Vegetarian

[RAF]

Serpent:

I purposely posted without comment so you (plural, not personal) could decided what you see for yourself.

The point of the post is that I went to the orginal source of the post on Beef and Dioxin and found this. For many of those who accuse "flesh eaters" of supporting the Beef industry and claim the high moral ground, its important to see that many of them have a significantly different world view and support a particular political agenda for changing the world. For many, their vegetarianism goes beyond simply abstaining from meat and becomes a moral judgement, bordering on a religious fervor that rivals any extreme religion. Therefore, its useless to argue rationally over this issue because you are really arguing over a quasi-religious belief system.

I did the old and original Diet for a Small Planet, Francis Moore Lappe (her daughter now has a book out), when I started graduate school in the late 70s, mainly because I had no money and this was supposedly a cheap way of eating. I have tried it both ways. I found out that I like GOOD food with or without meat and will "steal" a vegetarian recipe every so often.


I follow the true, original "old ancient Chinese secret":
Eat a variety of foods.

However, I guess I lost my sense of humor here. I must be "out of balance" and eating too much much meat. LOL.

Anything and everything but chou doufu and living creatures (they tickle the throat on the way down.).

Hey CD Lee, I tried to get my sense of humor back.

[Ming Yue]

Nicely recovered, RAF.

However, all three of those things (protein, fatty acids, calories) are found in not just red meat, but other meats and a plethora of vegetables.

Do you have any specifics on this theory or ideas on this? Because as i have stated before, I have a hard time believing that meat consumption=brain growth.

I'll toss this out - one thing found in bone marrow and not plant material is stem cells, which are essentially very young "unassigned" cells that may become any type of cell required for growth or repair at the time. Anyone have ideas or info on what happens with consumption of stem cell material, or if this has been posed as a cause for the evolutionary brain leap tied in to meat eating?

[Fu Jau]

I saw this show where a Kalahari man did run down an antelope, he chased it for eight hours and at the end it was so tired it just lay down and waited for him to kill it. Just to answer someone a while back who wanted to know how humans hunted before we had spears and weapons.
If I could do that and if I lived in the Kalahari desert, maybe i wouldn't be vegetarian.

[CD Lee]

RAF - Nice post. Actually, I see what you mean. You are right about the agenda and borderline religious fervor thing. I have said before and I will say it again. There are some of these vegans, not all, that think eating meat is not just a bad idea or choice, but that it is morally evil.

You know also, I am starting to have doubts about whether small tribes of 20 people could have actually farmed crops successfully enough to base an entire diet on it. Farming is and always has been very volitile, and requires some regional diversification to mitigate risk factors such as pests, birds, and drought. One bad year, and you wipe everbody out.

[Spark]

I think there needs to be a distinction made here and i'm addressing a part of ghtomason (sp-sorry) and CD Lee's doubts about H0M0 Erectus and it's predecessors being able to farm enough food for a small group. I think it is important to state that nobody (well, I anyhow) am by no means suggesting these societies practiced agriculture, and of course, there is little evidence that they did in fact do so. I am addressing the skills of gathering and horticulture, which are vastly different practices. I have given an example of the women of the Kalahari, who gather for merely 15hrs a week and get enough food for the whole tribe, whereas someone gave an example of it taking 8hrs to hunt down ONE antelope - now seriously, who is expending the most unnecessary energy here?? OR which sounds more energy efficient, with the highest chance of return in terms of food???
I have examples of what I mean by horticulture if this is unclear BTW.

[Spark]

Probably true. However, how many pounds of vegetables does it take to provide the same amount of these protiens as 1 pound of bone marrow? The shear amount of calories provided in small amounts of marrow would free up a lot of time that would otherwise be used for gathering stacks and stacks of vegetables and fruits.

I think this is a common misconception about the amount of protein one needs in order to function properly, as well as how much there is in vegetables. I assure you, you don't need 'pounds' of vegetables and legumes to get the right intake of protein. And as I have demonstrated, it was these 'pounds' of vegetables that in fact free up time in order for societies to practice hunting (Kalahari as usual )

Besides, if the emphasis was on gathering, why don't early human tools reflect this? Why didn't they develop tools to knock fruits from trees, or to crack open coconuts or whatnot? Where in the fossil record to you see people even 1 million years ago using technology to gather? Wouldn't they have figured out you could sharpen a rock and use it as a spade if they were digging in the ground for carrots all the time?

Ahhh but early human tools do! You don't think the only purpose of an axe, or sharp rock was to cut meat do you? Just because there wasn't a specific "spade" created, or 'veggie tool', doesn't mean the tools/weapons existing didn't have a multi-purpose! And many of the tools/weapons describes can be used to 'crack open coconuts', knock down fruit, or dig in the ground.

[rubthebuddha]

Originally posted by ghthomason
By the way...did they wear hemp shirts, or animal skins to keep warm?

they wore lots of mink.

question regarding marrow -- since it's such a fantastic source of calories, it seems odd that we could bogart marrow as a source of nourishment. were we fighting with other animals for it, and why didn't the original predator(s) much the marrow before our sorta-upright selves came in for a snack?

i know some animals don't have the teeth for getting marrow out, but many natural predators/scavengers do -- in the back, like we do, with more puncture-handy teeth up front.

[Serpent]

RAF, I'll take that.

It's also worth bearing in mind that vegetarians are responsible for a number of deaths too; all the small animals killed by threshing, all the bugs killed by pesticides, etc.

Just throwing something else into the mix, I know it's a bit off the subject.

Here's another question: Would it benefit us to eat bone marrow as part of our diets today? I don't think I ever get any marrow in anything I eat. Is there a good source of it for nutritional purposes?

[Spark]

Originally posted by ghthomason


The question is how much protein did it take to increase the size of brains...

An amoeba can function properly, but to go from stupid monkey to building space shuttles, we needed to do more than just get by.

Why aren't oragatangs, chimpanzees, and other primates as smart as we are? They eat a little bit of meat, and a lot of veggies like you claim we did. Why can't they build space shuttles?

Because they didn't need to. Obviously, our brains had to evolve to help us survive better. If gathering fruits and veggies is so easy for chimps, why didn't we simply evolve enough intelligence to compete with them and stop there?

Hunting is dangerous, and in order to hunt properly with a weak human frame, you have to be smarter than your prey. Now, if hunting is so important that we had to EVLOVE to do it better, it stands to reason that eating meat was a major facet of early human existence.

By the way...did they wear hemp shirts, or animal skins to keep warm?

Ok, again this is where I have a problem with this concept. So there is only ONE time in our history, when we began to eat meat, and BINGO our brains grew bigger. Why has this never happened again? There are times throughout history where surely our meat consumption was greater than at this point in time (like this century for instance). Wouldn't logic suggest that it would have happened since - and what if humankind quadrupled our protein intake, then again our brain size would grow??
And come on now, you aren't going to argue that if we started feeding Chimps and other primates meat, then their evolution would catch up to ours? Or are you?
Evolution is based on passing down physical characteristics (a longer tail, pointy ears, standing upright) from generation to generation in order to improve chances of survival, not about an activity.
Wearing fur does not support an arguement that a society relied on eating meat. You would only need to kill/scavange an animal once and that would provide 'clothing' for years.

[RAF]

http://www.researchmatters.harvard.e...3&section=mind

In case it wasn't posted, there is the Harvard piece on brain development and protein.

Stir the pot while its hot, let cool, its prime for bull!

[Ming Yue]

and yes, ensmartened is definitely not a word.

So there is only ONE time in our history, when we began to eat meat, and BINGO our brains grew bigger. Why has this never happened again?

There is no "bingo". it's evolution. Eons.

something else to consider (that hasn't come up until recently) is that most early man-type species died out. **** Sapien is the only extant group. Although there is some conjecture that other groups are present in tiny genetic amounts because of interbreeding... but that's another arguement for another thread.

Different groups, at different levels of development and intelligence, co-existed at the same time in any given period. While Neanderthals were crushing bones with rocks, Early **** Sapiens were making and using fishhooks.

So there was an innately better, more capable brain in **** Sapien and possibly some offshoot groups that didn't make it for whatever reason. This plus the effects of concentrated nutrition and protein resulted in a significant evolutionary leap for some existing groups. Not all, and not all at once.

[Oso]

Meats, meat.
Man's got to eat.

marrow is goooood !!! especially if you cracks the shinbones open and eats it while they're still screaming. Of course, you have to breaks their backses first so they don't flops around on you.





ya'll were getting way to intellectual.

ok, I'll take my neanderthal brain and go now.

[Serpent]

I think I asked this earlier but can't be arsed to search the thread for it:

Is there a good source of marrow in today's culinary larder? Is it still good to eat marrow for protein? Brain enhancement? Grossing out your girlfriend?

What's a good source?

[Oso]

younger the better. once they are in the mid twenties the marrow takes on a rather unpleasant flavor.

[Serpent]

Thanks.