is nonsense. The issue has more to do with how food is processed after being grown and harvested.

I think you underestimate the social pressure you're encountering. Convenience is an issue, I realize. Like I said, it varies with the company you keep.

Actually, yes. That's what a conformist is.

I was not being condescending, just honestly evaluating the situation. "Conformist" is not an insult to me. We all conform sometimes, because it's easier. When it comes to diet, I am not much of a conformist - my health is not something I would trade for "convenience". How convenient is heart disease and cancer?

I can eat french fries 24/7 and its vegan. That doesn't make it healthy. I don't know what you were eating. Just because a diet is vegan doesn't alone make it healthy, and every body is different, as you observed.

I think if you find an optimum vegan diet for you, with fresh fruits and raw vegetables, you will notice health improvements. That's not to say the differences are always dramatic, especially in the short-term. Over the long term, the benefits are typically considerable.

Depends on what you mean by superior. If someone tried to tell me that eating vegetables was superior to drinking motor oil for optimum health, I wouldn't feel too offended, but that's me.

I realize that - the blurb was for the metabolic issues. If you think you need meat for energy, I would suggest a) don't give into the craving, and b) eat green leafy vegetables like raw chard and kale, because they are high in B vitamins. The meat craving you describe most vegans pass through quickly. It sounds like you never challenged it successfully, and thus your body never made the adjustments. And your diet was deficient in some area - perhaps lacking enzymes from eating mostly cooked foods. A little ginseng is good for energy too. Generally, a balanced vegan diet provides more energy effect than a meat diet. In research on the subject, meat-eaters are lethargic and quick to tire and vegans are energetic and recover quickly (these are generalizations, of course).