True. We have one of the highest world meat consumption back home, if I am not mistaken, since the meat is relatively high quality and cheap. And we also have the world no.1 rank in colonic cancer. (I don't think it is the world no.1 beer consumption we lead that would cause it too, but you could tell him that also, preventatively )

Yes!

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

You Cheekyness is right, and quoting me was also right my friend , no offense, glad you did.

Out of all the posts I read, yours is the most disrespectful and wrong, How can the oldest civilization IN India which is carbon dated for thousands of years before ACDC & BC, documented dawn of man etc.. survive? How did they survive for hundreds of decades without meat? The oldest language in the world Sanskirt was handed down thousands upon thousands of years by people who were more than Vegan... You can sit here and type such ignorance? You need to brush up on your history my friend, your ignorance is blinding you, I at least know generations have lived and evolved on a meat free diet thanks to historical evidence.

Not just that...Your ignorance is also overlooking the fact that Tamil Nadu (South INdian region of India) has practiced vegetarianism and Jainism before the dawn of the ignorant man, there have been even more scientific proof of their diet and recipies. South India is extremely strong on vegetarian diets, 90% of the places to eat are vegetarian.

Are those people In India part of the monkey meat eating group? Expand your mind before you say that meat can increase your brain size. Dont rely on these theories, expand your mind and dont let your judgement blind you. Becareful, your ideals and outlook will stop you in gaining something great in the near future...

Learn about the chewing habits of herbivores, the food processing habits of tigers, and other meat eating creatures (smaller intestine) raw meat is expelled faster versus humans, we tend to keep things in longer as plants need more time to break down etc..

The list goes down and down etc.. I am not here to fight or argue, but note we were not born with claws, sharp teeth, hunting skills, or natural killing instincts. We are civilized (even cave men) who can think about others and how we impact the world.

I will end my discussion on this topic, it hits a soft spot with many people.

I hope it has helped the mother who originally reached out for help,

There are 1M more sources if you need.

Shattering The Meat Myth: Humans Are Natural Vegetarians



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-..._b_214390.html

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study, explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today. He explains that "the birth of agriculture only started about 10,000 years ago at a time when it became considerably more convenient to herd animals. This is not nearly as long as the time [that] fashioned our basic biochemical functionality (at least tens of millions of years) and which functionality depends on the nutrient composition of plant-based foods."

http://www.celestialhealing.net/physicalveg3.htm

http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

http://ecologos.org/mcardle.htm

http://www.rawfoodseattle.com/Why_No_Meat_.html

FDA finally admits chicken meat contains cancer ... - NaturalNews.com


http://www.naturalnews.com/032659_arsenic_chicken.html


change in food pyramid http://www.life123.com/health/nutrit...-changed.shtml

Well, to get back to the original story: If MY sister had forced the entire family to eat vegan when I was a kid and mum cooked me lentils instead of a steak
- I had made a cold rational decision as well and flicked a switch or two in her head after dinner as well.

Tolerance isn't a one way street. I let you eat what you want, I eat what I want. As soon as one forces the others to join - cause mum cannot cook three different meals - it crosses for me a line. The girl is highly encouraged to cook for herself or come up with ideas how her choice can be integrated into the family dinner (say "steak n salad; no steak for me - therefore no speck or dairy products in the salad please"). Otherwise it's not that serious for her and probably only something some pop-star did the last weeks.

The only thing I can think of where I get intolerant and tell people actively what not to eat next to me was shark fin.

I think you need to go back quite a bit further in the past than that (see my post).

In evolutionary terms, the time period you describe is a mere trifle.

To the OP,

My vegan friend has a lovely illustrated chart on her wall naming the various vitamins and minerals you need and saying where you can get them from as a vegan. I'll see if I can get a link for you, sometimes it's good to have something printed out and not have to keep looking things up on the net! I think it also has stuff about herbs that are good for women for various reasons.

I dont think becomin a Vegan has anything to do with survival, as your post clearly shows in order to survive early Man had to hunt.
Now, we have evolved, have we?
And we do not need to survive the winter, or droughts ect. We are in a position as HUMAN'S with our own highly developed intelligence to decide if we would like to extend our power over innocent animals as well. We have a choice, if I can afford an alternative, then why not? If I feel better about not eating a steak sandwich or not purchasing leather boots, why should I?

Sorry, but you are losing it here. And ignorant is not exactly a proper answer to a fairly stringent scientific argument. A biologist looking at the "original" diet does not look a few thousand years back. There we already had the large brains, so we could actually develop. He looks more than two MILLION years back when this development happened.
I could tell you now that in pretty much every cave where we found stone age humans we also found huge piles of stone age animal bones... and it was pretty clear that this wasn't a petting zoo.
What you are talking about is a time where people already have a culture and make an ethical decision to become a vegetarian... that's not the same as "what we naturally do". If you want to know that, I guess the closest idea give the very few indigenous people in various parts of the world. There are still hunter-gatherers that live in a way that probably predates the indus cultures.
I've seen an interesting program on cannibalistic tribes in Indonesia lately. Besides the scary stories was one outcome that they eat (non-human) meat maybe once a month - not more. Cause hunting without a gun is quite difficult... so they are mostly vegetarian, not by choice but by lack of supply. As soon as they have a chance to get meat, they'll eat it. Omnivores, end of story.

you werent quoted, Tom

I was merely countering Clone000's post:

It wasn't meant as an argument not to decide to adopt a Vegan lifestyle.

I know evolution is a touchy subject on this forum but I do find the whole thing quite interesting.

I know, I usually have to quote my own posts as no one else does.

Yes you could point the digestive system differences between us and cows but then I could point out digestive system differences between us and tigers too. Fact is humans are omnivores and our body differs from both carnivore and herbivore animals.

What is also clear is that humans can adapt to any nutritionally balanced diet. People like me would argue that in the modern world vegetarian diet is healthier even if you take animal welfare out of the equation.

Ok, just for you my personal "intelligent design" rationalization: "I have pointy teeth in the corners of my mouth, so I was clearly designed to tear that steak sandwich into bits"

So: The folks who do not believe in science usually live in the US and believe in the bible...

Genesis 9:3
Omnivore. Clearly.

So what does the bible say about vegetarians?

Romans 14:1-23 ESV

"Don't spend too much time on EF"

"Vegetarians are pussies"

"Be tolerant anyway"

The poster you are criticizing was merely stating his point of view from the perspective of evolutionary biology. It has nothing to do with whether or not people or groups of people follow a vegetarian diet by choice or by necessity. There are also people who try to advocate for veganism or more specifically raw food veganism by looking at the diet of apes, most of whom are also omnivorous, eating whatever is at hand. So, in fact, he is not arguing with the possibility of being vegetarian and healthy or that societies exist or have existed that are vegetarian and health.
So, no ignorance, just a different perspective.

Wow, the huffington post as a source of information. (It is EF after all. )

The China Study is also an interesting source. There are many, many, many articles that have been written about the science (or lack thereof) of that study as well about the reasonable conclusions that can be drawn based on the study. You could, for example, look here: http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the...act-or-fallac/, but I rather imagine that you won't. It doesn't really matter but trying to claim that someone's opinion is ignorant and wrong while citing obviously biased sources, to say nothing of not understanding the point that was made in the first place, is not really beneficial to this discussion.

What we naturally do? Highly processed synthetic food is hardly what early man munched on. If we are going back to early man skills then I better work on my technique to pick girls from the street and drag them home by their hair.

Oh! wait in some parts of the world they still do that. Ok I lose. Have a nice evening all you evolved people

Look buddy, I dont want the argument to go down that way but to groan my post, then accuse me of being disrespectful and wrong is maybe not the best way to demonstrate respect and oen-mindedness yourself.

I NEVER said it was not possible to live without meat. In fact being an ecologist and concerned about the impact humans have on our planet I'd encourage anyone to try and do so. All I said is that it is downright wrong to claim that human being are evolved herbivores.

I was talking about natural evolutionary processes - so the biochemistry and anatomy of our guts for example. Or analyses of the tools used by early humanoids. Your are quoting pseudo-scientifc articles back at my, mostly by vegetarian homepages. Probably not the most independant / reliable source but more importantly, not the point I was making.

Human society got into gear with the developement of agriculture about 7000 years ago. People back then were more opr less exactly the same as we are now. If you were to "teleport" a baby from back then to here, put them through our systems of eductaion, feed them our died, there is no reason they would not become an investment banker. Or a concert pianist.

By human evolution, I'm broadly refering to the last 10 to 2 million years - the time it took for some humanoid ancestor to become what is essentially a modern human being - which took a good 150 times longer than the process of develpoing modern society from exisiting human bodies (i.e. since agriculture).

I dont want to go on about this any longer becasue we're not talking about the same thing, nor will you probabyl care to much if I through a bunch of (proper) scientific papers at you. Here are just two links. On is a scientific study on human evolution and meat consumpion:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/...p/fulltext.pdf

the other is the wikipedia article on human evolution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

Both of which will tell you that the conusmpion of meat has become central to the pre-human being about 2 million years ago and has been a constant element in our development ever since. At this time there was no cevilisation in India I'm afraid. Nor Europe or America or anywhere other than Africa. That all came a lot later (and only due to the now much bigger brains which we wera only able to evlolve BECAUSE we ate meat in the first place and hence managed to think of wonderful things such as agriculture.)

D'accord. It's just that I think cutting down on meat will do no harm to anyone and it doesn't mean "no meat for nobody, never" . It's exactly as I said - at the moment she gets extra or he gets extra - I treat them equally - and in the long run he might even like some of the vegan dishes I prepare. And I can always fry a steak for him or heat sausages or whatever goes with the veggies.

And my daughter is not some mindless teenager who imitates what Hollywood stars do.... she is not even interested in Hollywood stars and can make her own decisions. Becoming a vegetarian was not just a phase for her and being vegan is the ultimate consequence for her being such an animal lover.

Yes, thank you so much for quoting the bible and "defending" your position with "intelligent design". Haven't had much of a chuckle from this thread so far but that did it for me.

My diet at least doesn't require me to take irony supplements.

So I am not much one for groaning or giving bad rep but seriously "I lose"?

That is one ugly mofo. No wonder he could not pull any girls. What he needs is an emmo makeover and all women would flock to him lol

What? I was cracking a joke. What got you goat? pssst Chill!