Our earliest ancestors ate meat to survive, 3.5 million years ago

[Adi Shankara]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10938453

I guess this sort've ends the vegetarian/omnivore debate that humans didn't evolve to eat meat huh?


Researchers have found evidence that hominins - early human ancestors - used stone tools to cleave meat from animal bones more than 3.2 million years ago.
That pushes back the earliest known tool use and meat-eating in such hominins by more than 800,000 years.
Bones found in Ethiopia show cuts from stone and indications that the bones were forcibly broken to remove marrow.
The research, in the journal Nature, challenges several notions about our ancestors' behaviour.
Previously the oldest-known use of stone tools came from the nearby Gona region of Ethiopia, dating back to about 2.5 million years ago. That suggests that it was our more direct ancestors, members of our own genus Homo, that were the first to use tools.
But the marked bones were found in the Dikika region, with their age determined by dating the nearby volcanic rock - to between 3.2 million and 3.4 million years ago.
A battery of tests showed that the cuts, scrapes and scratches were made before the bones fossilised, and detailed analysis even showed that there were bits of stone lodged in one of the cuts.
In Lucy's hands The only hominin species known from the Dikika region at that time was Australopithecus afarensis, the species represented by the famed "Lucy" fossil, and one that is hypothesised to be a direct ancestor of Homo and therefore of us.
But Lucy and her contemporaries were thought to be vegetarians, and many had assumed that tool use arose only in later, Homo species.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48699000/gif/_48699818_ethiopia_dikkia_304.gif
Study co-author Zeresenay Alemseged, the palaeoanthropologist from the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco who leads a large research effort in the region, said that the find overturns much of what was thought about A. afarensis.
"For 30 years, no-one has been able to put stone tools in their hands, and we've done that for the first time," he told BBC News.
"We are showing for the first time that stone tool use is not unique to Homo or Homo-related species - we have A. afarensis now behaving like Homo in a way both by using tools and eating meat. It's another attribute that could enable us to link A. afarensis to the genus Homo."
The conclusions, however, are based on a small number of bones, and the inference of stone tool use is made indirectly: no tools were actually found at the site. That means it remains unclear if A. afarensis actually made the tools from larger bits of stone, or simply used sharpened fragments that were found.
'Big story' Both Alemseged and Shannon McPherron, an archaeologist from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and lead author of the study, say that the next task is to return to the region and keep looking for evidence to tie up the story.
They hope to establish that it was in fact A. afarensis that used the tools, rather than any other species that has not yet been found in the region.
"It's always hard to associate a behaviour with a particular hominin," Dr McPherron explained to BBC News.
"We're never so lucky as to find a hominin dead with the archaeology in its hand."
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48701000/jpg/_48701055_press_b.jpg Analysis showed the cuts were definitely made by stone, not scavengers
But more than that, the team want to look for tools and any potential evidence of their manufacture, to find what kind of tools the A. afarensis butcher actually had.
The previous record-holders for oldest stone tools seemed relatively advanced, Dr McPherron explained, so experts have guessed for some time that less sophisticated tools would be found.
"What we can now think about is a fairly extended period of time when these hominins were experimenting with stone, perhaps using naturally occurring flakes," he said.
"But at some point they would've started to make their own. What we need to do is fill in that time period."
Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London cautions against making firm conclusions about the development of tool use, given the limited number of artifacts from the current find.
"We have to be cautious that these are just a couple of bones with what seem to be cut marks on them; one would like to have stone tools associated with them to really clinch the case," he told BBC News.
However, he agrees that pushing the first known date of tool use back by nearly a million years is, regardless, "a big story".
"It suggests that meat-eating and butchery behaviour is pre-human - it's an ancestral behaviour and as such it gives an interesting perspective on the Australopithecines that we didn't have before," he said.
"They seemed to be vegetarian and lacking significant aspects of human behaviour, and in a sense this would bring them somewhat closer to us."

[Ele'ill]

Here's my response from the other thread you posted about this




I call bullshit.

Nobody in the history of time that has half a brain ever said 'human beings were never meant to eat animals.'


There are many reasons to be vegan or vegetarian.

See the animal rights threads for more info!

[Invincible Summer]

Why did you post this again? You could've just requested your other thread to be moved into Sci & Env.


And besides, hardly anyone that's worth talking to argue that humans never evolved to eat meat anyway.

[leftace53]

I didn't even know that people argued humans never evolved to eat meat - what else are teeth for? :lol:

[Quail]

I don't know why this stupid thread has been posted again :confused:

[CommunityBeliever]

Our earliest ancestors ate meat to surviveOur earliest ancestors were autotrophic prokaryotes for at least a billion years, and there was hundreds of millions of years after that with no meat eating at all. On the time-line of evolution this is a very recent development.


I guess this sort've ends the vegetarian/omnivore debate that humans didn't evolve to eat meat huh?What? How does this change anything?

Humans and other primates have been the prey for millions of years, we were the ones getting eaten and our intelligence and cooperation developed in part from outsmarting the predators.

And indeed humans have developed the ability to digest some meat, however, this came from occasional scavenging and not from actual hunting. That article is probably describing a case where one of our early ancestors used their stone tools to assist in scavenging an already dead animal.

The fact is humans have not evolved to hunt, we only have developed the technology to hunt. Humans do not have claws, sharp pointed teeth, small salvinary glands, acid saliva, hydrochloric acid in the stomach for digestion, the long intestinal tract, or any of those other features that would indicate that we have evolved towards eating meat. Simply put we are not meant to eat meat, we just have the technology to do it.

The technology to hunt on a wide scale was developed 1.8 mya by Homo Erectus, and they also developed the ability to control fire and cooking, this allowed them to have meat as a significant and controlled part of their diet. These were the first hunter-gatherers, go ahead and research hunter gatherers. It is undisputed that they got most of their food from gathering (~90%) not from hunting, and humans were hunter gathers up until 10,000 years ago.

Since humans got 90% or more of their food from plants for their entire evolutionary history (no noticable evolutionary changes occur in a small 10,000 year period), what do you think their bodies and their digestive systems are evolved to eat? That is right, they are evolved to eat plants, because that it what we have been doing most of the time. I don't think there is any disputing this fact. Meat eating is very much a secondary food source for humans.

As for consuming meat as a primary food source, that is something that has only arose in the last century, and there are two technological developments that are responsible for this: factory farming, and industrial trawlers, and we have already seen the widespread destruction caused by these new methods.

Factory farming has resulted in an enormous amount of pollution and sewage because animals in the farms copiously excrete. Flooding brings the animal feces from the farms into the ocean which then get into fish which people then eat. Meanwhile industrial trawlers are picking up all those fish and more, they are leaving no fish left behind, they are completely and utterly depleting the worlds oceans of all fish and causing untold environmental damage all the while people eating the meat are getting high cholesterol, clogged arteries, and heart disease.


I didn't even know that people argued humans never evolved to eat meatNobody argues that humans haven't evolved to digest meat. However, there are many cases I can cite that something evolved that was beneficial for the survival of the species but not beneficial for the survival of the individual. Evolution cares about making the species survive, not about making individuals survive.


what else are teeth for?Teeth are good for a variety of other things. In our case plant matter is hard to digest so we have flat back molars for chewing and grinding plant matter. This is similar to what you see in most herbivores.

If you are merely observing a human's teeth there is no clear way to extrapolate that this is the sort of individual capable of consistently eating meat.

If you compare our teeth to most herbivorous mammals you will find they are almost indistinguishable, we don't have the sharp pointed teeth that carnivores have.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

As for consuming meat as a primary food source, that is something that has only arose in the last century, and there are two technological developments that are responsible for this: factory farming, and industrial trawlers, and we have already seen the widespread destruction caused by these new methods.

Doubtless our adoption of fire, tools and agriculture also resulted in environmental damage and a subsequent new equilibrium - as an example, the British Isles used to be covered in forests, and now they have almost completely vanished.


Factory farming has resulted in an enormous amount of pollution and sewage because animals in the farms copiously excrete. Flooding brings the animal feces from the farms into the ocean which then get into fish which people then eat. Meanwhile industrial trawlers are picking up all those fish and more, they are leaving no fish left behind, they are completely and utterly depleting the worlds oceans of all fish and causing untold environmental damage all the while people eating the meat are getting high cholesterol, clogged arteries, and heart disease.

Animal shit is a great source of methane, which is rather handy since we need to find alternatives to oil.

I've always thought that trawler fishing was advanced technology used to gather food in stupidly primitive ways - just as we made the land more productive through agriculture, we should make the sea more productive through aquaculture. Current fishing methods are the equivalent of sending busloads of riflemen into the savannah to shoot as many large ungulates as possible, instead of raising cows.

As for the health issues that are said to come with high meat consumption, I think that has more to do with the quality of the meat (crap) and the lifestyles the people eating it are leading (increasingly sedentary). Those are both engineering and social issues, respectively.


Nobody argues that humans haven't evolved to digest meat. However, there are many cases I can cite that something evolved that was beneficial for the survival of the species but not beneficial for the survival of the individual. Evolution cares about making the species survive, not about making individuals survive.

Except meat consumption isn't one of those cases. Meat can form part of a healthy diet, something which many militant vegetarians seem to either deny or ignore.


Teeth are good for a variety of other things. In our case plant matter is hard to digest so we have flat back molars for chewing and grinding plant matter. This is similar to what you see in most herbivores.

If you are merely observing a human's teeth there is no clear way to extrapolate that this is the sort of individual capable of consistently eating meat.

If you compare our teeth to most herbivorous mammals you will find they are almost indistinguishable, we don't have the sharp pointed teeth that carnivores have.

Don't just compare the teeth - compare the entire digestive system. Humans have only one stomach, and while our gut length isn't as short as those of obligate carnivores, it is nowhere near as long as those of obligate herbivores either. This leads me to believe that humans are neither of those things, but instead are opportunistic omnivores.

[CommunityBeliever]

Doubtless our adoption of fire, tools and agriculture also resulted in environmental damage

I think those are justified for the sake of technological advancement. Additionally, at the time we didn't have an understanding of what it means to be environmentally sustainable, now that we do have that understanding, how do you justify this? Also how do you justify inflicting suffering upon non-human animals?


Animal shit is a great source of methane, which is rather handy

We already have human shit in abundance, so I think supplementing that with other sources of shit is just excessive.


we need to find alternatives to oil

Good that you mentioned that as I have read that meat production takes an incredibly large amount of fossil fuels to produce due to the producing and transporting of the crops, water, and other necessities to the livestock and the transporting of the livestock to the slaughterhouse and then to a meat processing plant and then finally to the grocery store.

However, a far more pressing problem then alternatives to oil is the issue of safe water (especially if you are living in the so called "third world").

Know that 884 million people (almost the amount of people on the internet) do not have access to safe drinking water, well at the same time livestock have access to safe drinking water, and they sure do drink a lot of it. Cows and pigs in particular drink huge amounts of water.

To further demonstrate how important water is, consider that over 50% of all people are suffering from some disease related to poor sanitation/drinking water. And every single year 5 million people die because of a lack of water, which is about the amount of jews that died in the holocaust every year.

The other issue of concern is land use. Land is scarce for the foreseeable future. Foreseeing the future for a second, I could foresee us managing to terraform Mars and then Venus in the next 500 years freeing up an incredible amount of land, however, there will probably be nearly 3x the people by then so land will still be very much in demand. The adoption of global veganism would greatly increase the amount of free land, as vegan food may take as little as 1/10 as much land to produce as meat in terms of protein level.

In fact, a 2006 UN initiative found that the livestock industry comes in at around 2nd or 3rd in the list of leading contributors for all the main environmental problems, so the environmental effect of this industry is considerable.


just as we made the land more productive through agriculture, we should make the sea more productive through aquaculture.

My understanding is that aquaculture is not a very efficient method at the moment. They catch fish to feed to other probably rare fish, and it is fairly expensive, in the end the fish that go into the grocery store get a very high price tag in $$$$. Although this might not be the case for all aquafarms, this leads me to point out economic vegetarianism:

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

Many of the people in the lower and lower economic classes have a trouble affording meat, so it is very much a luxury.

Another thing to consider is that we could be way more productive with seaweed because higher trophic level products are less efficient.


I think that has more to do with the quality of the meat (crap)

Indeed the quality of the meat is a problem there is bacterial infections, cow AIDS, Salmonella, E coli, mad cow disease, and all those potential risks, which just makes producing meat all the more problematic and inefficient.


the lifestyles the people eating it are leading (increasingly sedentary).

Exercise and having a non-sedentary lifestyle are important, however, they don't diminish the importance of having a good diet.


Except meat consumption isn't one of those cases.

Here is a brief list of reasons why I believe meat consumption is something that negatively effects the health of the individual:


Cholestrol: clogged arteries, heart attacks, strokes
Staturated Fats: cardiovascular disease
Carcinogens: cancer, colon cancer
Pesticides, Chemicals, Heavy Metals: various negative health effects
Germs: diseases and various other negative health effects


Meat can form part of a healthy diet

Meat certainly isn't poison, it isn't going to outright kill you, so you can eat meat for decades and still be healthy if all other things are going well and you exercise a lot.

However, it increasingly becomes an issue as you get older and older. Here is a quote from Einstein when he was old:

"So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore." - Albert Einstein

As you get older the health benefits will become more evident.


This leads me to believe that humans are neither of those things, but instead are opportunistic omnivores.

I agree that humans are omnivores in that they have the ability to digest meat to some extent, however, my point is that humans are very much optimized for getting foods from planting sources.

I also maintain that athletes and body builders can adopt a vegan diet and have equal if not better performance. For body builders there is Hemp Protein, a vegan protein source which is the most effective source of protein I have ever heard of.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I think those are justified for the sake of technological advancement. Additionally, at the time we didn't have an understanding of what it means to be environmentally sustainable, now that we do have that understanding, how do you justify this?

Livestock farming can be made sustainable through appropriate sourcing of energy and materials, and the efficient organisation thereof. Current factory-farming methods emphasise volume and profit over sustainably meeting demand.


Also how do you justify inflicting suffering upon non-human animals?

Because meat is tasty and nutritious, and I place a higher value on the comfort and well-being of humans than other animals.


We already have human shit in abundance, so I think supplementing that with other sources of shit is just excessive.

Actually, the more biotic sources of methane we have available the better, as it will serve to ease our transition to a post-fossil fuel economy. The internal combustion engine isn't dead yet, and we still need a plentiful resource for plastics etc.


Good that you mentioned that as I have read that meat production takes an incredibly large amount of fossil fuels to produce due to the producing and transporting of the crops, water, and other necessities to the livestock and the transporting of the livestock to the slaughterhouse and then to a meat processing plant and then finally to the grocery store.

Doesn't sound like a problem so intractable that a competent processes engineer couldn't resolve. Animal feed can be derived from a variety of sustainable sources including food waste and leftover material from harvests, or the animals can feed themselves by serving a pesticidal/herbicidal function on fallow land, orchards, etc. Water management can be improved through better design of animal enclosures and purification systems powered by nuclear or renewable energy.

Transportation costs can be greatly reduced by integrating farms, slaughterhouses and any subsequent processing into a single, geographically concentrated unit. These units would be placed close to the point of consumption and any transportation undertaken between them can be in more sustainable forms such as railways or canals.


However, a far more pressing problem then alternatives to oil is the issue of safe water (especially if you are living in the so called "third world").

Know that 884 million people (almost the amount of people on the internet) do not have access to safe drinking water, well at the same time livestock have access to safe drinking water, and they sure do drink a lot of it. Cows and pigs in particular drink huge amounts of water.

To further demonstrate how important water is, consider that over 50% of all people are suffering from some disease related to poor sanitation/drinking water. And every single year 5 million people die because of a lack of water, which is about the amount of jews that died in the holocaust every year.

The problem is capitalism, not meat consumption. It simply isn't profitable to give such people water, no matter how much they desperately needed it. This is in spite of the fact that hooking up the entirety of the world's population with clean drinking water would require minimal expenditure of resources and skills, relatively speaking.

If everyone in developed countries stopped eating meat, then the factory farms would certainly go out of business, but it won't magically transport the water previously used to the people who most desperately need it. The capitalist price system would just seek some other way of using the water.


The other issue of concern is land use. Land is scarce for the foreseeable future. Foreseeing the future for a second, I could foresee us managing to terraform Mars and then Venus in the next 500 years freeing up an incredible amount of land, however, there will probably be nearly 3x the people by then so land will still be very much in demand. The adoption of global veganism would greatly increase the amount of free land, as vegan food may take as little as 1/10 as much land to produce as meat in terms of protein level.

I think more compact cities and more efficient farming methods are hugely more likely than everyone becoming vegan.


In fact, a 2006 UN initiative found that the livestock industry comes in at around 2nd or 3rd in the list of leading contributors for all the main environmental problems, so the environmental effect of this industry is considerable.

Which is why I think it is more important to provide actual solutions, rather than pie-in-the-sky ideas such as everyone on the planet becoming a vegan.


My understanding is that aquaculture is not a very efficient method at the moment. They catch fish to feed to other probably rare fish, and it is fairly expensive, in the end the fish that go into the grocery store get a very high price tag in $$$$. Although this might not be the case for all aquafarms, this leads me to point out economic vegetarianism:

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

Many of the people in the lower and lower economic classes have a trouble affording meat, so it is very much a luxury.

I'm reasonably certain that aquaculture can be improved to the point where it becomes an important part of a sustainable farming system. As for economic vegetarianism, that is a consquence of the scarcity-based capitalist price system - unequal access to the products of society result in people prioritising the price of food above its other qualities such as taste and nutrition.


Another thing to consider is that we could be way more productive with seaweed because higher trophic level products are less efficient.

No doubt seaweed would form an essential basis for a sustainable aquaculture system, but there is no reason to stick to that alone. Efficiency is a means, not an end in itself.


Indeed the quality of the meat is a problem there is bacterial infections, cow AIDS, Salmonella, E coli, mad cow disease, and all those potential risks, which just makes producing meat all the more problematic and inefficient.

If I undercook a pork chop that's a week past it's use-by date and you get food poisoning as a result of eating it, was it the meat that did you in, or my sloppy practices?


Exercise and having a non-sedentary lifestyle are important, however, they don't diminish the importance of having a good diet.

Most people in developed countries suffer not from a lack of nutrition, but from too much of it combined with physical sluggishness. Whether people should increase their physical activity or decrease their food intake is something I think people should decide for themselves.


Here is a brief list of reasons why I believe meat consumption is something that negatively effects the health of the individual:


Cholestrol: clogged arteries, heart attacks, strokes
Staturated Fats: cardiovascular disease
Carcinogens: cancer, colon cancer
Pesticides, Chemicals, Heavy Metals: various negative health effects
Germs: diseases and various other negative health effects



Meat certainly isn't poison, it isn't going to outright kill you, so you can eat meat for decades and still be healthy if all other things are going well and you exercise a lot.

However, it increasingly becomes an issue as you get older and older. Here is a quote from Einstein when he was old:

"So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore." - Albert Einstein

As you get older the health benefits will become more evident.

I'm actually more worried about being run over than dying from a meat-induced illness - the former is vastly more likely, and can happen at any time, whereas with the latter the time comes off the end.


I agree that humans are omnivores in that they have the ability to digest meat to some extent, however, my point is that humans are very much optimized for getting foods from planting sources.

Really? Then why don't we have the ability to digest cellulose? If anything I would say that humans are optimised for eating foods that are cooked.


I also maintain that athletes and body builders can adopt a vegan diet and have equal if not better performance. For body builders there is Hemp Protein, a vegan protein source which is the most effective source of protein I have ever heard of.

Hemp protein? Sounds puketastic. I'll stick to hen's eggs. They're also cheaper and easier to get hold of.

[CommunityBeliever]

Consumption

Health



meat is nutritious

I went over this to some extent in a previous post, and I briefly described many of the negative health effects related to meat. However, maybe we shouldn't use such abstract terms as "meat." Name any one specific meat or diary product that you think is nutritious and healthy.


I'm actually more worried about being run over than dying from a meat-induced illness - the former is vastly more likely, and can happen at any time, whereas with the latter the time comes off the end.

As if that decreases the importance of veganism. I mean what kind of a neighborhood do you live in that people are getting run over all the time? I would leave there if I were you and I would stay on the cross walks, only go out during the daylight, and look both ways and be careful well crossing the street, you shouldn't have to worry too much, and even then if you do get run over you will get a quick death, where as living your life in an unhealthy diabetes-ridden body is bad every single day of your life.

Also, cars are already being run by advanced GPS systems that really reduce the amount of accidents that happen, and this trend will continue in the future such that cars will soon be completely run by GPS systems so getting run over by a car shouldn't be a problem, however, car crashes especially in big cities is indeed a problem but thats different then being run over.

On the other hand, do you even realize how many people die in developed countries due to meat related ilnesses? I have heard some people estimate it to be something like 4 million per year.

Still, even if you have that fear that shouldn't deter you from getting the benefits of vegetarianism right now, like reducing cholestrol, heart attacks, BMI (fat), and premature deaths.

http://www.benefitsofvegetarianism.com/
http://www.benefitsofvegetarianism.com/vegetarian-health-benefits.html

Me personally, I want to live a long healthy life, if you don't have that concern and you are more worried about getting ran over, meh I guess that is up to you.


If I undercook a pork chop that's a week past it's use-by date and you get food poisoning as a result of eating it, was it the meat that did you in, or my sloppy practices?

This doesn't really relate effectively to the issue of how susceptible the animals are to diseases. The fact of the matter is factory animals are susceptible to all kinds of diseases, and there is a risk of humans getting those diseases, and even if we manage to escape said diseases the solution of slaughtering those animals is wasteful and just demonstrates that meat eating is incredibly irrational, not only from a global perspective but from an individual perspective as well.


Really? Then why don't we have the ability to digest cellulose?

We are not able to digest cellulose because we lack the appropriate enzymes to break down the beta acetal linkages of the cellulose.


I would say that humans are optimised for eating foods that are cooked.

You obviously have not heard of the raw food diet.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f02/web2/vculler.html
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/Raw_Food.htm
http://www.rawfoodlife.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_foodism

The science behind the raw food diet is essentially that the process of cooking destroys good nutritional values in food, so you are flat out wrong here. This also makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, as humans have been eating raw food for millions of years and cooking and deep frying only came about very recently.


Most people in developed countries suffer not from a lack of nutrition, but from too much of it

Again you are flat out wrong here, and this demonstrates a lack of understanding of nutrition. You can't suffer from too much nutrition, that is just ridiculous!

On the other hand, if you meant that people suffer from too much junk food that makes sense, and a big part of that junk food problem is meat.


Whether people should increase their physical activity or decrease their food intake is something I think people should decide for themselves.

I recommend you study up on nutrition, good nutrition is a very important thing! If you are an athlete exercising it will not do you a lot of good if you eat a crappy junk food diet, however, if you eat a good diet and you exercise a lot together then you will get a nice lean fit athletic body, which is a serious advantage. I don't see why you would want to exercise and eat junk food together, that is really stupid and not very beneficial, do both or neither.


Hemp protein? Sounds puketastic. I'll stick to hen's eggs. They're also cheaper and easier to get hold of.

You are obviously not a bodybuilder or an athlete.

Cost


As for economic vegetarianism, that is a consequence of the scarcity-based capitalist price system - unequal access to the products of society result in people prioritizing the price of food above its other qualities such as taste and nutrition.First of all meat isn't particularly good from a nutritional standpoint, as I have gone over time and time again. As for capitalism being a scarcity-based economic system, the fact of the matter is animal meat is scarce and it is meant to be scarce.

http://www.mlms.logan.k12.ut.us/%7Emlowe/EnergyPyramid.gif

Here you can see a pyramid of the various trophic levels. Biological science tells us that humans are naturally primary consumers, as for our entire evolutionary history we have been eating producers, or plants. This forms a nice pyramid as you can see, with producers on the bottom and then primary consumers, up and up.

However, in our case humans are not only primary consumers, they are also incredibly overpopulated, so how are they supposed to eat the species above them as a part of their daily diet? If they are more populous then the species above them and they go above them by eating them, that really breaks up the pyramid, and when that happens it is unsustainable, it doesn't work equally for all people, and it results in untold environmental destruction as we I have described here already.

It is simple impractical and unsustainable regardless of rather you are in a communist society or a capitalist one, it is just the nature of environmental science.


The problem is capitalism, not meat consumption. It simply isn't profitable to give such people water, no matter how much they desperately needed it.I am a communist so I agree that capitalism is a problem, however, that doesn't for a second detract from what I was talking about! If the supply of water in the world is increased that incredibly, even if the economic system is capitalism, then it is inevitable that millions of third world citizens will benefit from it, although if it was communism it would be billions benefiting.


This is in spite of the fact that hooking up the entirety of the world's population with clean drinking water would require minimal expenditure of resources and skills, relatively speaking.Relative to what? I don't think it would be that easy.

Production

Environment


Livestock farming can be made sustainable through appropriate sourcing of energy and materials, and the efficient organization thereof. Current factory-farming methods emphasize volume and profit over sustainably meeting demand.Doesn't answer the question of how you justify the economic destruction that the industry causes on a daily basis, which was my question! As for volume, yes they emphasize it because their is an incredible amount of people and it is not practical to be able to get meat to all humans.

As for the potential sustainability of meat eating, I think this article sums that up:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/660S


Actually, the more biotic sources of methane we have available the better, as it will serve to ease our transition to a post-fossil fuel economy.What? You are actually implying you want more sewage then we already have??!


Doesn't sound like a problem so intractable that a competent processes engineer couldn't resolve. Animal feed can be derived from a variety of sustainable sources including food waste and leftover material from harvests, or the animals can feed themselves by serving a pesticidal/herbicidal function on fallow land, orchards, etc. Water management can be improved through better design of animal enclosures and purification systems powered by nuclear or renewable energy.There already is several incredibly competent engineers working on this today, and they have designed the factory farms to produce as much meat as possible at the cheapest cost to their employers. (that is they are already designed to expend as few resources as possible!) And I honestly think none of those solutions are really practical. After all, the competent engineers would've found ways of reducing the cost of factory farms if there was a practical way.

First of all, do you know how much leftovers we would have to have to feed all these animals? Water purification systems for billions of animals? Do you realize how impractical these solutions you present are??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3559542.stm - More on water/meat

The bottom line is that livestock are here and for the forseeable future they will take up an incredible amount of resources in the form of fossil fuels, land, water, food, and healthy people.


Transportation costs can be greatly reduced by integrating farms, slaughterhouses and any subsequent processing into a single, geographically concentrated unit. These units would be placed close to the point of consumption and any transportation undertaken between them can be in more sustainable forms such as railways or canals.Oh I see, so put everything together? Do you have any idea how much land that is going to use?!? Things are the way they are for a reason.


I think more compact cities and more efficient farming methods are hugely more likely than everyone becoming vegan.Do you really want to live in a "more compact city"? And even if you do, land is still a super important and incredibly scarce resource.


Which is why I think it is more important to provide actual solutions, rather than pie-in-the-sky ideas such as everyone on the planet becoming a vegan.I understand that you don't like global veganism, however, we are already like 70% of the way there, as it is mostly the oppressing countries that eat meat as a primary food in their diet, so if we can just get them to give up their factory farms...

Ethics


Because meat is tasty and nutritious, and I place a higher value on the comfort and well-being of humans than other animals.First I will explain why things are tasty and nutritious, things are nutritious because our ancestors ate them in abundance so their bodies eventually adapted to digesting those sort of foods, on the other hand, things are tasty because our ancestors had them incredibly rarely, that is they were scarce, so they developed a taste for it so that they would recognize the importance of that food whenever they had the chance to get their hands on it, however, now a days sugar, salt, meat, and what not are not scarce like they were for our ancestors so someone concerned about their health would limit their intake of those things. So when you say that meat is nutritious that is flat out false, evolution demonstrates that humans are optimized to eat plant foods.

So why should your taste for meat, that is just a result of your ancestor's evolution, justify the murder and slaughtering of other animals that are evolved just like you? What makes you so sacred and them so worthless that you can justify slaughtering them, I mean you can probably justify a lot of things, but slaughtering these poor defenseless animals in an act of blatant aggression? You can justify that? You don't mind aggression upon somebody whom cannot defend themselves for starters?

As for the part about placing a higher value on the comfort and well being of humans that doesn't even answer the question because everybody already does that, even vegans. I don't claim to place animals above humans, nor does any vegan I know, it is just a matter of the question of why you don't respect animals enough to not eat their flesh and have them mercilessly slaughtered.

As for me I am a not a meat eater because it is irrational, the findings of non-religious ethics, environmental science, medical science, nutrition, and evolutionary history all support the idea of veganism, and all the other side has is "taste", and "I like how it tastes", which is just your taste, something that is irrational, and I pride myself in being rational about as many things as possible.

[AK]

"Our earliest ancestors ate meat to survive, 3.5 million years ago"
This is a nice bit of historical information and all, but - whilst I am far from being a vegetarian or a vegan - it is irrelevant to the vegetarian/vegan question today.

[Adi Shankara]

Health




I went over this to some extent in a previous post, and I briefly described many of the negative health effects related to meat. However, maybe we shouldn't use such abstract terms as "meat." Name any one specific meat or diary product that you think is nutritious and healthy.



As if that decreases the importance of veganism. I mean what kind of a neighborhood do you live in that people are getting run over all the time? I would leave there if I were you and I would stay on the cross walks, only go out during the daylight, and look both ways and be careful well crossing the street, you shouldn't have to worry too much, and even then if you do get run over you will get a quick death, where as living your life in an unhealthy diabetes-ridden body is bad every single day of your life.

Also, cars are already being run by advanced GPS systems that really reduce the amount of accidents that happen, and this trend will continue in the future such that cars will soon be completely run by GPS systems so getting run over by a car shouldn't be a problem, however, car crashes especially in big cities is indeed a problem but thats different then being run over.

On the other hand, do you even realize how many people die in developed countries due to meat related ilnesses? I have heard some people estimate it to be something like 4 million per year.

Still, even if you have that fear that shouldn't deter you from getting the benefits of vegetarianism right now, like reducing cholestrol, heart attacks, BMI (fat), and premature deaths.

http://www.benefitsofvegetarianism.com/
http://www.benefitsofvegetarianism.com/vegetarian-health-benefits.html

Me personally, I want to live a long healthy life, if you don't have that concern and you are more worried about getting ran over, meh I guess that is up to you.



This doesn't really relate effectively to the issue of how susceptible the animals are to diseases. The fact of the matter is factory animals are susceptible to all kinds of diseases, and there is a risk of humans getting those diseases, and even if we manage to escape said diseases the solution of slaughtering those animals is wasteful and just demonstrates that meat eating is incredibly irrational, not only from a global perspective but from an individual perspective as well.



We are not able to digest cellulose because we lack the appropriate enzymes to break down the beta acetal linkages of the cellulose.



You obviously have not heard of the raw food diet.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f02/web2/vculler.html
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/Raw_Food.htm
http://www.rawfoodlife.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_foodism

The science behind the raw food diet is essentially that the process of cooking destroys good nutritional values in food, so you are flat out wrong here. This also makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, as humans have been eating raw food for millions of years and cooking and deep frying only came about very recently.



Again you are flat out wrong here, and this demonstrates a lack of understanding of nutrition. You can't suffer from too much nutrition, that is just ridiculous!

On the other hand, if you meant that people suffer from too much junk food that makes sense, and a big part of that junk food problem is meat.



I recommend you study up on nutrition, good nutrition is a very important thing! If you are an athlete exercising it will not do you a lot of good if you eat a crappy junk food diet, however, if you eat a good diet and you exercise a lot together then you will get a nice lean fit athletic body, which is a serious advantage. I don't see why you would want to exercise and eat junk food together, that is really stupid and not very beneficial, do both or neither.



You are obviously not a bodybuilder or an athlete.

Environment

Doesn't answer the question of how you justify the economic destruction that the industry causes on a daily basis, which was my question! As for volume, yes they emphasize it because their is an incredible amount of people and it is not practical to be able to get meat to all humans.

As for the potential sustainability of meat eating, I think this article sums that up:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/660S

What? You are actually implying you want more sewage then we already have??!

There already is several incredibly competent engineers working on this today, and they have designed the factory farms to produce as much meat as possible at the cheapest cost to their employers. (that is they are already designed to expend as few resources as possible!) And I honestly think none of those solutions are really practical. After all, the competent engineers would've found ways of reducing the cost of factory farms if there was a practical way.

First of all, do you know how much leftovers we would have to have to feed all these animals? Water purification systems for billions of animals? Do you realize how impractical these solutions you present are??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3559542.stm - More on water/meat

The bottom line is that livestock are here and for the forseeable future they will take up an incredible amount of resources in the form of fossil fuels, land, water, food, and healthy people.

Oh I see, so put everything together? Do you have any idea how much land that is going to use?!? Things are the way they are for a reason.

Do you really want to live in a "more compact city"? And even if you do, land is still a super important and incredibly scarce resource.

I understand that you don't like global veganism, however, we are already like 70% of the way there, as it is mostly the oppressing countries that eat meat as a primary food in their diet, so if we can just get them to give up their factory farms...

Ecomonics

First of all meat isn't particularly good from a nutritional standpoint, as I have gone over time and time again. As for capitalism being a scarcity-based economic system, the fact of the matter is animal meat is scarce and it is meant to be scarce.

http://www.mlms.logan.k12.ut.us/%7Emlowe/EnergyPyramid.gif

Here you can see a pyramid of the various trophic levels. Biological science tells us that humans are naturally primary consumers, as for our entire evolutionary history we have been eating producers, or plants. This forms a nice pyramid as you can see, with producers on the bottom and then primary consumers, up and up.

However, in our case humans are not only primary consumers, they are also incredibly overpopulated, so how are they supposed to eat the species above them as a part of their daily diet? If they are more populous then the species above them and they go above them by eating them, that really breaks up the pyramid, and when that happens it is unsustainable, it doesn't work equally for all people, and it results in untold environmental destruction as we I have described here already.

It is simple impractical and unsustainable regardless of rather you are in a communist society or a capitalist one, it is just the nature of environmental science.

I am a communist so I agree that capitalism is a problem, however, that doesn't for a second detract from what I was talking about! If the supply of water in the world is increased that incredibly, even if the economic system is capitalism, then it is inevitable that millions of third world citizens will benefit from it, although if it was communism it would be billions benefiting.

Relative to what? I don't think it would be that easy.

Ethics

First I will explain why things are tasty and nutritious, things are nutritious because our ancestors ate them in abundance so their bodies eventually adapted to digesting those sort of foods, on the other hand, things are tasty because our ancestors had them incredibly rarely, that is they were scarce, so they developed a taste for it so that they would recognize the importance of that food whenever they had the chance to get their hands on it, however, now a days sugar, salt, meat, and what not are not scarce like they were for our ancestors so someone concerned about their health would limit their intake of those things. So when you say that meat is nutritious that is flat out false, evolution demonstrates that humans are optimized to eat plant foods.

So why should your taste for meat, that is just a result of your ancestor's evolution, justify the murder and slaughtering of other animals that are evolved just like you? What makes you so sacred and them so worthless that you can justify slaughtering them, I mean you can probably justify a lot of things, but slaughtering these poor defenseless animals in an act of blatant aggression? You can justify that? You don't mind aggression upon somebody whom cannot defend themselves for starters?

As for the part about placing a higher value on the comfort and well being of humans that doesn't even answer the question because everybody already does that, even vegans. I don't claim to place animals above humans, nor does any vegan I know, it is just a matter of the question of why you don't respect animals enough to not eat their flesh and have them mercilessly slaughtered.

As for me I am a not a meat eater because it is irrational, the findings of non-religious ethics, environmental science, medical science, nutrition, and evolutionary history all support the idea of veganism, and all the other side has is "taste", and "I like how it tastes", which is just your taste, something that is irrational, and I pride myself in being rational about as many things as possible.

I TOLD YOU there were fruitbats like this! lol but so many of you didn't believe me...:rolleyes:

[CommunityBeliever]

I TOLD YOU there were fruitbats like this! lol but so many of you didn't believe me...

As far as I understand things, fruit and fruit-bat are derogatory terms used against homosexuals. Hopefully you don't actually hold anything against homosexuals, and if you do you should be restricted for discrimination.

Also, I find it ignominious that you resort to insults against people who disagree with you (eg. Richard Dawkins) and please don't quote a humongous post like the one I made, it makes me waste time scrolling through everything twice, and it takes up too much space in the page and it is a waste of bandwidth for this site, although I suppose if they use gzip content encoding that will mitigate that.

You posted this topic as if it brings some sort of scientific credibility to meat eating and it doesn't it, the reality is and that for the last 5 million years human beings have been eating meat as 10% or less of our diet, so we did not evolve to eat meat as a primary, healthy part of our diet. The fact is meat is not healthy.

Feel free to bring up any specific meat or diary product which you think is healthy which will be more meaningful then talking about it from such a broad perspective.

If you have any other articles or claims which you think support meat eating from the ethical, medicinal, environmental, economic, or ethical perspectives feel free to post them, however, I have already reviewed nutrition science, environmental science, medicine, and ethics in depth and I have concluded that they support a vegan diet (as well as communism btw).
http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif

[Omi]

@ CommunityBeliever:

Nice informational posts, thanks.

But your request was to name one healthy animal product. Aren't chicken eggs quite healthy? Lots of proteins and such. I'm no expert on this subject, and I know there are alternative sources for protein (such as the hemp you mentioned) but still, there is nothing really unhealthy about eggs?

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

I know we can develop the tools to hunt. We can develop tools to garden too. When we have an option between the two, in my opinion vegetables are so much better and yummier and easier on the tummy tum. Yeah we physically can eat meat, we can also drink our own urine both are unpleasant to me.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I went over this to some extent in a previous post, and I briefly described many of the negative health effects related to meat. However, maybe we shouldn't use such abstract terms as "meat." Name any one specific meat or diary product that you think is nutritious and healthy.

Lamb mince is an ingredient I use when cooking spaghetti bolognese or chilli con carne, although a couple of days ago I was lucky enough to buy some reduced-price lean beef steak mince.


As if that decreases the importance of veganism. I mean what kind of a neighborhood do you live in that people are getting run over all the time? I would leave there if I were you and I would stay on the cross walks, only go out during the daylight, and look both ways and be careful well crossing the street, you shouldn't have to worry too much, and even then if you do get run over you will get a quick death, where as living your life in an unhealthy diabetes-ridden body is bad every single day of your life.

I am a young adult living in a major commuter town who has no private means of transport, meaning I walk to get to most places. I have to cross a busy main road every time I go shopping. I'm not overweight, if anything it wouldn't hurt for me to gain some, and when I do eat I have more complex carbohydrates than simple sugars.

Given those circumstances, can you now understand why I consider getting run over to be a greater risk than diabetes, which might I also point out can be brought on by crappy diets that don't involve meat?


Also, cars are already being run by advanced GPS systems that really reduce the amount of accidents that happen, and this trend will continue in the future such that cars will soon be completely run by GPS systems so getting run over by a car shouldn't be a problem, however, car crashes especially in big cities is indeed a problem but thats different then being run over.

Human operators are the single biggest weak point in any system, and since control of motor vehicles resides entirely in the hands of that weak point for the foreseeable future (Vehicles may now have GPS but the driver is free to ignore it or otherwise not use it), we're still going to have people killed by driver errors.


On the other hand, do you even realize how many people die in developed countries due to meat related ilnesses? I have heard some people estimate it to be something like 4 million per year.

And here comes the bait-and-switch. People die early because of crappy diets and bad habits like smoking, not eating meat in itself.


Still, even if you have that fear that shouldn't deter you from getting the benefits of vegetarianism right now, like reducing cholestrol, heart attacks, BMI (fat), and premature deaths.

If I want to reduce my cholesterol, I can start by cutting down on the take-aways I eat. If I want to reduce my risk of heart attacks, I can stop smoking. As for BMI, I'm on the skinny side so weight gain is nothing for me to be worried about. All involuntary death is premature.


http://www.benefitsofvegetarianism.com/
http://www.benefitsofvegetarianism.com/vegetarian-health-benefits.html

Me personally, I want to live a long healthy life, if you don't have that concern and you are more worried about getting ran over, meh I guess that is up to you.

I'd like a long healthy life too, but I also enjoy the pleasures that life offers. Why should I give up the certain and immediate pleasure of consuming animal products because someone's gotten themselves confused over what a healthy diet means?


This doesn't really relate effectively to the issue of how susceptible the animals are to diseases. The fact of the matter is factory animals are susceptible to all kinds of diseases, and there is a risk of humans getting those diseases, and even if we manage to escape said diseases the solution of slaughtering those animals is wasteful and just demonstrates that meat eating is incredibly irrational, not only from a global perspective but from an individual perspective as well.

Factory animals are susceptible to diseases because of the atrocious conditions in which they are kept, which is the point I was making.


We are not able to digest cellulose because we lack the appropriate enzymes to break down the beta acetal linkages of the cellulose.

Yes, and why is that? Because plant material is for the most part less nutritious than meat, and it simply wouldn't be worth the energy expenditure needed to digest cellulose. Why do you think obligate herbivores eat so much?


You obviously have not heard of the raw food diet.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f02/web2/vculler.html
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/Raw_Food.htm
http://www.rawfoodlife.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_foodism

The science behind the raw food diet is essentially that the process of cooking destroys good nutritional values in food, so you are flat out wrong here. This also makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, as humans have been eating raw food for millions of years and cooking and deep frying only came about very recently.

I've heard of the raw food diet; it's yet another faddish fashion diet that takes one reasonable idea - that you shouldn't overcook your vegetables - and runs with it to absolutely ludicrous lengths. It also ignores the fact that cooking can in fact improve the nutrition of some foods by breaking down something slightly to make it more digestible.


Again you are flat out wrong here, and this demonstrates a lack of understanding of nutrition. You can't suffer from too much nutrition, that is just ridiculous!

On the other hand, if you meant that people suffer from too much junk food that makes sense, and a big part of that junk food problem is meat.

No, junk food is a problem because it contains too much fat and sugar, both of which are essential nutrients. So yes, you can suffer from too much nutrition.


I recommend you study up on nutrition, good nutrition is a very important thing! If you are an athlete exercising it will not do you a lot of good if you eat a crappy junk food diet, however, if you eat a good diet and you exercise a lot together then you will get a nice lean fit athletic body, which is a serious advantage. I don't see why you would want to exercise and eat junk food together, that is really stupid and not very beneficial, do both or neither.

I'm not suggesting that pro athletes can get away with eating junk food every day, but by the same measure I think it's unwise to buy into society's obsessive focus on food and diets. If one has a reasonably active lifestyle then a beefburger once or twice a week isn't going to kill you.


You are obviously not a bodybuilder or an athlete.

Indeed not, I am ordinary mortal who doesn't have the dinero to waste on expensive "superfoods" which are regularly hawked and touted by the health food business.


Doesn't answer the question of how you justify the economic destruction that the industry causes on a daily basis, which was my question! As for volume, yes they emphasize it because their is an incredible amount of people and it is not practical to be able to get meat to all humans.

I'm not justifying it, in fact I think the way we produce meat should be radically changed. The emphasis should be changed from volume to sustainability.


As for the potential sustainability of meat eating, I think this article sums that up:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/660S

The article talks about current methods, which are horrifically wasteful and damaginf o the environment.


What? You are actually implying you want more sewage then we already have??!

It's not the sewage that is the problem - in fact it is potentially a valuable resource. The big problem is in fact what is done with the sewage. Currently we either just dump it into the nearest handy body of water, or we clean it slightly before dumping it into the nearest handy body of water, which makes all the difference I suppose. But a more closed system that reclaims water instead of attempting (badly) to purify it, gathers solids for further processing, and extracts valuable methane gas, would be an absolute boon to society.


There already is several incredibly competent engineers working on this today, and they have designed the factory farms to produce as much meat as possible at the cheapest cost to their employers. (that is they are already designed to expend as few resources as possible!)

No, they are designed to expend as little money as possible, which is not the same thing. It doesn't cost anything in monetary terms to simply dump waste, but the environmental cost is considerable.


First of all, do you know how much leftovers we would have to have to feed all these animals? Water purification systems for billions of animals? Do you realize how impractical these solutions you present are??

It only seems impractical to you because you've let yourself be dazzled by the sheer numbers. But it actually turns out that providing sanitation to thousands, even millions of living, breathing, crapping organisms in a single location isn't that difficult - after all, we can do it for humans living in cities, who are considerably more fussy than farm animals.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3559542.stm - More on water/meat

The bottom line is that livestock are here and for the forseeable future they will take up an incredible amount of resources in the form of fossil fuels, land, water, food, and healthy people.

Only if you think the current mass meat production is the only way to do it.


Oh I see, so put everything together? Do you have any idea how much land that is going to use?!? Things are the way they are for a reason.

It won't use any more land than previously, but the energy costs involved in reducing transportation are potentially enormous. Just because things are that way for a reason does not mean the reason is a good one.


Do you really want to live in a "more compact city"? And even if you do, land is still a super important and incredibly scarce resource.

A compact city with no fossil-fueled vehicles would be a much more human place to live than the sprawling nightmares that we currently have.

Also, I am in favour of artificial islands (http://www.orbitalvector.com/Megastructures/Artificial%20Islands/ARTIFICIAL%20ISLANDS.htm), ocean colonisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_colonization) via seasteading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading) and other methods, as well as Antarctic colonisation and off-world migration in order to maximise the amount of living space available to humanity.


I understand that you don't like global veganism, however, we are already like 70% of the way there, as it is mostly the oppressing countries that eat meat as a primary food in their diet, so if we can just get them to give up their factory farms...

Don't be stupid. Even if I were to accept your claim that 70% of the world's population is vegan, that would be because they can't get hold of meat.


First of all meat isn't particularly good from a nutritional standpoint, as I have gone over time and time again. As for capitalism being a scarcity-based economic system, the fact of the matter is animal meat is scarce and it is meant to be scarce.

http://www.mlms.logan.k12.ut.us/%7Emlowe/EnergyPyramid.gif

Here you can see a pyramid of the various trophic levels. Biological science tells us that humans are naturally primary consumers, as for our entire evolutionary history we have been eating producers, or plants. This forms a nice pyramid as you can see, with producers on the bottom and then primary consumers, up and up.

However, in our case humans are not only primary consumers, they are also incredibly overpopulated, so how are they supposed to eat the species above them as a part of their daily diet? If they are more populous then the species above them and they go above them by eating them, that really breaks up the pyramid, and when that happens it is unsustainable, it doesn't work equally for all people, and it results in untold environmental destruction as we I have described here already.

That pyramid chart you are so fond is an abstraction of what generally occurs in nature, and you are extremely foolish, not to mention short-sighted and unimaginative, if you think that abstraction is some iron law of physics with no exceptional cases.


It is simple impractical and unsustainable regardless of rather you are in a communist society or a capitalist one, it is just the nature of environmental science.

Nope, you are just closing your mind to anything but the false dichotomy of unsustainable profit-oriented factory farming versus worldwide veganism.


I am a communist so I agree that capitalism is a problem, however, that doesn't for a second detract from what I was talking about! If the supply of water in the world is increased that incredibly, even if the economic system is capitalism, then it is inevitable that millions of third world citizens will benefit from it, although if it was communism it would be billions benefiting.

It's not inevitable at all, actually. Since first-world governments and multinational corporations have more power than third-world citizens, it seem far more likely that the freed-up water would simply be wasted on other crap. Re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic comes to mind.


Relative to what? I don't think it would be that easy.

Relative to the enormous expenditures of resources and manpower that regularly occur in order to support the global arms industry, I was thinking.


Ethics

First I will explain why things are tasty and nutritious, things are nutritious because our ancestors ate them in abundance so their bodies eventually adapted to digesting those sort of foods, on the other hand, things are tasty because our ancestors had them incredibly rarely, that is they were scarce, so they developed a taste for it so that they would recognize the importance of that food whenever they had the chance to get their hands on it, however, now a days sugar, salt, meat, and what not are not scarce like they were for our ancestors so someone concerned about their health would limit their intake of those things. So when you say that meat is nutritious that is flat out false, evolution demonstrates that humans are optimized to eat plant foods.

It does no such thing. The fact that we evolved in a situation where sweet and fatty things were rare does not obviate the nutritional content of meat. Furthermore, what the hell kind of definition of "optimised" are you using? Everything about our physiology says "opportunistic omnivore" - from our single stomach to our medium-length gut to our vestigial appendix. If you want to see an example of optimisation, look at the digestive system of a cow or rabbit - note the cow's multiple stomach chambers and the rabbit's relatively enlarged appendix.

Of course, this is ignoring the implicit naturalistic fallacy behind your argument.


So why should your taste for meat, that is just a result of your ancestor's evolution, justify the murder and slaughtering of other animals that are evolved just like you? What makes you so sacred and them so worthless that you can justify slaughtering them, I mean you can probably justify a lot of things, but slaughtering these poor defenseless animals in an act of blatant aggression? You can justify that? You don't mind aggression upon somebody whom cannot defend themselves for starters?

Yes, unfounded aggression against people bothers me, but animals aren't people, and while I have reservations regarding violence against animals for it's own sake, the point of livestock rearing is to produce animal products - any suffering is an unfortunate by-product that can be minimised to soothe our consciences.


As for the part about placing a higher value on the comfort and well being of humans that doesn't even answer the question because everybody already does that, even vegans. I don't claim to place animals above humans, nor does any vegan I know, it is just a matter of the question of why you don't respect animals enough to not eat their flesh and have them mercilessly slaughtered.

Because farm animals have little if any inkling of the situation in which they find themselves - sure, animal slaughter can be merciless in that they experience more pain during the process than is absolutely necessary, but that does not mean it cannot be made more merciful.


As for me I am a not a meat eater because it is irrational, the findings of non-religious ethics, environmental science, medical science, nutrition, and evolutionary history all support the idea of veganism, and all the other side has is "taste", and "I like how it tastes", which is just your taste, something that is irrational, and I pride myself in being rational about as many things as possible.

Pleasure itself is inherently irrational, but that does not mean we cannot use rational means to pursue it.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I am not going to address the veggie/meat debate on this thread - but these latest findings could well be a very important piece of evidence in the search to outline human evolution.

When 'Lucy' was discovered in 1974 Donald Johanson made some quite outlandish claims that Australopithecus afarensis was the 'missing link' in human evolution. Richard Leakey in Origins and Origins Reconsidered demonstrated clearly that the evindence provided by 'Lucy' was (grossly) insufficient to make any claim for a direct lineage in the human evolutionary chain.

This current evidence, outlined in the OP, does actually provide an increased claim that Australopithecus afarensis could be on the direct line of human evolution if further evidence can be found that Australopithecus afarensis actually used these tools. All such suggestions are of course conditional. The OP does outline that caution needs to be taken with the evidence -
Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London cautions against making firm conclusions about the development of tool use, given the limited number of artifacts from the current find.

However, this is a substantial find - it does demonstrate that humanoid species used tools more than 3.2 million years ago and certainly provides signifcantly more information for Paleoanthropologists to work with in deciphering the path of human evolution.

[ckaihatsu]

Side note in this discussion:





Pleasure itself is inherently irrational, but that does not mean we cannot use rational means to pursue it.


Care to explain how "pleasure is irrational" -- ? (I disagree.)

[CommunityBeliever]

CONSUMPTION

HEALTH


which might I also point out can be brought on by crappy diets that don't involve meat?

Sure, you can probably argue that anything can happen, for example, I could see a vegan person getting diabetes if they ate french fries for breakfast and potato chips for lunch, however, that might happen it is not reflective of most vegans.

Regardless, if you look at the evidence and the statistics, there is a definite correlation between meat consumption and diabetes.

Diabetes occurs mostly because of a buildup of bad fats (saturated fats, especially from cheese but also from other products), so if you eliminate the animal products your diet, which are generally the highest sources of fats in the diet your odds of diabetes will go straight down.

Dr. Neal Barnard (M.D) ran a series of scientific studies were he took patients and put them on a vegan diet and completely cured them of diabetes and other conditions.

This happened because first of all the patients lost a lot of weight because they were eating fruits and vegetables which are healthier and they are not as fattening, due to dietary fiber and because they are low-fat and high in low-GI carbs. Then it was clear that the patients lost all their bad cholesterol, they increased their absorbability of nutrients, and they lowered their otherwise high blood pressure.


If I want to reduce my cholesterol, I can start by cutting down on the take-aways I eat. If I want to reduce my risk of heart attacks, I can stop smoking. As for BMI, I'm on the skinny side so weight gain is nothing for me to be worried about. All involuntary death is premature.

Well you seem to have everything figured out for yourself there eh? And perhaps you are not a mere mortal like the rest of us who have a digestive system that has trouble with meat, cholesterol, animal fat, and animal protein.

For those of you that are mere mortals, to reduce your cholesterol reduce the amount of animal products you consume, as the only reasonable way to get high cholesterol is from animal products like meat and diary.

If you want to lower your BMI, you should also reduce your meat and diary consumption and instead eat fibrous fruits and vegetables. Even the leanest meats have something like a 25% fat percentage, where as broccoli only has 8% fat. Reducing fat consumption in this manner will reduce your BMI as fat has 9 calories and carbs only have 4.

In addition to this, since these vegetables have dietary fiber they will fill you up without any calories at all, which is one of the most effective ways you can reduce your weight without exercise.

By reducing your weight, and eliminating high cholesterol and obesity that you may have you will seriously reduce your risk of heart attacks.


why is this?

Thank you for mentioning this, as cellulose which is a component of dietary fiber is necessary and essential to every humans diet, you need dietary fiber and it is one of the healthiest things consumable, although we cannot digest it, it will fill you up and make you lose weight, it will aid in digestion and it will allow for your stool to be dumped more smoothly.


it simply wouldn't be worth the energy expenditure needed to digest cellulose.

You seem to be ignorant about this. First of all many of those animals don't even emit the enzymes for it themselves, they have bacteria and protozoa that that emit the enzyme cellulase, so they don't even take up much of energy for it lol, from wikipedia:

Cellulase refers to a class of enzymes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzymes) produced chiefly by fungi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungi), bacteria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria), and protozoans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protozoan) that catalyze (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalyze) the cellulolysis (or hydrolysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrolysis)) of cellulose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose).


Because plant material is for the most part less nutritious than meat

Plant matter less nutritious then meat? What? I don't know any scientist or doctor who actually believes that they all recommend an increase in vegetable intake for humans, go ahead and argue that meat isn't bad for you, but it being better for us then vegetables and other plants? That just shits all on the nutrition science we have been doing for the last fifty years.


Why do you think obligate herbivores eat so much?

What makes you think obligate herbivores really eat more then carnivores? The amount these animals eat is reflective of how big they are and how much energy they emit, not really the diet they have. On the other hand, being a carnivore is less efficient because each animal in the pyramid I showed you will lose energy from their body in the form of body heat, brain processes, etc, so each trophic level is less efficient.


cooking can in fact improve the nutrition of some foods by breaking down something slightly to make it more digestible.

You don't have to convince me of cooking, I do not think we should get rid of cooking, for one simply cooking a food does not hurt anyone or cause suffering in anybody (meat production on the other handle is responsible for immense amounts of suffering), and as you said it is not always bad and might even be beneficial in some cases.

However, your statement that humans are optimized for consuming cooked foods shows a blatant ignorance on your part of the science of cooking. People should develop an effective balance between cooked foods and non-cooked foods.

As for meat, cooking is necessary, as meat is dirty and it has all kinds of excrement as well as bacteria and other things as we discussed previously so you need to cook it to alleviate this.

Furthermore, scientific studies have shown that cooking slaughtered animals at high temperatures introduces some new carcinogenic elements (namely heteroclyclic amines) that would not otherwise be there.


No, junk food is a problem because it contains too much fat and sugar, both of which are essential nutrients. So yes, you can suffer from too much nutrition.

Sorry, I was attaching a positive connotation to the term nutrition.

Your previous description of the problem is still not precise.


I'm not suggesting that pro athletes can get away with eating junk food every day, but by the same measure I think it's unwise to buy into society's obsessive focus on food and diets.

American society does seem to have an obsession with food, namely junk food, and this is demonstrated by the rampant obesity present here. What I want to see society having an obsession with good food and good diets.


If one has a reasonably active lifestyle then a beefburger once or twice a week isn't going to kill you.

You seem to be very deluded when it comes to nutrition science, and you seem to think it is unimportant to have a good diet as you have repeatedly attempted to diminish the importance of good nutrition.

There have been scientific studies conducted where they just tested these diets without significant amounts of exercise and it has demonstrated most of these benefits I have described, like lowering cholesterol, BMI, alleviating diabetes, heart disease, etc. So although I love exercise and it is important, scientific studies have shown that simply switching to a vegan diet can have enormous benefits.


Indeed not, I am ordinary mortal who doesn't have the dinero to waste on expensive "superfoods" which are regularly hawked and touted by the health food business.

Be that as it may, however, tell me when you want to come back to the science and environment forum and actually discuss the science behind this product.

Also you seem to be ignorant about hemp, it is not some superfood, it is a natural growing plant which just happens to have one of the most perfect ratios of essential fatty acids in any food.

Additionally, it is not something hawked by any business. If anything it is repressed, as the U.S government doesn't even let you farmers grow hemp here, so it is only imported which is fricking ridiculous.


It does no such thing. The fact that we evolved in a situation where sweet and fatty things were rare does not obviate the nutritional content of meat.

Wrong. The fact that we evolved with a scarce amount of "fatty things" means that we are not adapted to said things. And saturated fats happen to be abundant in even the leanest meats.

My point though was that meat was a scarce resource for our ancestors, which is a scientific fact by the way, I don't think you would attempt to refute this?

Therefore, since it was scarce, we did not evolve carnivorousness and all the things that would indicate that that meat should be a primary part of our diet.

And the nutrition content of meat is irrelevant to the existence of humans, however, it is our digestive system that is evolved and which is not optimized for eating these meats, and the evidence for this which you seem to fail to recognize is the harmfulness of cholesterol, saturated fats, and animal protein (which leaches calcium for starters).


Furthermore, what the hell kind of definition of "optimised" are you using? Everything about our physiology says "opportunistic omnivore" - from our single stomach to our medium-length gut to our vestigial appendix. If you want to see an example of optimization, look at the digestive system of a cow or rabbit - note the cow's multiple stomach chambers and the rabbit's relatively enlarged appendix.

Copied from my earlier post since I am trying to type this response up pretty quickly as other people seem to be flowing into this topic for some reason, it works though since you never addressed this post effectively:

Humans do not have claws, sharp pointed teeth, small salvinary glands, acid saliva, hydrochloric acid in the stomach for digestion, the long intestinal tract, or any of those other features that would indicate that we have evolved towards eating meat. Simply put we are not meant to eat meat, we just have the technology to do it.

The technology to hunt on a wide scale was developed 1.8 mya by Homo Erectus, and they also developed the ability to control fire and cooking, this allowed them to have meat as a significant and controlled part of their diet. These were the first hunter-gatherers, go ahead and research hunter gatherers. It is undisputed that they got most of their food from gathering (~90%) not from hunting, and humans were hunter gathers up until 10,000 years ago.

Since humans got 90% or more of their food from plants for their entire evolutionary history (no noticable evolutionary changes occur in a small 10,000 year period), what do you think their bodies and their digestive systems are evolved to eat? That is right, they are evolved to eat plants

So that is why we are optimized to eat plants, we have been doing that for our entire evolutionary history, and although we are omnivores that does not demonstrate that the meat is good for you.

TASTE


Why should I give up the certain and immediate pleasure of consuming animal products because someone's gotten themselves confused over what a healthy diet means?

1. The meat only tastes good because of vegetable seasoning and cooking that is added to eat, trying eating the stuff raw and see how you like it.

2. The taste reflects your personal belief that it is okay to slaughter these animals, if you had a problem with it it wouldn't taste as good to eat body parts, some of which are not that different from the ones in your own body, so yeah taste is partly mental as the brain is an incredible powerful thing.

3. Your taste buds change, if you have been eating meat for years and years probably because your parents fed it to you you become used to the stuff, but then when you stop eating it for a while it loses its attraction.

4. Taste is fleeting, you just get taste for a temporary period of time, however, your good health is long lasting and the feeling that you did something ethically right can also be pleasurable.

5. Its trivial, we realize there is important things and it is worth making sacrifices sometimes, like communism isn't going to give you much pleasure and it is going to demand a significant amount of sacrifice from you in the form of revolution and sometimes having to live in the capitalist's prisons, so you sometimes have to sacrifice for more important things.

6. We will develop genetically engineered vat foods which taste even better and are cheaper and are better for you.

MEDICAL COSTS

High cholesterol is entirely caused by animal products, and people are prescribed millions of cholesterol pills, which is a waste of money in the production of those pills, which would could be completely eliminated by veganism.

Additionally, there is hundreds of billions of dollars spent treating other meat related medical conditions, e.g diabetes, heart disease, and atherosclerosis.

PRODUCTION


I'm not justifying it, in fact I think the way we produce meat should be radically changed.

Go ahead and tell me about any radical changes we can have with the limitations of what we have in there here and now and not some futuristic pie-in-the-sky idea that you have come up with.

A far less pie-in-the-sky idea is genetically engineered vat foods which will come along as an alternative far earlier then those imaginary ideas, so assuming you have money or something and you have to choose what to fund you should fund vegan vat grown foods.


The emphasis should be changed from volume to sustainability.

I agree that such a change should be made, we should reduce the volume of meat production significantly (preferably to zero), and the best way to do that is to not eat meat.

If you would choose to not eat meat yourself then you would help this cause that you claim to support as the volume of the production would be decreased and the sustainability demand would be more reasonably satisfiable. Right now we need these methods of production to meet the demand, and the only solution to that is to reduce the meat production.

So who is going to give up this "volume" why should it be someone else and not you? You should give it up, at least for your health.


Only if you think the current mass meat production is the only way to do it.

I don't, I have heard your pie-in-the-sky ideas about what it might be 1,000 years down the line and I think they might happen in some imaginary society.


Doesn't sound like a problem so intractable that a competent processes engineer couldn't resolve.

In some alternative universe some engineers and technicians could solve all the problems of capitalism without resorting to communist revolution, is that an argument for capitalism?

Also some of your ridiculous arguments aren't that different then the arguments given for slavery, like we could feed the slaves well and give them big houses to "soothe our consciences." But slavery would still have needed to be abolished in the real world and at that time because it was the cause of significant amounts of suffering, just as the livestock industry is the cause of significant amounts of suffering in the here and now.

And interestingly enough, back in the day ethical people stopped eating sugar that was made by slaves because they were educated about the slavery and the sugar just didn't taste good to them anymore because they were good empathetic and sympathic people, who felt a bit of the slave's pain whenever they ate that stuff

ENVIRONMENT


Nope, you are just closing your mind to anything but the false dichotomy of unsustainable profit-oriented factory farming versus worldwide veganism.

I don't deny that you could have a sustainable system, but you would have to drastically decrease the volume of production and you if this was distributed equitably (it isn't now as opressing countries are the ones which can afford meat) then meat would be like a delicacy due to its scarcity.

And even if it could be done sustainably that does not change the amount of resources and land wasted by this inefficient method of production.


Factory animals are susceptible to diseases because of the atrocious conditions in which they are kept, which is the point I was making.

The factory farming system already takes up an incredible amount of land, if you choose to make it more sustainable and more clean by decreasing the ratio of production to land, you will either be wasting up an unacceptable amount of land or you will be producing an unacceptably low amount of the product. No matter what this meat system will be unacceptable and it still wastes an incredible amount of resources.


The article talks about current methods, which are horrifically wasteful and damaginf o the environment.

Yeah it does. You do live in the present right? As by your statements you seem to think you live in some futuristic society that you imagined up as you fail to address the problem that is going on right here right now.

For each of the problems related to the production of meat you basically say "1,000 years from now we will have lots of water, food, and energy anyways."

Sure, we could have replicators like in star trek which would create everything by arranging atoms, but since that is like a million years away from what we have now it is not related or worth discussing here.

If you have any good practical points to discuss about the here and the now I will hear them.


It's not the sewage that is the problem - in fact it is potentially a valuable resource. The big problem is in fact what is done with the sewage. Currently we either just dump it into the nearest handy body of water, or we clean it slightly before dumping it into the nearest handy body of water, which makes all the difference I suppose. But a more closed system that reclaims water instead of attempting (badly) to purify it, gathers solids for further processing, and extracts valuable methane gas, would be an absolute boon to society.

We don't have an excess of sewage treatment plants and water purification systems, or the ability to make that many of them in present times, so please try to come down to Earth and discuss what we actually have now and the problem that actually exists.

http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/images/manurepit-sm.jpg

http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/images/lagoon-sm.jpg

There they are dumped into the rivers because we don't have a billion treatment plants as you seem to think.


No, they are designed to expend as little money as possible, which is not the same thing. It doesn't cost anything in monetary terms to simply dump waste, but the environmental cost is considerable.

If there was some way they could expend less resources (resources cost money) they would.


It only seems impractical to you because you've let yourself be dazzled by the sheer numbers. But it actually turns out that providing sanitation to thousands, even millions of living, breathing, crapping organisms in a single location isn't that difficult - after all, we can do it for humans living in cities, who are considerably more fussy than farm animals.

Right now, in the real world there is a water crisis and you fail to address what is actually going on right here on this planet, right now.


It won't use any more land than previously, but the energy costs involved in reducing transportation are potentially enormous.

What the hell? It won't use more land? WTF?

It already takes 10 times as much land as the alternative, and you want to put processing plants and slaughterhouses at every animal farm?

That means to reduce fossil fuel expenditures you want to add thousands of new slaughterhouses and processing plants to the planet, and that is definitely going to take up land, as new buildings take up land, at least in this planet.

The livestock industry is already consuming immense amounts of land, and even a thousand years down the line this would still be a problem for us as we will still want to have that precious land put to better uses.


maximise the amount of living space available to humanity.

I am glad to hear that you want to maximize the amount of living space available to us, and you know what one of the easiest ways of doing that is? Simply not eating meat.

The construction projects you described require an incredible expenditure of energy, it requires environmental planning, construction workers, engineers...

And all you need to do to get more land now is not eat meat, which is much easier. But you don't seem to really care about the scarcity of land or other resources that much, as is demonstrated by your responses to the discussion about the waste of resources caused by this industry.


That pyramid chart you are so fond is an abstraction of what generally occurs in nature

The word pyramid is an abstraction, that sentence you just made is full of abstractions, so what?


you are extremely foolish, not to mention short-sighted and unimaginative, if you think that abstraction is some iron law of physics with no exceptional cases.

Law of physics? No. But a crucial component of environmental science? Yes.

Meat eating is not a naturally sustainable practice, and we have all these sustainability problems even though we don't even feed the stuff to all the people in the world.

ETHICS


any suffering is an unfortunate by-product that can be minimised to soothe our consciences.

I think everyone would support better production methods, which all you seem to state here. Speaking about soothing our consciences, if you actually cared about doing good here you would become a vegetarian at least for the sake of the human animal rights activists. Human rights activists have a fully developed human brain similar to yours, and many of them have an intelligence and sensitivity comparable or superior to ours, so you should be a vegetarian at least for those human animal rights activists.

And I think human beings have a sort of a desire to think their bodies are special. After all we spend our entire lifetimes in them.

And when one of us vegetarians see an animal with body parts just like ours (in part because the animals you ate have a common ancestor with us, so you are eating your cousins), have said body parts disconnected and then eaten that is extremely revolting. I mean there is nothing that different from our eyes, ears, nose, legs, penis, muscles, arms and other parts of our body from our cousin animals. (our primary distinguishing factor is a brain, which is also eaten by people mind you), and to see those body parts similar to ours eaten is just revolting to some of us, there is no comparasion with plants and bacteria as they are billions of years of evolution away from us humans, and they have no comparable body parts.


Because farm animals have little if any inkling of the situation in which they find themselves

Little if any inkling? This just shows again that you are disconnected from reality. Get off your computer and actually check out an animal, okay? Why do I even discuss this with you if you demonstrate such blatant ignorance?

Senses:
First of all these animals have the same primary senses as us, like eyes and ears, a nose, so they will feel all the same things as us, although they won't be able to write a book about it or argue online about it, they will be able to sense and feel things.

Actually, many birds can see way better then we can as their eyes are more potent, and our senses are laughable in comparative to an octupus, and some fish have senses we do not have entirely.

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/amaze.html

Dolphin:
Can hear frequencies up to at least 100,000 Hz.

Hawk:
Normal vision for people is 20/20. A hawk's vision is equivalent to 20/5. This means that the hawk can see from 20 feet what most people can see from 5 feet. (Scientific American, April 2001, page 24)

Octopus:
Retina contains 20 million photoreceptors.

Pig:
Tongue contains 15,000 taste buds. For comparison, the human tongue has 9,000 taste buds.

Sensitivity:
Most of them have a central nervous system, so when you touch them or poke them hard, a stimuli will go to their brain so that they feel pain, just like us! Many of them can feel pain as vividly as we can!!

The stimuli will be sent to their brain, but they won't be able make any complex decisions because of it, just imagine being a retard though, you would still feel pain even if you weren't intelligent, and although these animals can't start a revolution because of their pain or write a book about it they can still feel it just like us, and they squirm and try to fight back in the slaughterhouse's as they are being slaughtered, nobody wants to be killed.

Intelligence:
Although they cannot make complex decisions and intelligent choices, nether can children who have not fully developed a brain yet, however, there animals that are smarter then the average three year old human, and some of them that have all the senses of said human if not more.

Yet I don't think you would want us to kill three year old children which are less intelligent them some farm animals. Why not? Why shouldn't we slaughter them but we should slaughter adult farm animals with equivalent levels of awareness and intelligence?

Plants:
One argument given by ignorant individuals is that plants are also alive and we are eating them, however, show me one plant which has eyes, ears, a brain, a central nervous system, or anything that even compares and I won't eat it. Oh wait, it can't have those things otherwise it would be classified as animal!

[Revy]

Bones found in Ethiopia show cuts from stone and indications that the bones were forcibly broken to remove marrow.

Although I eat meat and have no real objection to it, most people would not consider bone marrow to be meat. In the strict sense of something coming from the body of an animal, yes.

I've read that the earliest hominids ate fruit, nuts, seeds, tender leaves, sap, roots, stuff like that. So if you go back far enough, our origins certainly are as herbivores. Some people think they ate insects too which is possible. Even the vegetarian gorilla consumes lots of small insects by accident.

Then the more evolved hominids later on, well they were eating meat. But not hunting. Scavenging, taking what the predators did not. Bone marrow would have been a good thing for a being with an evolved brain to figure out how to extract. It is very nutritious and the fat content provides plenty of calories.

Humans are not a predator, though, in the same sense as all the other predator animals. We hunted with tools. But that doesn't make it "unnatural" to eat meat, because humans aren't just another animal. The brain we used helped give us the meat. Humans also ate organ meats like the heart, liver and brain. Yum!

Did we evolve to eat meat? Yes. But I reject this theory pushed into the mainstream that meat is the reason behind human intelligence and evolution. A high level of intelligence is commonly shared among all Great Apes as well as humans, that is because we are related species of course. Among the apes we don't just see omnivores (the chimp and bonobo) but species like the orangutan, which eats mostly fruit, and is very intelligent, the gorilla, which eats mostly leaves, like I said before, if any animal is consumed, it's insects and it's a minor portion of their diet. The lack of meat has not made them dumb. All apes regardless of species can be taught sign language.

They're also pushing a new one on us, not only meat made us intelligent but also cooking food made us intelligent. I'm no scientist but even I can tell this is laughably simplistic thinking. Why does there have to be some mysterious cause for our intelligence? That is how we evolved. I would say the opposite actually. The ability to hunt meat and to cook food are symptoms of intelligence, NOT causes of it.

[Stand Your Ground]

I didn't even know that people argued humans never evolved to eat meat - what else are teeth for? :lol:
We would need teeth no matter what we eat.