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If you have some radical new proof that humans are not omnivores, I'm sure the world's scientists would love to hear from you, since the consensus is that we are. Even vegetarian groups admit to that fact: Humans are Omnivores -- The Vegetarian Resource Group
And this is the type of evidence that is logical and makes sense. By the way, I never said that we aren't designed as omnivores. But whne people throw out things that don't make sense, they need to come back with things like this.
I actually may have a humburger for dinner tonight (free range or at least free of hormones).
I believe eating a die of primarily fruits, veggies, whole grains, good fish (some are bad), and some meat now and then is the healthiest option (as your article showed). Eating sausage for breakfast, a burger for lunch, and a steak for dinner every day with little or no veggies/grains will lead to health problems. I dont think anyone will argue that.
Large scale agriculture of any kind is harmful to the environment, whether you are raising cows or growing soybeans. Think of what the Great Plains looked like in 1800 compared to now. Heck, think about the great hunting grounds in Kentucky and the massive herds of buffalo that lived there.
Raising beans is less harmful than highly concentrated cattle production, but a century and a half of farming in the Great Plains has severely impacted the health of the soil there.
It's all about what trade-offs you are willing to make to sustain your life.
True. But we are sustaining our lives at a high cost to the environment (and we can't forget the inhumane treatment of animals) when there's less damaging alternatives.
We're not designed to be carnivores, we're designed to be omnivores. Big difference. And, again, there's natural variation within the species.
Why is that so hard for some to fathom/accept?
The mad cow problem stemmed from cows being fed animal products from animals killed at animal shelters.
Well, no. Had nothing to do with animals killed at animal shelters. Had to do with sheep, originally, I believe, who don't generally end up in animal shelters in the numbers necessary to provide bone meal for cattle feed.
By the way, some time back, I decided to research the actual risk of mad cow caused by eating contaminated meat (actually brain or spinal chord tissue, I believe). I wanted to find out how many people died annually from this. Extensive research into unbiased sources (as unbiased as possible, anyway) turned up the startling information that approximately 150-200 (I forget the exact number, but it was in there) people had died from "mad cow" contracted in this fashion. Ever. That's right, not annually, but ever, since it was discovered. Go to the CDC and check on causes of death and see how many deaths annually from a particular cause it takes to get on their list of top 20.
Getting mad cow disease is a NASTY way to die. 150-200 is too many IMO.
My point was that a lot of hysteria was generated (and is still being generated) over something that is a vanishingly small risk. We're talking 150-200 deaths over a period of some 20-25 years, which works out to between 6 and 10 deaths a year. There are many "nasty" ways to die, most of them dramatically more prevalent than mad cow - but that's what folks are getting hysterical about without looking at the facts, some of them because it feeds their pre-existing prejudices. For example, in 2004 alone, in the United States, 65,965 people died from Alzheimer's, 553,588 from cancer, both nasty diseases. Multiply those two figures by 20 (to be conservative): 1,319,300 and 11,071,760, in just this country, versus 150-200 worldwide. Doesn't that give a little perspective?
I'm not advocating feeding animal byproducts to cows, and, in fact, don't do so. I AM advocating not using something so silly to back up an argument against eating meat (or, for that matter, to back up an argument for abdicating our civil liberties, come to that, which the government is doing as we speak).
Riveree, I'm sorry, I thought you'd get that there is an equivalent in the farming of vegetables that, if they were animals, could and should be called "factory farming". Think overuse of fertilizers in order to boost production, resulting in depletion of the soil at best, at worse poisoning of the soil and the consumer. If we all went vegetarian, with the resulting increase in demand, do you truly think that this would not increase exponentially?
We, for our hay (grass storage for the winter, for CometVoyager - we make our hay out of the same forage that the animals eat the other 10-11 months of the year - remember, this is Central Texas), use soil biology rather than "traditional" fertilizing and weedeating. But we're in a minority, and we're only producing for our own consumption. The soil biology that is sprayed on our hay pasture, thus reducing the artificial chemicals used on the soil, comes from compost. Guess where a lot of the ingredients for the compost comes from? Eliminate meat eating, and you eliminate that source for natural fertilizer.
Not as simple as just everybody stopping eating meat, is it?
Do you live in farm country, by the way?
(I'm just getting back to this thread now....had some personal family issues to attend to...)
No, I do not believe that if the demand for vegetables increased due to a decrease in meat demand that environmental damage would increase. I think it's the exact opposite. The amount of land, grain, etc. required to produce a pound of meat is greater than the equivalent pound of vegetable.
So if everyone switched, we'd use less land to produce enough food to feed the same number of people...less land, less impact.
How you produce your own meat for your own consumption is small-scale and does not really apply to the bigger picture of factory-farming because you can make choices on a small scale that a major producer could not make (economically and otherwise).
No, I do not currently live in farm country (I did spend years working on a farm many moons ago).
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