"Now…..where's that apple?"

Buried in the sands of lost opportunity if you don't awaken soon...

I was, it really is a funny bunch of blogs. I hope they continue the discussion.

continually amused--I'm glad you're amused by yourself. No one else is.

continually amused,

Your animosity towards me is misplaced. My effort is as good as I am capable of...

Although it is appropriate for me to ask; what is it that I am missing, how can I do better, etc.

Your position seems to be determined effort to remain ignorant. I am not sure that I can convince you that such a position protects no one, including yourself.

I will try, but it would be better if you would do some of the work on your end.

Why not try my sledge hammer and bust a few holes in those cultural walls so that I can see you and you can get a better glimpse of me.

Peace.

"NAZI, I suppose you wear shoes of hemp, live in an adobe hut and convey on a union made environmentally friendly slate bicycle."

My shoes are canvass, my dwelling 400 square feet of mostly concrete and my bike not new.

But, you are right, adobe is best in many cases. I once met an architect who said that she would not design anything that was not adobe!

Also, I think you are confusing me with Maynard. The quote about the rabbit is a rather famous one. I use it because it makes the point quite well that humans would not eat meat unless they were TAUGHT to do so.

So, am I 'full of shit'? Generally, I am much less 'full of shit' than meat-eaters for reasons covered quite well in the Bizarro comic video already linked twice but here it is again:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=05zhL1YUd8Q

As for your ecologically deranged sense that murdering other animals is a cute attention getter... well, that's what we are working on correcting isn't it?

Is the above meant to be amusing?

Or are you just trying to make MY POINT that humans are 'experience deprived' and thus their reflections are generally productive of nonsense?

What does a naturally carnivorous pit bull's reactions have to do with natural human herbivore interactions?

If you can answer that question, we might be getting somewhere. As for the Mercedes, they really are ugly (indications of low self-esteem too) and filled with leather... so you shouldn't expect a vegan to buy one for you.

Finally, gaining control over food is a policy still today of empire and the principle that more control is always better.

Today's version of how to limit variety, destroy the fecundity of lands not under ones control, and attain absolute control over what foods are available and to whom is well explored in the new documentary:

The World According to Monsanto http://100777.com/node/1805

"How familiar are you with essential amino acids and the requirements for protein synthesis ?"

It must also be mentioned that in a naturally fecund environment, rich variation exists.

Gathering is actually the best way to obtain dietary balance and variety, not the worst as has been suggested.

Furthermore, agricultural societies not only tended to mono-crop or limit the numbers of foods that were routinely eaten; they also, quite intentionally attempted to inhibit all food availability outside their control.

Good examples of these principles at work and the vast ecological devastations that occurred can be seen in Argentina (the affects of the Incan empire) and in North Africa where desertification of a huge portion of a rich continent was effected by the shortsighted and control-seeking policies of numerous empire building and war-making societies.

"So many other animals agree, like lions, tigers, bears, roadrunners, fish and sharks eating other fish etc. Not too many seaweed nibblers in the ocean."

All of the above have species specific anatomies and physiologies including specialized digestive systems.

If you want to know what to eat, consult your own species specific anatomy. http://youtube.com/watch?v=05zhL1YUd8Q

"So eating cows and chickens is like eating vegitarian."

Have you convinced any giraffe of this lately?

Humans, that have been culturally isolated from the mechanisms by which the biosphere remains vital, are the only earthly creatures capable of such 'experience deprived' reflections.

"Chickens eat all grain."

Chickens like to forage and it is very important that they do. They eat primarily grasses and flowers and like apples and such too.

Chickens in captivity may eat only grains but it is certainly not what they prefer or what is most healthy for them.

When we unexpectedly took over the care of a chicken we found penned and awaiting slaughter, we began to feed her:

Her response?

"Let me out, I can do that for myself!"

I couldn't believe she had said that and I was not at all comfortable with letting her run free in the yard… there were cats often around and a gate that was also frequently left open by many people… so there was real danger that she might run into the street and get hit by a car…

My sense of protection would not allow me to be comfortable with her running freely about.

After a few weeks, I realized she was serious and not about to change her mind and see things my way…

And so I met my next professor. She taught me the meaning of 'Mother Earth'. Save a chicken… you may be surprised what secrets they will share with you.

Several specie of whales eat only plankton and the whale shark lives for more than 150 years and is sexually active till it dies. Of course they also scoop up a lot of krill along with the different types of plankton so I suppose they are omnivorious also.

Beer is mostly grain, how about a diet of spinach and beer?

http://www.whyplankton.com

You are what you eat.
Cows eat all grass.
Chickens eat all grain.
So eating cows and chickens is like eating vegitarian.

So many other animals agree, like lions, tigers, bears, roadrunners, fish and sharks eating other fish etc. Not too many seaweed nibblers in the ocean.

"You might consider looking into what several ice ages might do to your ideas of the "Garden of Eating" setting,"

The greatest habitat destructions involve meat-eating. I am not going to dig up all the links for you, I'll let you do that; EarthSave, World Watch Institute, The Audubon Society, etc.

And many recent articles including New York Times articles have made this abundantly clear.

Oh yes, China…

Yahoo ran an article recently discussing the rise in meat and dairy consumption in China and the numerous health problems that were now appearing due to this and the predictable cancers that were surely to emerge within the next twenty years.

"How familiar are you with essential amino acids and the requirements for protein synthesis ?"

I am not sure what question you are asking. I do know what amino acids are and I am familiar with essential amino acids being defined as those we do not synthesize...

But, this is NOT a problem for those eating a natural plant diet. In fact, it is probably the most commonly addressed topic amongst nutritionists proposing an all plant based diet.

"like vegetarian humanoids DIED OUT - please do research & look into how the teeth wear patterns on extinct humanoids, show lots of grass grinding along with dirt & sand "

I think this has been covered already in the differences I drew for vegetarian and meat-eating primitive societies... the war-making ones driving out the more peaceful ones.

Though this may seem to argue for meat-eating and war-making as being more survivable, that is clearly not so.

Meat-eating societies, as previously stated, are basically (but unnaturally) dominator. Burning the habitats of those not under their control is typical and continuous through today. But, practices such as these have finally brought biosphere existence itself to the threshold of annihilation.

What is missing here is the very important and necessary understanding that life is a partnership enterprise… the Gaia hypothesis as it has been called. In this hypothesis, it is the intricate relations between elements that make the whole vital… and thus, being 'in tune' with ones ecological niche, is extremely important... to oneself and the healthy functioning of one's greater world/habitat.

"Perhaps you might explain how a rapidly moving hunter-gathering society would either know about protein complementing ( rice + beans … etc ), so that it is more likely that their protein level w/o meat to have been a serious deleterious impact"

You are laboring under an assumption that has been proven false and even has been retracted by its original author and champion, Frances Moore Lappe.

The idea of combining vegetable foods to arrive at the 'perfect protein' stems from a mistake Lappe made when she initially and unquestionably accepted that egg protein was the 'perfect protein' for humans.

And, the idea that gobs of protein is better than optimal protein is just wrong. And, excessive protein consumption has certainly played NO role in making humans smart (what would though, humans reverting to their natural heribovre diet, is an effort in progress;).

"Perhaps you believe that a larger brain size was purely evolutionary accident, or mutation ?"

Maybe you should pose this question to an herbivore with a really large brain, an elephant for instance, and one that has not taken it upon himself to destroy his own natural habitat...

"(3.) . How did the original hunter-gatherers ever find vegetarian meals sufficient to enrich their diets, and build larger brain size, prior to item (1.) occurring ?"

Finding 'vegetarian meals' should be obvious. How did monkeys find food? Fruits do grow on this planet. Vegetables, seeds, nuts, lots of edible grasses, leaves, etc. were naturally abundant. Even many flowers are edible.

As for a larger brain (assuming this is to mean smarter)... that is a strange claim for the only creature on this planet to make that is incapable of even understanding what is healthy for it to eat. (If you don't know what to eat when you awake in the morning, how 'smart' are the rest of the day's decisions likely to be?)

Many animals I have known believe that you are in serious error here...

Chickens for instance have very small brains but as the article states, they are known to be highly intelligent. We rescued a chicken, her methods were entirely Zen... she had a genius that transcended any I have ever encountered in human form.

I am sorry I cannot explain how humans came by their 'large' brains. All my life, I have felt threatened by the lack of intelligence in humans, even in myself... so I think this is just another cultural error. Maybe dropping atomic bombs looks smart to you, but to me, it's dumb. Maybe digging big holes in the ground and filling them with toxins looks smart to you, but it looks really stupid to me.

Maybe driving insanely up and down and all around for no apparent reason but to pollute the air is smart to you, but it is dumb to me. I could list another five million things but it is late… no animal (other than a human one) on this planet thinks humans are anything but programmed, blind and dangerously stupid… I guarantee it!

"(2.) . After establishment of agriculture, grain became a steady source of protein, both for the farmers and those still hunter-gathering ( through conquest or trade, with the former )."

Protein in the Vegan Diet
by Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D.

from http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.htm

Table 2 shows the amount of protein in various vegan foods and also the number of grams of protein per 100 calories.

To meet protein recommendations, the typical adult male vegan needs only 2.5 to 2.9 grams of protein per 100 calories and the typical adult female vegan needs only 2.1 to 2.4 grams of protein per 100 calories.

These recommendations can be easily met from vegan sources.

Table 2: Protein Content of Selected Vegan Foods

(the table below is not formatting well, my apologies, hope it can still be somewhat useful)

FOOD AMOUNT PROTEIN(gm) PROTEIN(gm/100 cal)
Tempeh 1 cup 41 9.3
Seitan 3 ounces 31 22.1
Soybeans, cooked1 cup 29 9.6
Lentils, cooked 1 cup 18 7.8
Black beans 1 cup 15 6.7
Kidney beans 1 cup 13 6.4
Veggie burger 1 patty 13 13.0
Chickpeas, 1 cup 12 4.2
Veg baked beans 1 cup 12 5.0
Pinto beans 1 cup 12 5.7
Black-eyed peas 1 cup 11 6.2
Tofu, firm 4 oz 11 11.7
Lima beans 1 cup 10 5.7
Quinoa, cooked 1 cup 9 3.5
Tofu, regular 4 oz 9 10.6
Bagel 1 9 3.9
Peas, cooked 1 cup 9 6.4
TVP cooked 1/2 cup 8 8.4
Peanut butter 2 Tbsp 8 4.3
Veggie dog 1 link 8 13.3
Spaghetti 1 cup 8 3.7
Almonds 1/4 cup 8 3.7
Soy milk plain 1 cup 7 7.0
Soy yogurt, 6 oz 6 4.0
Bulgur, cooked 1 cup 6 3.7
Sunflower seeds 1/4 cup 6 3.3
Wh wheat bread 2 sl 5 3.9
Cashews 1/4 cup 5 2.7
Almond butter 2 Tbsp 5 2.4
Brown rice 1 cup 5 2.1
Spinach, cooked 1 cup 5 13.0
Broccoli 1 cup 4 6.8
Potato 1 med 4 2.7

Sources: USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 18, 2005 and manufacturers' information.

The recommendation for protein for adult males vegans is around 56-70 grams per day; for adult female vegans it is around 46-58 grams per day (see text).

Please note: the typical adult female vegan needs only 2.1 to 2.4 grams of protein per 100 calories. These recommendations can be easily met from vegan sources.

_________

So, if we ate nothing but potatoes (a tuber with minimal protein), basic (and, according to some nutrition experts, optimal) protein requirements are met.

Excessive protein consumption is very unhealthy.

Dairy proteins in particular are correlated with autism which some suggest are due to the extremely long protein chains that cannot be completely broken down and thus chains of amino acids clog young brains like glue gumming up the works.

(see "The World Peace Diet" by Will Tuttle http://worldpeacediet.org/)

One at a time...

1. "Ancient man was necessarily a hunter-gatherer - prior to domestication of wild grains, and organization of some groups into farming communities."

Really, why?

Natural fruits and pulpy vegetables were far more abundant a few hundred thousand years ago than today... but even today, have you ever seen how much fruit an avocado tree can produce, a berry patch, an olive tree, nectarine, persimmon, coconut, etc.?

Do you even have any idea what the optimum amount of protein in the human diet is? And why it is optimum? And what happens when we consume excess protein? Do you have any idea what the optimal balance of other nutrients in our diet is and why that particular balance is the best for us?

For a 28 year vegetarian you sound very ill-informed. Most people who begin to make changes in their diets also develop a voracious curiosity on the subject and all things related.

So, the real facts are that man could have existed in relative laziness as a simple frugivore gatherer just as he was ecologically defined to do.

A point I believe covered by Dr. Mills in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFROlwe-m3Y

(I intend at some point to discuss the role of empire though in removing/destroying/burning natural forage so that indigenous peoples could not survive outside the empire's control structures... a practice that even continues today.)

Dear presence,

Your last post is filled with numerous and false statements and assumptions. And each will be addressed to explain why it is not only false but also illogical.

But first some politics:

Hitler is one of the least understood political figures of the last century. Hitler was working in the intelligence branch of the German army when he was asked (by the army headed by Kaiser Wilhelm) to infiltrate one of the German socialist parties.

(Remember COINTELPRO and their attack on the Black independence movement in this country in the sixties? Same deal; infiltrate, fracture, discredit, even organize similar sounding groups and try to gain control of the movement... also assassinate, spy... all the stuff in which secret services routinely engage to protect the interests of the elite…)

Anyway, Hitler successfully accomplished his assignment and was then chosen for the role of Fuhrer again by Wilhelm, the grandson of Queen Victoria.

The German army hired a drama coach for Hitler and the English sent a tutor to teach him the 'his' 'new' philosophy of eugenics.

And second more politics:

(from http://www.foodrevolution.org/askjohn/47.htm)

"The belief that Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian is widespread, and you are certainly not the only one who carries it. But that doesn't make it true.

Robert Payne is widely considered to be Hitler's definitive biographer. In his book, Hitler: The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler, Payne says that Hitler's "vegetarianism" was a "legend" and a "fiction" invented by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda.

According to Payne:

"Hitler's asceticism played an important part in the image he projected over Germany. According to the widely believed legend, he neither smoked nor drank, nor did he eat meat or have anything to do with women. Only the first was true. He drank beer and diluted wine frequently, had a special fondness for Bavarian sausages and kept a mistress, Eva Braun… His asceticism was fiction invented by Goebbels to emphasize his total dedication, his self-control, the distance that separated him from other men. By this outward show of asceticism, he could claim that he was dedicated to the service of his people. In fact he was remarkably self-indulgent and possessed none of the instincts of the ascetic." "

Hitler was NOT a vegetarian.

Kathleen Marquardt unsuccessfully tries to equate animal rights with Nazism in her 1993 book, Animal Scam: the Beastly Abuse of Human Rights, which is an attack on the animal rights movement.

She claims that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and that he suffered from depression, mood swings, irritability, and agitation, all of which are symptoms of a vitamin B-12 deficiency, and that animal products are the only dietary source of vitamin B-12.

According to Carol Orsag, in Irving Wallace and David Wallechinsky's The People's Almanac (1975), however, Adolf Hitler consumed animal products in the form of eggs and dairy products, and enjoyed eggs "prepared 101 different ways by the best chef in Germany." He "became vegetarian because of stomach problems" rather than out of compassion for animals, and "was criticized for eating pig's knuckles."

In a 1996 article, "Nazis and Animals: Debunking the Myths," Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights states that Hitler "had a special fondness for sausages and caviar, and sometimes ham," as well as "liver dumplings." Kalechofsky states further that the Nazis experimented on animals as well as humans in the concentration camps:

"The evidence of Nazi experiments on animals is overwhelming. In The Dark Face of Science, author John Vyvyan summed it up correctly: 'The experiments made on prisoners were many and diverse, but they had one thing in common: all were in continuation of, or complementary to, experiments on animals. In every instance, this antecedent scientific literature is mentioned in the evidence, and at Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps, human and animal experiments were carried out simultaneously as parts of a single programme.'"

Isaac Bashevis Singer, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, became a vegetarian in 1962. He once asked, "How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy? How can we speak of rights and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood?"

Hitler's so-called "vegetarianism" did not prevent Isaac Bashevis Singer from comparing humanity's mass killing of 50 billion animals every year to the Nazi Holocaust. In 1987 he wrote, "This is my protest against the conduct of the world. To be a vegetarian is to disagree—to disagree with the course of things today. Nuclear power, starvation, cruelty—we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one."

Isaac Bashevis Singer has also expressed the view that unnecessary violence against animals by human beings will only lead to further violence in human society: "I personally believe that as long as human beings will go on shedding the blood of animals, there will never be any peace. There is only one little step from killing animals to creating gas chambers a' la Hitler and concentration camps a' la Stalin—all such deeds are done in the name of 'social justice.' There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is."

"ticonderoga–I know you're trying, so I don't want to beat up on you,"

I too, do not want to beat up on anyone...

...but I am a very little person with "sledge hammer" personality.

It amazes me still today that when I hit someone really hard, they fail to see the love in it:)

Peace to all.

"However, I'm realistic enough to realize that there's no way meat-eating is ever going to completely become extinct, so for me the question is, "What's the best way to get people to eat less meat?""

I am an ecological realist. The idea that there is a 'choice' in this is just as preposterous as the thought that if we decide to, we could send the earth into orbit around the moon rather than the sun.

And, if we keep trying, we could conceivably make this a real option just as the development of certain weapons allowed for the capture and eating of animals… for a little while...

So that is what human meat-eating is, a decision that can only last awhile for it imperils all life, not only human life. And the facts on this are in.

Also, if some eat meat, it will eventually become the desire of most… because it is first and foremost an activity inside a dominator and disconnected society/mentality.

Thus, those 'on top' (in power) acquire the lion's share of the 'kill'. Which means; those who are forced participants in this dominator culture will try their utmost to emulate (and attain) the lifestyles of those most dominant. (The export of meat-eating gluttony to China being a recent and horrific example)

The best way to get people to eat less meat is to give them the facts of human anatomy and then show them what cost we are paying for our ignorance, in terms of health, environmental destruction, violence in society, etc.

"As SIOUXROSE & others have reiterated, the missing sacred feminine that has perennially regressed to near obliteration over 4000 years of MALE ( Mars rules_☠__ S l a v e r i n g ) DOMINATION war-mongering for profit, is OBSCENE."

Meat-eating cultures are dominator cultures. That is the first point to understand. And dominator means that we are NOT connection oriented. The focus of our culture is to gain dominance over others, the environment, etc.

In this culture, the first dominators were certainly those who had the greatest military prowess or brute animal strength, and these are not generally women. So, women did not have the same respect accorded them (unless they happened to command armies). Thus the feminine person (and their attributes) was considered of lesser social value.

Respect for the feminine will reappear when our respect for all natural expression is recovered. Until then, the wisdom of femininity cannot be discerned to be of social or political value, the idea of ecological value having been long ago lost in this dominator society.

ticonderoga--I know you're trying, so I don't want to beat up on you, but those "free-range" eggs you're eating are most likely not from free-roaming chickens if you're buying them from any commercial operation. They are kept in cages for most of their lives and are certainly slaughtered when they no longer produce. This is also usually true of the average person who raises chickens for eggs--they very seldom keep them as pets and most of the male chicks are disposed of since they are not needed to continue production.
Also--yes it's true that there are animal products in alot of everyday products, but you can make an effort to find out what they are and seek out alternatives. PETA provides a list you can get on their website PETA.org. Good luck and healthy, cruelty-free eating to all!

Whoa man!? I never said I was...you know what it'll be useless.I wasnt trying to offend really.I was sharing an opinion based on my own observation.

"Once again, we're looking at a situation where liberals and progressives spend more time fighting each other than they do fighting conservatives, which is why Bush stayed in power for eight years."

I do not think this is about party affiliations. (I also think Bush has nothing to do with corporate policies or that replacing him will change present corporate or militaristic dynamics. These will only change when everyone has a better understanding of the infrastructures of power, privilege and the engines and justifications upon which the disinfo culture rests.)

It is more analogous to the argument about whether the earth was the center of the universe or a satellite of the sun.

But, the affects upon this planet are so much more profound, getting the right answer to human anatomy will literally decide the fate of all life and possibly whether or not there will continue to be a bio-sphere at all.

As long as people believe that vegetarianism is 'a choice', little will change. Once everyone realizes that an all plant based diet is the only one supported in nature and by human biology, we will have turned a critical corner and be on the path to social and ecological sanity

Here are statements on nonviolence from the Hindu and Buddhist scriptures.

"You must not use your God-given body for killing God's creatures, whether they are human, animal or whatever."

---Yajur Veda 12.32

"One should be considered dear, even by the animal kingdom."

---Atharva Veda 17.1.4

"Those noble souls who practice meditation and other yogic ways, who are ever careful about all beings, who protect all animals, are the ones who are actually serious about spiritual practices."

---Atharva Veda 19.48.5

"By not killing any living being, one becomes eligible for salvation."

---Manusmriti 6.60

"The purchaser of flesh performs himsa (violence) by his wealth; he who eats flesh does so by enjoying its taste; the killer does himsa by actually tying and killing the animal. Thus, there are three forms of killing. He who brings flesh or sends for it, he who cuts off the limbs of an animal, and he who purchases, sells, or cooks flesh and eats it—all of these are considered meat-eaters."

---Mahabharata, Anu. 115.40

"He who desires to augment his own flesh by eating the flesh of other creatures lives in misery in whatever species he may take his birth."

---Mahabharata, Anu. 115.47

"Ahimsa (nonviolence) is the highest duty."

---Padma Purana 1.31.27

According to contemporary Hindu scholar Satyaraja dasa (Steven Rosen):

"Ahimsa loosely translates as 'nonviolence.' In the Vedic tradition, however, the word possesses a much broader meaning: 'Having no ill feeling for any living being, in all manners possible and for all times is called ahimsa, and it should be the desired goal of all seekers.' (Patanjali Yoga Sutras, 2.30)

"The Manusmriti, one of India's earliest sacred texts, says: 'Without the killing of living beings, meat cannot be made available, and since killing is contrary to the principles of ahimsa, one must give up eating meat.'

"The Vedas condemn more, however, than just those who eat meat. Equally guilty, they say, is anyone assisting in animal slaughter, sanctioning it, anyone who cuts the flesh, buys, sells, or even serves it. Only those who have not participated in any of these activities can be considered true practitioners of ahimsa.

"Sikhism, founded by Guru Nanak (1469-1538), is an interesting blend of Hindu and Islamic beliefs. Because of the Moslem influence, most branches of the Sikh religion are not strictly vegetarian. Still, according to Sikh scholar Swaran Singh Sanehi of the Academy of Namdhari culture: 'Sikh scriptures support vegetarianism fully. Sikhs from the period of Guru Nanak had adopted the Hindu tradition and way of living in many ways. Their disliking for flesh-foods was also a part of the same tradition and way of living. Guru Nanak considered meat-eating improper—particularly for those who are trying to meditate.' Of the ten million Sikhs, the Namdhari sect and Yogi Bhajan's 3HO Golden Temple Movement are strictly vegetarian."

The first precept of Buddhism is: "Do not kill, but rather preserve and cherish all life." There is an ancient poem, reputed to be the only text ever written by the Buddha himself, which states:

"Let creatures all, all things that live, all beings of whatever kind, see nothing that will bode them ill. May naught of evil come to them."

The Buddhist emperor Ashoka (268-223 BC) declared in one of his famous Pillar Edicts: "I have enforced the law against killing certain animals..The greatest progress of Righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favor of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living beings."

Mahayana Buddhism supports the vegetarian way of life. According to the Mahaparinirvana Sutra: "The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion."

The Lankavatara Sutra says:

"For the sake of love of purity, the bodhisattva should refrain from eating flesh, which is born from semen, blood, etc. For fear of causing terror to living beings let the bodhisattva, who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh...It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by himself, when he did not order others to kill it, when it was not specifically meant for him...Again, there may be some people in the future who...being under the influence of the taste for meat will string together in various ways many sophisticated arguments to defend meat-eating...But...meat-eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place is unconditionally and once and for all prohibited...Meat-eating I have not permitted to anyone, I do not permit, I will not permit..."

The Surangama Sutra says:

"The reason for practicing dhyana and seeking to attain samadhi is to escape from the suffering of life. But in seeking to escape from suffering ourselves, why should we inflict it upon others? Unless you can control your minds that even the thought of brutal unkindness and killing is abhorrent, you will never be able to escape from the bondage of the world's life...After my parinirvana in the final kalpa different kinds of ghosts will be encountered everywhere deceiving people and teaching them that they can eat meat and still attain enlightenment...How can a bhikshu, who hopes to become a deliverer of others, himself be living on the flesh of other sentient beings?"

The Dalai Lama has said, "I do not see any reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes. After all, man can live without meat."

For further reading:

Dr. Tony Page, Buddhism and Animals
Norm Phelps, The Great Compassion: Buddhism and Animal Rights
Steven Rosen, Diet for Transcendence

WorldNaziOrder, it looks like we could go round and round with this one forever, without really getting anywhere. What we're doing, as far as I can tell, is messing around with words: All, some, most, never, etc. In the long run, I don't think it matters much. What matters to me is that I think the world, for various reasons, would be better off if people ate a lot less meat. However, I'm realistic enough to realize that there's no way meat-eating is ever going to completely become extinct, so for me the question is, "What's the best way to get people to eat less meat?"

And I just don't think arguing back and forth about semantics is going to do the job. I also don't think that trying to make people feel that they're somehow unethical or foolish if they're not perfect is going to help, either. All that's going to do is put people's backs up and make them think that vegetarians are elitist, holier-than-thou snobs, which I don't think they are. I think they're right, and sensible, as well. After all, the cattle industry contributes greatly to global warming and meat is more expensive than veggies, and you can stay healthy on a veggie diet, and the way MOST animals that people eat are raised is inhumane.

So I hope you have a very nice day, too. And I hope you're successful with what you're trying to do.

"My only argument with you is whether or not hunter-gatherer societies ever ate or still are eating meat. You say they never did and I say they did, although not all that much."

First of all, I have previously stated that different types of primitive societies were everywhere expressing up until very recent centuries and even into the last century.

I never said that there NO primitive societies eating meat. But, the notion that ALL primitive societies were 'hunter-gatherer' is just wrong. Most were not.

Even in the Americas in recent times we have examples of pure vegetarian cultures.

I'm glad you're so happy, tystikal. I'm also glad you're so pure. But I'm willing to bet that you own quite a few things that were made with animal products, whether you realize it or not, so you're not perfect. No one is. (Once again, we're looking at a situation where liberals and progressives spend more time fighting each other than they do fighting conservatives, which is why Bush stayed in power for eight years.)

I hope you have a very nice day.

And another perspective (I found this very interesting:

The Ethical Vegetarian consumer
(a fresh look at bad old consumer habits)

A History of Injustice and Exploitation, Animals as Tools and Spare Parts, The Fairness of Fair Trade: a Vegetarian Perspective..........

and much more, see:

http://www.ivu.org/news/3-98/ethical.html

"It is scientifically thought the the enormous brain-size's RAPID growth of humankind ( as we primitively know it ), was a direct result of high protein intake due to

self-promoting ( i.e. positive feedback ) changes to being able to successfully hunt and acquire associated skills needed to better survive in the veldt grasslands, as contrasted with the previous species "hanging out" in the trees eating fruits ( … etc, and pretty much staying there for parallel evolution ) "

This is an absurd fallacy and has been well refuted in the article I linked above regarding 'Food for Thought, or Food for Propaganda'.

This nonsense assertion is not based upon science but wishful thinking driven by the corporate need to find a rationale for present meat-eating.

And the 'high-protein intake' assertion is likewise nonsense. Many vegetables and beans are extremely high in protein and unlike animal proteins; vegetable proteins are 100% digestible.

We have a metric by which to assess matters. And it is one that is easy to address, utilize, investigate...

This metric is our own bodies. Our bodies cannot make use of animal foods without deleterious affects. And this is true of ALL animal foods!

So, we did not acquire mega brains from eating non-digestible proteins and other toxic substances! And, we certainly do not have the largest brains on earth! How do you suppose elephants acquired theirs? Are they secretly involved in lion eating rituals??

Logic people, logic. Try to be discerning, We ARE living inside an information controlled culture. Yes, there is lots of stuff to read, but, how much is not some sort of spin?

I have been accused of having an agenda. Indeed this is true...

I don't intend to quit this educational campaign until everyone on earth knows at least the basics of human anatomy and why it is important to social, psychological and environmental health.

I've been on a vegan diet for approx 4 years and really couldnt be happier...Really!
The only issue I have is with a small niche of vegetarians who say..."Oh I only eat white meat,or I only consume fish but Im like totally vegetarian see!" No..your not.A chicken is not a vegetable neither is a fish. Thank you and have an average day.

WorldNaziOrder, I agree with you completely that we are not designed by nature to eat meat. Our teeth are the teeth of a vegetarian, as you've already pointed out, and we are not physically capable of running fast enough to catch an animal as, for example, a wolf is. And we're just not strong enough (and also don't have sharp teeth or claws) to kill a sizable animal, either. You get no argument from me on those points.

I also agree with you that there has been a conspiracy to make vegetarianism seem to be an unhealthy dietary choice. How the conspiracy works exactly I don't know, although I do appreciate your links. But there is a conspiracy, however it's designed. Do you remember those old commerials featuring James Garner that used to have the words "Beef, for real people" emblazoned on the screen? The implication being, of course, that real people eat meat and unreal people don't. That's just Madison Avenue marketing, of course, and not an FBI tactic, but I'm not going to argue with you that we have all been the target of an enormous conspiracy that's designed to make the animal products industry profitable. You're right.

My only argument with you is whether or not hunter-gatherer societies ever ate or still are eating meat. You say they never did and I say they did, although not all that much. Our ancestors eating meat is kind of like how today we fly in airplanes, even though we don't have wings: we do it, even though we're not designed by nature to do it.

So it looks to me like we don't have all that much to argue about, when you get right down to it. Hey, that's kind of cool.

"¿ Do tigers and lions become disassociated from the rest of nature - by eating antelopes ?"

No. That is their connection to nature. Obvious, I would think.

But, killing is NOT our connection/point of interface. Humans are herbivores.

And it is for this reason that our anatomical scripting is essential to understand for it is the manner in which humans have been designed to be most intimate with the rest of life. It is our window so to speak on the grand miracle.

"You're a purist, and you've got a specific agenda to prove, so I guess you must be right."

I am (and have been most of my life), a researcher into the causes of violence. The fruits of this research and 'lucky' insights is what I am attempting to share.

My efforts are based upon the realization that not until humanity rediscovers his ecologically defined place will the hundreds of millions of daily murders, tortures and other sorts of violence in which he ignorantly indulges come to an end.

Vegetarianism- The Recommended Diet by Ayurveda, the Science of Life

1) The Scientific Aspect
2) Acid-Alkaline Balance - Key Indicator of Health
3) The Philosophic aspect
4) The Ethical Law of Reason
5) The Consequences of the Law of Karma
6) Medical Reason
7) The Spiritual Reason
+ + + ...

more....

http://www.eastrovedica.com/html/vedic.htm

"Well, WorldNaziOrder, I noticed that you never did answer my questions about the cave and kitchen midden bones (or the cave paintings), and I'm pretty sure I've seen lots of photos of members of hunter-gatherer societies hunting animals in articles written by anthropologists in various books and magazines, and I'm also sure I've seen lots of photos of prehistoric spear points and so on written by anthropologists in other books and magazines."

In the mid-nineties, the FBI publicly identified vegetarians as the next 'threat group' that they were targeting.

One feature of this targeting has always been the emergence of concerted disinfo campaigns. And it was launched on many fronts, and it was certainly well orchestrated throughout the scientific community.

A rash of panels and papers were produced promoting the idea that there was an irrefutable and historical basis for generalized meat-eating... (which is simply not true).

Here's one of them: "Food for Thought or Food for Propaganda?" in which a propaganda piece ('academic paper') that appeared in the New York Times Science Section is dissected.
http://www.ecologos.org/fft.htm

Also, a few years back, my eldest was at U of Mich working on her master's in public health… when there was another mad cow scare… almost immediately, a spokesperson form Harvard showed up to 'inform' them on the real issues … in which he explained that there was no way for mad cow to be transmitted by blood…

Since my daughter was already somewhat familiar with the research that had been published years before, she realized that the spokesperson was wrong… was he lying too? She called me to ask why someone would do this and why would the school support it?

I am quite sure you are familiar with the fact that most science is being supported by government and corporate grants and most of those government grants are tied to military interests and/or corporate military interests. Meat and dairy concerns are a government supported industry, so much so that TWO former NIH officials are on record stating that they were told their first day on the job to NEVER advocate eating less meat as a means to lessen disease.

Objective science is not what is getting the funding and politics rather than ethics is determining who is identified as an 'expert'.

But, there is some hope for finding the truth in this landscape of corporate shortsightedness and the disinformation culture with which they protect their interests.

An excellent link for many scientific articles on diet:
http://www.ecologos.org/ttdd.html

________

** Prior to Industrial Revolution…

Little meat consumption, nearly anywhere (compared to today's standards).

** ~1900-1960…

Meat consumption rises dramatically in Western cultures as transportation and refrigeration becomes easier

(http://www.springerlink.com/content/rr78052089583418/)

How much or how little meat (no meat) is a choice. Maybe it depends on how evolved you are? Like some people declare war while others are repulsed by killing our human brothers and sisters. Inuits or San have to eat vaste quanities of meat to survive but Hindu's and Buddhists are vegetairians/vegans. If you believe human souls evolved from lower beings such as animals or insects we all ate meat at some stage but can evolve to higher life forms. Don't slate meat eaters, they will eventually get there.

"I don't feel the need to get this point across by trying to convince people that our primitive ancestors NEVER ate meat, because that simply isn't true."

This has never been my position. My position is that our anatomy speaks very clearly to meat-eating being mal-adaptive, thus, we did not 'evolve' to eat meat.

Meat-eating was clearly undertaken for cultural reasons.

Understanding that is very important because it is at the root of our disassociation from the rest of nature (and our own nature) and it is at the root of the war to control whatever is allowed to express in the greater biosphere...

"Also I'm pretty sure I've read a number of books written by anthropologists that stated that people in primitive hunter-gatherer societies actually did eat meat on occasion."

You have a very non-specific way of using the term 'hunter-gatherer', but most primitive societies did not involve hunting. 'Primitive societies' refers to a wide range of unique social expressions and environmental adaptations and mal-adaptations.

There were far more unique cultural groups 150 years ago than there are today. (A thousand to one is probably not a bad guess.) And certainly many more before that had been systematically genocided by the advances of empire across Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, etc.

I assume that you are aware of that. The research I am referring to is the ethnographies done around the turn of last century that included primitive total vegetarian societies and war-making meat-eating ones.

I recall that the general understanding was that vegetarian societies, by virtue of non-aggressive responses, were over and over again displaced by more violent societies.

What I recall is that the war-making societies ate meat.

This is what I was referring to. I was not a 'veggie' in those days anyway, and frankly thought 'veggie' issues were beside the point, mine being anti-war and anti-other types of social violence.

The remarkable correlation between social and inter-group violence with meat-eating escaped my serious attention (hard to believe but true) in those days because I had been reared by a scientist who promoted meat as necessary to health... she was smart, I was dumb... so in matters about which she was certain, I failed to question...

Like so many others, I believed that meat-eating was simply a necessary part of healthy human life and did not think of it as being an 'act of violence'.

Thus, I had a culturally induced inability to imagine that the war/meat-eating correlation was indicating root cause of human to human violence.

After making the discovery (that meat-eating is the root cause of war) in another way, I recalled this connection (that had been highlighted by early anthropologists) and wondered at my ability to not find this fact compelling … which became another lesson in how amazingly conditioned perception is, and how culture determines to a very great degree what we find salient and what we do not.

Hi Kem,

You're right, there's a lot of animals I don't eat that I didn't list. Sorry about that. I'll try to rectify that situation, though - just for you.

Here's a few more: bats, aardvarks, pangolins, capuchin monkeys, chimpanzees, moles, shrews, chipmunks, coyotes, bear, hummingbirds, eagles, dogs, cats, caribou, elk, skunks, red-winged blackbirds, robins, crows, black-throated green warblers, red-eyed vireos, barn owls, rats, goats, sheep, wolverines, badgers, gazelle, zebra, hyenas . . . oh heck, there's just too darned many to list.

Excellent reasons, thanks Bruce! I first went vegan for ethical and health reasons (I even beat breast cancer by going vegan) but I've since learned that meat production destroys the planet, causes famine, and leads to animal-borne disease epidemics, so I'm really happy that my decision has such a far-reaching impact.

Probably should post this during world sustainable farming week instead, but I don't think it exists. PETA's arguments for turning vegetarian are laced with a heavy ppm of self-righteousness. I turned vegetarian when I realized that my lousy meat cooking skills remurdered the dead animal and that the option of a cheap burger at McDonalds was based on false economy. We can target agribusiness as a bad practice at all levels. There is nothing good about it as it now operates: the huge tax subsidies, irresponsible corporate practice (remember when Archer Daniels Midland was convicted of fixing copper prices on the world market?), raising prices of farmland so high that family farmers can't afford it, irresponsible use of pesticides and antibiotics, genetic engineering and obliterating from collective memory freshness and flavor in favor of shipability and shelf life. Making the U.S. economy more viable for small farms based on sustainable agriculture even while producing meat, is NOT an idea to discard. (In Cuba, farm animals roam the woods, fertilizing, turning over tilth, and stargazing when visited with insomnia. Amish farms in Pennsylvania are more productive and have higher quality products than their automated neighbors.) Monocultures is what we should criticize. We should get away from both animal and plant monocultures. We need many more small, local farms based on sustainable practices.

Liberal...
sorry I took so long to get back to you. Name calling ?
I guess you missed my other posting. It is OK, we understand.

Well, WorldNaziOrder, I noticed that you never did answer my questions about the cave and kitchen midden bones (or the cave paintings), and I'm pretty sure I've seen lots of photos of members of hunter-gatherer societies hunting animals in articles written by anthropologists in various books and magazines, and I'm also sure I've seen lots of photos of prehistoric spear points and so on written by anthropologists in other books and magazines. Also I'm pretty sure I've read a number of books written by anthropologists that stated that people in primitive hunter-gatherer societies actually did eat meat on occasion. Maybe the people who wrote those books and articles didn't belong to your approved list of "veggies only" anthropologists, I don't know.

You're a purist, and you've got a specific agenda to prove, so I guess you must be right. Sure. Personally, I think there are many reasons why being a vegetarian is better for individuals and for society, and I've articulated many of them on posts here: health, compassion toward animals, concern for the environment, and etc., but I don't feel the need to get this point across by trying to convince people that our primitive ancestors NEVER ate meat, because that simply isn't true.

To tell you the truth, you sort of remind of the Christian fundamentalists, who feel the need to convince people of the existence of God by convincing them that the Bible is the literal truth. Do you think that people won't choose a vegetarian lifestyle unless you convince them that hunter-gatherer people never ate meat? And why in the heck are those people called hunter-gatherers if they never ate meat, anyway? Why not just call them gatherers?

This is kind of ironic, because both of us are vegetarians (okay, so occasionally I eat fish, and I eat free-range eggs - sue me), but now what has happened is that this little argument of ours may actually convince someone who's reading it and is not a vegetarian to think vegetarians are kind of cuckoo.

So, let's make a deal: you be a vegetarian, using whatever rationale you want to justify your choice of food, and I'll be a vegetarian who occasionally eats fish and free range eggs, using whatever rationale makes sense to me.
And everyone else can do the same.

Being a vegetarian is good for people, animals and the environment. Does it really matter whether vegetarians believe that our ancestors never ate meat or not, as long as they're willing to consider the benefits of being vegetarians? It doesn't to me.

Hi ~Ticonderoga~. You sure listed a lot of animals you never eat, but I see you didn't list the beaver. ___Well, you didn't mention the duck bill platapus either come to think of it.

I agree, we should only eat animals that have a cloven hoof and also chews their cud. For example rabbits chew their cud, but thay have pause. __ Pause? ___ And swine have cloven hoofs but they don't chew their cud.

I've never noticed if beavers chew their cud and have never paused to obsreve any other appendiges.

A hint to all who want to put their carnivorous friends and family off meat. Find out what meat in on the dinner table and then find a cute picture of that animal, then one of it getting murdered.

People wont be eating lamb here for a while :D

ticonderoga,

"You're wrong on this one. The truth is somewhere in the middle, like it so often is. Humans have eaten meat since the beginning of their evolution."

No, they have not and I am certainly NOT wrong. BTW, 40,000 years is more likely to be the time when the first temple societies emerged (and where we first see acts of animal and human sacrifice). Humans though have apparently walked the earth for 100's of thousands of years, possibly a few million. And most of those never ate any meat.

(BTW, the middle thing is just cultural nonsense, the truth is the truth, if you don't know it, anyone's opinion may be as good as anyone else's but… once the facts have been established, that's it. Life is not really the same as a debate between two people who are anxious to 'win'. It is something that moves according to definite law… break the laws… it stops working, or stops working as well.)

"Put a small child in a playpen with an apple and a bunny. If s/he eats the apple and plays with the bunny, s/he's normal; but if s/he eats the bunny and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car. Somewhere along the line we must have been TAUGHT to do the wrong thing."

--Maynard

I am certain that you are NOT an anthropologist. And I do recall from my anthropology studies that there were many indigenous societies even at the turn of last century that were 100% vegetarian.

So rather than repeat nonsense, I have asked myself what in the world could make sense of the fact that in some communities, we do indeed find traditions of meat-eaters. And historically, in temple cultures, we find meat-eating correlated with the elite classes and their political/religious sacrifices.

I have proposed an historically logical solution to all the seemingly contradictory evidence:

http://allinharmony.com/index.cfm?id=391227&fuseaction=browse&pageid=118

As for being rude, that is a matter of opinion. Cows do not find me rude in the same way you do. Their complaint is more along the lines of, "Now that we have informed you, are you planning to do anything?"

I see no reason to not strike hard at ignorances that result in unnecessary suffering, even murder. I am not the least bit concerned that you befriend me or support me or even like me. I am though very concerned that you awaken and become a force for positive change and a beacon to enlighten others...

Don't like my tactics? I could care less! I do care about results and when you have fully realized the facts of your herbivore nature so completely that you are sufficiently informed and also energized and empowered to share them...

...I will fall asleep with a greater sense of hope for all life.

There have always been bigots, but I've encountered born-again types who are afraid of vegetarianism...which is kind of like being afraid of nonsmoking, nondrinking, or recycling.

Michaelc, you said, "The chap who thinks the cave man diet is the one to use should try living like a caveman. I'd give him three months to live at the outside."

Then you said, "Okay, folks, let's get real. For most of our 1.5 million year evolution we were hunters and gatherers. In virtually all H&G populations we know about, the gathering of edible plant foods constituted perhaps 80% of our diet. [The one major exception is the Inuit peoples of the arctic coastlines.] The meat from hunted animals was the other 20%. But that meat contributed mightily to the growth of larger brains and better brains. We did not evolve and then start to hunt, or to make tools."

I'm the chap who thinks the caveman diet is the one to use.

What I actually said was, "First, although our first prehuman ancestors appeared on earth several million years ago, in our present human form we have only existed for 40 or 50,000 years. Second, all the evidence suggests that, although we have, as bona-fide humans, hunted many different kinds of animals over that time span, the vast majority of our caloric intake has always been from vegetable and fruit sources, with meat comprising only about 10% or our diet. So, theoretically, the ideal diet for humans is a largely vegetarian one, sans grains and processed foods, supplemented with a small amount of animal protein."

I also said this, "I don't entirely agree with #8. In my experience the best diet for losing weight is the paleolithic diet: a little meat, plenty of veggies and fruit, and no bread or pasta or sugar. Idea is to eat only stuff that cavemen ate. Nothing prepared or refined or with a list of ingredients."

* * *

I have to admit I'm confused. It seems to me that you and I postulated almost the same diet. The only difference is that I said our primitive ancestors ate mostly vegetable matter, along with about 10% animal protein, while you said they ate mostly vegetable matter, along with about 20% protein. As far as I can tell we both said almost the same thing, so why did you say that I'd only live three months on my diet? I agree that I might not live long if I lived like a caveman, since I might end up getting killed by a saber-toothed tiger or something like that if I did, but am I going to get sick and die from eating a diet of veggies and 10% meat, instead of veggies and 20% meat? I just don't get it.

Cheese is an issue. I see many people who call themselves pure vegetarians but still eat cheese with Animal Rennet in it. It's hard to get some cheeses with non-Animal Rennet. So >

I've been veg for a while and I can add to the many voices that it's the most wonderful choice an adult can make in being a better human being. But I do miss one thing: I really miss Smoked Cheddar. I'm salivating at the thought of it now! Does anyone one know where I can get some vegetarian-friendly smoked cheddar with no animal rennet in it? I can't find any here in Australia unfortunately. Oh how I miss the indulgence! :P

Well, itsaNaziWorldOrder, I can see that you're a purist re this vegetarian thing. Good for you. I'm not. I eat free range eggs and some fish, along with lots of veggies and fruit, although I never eat beef, pork, venison, buffalo, squirrel, rabbit, woodchuck, chicken, turkey, duck, pigeon, guinea fowl, ostrich or lammergeier (a large vulture that the Bible tells us we shouldn't eat). Sorry.

But you know what? You're rude as heck. And, if our primitive ancestors NEVER ate meat, as you claim, why have bones of animals that appear to have been cooked and split been found in caves and kitchen middens from 40,000 years ago to the present? Why have paintings of wild cattle, bison and deer, with men chasing them with spears, been found in, for example, the caves at Lascaux? Why did and do primitive hunter-gatherer societies use spears and blowguns and bows and arrows and boomerangs if they NEVER ate or eat meat?

You're wrong on this one. The truth is somewhere in the middle, like it so often is. Humans have eaten meat since the beginning of their evolution. It's just that they ate a lot less meat back in the caveman days than is popularly supposed, and a whole lot less than most Americans do today.

Following excerpts from (regarding the most ambitious cross-cultural scientific study of human nutrition ever undertaken): http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html

The science is clear. The results are unmistakable.

Change your diet and dramatically reduce the risk of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and obesity.

Respected nutrition and health researcher, Dr. T. Colin Campbell reveals the truth behind special interest groups, government entities and scientists that have taken Americans down a deadly path"

"After a long career in research and policy-making, I have decided to step 'out of the system.' I have decided to disclose why Americans are so confused," said Dr. Campbell.

"As a taxpayer who foots the bill for research and health policy in America, you deserve to know that many of the common notions you have been told about food, health and disease are wrong."

The findings?

"People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease … People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease. These results could not be ignored," said Dr. Campbell.

________

Why are these the findings? Humans are herbivores!

"It is silly and foolish and uneducated to think that we are 'evolved to be herbivores'."

Why? Because that is what the data says?

Concept:

If the anatomical data contradicts the law (modern western cultural assumptions that humans are designed to eat meat), then don't change the data, change the law...

Thus: Humans are NOT omnivores, humans are herbivores and as the evidence suggests, only healthy when eating accordingly.

"It is possible, though, to remain healthy on a pure vegetarian diet, although it requires more research and dedication than it does to stay on a largely vegetarian diet that's supplemented with a little animal protein."

Absolutely and irrefutably false! NO amount of animal proteins are completely digestible! You need to take a class in biochemistry… pay close attention to the part about amino acids and how they are combined to form protein chains.

As for your understanding of meat consumption throughout man's history, it is likewise false.

MOST PEOPLE since humans first appeared ate NO meat! The idea that meat-eating was generally and widely indulged is absurd. It was until last century only an indulgence of the few... and the further back in time we go, the fewer that few becomes.

No amount of apologies or apologists are going to credibly refute the fact that humans are herbivores. The ONLY healthy diet for herbivores is an ALL plant based diet.

I have been eating an all plant diet for decades. No medical issues. No deficiencies, no problems with energy... no cancer, no strokes like many others in the family, etc, etc., etc.!

How much meat is good for herbivores?

Ask any herbivore on the planet. They all know the answer. Only humans have become so stupefied with their indoctrination assisted by quack science that they can't even get the simplest things correct!

Okay, folks, let's get real. For most of our 1.5 million year evolution we were hunters and gatherers. In virtually all H&G populations we know about, the gathering of edible plant foods constituted perhaps 80% of our diet. [The one major exception is the Inuit peoples of the arctic coastlines.] The meat from hunted animals was the other 20%. But that meat contributed mightily to the growth of larger brains and better brains. We did not evolve and then start to hunt, or to make tools. Our hands, our brains and our tool use evolved simultaneously. Our teeth are omnivore teeth, some for grinding veggies, some for ripping flesh. Most of the gathering in our history was done by women, who ultimately became our first agriculturalists, as well as our first medicos and therefore our first scientists. Men hunted. Men killed. We still do those things. The chap who thinks the cave man diet is the one to use should try living like a caveman. I'd give him three months to live on the outside. It is silly and foolish and uneducated to think that we are 'evolved to be herbivores'. That being said, it is healthier for a grown man to eat a vegetarian diet, given our current lifestyle. It is NOT healthier for little children to do so, and if children are fed a vegetarian diet, it must be done with great care and knowledge - not idiology. It is also unhealthy for our planetary future for us to support the meat industry. So read some anthropology. When I got my PhD we were required to take courses and do research in more than what kind of plants to eat. We had to know evolutionary biology, archeology of ancient peoples as well as linguistics and cultural anthro. These things I mention above here were common knowledge a few years ago, but they seem to have fallen under the onslaught of idiology, as have our freedoms, our rights, our country. Idiology is balderdash. The only salvation of mankind is in science. NOT technology. Knowledge - based solidly in science. The rest is midieval bullcrap.

Ian kocher, I'm not to bother going over your whole post, but I would like to address #3:

First, although our first prehuman ancestors appeared on earth several million years ago, in our present human form we have only existed for 40 or 50,000 years. Second, all the evidence suggests that, although we have, as bona-fide humans, hunted many different kinds of animals over that time span, the vast majority of our caloric intake has always been from vegetable and fruit sources, with meat comprising only about 10% or our diet. So, theoretically, the ideal diet for humans is a largely vegetarian one, sans grains and processed foods, supplemented with a small amount of animal protein. However, the reverse is not true: a diet comprised of largely animal protein, supplemented with a small amount of vegetarian foods, is not what we're designed by nature to eat.

It is possible, though, to remain healthy on a pure vegetarian diet, although it requires more research and dedication than it does to stay on a largely vegetarian diet that's supplemented with a little animal protein.

But by far the worst type of diet is the one most Americans eat, which is one that consists of far too much animal protein.

Oh, and our body produces all the cholesterol it needs. Sometimes it produces too much, however, especially when it has been subjected to the stress of all the chemicals in our artificial diets, and also alcohol and tobacco.

Oh, and I almost forgot, but the one animal product that we are absolutely not designed by nature to consume is milk, which is designed to feed baby cows, and not adult (or baby) humans. In fact no animal on earth naturally drinks the milk of another species, and no animal on earth naturally drinks milk at all once it's weaned.

But I'm willing to bet that most vegetarians and vegans choose their diet not for health reasons, but because they just don't want to be responsible for the deaths of any more innocent animals than necessary. I say "than necessary" because it's impossible to be pure, since most shoes are made of leather and so are belts, and many books are held together with glue made from animals and, for artists, the sizing used on watercolor paper and artist canvases is usually made from animal products, as well. So you do the best you can.

But it is possible to remain perfectly healthy on a vegetarian, and even a vegan, diet.

KEM,

I'm crackin' up! You gotta go on Comedy Central.

Judith for peace: You spoke for me, minus the corny stories. Bless your soul.

What's wrong with fish? There are large government signs all along our coast lines telling us it is safe to eat ONE sea bass dinner a month and or ONE fluke or flounder a year. That is unless one is a child or is pregnant, then don't eat any.

No major problem there anyway, it isn't very likely you'll catch more than one that is large enough to keep.

Then in almost all of the states now, the annual game and fish books tell us which lakes or rivers where the fish should NOT EVER be eaten, which is the vast majority of lakes and rivers. __Yummy yum.__ Eating fish is similar to eating the sludge from the bottom of a tozic waste dump.

I use canned tuna for mouse and rat poison.

"eat mo fish,"

Fish poses ALL the same problems (and more) to human health as other types of animal flesh.

It is full of fat and animal proteins that cause acidification of the blood, type II diabetes, kidney problems, osteoporosis, artherosclerosis, etc.

Fish is equally unhealthy for humans.

Look folks, most of us were raised to eat meat. I was too.

But, just because that is what we were conditioned to believe is correct, and just because it is supported in ALL places, schools, restaurants, etc... does not make it right.

Human herbivores do not thrive eating a flesh based (or flesh inclusive) diet. And, any amount of flesh consumption does cause some damage for humans.

"Should we put lions and tigers on trial? Ooh, maybe they'll be more non violent if they mend their ways!!–lmao"

Dude, how smart are you?

Lions and tigers need to eat meat! You need NOT to eat meat!

Is that so hard to understand? Choice of what we eat is fine, but there is an acceptable range. And what defines that acceptable range is our particular anatomies. Lions are carnivores. You are an herbivore!

That means, some creatures are co-evolved to kill and consume animals (or parts of animals) and some creatures are co-evolved to consume plants (or parts of plants).

Humans are NOT carnivores. Just because you 'think' (actually have been inculcated to believe) you need animal products or even that you 'like' them, it is NOT so.

Your 'liking' is a conditioned response that is NOT supported by your anatomical and physiological requirements. Without cultural conditioning, you would never have had any inclination to consume animal products!

From "The Comparative Anatomy of Eating", by Milton R. Mills, MD

Facial Muscles
CARNIVORE: Reduced to allow wide mouth gape
HERBIVORE: Well-developed
OMNIVORE: Reduced
HUMAN: Well-developed

Jaw Type
CARNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HERBIVORE: Expanded angle
OMNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HUMAN: Expanded angle

Jaw Joint Location
CARNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HERBIVORE: Above the plane of the molars
OMNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HUMAN: Above the plane of the molars

Jaw Motion
CARNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
HERBIVORE: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
OMNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side
HUMAN: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back

Major Jaw Muscles
CARNIVORE: Temporalis
HERBIVORE: Masseter and pterygoids
OMNIVORE: Temporalis
HUMAN: Masseter and pterygoids

Mouth Opening vs. Head Size
CARNIVORE: Large
HERBIVORE: Small
OMNIVORE: Large
HUMAN: Small

Teeth: Incisors
CARNIVORE: Short and pointed
HERBIVORE: Broad, flattened and spade shaped
OMNIVORE: Short and pointed
HUMAN: Broad, flattened and spade shaped

Teeth: Canines
CARNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HERBIVORE: Dull and short or long (for defense), or none
OMNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HUMAN: Short and blunted

Teeth: Molars
CARNIVORE: Sharp, jagged and blade shaped
HERBIVORE: Flattened with cusps vs complex surface
OMNIVORE: Sharp blades and/or flattened
HUMAN: Flattened with nodular cusps

Chewing
CARNIVORE: None; swallows food whole
HERBIVORE: Extensive chewing necessary
OMNIVORE: Swallows food whole and/or simple crushing
HUMAN: Extensive chewing necessary

Saliva
CARNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HERBIVORE: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes
OMNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HUMAN: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes

Stomach Type
CARNIVORE: Simple
HERBIVORE: Simple or multiple chambers
OMNIVORE: Simple
HUMAN: Simple

Stomach Acidity
CARNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HERBIVORE: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach
OMNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HUMAN: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach

Stomach Capacity
CARNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HERBIVORE: Less than 30% of total volume of digestive tract
OMNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HUMAN: 21% to 27% of total volume of digestive tract

Length of Small Intestine
CARNIVORE: 3 to 6 times body length
HERBIVORE: 10 to more than 12 times body length
OMNIVORE: 4 to 6 times body length
HUMAN: 10 to 11 times body length

Colon
CARNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HERBIVORE: Long, complex; may be sacculated
OMNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HUMAN: Long, sacculated

Liver
CARNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HERBIVORE: Cannot detoxify vitamin A
OMNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HUMAN: Cannot detoxify vitamin A

Kidney
CARNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HERBIVORE: Moderately concentrated urine
OMNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HUMAN: Moderately concentrated urine

Nails
CARNIVORE: Sharp claws
HERBIVORE: Flattened nails or blunt hooves
OMNIVORE: Sharp claws
HUMAN: Flattened nails

great 10 list

been one sort of since 1977,
except of course seafood

never did like eating anything i could outrun
i do like iguanas and gators though, them you cannot outrun, unless you know to move at angles, very quickly

eat mo fish,
but NOT full of chemical, antibiotics, fast foods destroyers of the planet ANIMAL MEAT
ugggggh

oh well not all are enlightened and educated and especially of the functioning of one's own body-machine-spirit

Proud to be a Vegetarian.
Living a cruelty free life matters..

Idiot speak:

"In the millions of years we have been evolving, we mostly ate hunted animals, and grew no grain at all. Only in the last ten thousand years did we grow grain. Ten thousand years is too short a period to evolve a digestive system adapted to grains, hence our health problems associated with a high carb diet. Millions of years of evolution fueled mainly by an animal diet led to a digestive system built mainly for animal fats."

What are some of the facts: http://www.goveg.com/naturalhumandiet.asp

The Natural Human Diet

According to biologists and anthropologists who study our anatomy and our evolutionary history, humans are herbivores who are not well suited to eating meat.

Unlike natural carnivores, we are physically and psychologically unable to rip animals limb from limb and eat and digest their raw flesh. Even cooked meat is likely to cause human beings, but not natural carnivores, to suffer from food poisoning, heart disease, and other ailments.

People who pride themselves on being part of the human hunter tradition should take a second look at the story of human evolution. Prehistoric evidence indicates that humans developed hunting skills relatively recently and that most of our short, meat-eating past was spent scavenging and eating almost anything in order to survive; even then, meat was a tiny part of our caloric intake.

Humans lack both the physical characteristics of carnivores and the instinct that drives them to kill animals and devour their raw carcasses. Ask yourself: When you see dead animals on the side of the road, are you tempted to stop for a snack? Does the sight of a dead bird make you salivate? Do you daydream about killing cows with your bare hands and eating them raw? If you answered "no" to all of these questions, congratulations, you're a normal human herbivore, like it or not. Humans were simply not designed to eat meat.

"Sex hormones are made from cholesterol, and cholesterol is found only in an animal diet."

ALL hormones require fat to produce. And, ALL animals, including human animals produce cholesterol. Human animals produce all the cholesterol they need. We are not designed to consume animal products and doing so means that we have EXCESS cholesterol in our bodies!

If you want a better sex life/experience, clean out your veins and arteries. It takes about four years for an ALL plant based diet to fully rid us of arterial plaque... and free blood flow is necessary to a robust sex life; sans Viagra.

Next, if you want sex, DON"T over eat! The idea of the 'ROMANTIC' dinner before sex is absurd. Better is have the sex first on an empty stomach! Why, because when our stomachs are full, that is where the blood has gone to aid in digestion... the same principle about not swimming after eating.

As mentioned, Ian Kocher, you are full of sh--!

Oh, and said condition can best be alleviated by a return to your natural herbivore diet.

Please view this video by Dan Piraro... http://youtube.com/watch?v=05zhL1YUd8Q

where the question of sh-- is covered comprehensively and comically:)

"Store bought Vitamin supplements are artificial versions, and, in the case of vitD especially, do more harm than good. Where can you get good fat soluble A and D? Never in a vegetarian diet; you need animal fats and eggs for the best A and D."

Vitamin D is available from sunlight. It is now widely believed that just 15 minutes of sunlight a day can also substantially alleviate depression as well.

Vitamin A is abundantly available in fruits and vegetables.

Ian Kocher, you are full of sh--! But, I guess you knew that.

and ian kocher your just chock full of disinformation

wow its something to see reactionary neocons define themselves with their behavior isnt it. do whatever you want idiots no one is trying to make anyone do anything or convert or whatever, its simply enlightenment, take it or leave it, always needing to combat, what the fuck is wrong with you people (republicans) you have some serious sickness.......here we have a good article on the benefits of vegetarianism and their comments are that their having a baconator enema......

This is a very dangerous article, to be placed in a spot frequented by progressives because they might pick up a diet habit that is detrimental to their health, and we need all the robust progressives we can get.

1. Store bought Vitamin supplements are artificial versions, and, in the case of vitD especially, do more harm than good. Where can you get good fat soluble A and D? Never in a vegetarian diet; you need animal fats and eggs for the best A and D.

2. Only grass-fed cows and free range chickens provide top notch nutrients for the body. Not coincidentally, these animals live a happy life, and do not need the intercession of PETA and other animal rights activists.

3. In the millions of years we have been evolving, we mostly ate hunted animals, and grew no grain at all. Only in the last ten thousand years did we grow grain. Ten thousand years is too short a period to evolve a digestive system adapted to grains, hence our health problems associated with a high carb diet. Millions of years of evolution fueled mainly by an animal diet led to a digestive system built mainly for animal fats.

4. The bio-energetics of grass fed animal farming vs soy/wheat/corn farming demonstrates unquestionable superiority in the former system. Calorie for calorie, grass fed open range animal nutrients require far less energy input to grow, as compared to grains. Confined animals feed is a different matter altogether, and is wasteful, polluting and corporatist.

5. Certain greens and fruits are good if available, but not essential to good health. Many historically successful traditional diets include bacteria fermented vegetables but no greens.

6. Sex hormones are made from cholesterol, and cholesterol is found only in an animal diet. Your body makes only as much as it needs. But what if your body does not need estrogens (if you are a man, say) but you are fond of eating soy products? In that case, you are getting female sex hormones whether you need it or not, in the form of plant estrogens (phyto estrogens).

I could have called the above the 'Top Six Reasons' not to become a strict vegetarian, implying that there are more reasons. There are, but I won't go into them here. For a more educated review than I can give here, read http://www.westonaprice.org

.

Thank you very much, major hutton. First you made the people who are against the Iraq War look good with your posts, and now you're making vegetarians look good. That's very considerate of you.

Yo Vegees,
Eat veg, no meat. Good, more B-B-Qs for me.
Real men eat meat. We were made to eat meat.
Of course vegees are good too. Little meat &
loads of vegges - mmmmmmm good. Wake up & smell
the B-B-Q people.Case closed.
George
your favoright neocon, retired army combat vet officer & Texican

whatfools: Last sentence...right on! Excellent choice.

jade: I appreciate your comments very much. Cats and dogs are carnivore and I feed mine meat and fish products as well. I tried vegetarian cat food which is expensive, but my three felines wouldn't taste one morsel of the dry or wet food. Maybe some of you Cd'ers remember a scientific study done many years ago on cats being feed a vegetarian diet. They were actually healthier afterwards. A Hare Krishna devotee told me about rescuing two sickly feral cats and keeping them in her apartment with only vegetarian fare in their feed bowls. She said they wouldn't touch anything for almost a week, then started to eat. She said they thrived and regained their health from a semi-emaciated condition from living on the streets of a large metropolitan city.

I had a dog who loved raw potatos. True story, comrades. My mother was slicing potatos to be fried with eggs and bell peppers and a piece fell on the floor. Penny went over, sniffed it, and gobbled it up as if it was filet mignon. My Mom and I laughed and gave her another spud and the same thing happened. For the next nine years, we'd give her a raw potato about four times a week (along with meat and everything canines love to eat) and it was amazing watching her devour a raw potato. Penny loved cucumbers and cantalopes too! But raw potatos?

Now to be fair and unbiased. If the statistics are correct, the people of Japan have the highest longevity rate in the world, per capita. The Japanese will eat just about anything that walks, crawls, swims, or flies, plus are heavy cigarette smokers. They eat their veggies, fruit, a lot of seaweed, natto, shoyu and miso (from fermented soybeans) which are excellent foods for the system. So many factors are involved in being healthy and long-lived.

good luck: I understand your being uncomfortable with us "pious" herbivores, and living in the northern hemisphere reduces locally grown agricultural products. If I were a cow, pig, chicken, walrus, penguin, fish or whatever, I'd hope the humans living in my habitat would "truck in or fly in" the foods they cannot grow in this environment and let us be. I'm not knocking you at all. My girlfriend eats fish and meat.

Regarding coffee, you do bring up good points. Ever since the "Fair Trade" people started working with small coffee growers, I've been purchasing organically grown coffee from various co-ops. In a restaurant or a 7-11 store, I'm probably dosing my innards with DDT and other pesticides.

Speaking of "alfalfa", it is an Arabic word meaning "father of all foods." One of the richest sources of chlorophyll, and we humans would be a lot healthier if we ate it too.

liberal with an attitude: Excellent points!

Time for me to make my second cup of coffee and feed the cats. Good health and happiness to all of you, no matter what you eat!

hollow point, wow your names quite the double entendre,
the comparison is between carnivore and herbivore, check out the link I provided and folks alot more intelligent than you or i explain. i know most peoples egos dont want to hear that, but if you live your life knowing that youre never the smartest person in the room youll one day be.

Liberal...
A lion to a human, mmm interesting as they are two very different animals. The HUNKS of meat a lion eats since its teeth are NOT designed to chew food like humans is another factor. One after eating lays around for some times days doing nothing but conserve energy for the next hunt. ( don't see many over weight lions but in the zoo.) Now house cats do eat grass to help with the digestive track and hair balls. Hard to compare apples and oranges as you are doing. It is the chemicals that are put into the meat that causes problems.
I know local farmers who are putting as little chemicals in their cow/chickens as legal and guess what it tastes like meat. Chicken that has a taste and not this white stuff that it is the BBQ sauce not the meat with taste. Plus as was said above in another posting where do you buy local fresh grown veggie in the middle of winter? With the cost of fuel the price of trucking veggies all over N.A. is going up.

***a little dyslexic this a.m. i meant to say the opposite, mans colon is too long and animals have shorter wider colons to pass meat easily....http://www.celestialhealing.net/physicalveg3.htm

from a scientific standpoint man is meant to be an herbivore by design. compared to carnivores in nature, true carnivores, lions, tigers etc. mans colon is far too short to digest meat. these animals have miles of large intestine compared to man. That flatulence you expereince after those hotdogs, is undigested, fermenting meat left in your bowels because there isnt enough colon to lend to the process of digestion. theres a great article out there somewhere, i am sure if you plug it into your search engine it'll come up, 101 reasons to be a vegetarian. the best thing is it doesnt get cutsie, it gives very good scientific reasons. for self health, planetary health, and mutual respect and harmony within nature. you can go scientific, you can go spiritual, every good book, the bible, the quoran, the gita, they all preach vegetarianism. man being a carnivore is just another symptom of his programming....the media sells it and you live the role

Kernel, your idea of uneaten cows dying of neglect and starvation all over the country is good imagery, but it's not at all realistic, for the very simple reason that there's no way everyone in America is going to convert to vegetarianism overnight. What will really happen, if America ever really does convert to vegetarianism completely (which is highly unlikely), is that people will convert to vegetarianism slowly, over a great many years, and that the business of raising animals for food will slowly die out as a consequence. And that's your real concern, isn't it?

Edible Wild Plants
That is the book if you want to go real natural veggie diet and save money. You can make anything from wild plants and trees that are FREE TO PICK. Just a list of some of the things you can make from wild plants
Asparagus
candy
cereal
coffee
tea
cold drinks
cooked greens
cooked vegtables
flour
fritters
fruit
jams/jelly
nut
pickle
potato
seasoning/codiments
syrup/sugar
and poisons
the name of the book is Edible Wild Plants Eastern /Central North America by lee Allen Peterson of the Perterson Fieild guides series
That common dandelion on your front lawn you can make Salads, cooked greens, cooked veggies ( leaves are high in Vitamin "A") and even make coffee and fritters ( from the flower) but people spend millions every year killing this free food source so they have a perfect lawn.

This article presents some good reasons for being vegetarian, but is incorrect on the origins of SARS. A good summary of the origin is here .

SARS is not a result of factory farming, but of human expansion of territory into new areas resulting in exposure to new diseases. The origins of SARS is similar to the origins of Hunta and Ebola. They come from people being in areas they've not generally lived in before and being exposed to and eating animals they've not generally eaten before. In the case of SARS, it probably originated from civit cats--an omnivorous mammal that does not look or act at all like a cat.

The spread of SARS is not the result of eating meat, but due to the fact that humans now live in very high densities and move almost instantaneously around the planet (airplanes). So, you do not have to eat meat to get SARS, all you need is to be coughed on or otherwise exposed to someone who has it--a good reason to stay out of shopping malls and airplanes!

The problem with factory farming is that IF a disease like SARS or Avian Bird Flu infects a factory farmed animal, it will spread incredibly rapidly for the same reasons SARS spread rapidly--high population density. It will also increase the chances of our own exposure to the disease, since we already get quite a few diseases (e.g. Asian Flu) from our farm animals (including those we do not eat).

good for the enviroment???
I live in the frozen north so how the hell can you say me eating veggies that are trucked from Cal or Mex or Brazil to Canada is helping the enviroment? Cars and trucks being the #1 greenhouse gas producers.
I grow alfalfa etc on my farm for cows to eat. I can get meat my local farmer raised 12 months of the year. He does not have to truck it from 2 or 3 countries away to get to my local store. I am not saying eat meat 7 days a week but a healthy mix of veggies meals that I eat 3 to 5 days a week and meat meals I have no problem with.
COFFEE anyone?
It takes 32 litres of water to grow the beans for that cup of coffee you drink in the morning. No meat in coffee but a shit load of chemicals and pesticides

as a long time vegetarian one of my dilemmas is feeling comfortable about what i feed my cat and dog. i have done some research on the products i purchase and hope what i read is true. i feed both 'kids' a fish based diet...at least i know that the fish had the freedom to swim around in their natural enviroment before being hoisted into the air and slammed down on the surface of a boat prior to suffocating to death. i have conferred with a number of veternarians that i trust and have read also that dogs and cats are natural carnivores...my dog eats lots of veggies too...
cows look happy and the farmer treats them well...then he/she puts them in a trailer for a ride to the slaughter house...animal holocaust......
i too am hesitant to discuss vegetarianism with those who eat meat...most, i find, are beligerent in defending their right to go to the grocery store and purchase 'picture perfect' meat neatly wrapped in plastic and styrofoam...

EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!!!

A few more reasons:

CHICAGO -- A Chicago company has recalled an "undetermined amount of beef products" distributed in 11 states, including Wisconsin, due to an E. coli scare, federal officials announced Saturday.

TRENTON, N.J. - Military officials say beef sold at some bases around the country _ including the submarine base in Connecticut _ may have be contaminated with E. coli.

I think I'll donate my share of meat to the first born of filthy rich Republicans. :(

First of all, I want to thank Bruce Freidrich for writing the article for Common Dreams and the work he has done for PETA and the soup kitchen. Thanks, Bruce!

I'm on my fort-first year as a vegetarian, and in spite of the junk food I still consume, have much more energy than when I was eating flesh foods. Pastries, cake, chocolates, pizza, pasta ...I could live on that stuff! And heavy on cheese. Plus a lot of coffee, beer, wine, and hard liquor on ocassion. I supplement these delicacies with "organically grown" fruit, vegetables, sprouts, raw nuts and seeds. (Ya gotta have a balance)

I love mangos in season, but the past two years, they've been terrible, but before that, They were super sweet and meaty and I'd eat a half a lug at one time. Last year, in California, severe freezing weather did much damage to the citrus trees and the oranges weren't too good. This year they are excellent, very sweet, and I'll eat four navel oranges, drink three cups of coffee with half and half (no sugar) for breakfast and spend the day doing manual labor with no hunger pains. I'll have more coffee in the afternoon and it holds me until supper.

The Life Force is in the seed, folks. How many of you grow or buy organic produce where you don't feel energized after eating, or in the case of juicing, get any "oomph" from it?

By the way, I like what you said, Bruce Griffin. Very origional!

Pythagoras kept to a very strict vegetarian diet and taught, among other things, dietetics. Check him out if you are unfamilar with his teachings.

Not much is said about adrenalin, but when animals in the slaughterhouse are nearing their turn to be executed, the fear of "dying?" is so frightening that their adrenal glands secrete a lot of adrenalin, literally poisoning their body (meat), with this powerful substance. We consume the meat and the excessive amount of adrenalin indirectly harming our bodies.

The Hunza people in the Himalayas live healthy, vibrant lives on an almost vegetarian diet. They kill animals a few times a year for certain holidays. They also make their own wine. For you old-timers remembering Art Linkletter, he and the writer, Renee Taylor, traveled to Hunza and wrote a book about it in the early 60's. They were impressed!

A fellow was telling me about a meat-packing place in Vernon, Ca. where he did some repair work. One of the employees asked the guy if he ate and liked hot dogs. The fellow answered in the affirmative. The employee brought him to a room with greasy, slimy slop on the floor. He said the guy told him all the parts that are not used or cut for packaged meats or the stuff at the local butcher shop is here on the floor. Eyes, intestines, feet, everything! It's put into a large machine with some liquid and out comes nice smooth HOT DOGS! Babe Ruth would have been proud!

Eventually, I'll go vegan. I love the dairy products, unfortunately. Years ago, when I lived in Southern California, I'd buy a pint of raw cream, put it in a bowl with raw honey, stir it and eat it all within two minutes. So delicious!

About 15 years ago I went to a doctor. My cholesterol was 202. He said try to get down to about 150. I said I'll try. Then he was shocked at my trigyceride level. 563. I asked him if it was good or bad? He asked me if I ate a lot of sweets and I nodded, and he said I was on the verge of a heart attack or possibly getting diabetes if I didn't change my diet. A word to the wise is sufficient. I haven't been to a doctor for a checkup since!

Live and let live, "The Silver Rule.' All animals and fish are sentient beings. Let em' eke out their existence.

Are Bush and Cheney sentient?

vasumurti___ (2:03 PM) Lovely idea you have there, just watch a poor old cow with no teeth left stumble around starving to death until she dies and then it is alright to go get the carcasss of bone and hide and eat what is left. That is not my idea of treating animals well, as I always tried to never keep an animal so that they died a slow, lingering death.

I wonder who you think is going to take care of all of these sick and dying animals that cannot be used for food while they are still in decent condition? I guess roadkill would be fine to eat with your humanitarian strategy but it never looked good to me and neither did a starving helpless cow that has been kept too long.

It must be nice to pat yourself on the back for being so concerned for the welfare of animals when obviously you know next to nothing about the subject.

twinsfanatic, oats are good food. i'm surprised we aren't eating them up ourselves.

Vegan is good, but even better if it's whole, organic, heirloom and wild varieties, minimize cooking, fresh as possible (clean as possible too), germinate seeds (change water often), get a wide variety, balanced proteins (pulses/grains), deeper colored varieties, lots of spices, limit sugars, omega 3/6 balance (flax), investigate vitamin B12, and get more details.