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Vegetarian vs. Non-vegetarian

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Pelly8910 | 18:19 Mon 21st Feb 2011 | Science
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Why is it healthier to eat quorn or something like that rather than real meat?
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Very, very interesting thread. Enjoying the debates.
Joko.. you state that you do not believe that humans are carnivores, well I don't think anybody will take issue with that but your argument that they never were carnivores is based on fallacious logic. We are no closer to being herbivores than we are to being carnivores. Millions of years of killing animals and eating them demonstrates that we are quite well adapted both physically and physiologically to being facultative carnivores. You can be a vegetarian without it becoming a dogma and biasing your reasoning to justify it. I know many vegetarians but they don't preach it. g'night
Exactly Jomifl... Good night Sir! x
*sigh* - yet again you are more or less reiterating my point under the guise of opposition...not sure why you keep doing that...?
please actually read the posts properly...you seem unable to understand that much of what you have said is not an counteractive argument...your posts seem to have no point to make...

humans are omnivores - which makes them both carnivorous and herbivorous...
our bodies are very much closer to herbivore that carnivores - i have asked a few times for someone to point out the similarities to carnivores as opposed to herbivores...seems no-one can do that...

without tools, weapons, brains, cunning and the ability to make fire we would be useless as being carnivores...we have adapted to a carivorous lifestyle, through intelligence...

i most certainly dont preach and i havent here either, i never have - that is a lazy and childish 'stamp of the foot' type comment...from someone who has resorted to trying to belittle their (imaginary) opponent in the eroneous belief that it wins them the argument...
I bet pelly8910 is amazed at what she started when all she wanted to know is why it is healthier to eat quorn than real meat. Hope she got the answer to that among all the posts.
Joko, I believe I did mention one thing which apertains to carnivores rather than herbivores (see page 4) and that is forward facing eyes instead of eyes at the side of their heads. This is definitely a characteristic of hunting animals.
I think too that our ancestors could run faster than we can now. We have lost that ability by using tools and our brains.
yes starbuck, but that is the only one....it is also only a characteristic, not a weapon or tool we have been naturally quipped with ...and not essential for a predatory life.. it does not cancel out all the other factors...
regarding the speed...there is no evidence of this at all...how can we possibly know their speed??
...its also irrelevant as speed is just as important for flight as fight...

and yes..poor pelly...i hope she doesnt have the email alerts set...lol
Starbuckone
Also meat makes your breath smell and gives you a nasty taste in your mouth whereas vegetables do not.

I have worked with several vegetarians who have the worst breath I have encountered.
By the way Joko you appear to be confusing being a carnivore with being a hunter, red in tooth and claw, There are many ways of catching prey that don't involve running at great speed and killing prey with a single bite. Most carnivores like to find their lunch ready prepared as it is a less risky way of aquiring it, vultures being a good example.
Beso.. I concur heartily with your last posting. I used to work with a strict vegan who not only showed the signs of protein deficiency usually seen in starving third world children but smelt like a goat only more strongly.pheeeew!
and again...more or less reiterating what i have already said...i myself mentioned scavengers on an earlier post (didnt you read it...?)

scavenging, by its very nature is an opportunistic action...taking what you can get because its there for the taking...that is what humans are most suited to as carnivores...we eat it because we can...not as being ultimately perfectly designed hunters

i am not confusing anything - i know what i mean - but for clarification i suppose perhaps a better term for what i am saying would be that humans are not very well equipped or well designed physical 'predators' - due to all the reasons i have previously mentioned.....but it kind of amounts to the same thing... that without brains to make tools, weapons, traps, etc, and without the opportunity of scavenging, humans would not make very good predator/carnivores....an animal that cannot hunt well, will eat vegetation..

regarding the vegan thing...i know a few vegans and have never noticed their breath smelling...and one is a pretty chubby workaholic and the other a karate/fitness nut...so hardly malnourished.....but yes some vegans can lack vitamins..but so to can meat eaters...swings and roundabouts really...
(perahps the vegan was wearing some sort of hemp clothing or something - some of that stuff smells like animal fur etc...)
well next joko perhaps you can explain why it is natural for humans to smoke cigarettes!
Joko, I'm clearly not alone in saying your argument just makes no sense.
You start off by saying we're not like carnivores because we don't have claws and sharp teeth etc.. and we only eat meat because the opportunity is there. Could it not be that we haven't needed to develop the claws and sharp teeth etc because the opportunity is there? That we would develop to catch meat if we had to because we are omnivores and that is what we're supposed to be?
You're right, plenty of meat eaters do have vitamin deficiencies.. they should eat more veg to meet the balance required. Which is why vegetarians and vegans need to take supplements or other protein rich foods in order to meet the balance.
You use the length of the intestine as your number 1 'fact' that we're not designed to eat meat. Could it not be that the longer intestine for eating vegetables is required more in omnivores than the shorter as found in carnivores, I'm not saying that's the fact but I'm not the type to just accept things without questioning if they don't make sense.
Overall, I'm saying it makes sense that, given that we are such a successful species, and that the modern human has to eat meat or supplement their diet accordingly, that we, as a species, are designed to eat meat. We have everything required to live comfortably off an omnivorous diet and, given the nature of evolution, I think, had we not developed the capacity to make tools, those who would have been better naturally equipped to catch / eat meat would have evolved in place of the tool makers and that version of modern human would still eat meat.
joko, you still haven't told us about this ancestor of ours who had neither the physical attributes nor (yet) the cunning to catch animals but had a gut capable of digesting meat when that cunning developed.
Go through Richard Dawkins' brilliant book "the Ancestor's Tale", which traces Homo sapiens back as far as bacteria, and find this creature if you can. I can't.
pa__l...of course thats possible...buts lots of things are possible...and the fact is we havent developed those things, have we...?
tools, weapons etc werent invented overnight, nor did our superior brains grow overnight, and we spent a lot of time without either, yet we didnt evolve to suit carnivorous needs...and also why werent we simply born with the necessary attributes to be successful hunters - like most other omnivores?
so its kind of a shoulda woulda coulda situation...

i have not said we shouldnt eat meat...i said our bodies are not ideally adapted to it - that is simply a fact...its doesnt do us any major harm, and keeps us alve...but then so would eating toothpaste....
theres lots of things we perhaps shouldnt eat...because we are not best suited to the way it affects us...but we do because its available, we like it and we can

it is not me here who has the problem accepting others point of view - of course i have thought of all the things mentioned before - because they are considered the norm - i am 39 and been here long enough to get that - but thats the problem - not one of you has even acknowledged that what i have said is a possibilty and that the scientists have a point here - when i am sure that deep down most you know i may actually be right...you just dont like to admit or accept it because it goes against what you want to be the truth

i (or rather the people doing the actual research) may be totally wrong...but the evidence available and facts that are staring us in the face, largely support my view...nobody here has yet said anything that truly says otherwise...

there are lots of ways of looking at this...and really we will never really know for sure...but if you do some investigating for yourselves you may be surprised.

geezer...what?
thats kind of my point!... we smoke, its not natural, it certainly does us no good, our bodies dont like it, but we dont
chakka...what?
we still dont have the physical attributes now!

i never said our digestive systems couldnt digest meat...not once have i said that...!
quite clearly we can and do - as can many other animals...what do you think would happen if a sheep ate meat? nothing ...it would just come out the other end as usual...it may not particularly like it, but it is not poison...

i said our systems are not ideally suited to it simply because they are very long - unlike every other meat eating animal on the planet...
our digestive systems are very powerful and can 'digest' a lot of things ... doesnt mean its ideal suited

stop putting words and meanings into my mouth...
So...Joko, what exactly is the point that you are trying to make?
this a pointless 'debate'...i am just repeating myself....i am just being attacked and even accused of fanatiscm...which is quite a cop out ...but people simply are not listening to what i am actually saying... because to me its seems you just dont like the idea ...or are just scan reading the words and not reading the meaning.

my words are being twisted, ignored and misunderstood

so all i can say on this really is look for yourself - everything i have said are not my words...i have not made them up.

i have no axe to grind here - i may be veggie but i am not a crusader trying to convert anyone...check with my past posts - not once have i preached to anyone or been agressively anti-meat...because that is not what this debate is about...and i couldnt care less what you believe or agree with - or whether you dislike veggies...belief and agreement is irrelevant...it changes nothing...
i have met many people who sneer and get uppity and angry about vegetarianism and i am sensing some of you are just out for the attack because you dont agree with vegetarianism...
lol jomilf...if you dont know now you never will...ive said it enough times...
I am listening to what you're saying, and I'm not at all attacking vegetarianism, it's a very noble statement.
As I've said, just because someone claims something to be fact, I'm not the type of person to just accept it as fact without questioning if it doesn't make sense to me, it's nothing personal at all.
You said " the fact is we havent developed those things, have we...?
tools, weapons etc werent invented overnight, nor did our superior brains grow overnight, and we spent a lot of time without either, yet we didnt evolve to suit carnivorous needs...and also why werent we simply born with the necessary attributes to be successful hunters - like most other omnivores?" but as was discussed earlier.. you don't have to be a successful hunter to be a carnivore, we were scavengers, I then claimed that maybe we would have adapted physically had we not adapted using tools... which is evolving to suit carnivorous needs, my point was to say that both would lead to the same ending.. humans eating meat.
The reason I asked earlier about other omnivores was because some are built to hunt, as you've said, but seeing as humans hunt in a different way the comparison cannot now be about the hunting side, which is why I was wondering about the internal biology of other omnivores, whether their teeth and digestive system are closer to carnivores or ours because as we're neither carnivores or herbivores, it's other ominivores we should be being compared to.
Carnivores may have the short intestines because they pretty much only eat meat, maybe a meat and vegetable diet would require a long intestine similar to a herbivores because the body requires a longer one to digest vegetables. The presence of a longer intestine doesn't automatically mean we're not built to consume meat, it may simply just mean we're built to consume vegetables as well as meat.
Regarding the teeth, we have incisors but no real meat tearing teeth like other carnivo

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