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Meat Eaters – You Are Daredevils or Dumb. Or Both
People who've been informed of the dangers of meat, particularly the cheap processed variety, but who continue to wolf it down should be held accountable
There have been times during my years of vegetarianism when I've wondered if I may indeed grow out of it. I've wondered if there might come a day when I'll put aside my childish aversion to the thought of dead stuff traveling through my intestines, like a corpse on a raft ride.
Obama does a hot dog.However, it could never happen, and not because I'm so enlightened, sensitive or any of the other euphemisms for "whining hippie" usually dumped on vegetarians. My conversion to flesh-eating couldn't happen because, frankly, I'm not stupid enough. As in, I can read.
Analysis of more than 6,000 pancreatic cancer cases published in the British Journal of Cancer says that eating just 50g of processed meat a day (one sausage or a couple of slices of bacon) raises the likelihood of pancreatic cancer by a fifth. 100g a day (the equivalent of a medium burger) raises it by 38%, 150g by 57%. Men are worst hit, as they tend to eat the most processed meat. And while pancreatic cancer is not the most common of cancers, it's frequently diagnosed late, with four-fifths of sufferers dying within a year of diagnosis.
It should be pointed out that this is about processed meat. However, many past studies have stated a probable link between too much meat and all manner of cancers and heart problems, as well as links to other conditions, from diabetes and high blood pressure to obesity and Alzheimer's.
If, by now, you're thinking that I'm out to shock you, then you couldn't be more wrong. I'd be shocked if any of this was considered new enough to shock anyone. This information has popped up regularly for years in all forms of popular media. Indeed, in this era of info overload, if you've never come across the "burgers and kebabs are unhealthy" revelation, one would have to presume you've been lying in a coma. With this in mind, isn't it time to ask, exactly how thick, how hard to educate, are meat eaters and why aren't they held accountable in the same way everyone else is?
Sympathy is in short supply these days. You can't move for people being blamed for their own miserable situations: smokers who "burden" the NHS; alcoholics who don't "deserve" liver transplants; obese people who "should" pay more for flights. Even those poor terrified women with the faulty breast implants are said to have "brought it on themselves".
By this logic, people who've been regularly informed of the dangers of meat, particularly the cheap processed variety, but who continue to wolf it down should be held just as accountable.
Yet these meat eaters are rarely lambasted. If they're mentioned at all, it's in general poor lifestyle terms, as an afterthought to drinking, smoking, and lack of exercise. You just don't get people making emotional pronouncements about bacon lovers not deserving cancer treatment or kebab fans burdening the NHS. Few are criticized for following the kind of meat-laden diets (Atkins, Dukan), which, one can only presume, are colonic timebombs waiting to happen.
Where meat is concerned, it is almost as if we have developed a personal responsibility blind spot. Where we just shrug and say, meat is here, it's always been here, it is what it is. But meat hasn't always been here in the form of additive-stuffed burgers, pork pies, sausages et al. In my opinion, it's the meat eaters' duty to take this information on board and take direct personal responsibility for the consequences, just as alcoholics and smokers do.
It's not as if they haven't been warned countless times about the dangers – how willfully ill-informed can people be? Or maybe they're just hard. In fact, when I say I'm not dumb enough to eat meat, I should probably add brave enough. With so much frightening information, so readily available for so long, the modern committed carnivore must have nerves of steel.
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488 Comments so far
Show Alllt's Biology 101: Carnivores ( hunters ) have their eyes in front of the head and herbivores ( prey ) on the side.
I'd like to think that humans have the ability to evolve beyond a state of endless war, death to the weakest among us, those with the largest, meanest army wins and destroys everything in it's path..
That is your eyes in the front of your head - lack of growth as a species - onward in our death march towards extinction logic you are using.
Great - keep up the good work!
Kill, kill, kill...............
We are neither predator nor prey.
We evolved from opportunistic omnivore scavengers. We ate what we could, when we could. On a purely observational basis, humans are weak compared to other predators, defenseless in regards to hair and hide, and our offensive nails and teeth are totally inadequate.
The only thing that kept our ancestors alive was social co-operation and willingness to keep modifying ready resources and materials into the tools and weapons we needed.
Or, in other words:
The ability to look to different ways of behavior as opportunities, not something to attack or defend to the death.
Different ways of behavior like say... DIET.;)
You got it!
Before we developed agriculture, our ancestors were hunters and gatherers. Up until the 1800's (when the European immigrants killed off most of the bison on the Great Plains), the plains indians survived by hunting; since they were nomads, it would have been difficult for them to make a living off of agriculture. One of the biggest mistakes the US government ever made was to think they could force nomadic peoples onto reservations and expect them to be farmers.
Since our ancestors hunted, they were predators. Since there were bigger, faster, stronger, predators who were far more fierce than our ancestors, our ancestors were prey species. Many of those predators (e.g., cats) hunt at night. This is probably why fear of the dark is such a common human experience.
We are now more intelligent than any other species (I realize that our ability to use nuclear weapons to kill all humans on earth should cause one to question our intelligence). Our ability to use technology means we are now the top predators on earth (even Tyrannosaurus rex would be no match for an M1-A1 Abrams tank). Usually we don't hunt other predators (although we do fish for species that are predators--swordfish and shark); however, my state of Nebraska is considering allowing the hunting of mountain lions. (Even now you can shoot them if you think they are a threat).
We long ago learned that it is much easier to domesticate prey species and live with them than it is to go running after them in the wild to kill and eat them. Because we raise herds of cattle (as well as goats and sheep) and then kill and butcher them at our leisure, we are not really hunters anymore, but we still are predators if we eat meat.
Yeah, no kidding.
Get a grip, Miss Ellen. If you want to be brash and edgy by calling people "dumb," go smile in the mirror and take a look at your teeth. They're made for gripping and ripping. If you were meant to be an herbivore, you would chew your food in a rotating motion and you'd have a mouthful of broad, flat molars...you know, like a sheep.
This is just a hunch, but I'll bet you eat a lot of soy products. Well, that's pretty dumb, too. Up until a few years ago, soy was grown primarily as an ingredient for paint and cardboard. It's unfit for human consumption. You know why? Because humans are biologically incapable of digesting cellulose. Vegetarians absorb a lot of vitamins and minerals, sure, but they miss out on protein and nutrition. "But how," you ask, "Does a cow get by on nothing but raw cellulose?" Well, cattle can't digest cellulose, either. One cow spends eighteen hours per day chewing grass, breaking it down into soup. One cow also has 30 pounds of predatory bacteria living in its stomach. After the bacteria gorge themselves on the digested grass, a reflex is triggered within the stomach and the BACTERIA, NOT THE GRASS are digested and converted into energy. Raw, bloody, predatory energy. That's how a cow extracts vital nutrients from grass: carnivorously.
If you were a cow, Miss Ellen, you'd be fine. But you're an omnivorous ape, just like me, and we did not evolve with bacteria in our guts to render cellulose into raw protein for us. Face it: we only became a human because our ancestors had a taste for blood. We have to extract protein from meat. For 99.9% of our existence on Earth we lived as hunter-gatherers; I'd say our bodies are pretty darn used to it by now. Our bodies EXPECT it. They DEPEND on it. You think you're healthy now, but in reality you are slowly starving yourself to death--you are mutilating your body from the inside-out; your immune system will weaken, your stamina will diminish, you'll be at a far greater risk of suffering degenerative diseases--"diseases of civilization." Lizards became snakes when their legs were no longer necessary. When did you lose your canines and incisors? When did you stop chewing up-and-down--like a dog, like a lion, like a shark? You think your radical yuppie enlightenment is somehow transcendently powerful enough to negate three-million years of evolutionary refinement, that it's as simple as telling our bodies: "stop craving protein, you mean little organs!" and redeem the very fabric of our biology with modern cultural awareness? You, Miss Ellen, are insane.
I do agree with you 100% that processed meats are awful, though. That's why I raise my own chickens and shoot my own deer.
Lets be clear here - we didn't evolve eating meat 3 times a day year in and year out......
During the numerous Ice Ages when fresh fruits and vegetables were hard to come by I'll bet we did. Eskimos sit around eating raw whale blubber all year and they've got the lowest rates of cancer, birth defects, and degenerative diseases of any single population on the planet.
Not anymore. Inuit (the term 'Eskimo' is an insult, btw) in Canada's North are now as chemically contaminated as anyone else. And their traditional diet is being wiped out by Corporate food imports into their communities, as well as having the traditional foods of whale and seal meat being contaminated with industrial carcinogens and PCBs. In addition, the caribou herds that many Inuit shore communities depend on are being lost due to pipeline route invasions disrupting migration routes as well as climate change.
"Eskimo" is Algonkian for "raw meat-eater," which is what they were. It's considered an insult because they didn't get along with the Algonkians, not because it's an inaccurate or even a hostile description. Kind of like how lots of Sioux are pretty much okay with calling themselves the Sioux, even though that term is derived from an Ojibwe insult meaning "snake in the grass."
You're right, though. Most of their traditional way of life has been eradicated by the luxuries of the petroleum industry. Prior to the 1970's, when their meat-based diet was still clean, you'd have been hard-pressed to find any cases of degenerative diseases. Cancer was unheard of, and American doctors and missionaries who went to work in places like Nome and Barrow remarked that they tended to give birth to the strongest, healthiest babies they'd ever seen.
If that is true about the low cancer rates, it probably has more to do with the lack of environmental contamination than with a primarily meat based diet. I have seen numerous studies which find a strong positive correlation between environmental pollution and cancer rates. All of the studies I've seen examining meat eating and cancer rates find a positive correlation, whereby increased meat consumption correlates with increased cancer rates.
I'd say it is because not all "meat" is equal.
Whale blubber and seal fat likely have qualities missing in a Big Mac. ;)
I think you are missing a point. I have not come across any reports that say cancer is directly induced by meat eating. Rather cancer cells proliferation is amplified by a meat-rich diet (The China Study, etc) and since most of us now live in an environment full of carcinogens, excessive meat diet is not very wise.
The China Study has proven to be a bust as the guy faked some of his research results. Check out WestonPriceFoundation.com for the berst information on meat eating and other very important information about diet. The comment above about vegetarians slowly starving their bodies to death is proven by the research found on this site.
My teeth look nothing like my German Shepard's teeth. My canine teeth are pathetic and tiny compared to my Basset Hound's. Plus I'm going to start telling all my vegetarian friends from India (the hundreds of millions of them) that they've been doing it all wrong the last thousands of years.
@Swza - That's because your teeth are descended from opportunistic omnivore scavengers. Just like every other human.
If you look at our primate cousins, humans fall in between orangutans and gorillas in size. By comparison, gorillas eat 95-97% vegetarian diet and orangutans 92-95%. As for our smaller -primarily vegetarian- cousin, the chimp, 96% of DNA base pair sequences of humans and chimpanzees are the same. The primary "animal" dietary sources for our ape cousins are insects like termites, of which are consumed in amounts much less than .22 lbs or 100g of meat consumed in one medium-sized hamburger. Early man ate a diet very similar to apes, and would socially hunt in groups when game was abundant, sharing the kill among whole tribes of people. They also ran/walked an estimated 22 miles PER DAY. Early man also went through periods of feast and famine, determined by the weather and seasonal changes. The everyday diet was largely vegetarian-based, as vegetables, roots, nuts, seeds and roots were much more easily obtained than trying to catch an animal. I don't see many people today fasting. There is no famine in Western countries, but an abundance of junk "food" and meat, meat, meat. The average American consumes a diet of 3-5% vegetables and fruit; 10% at most in the most gracious surveys. If we do not realize we are eating ourselves to death and promoting global warming and destruction of ecosystems through our choices to eat meat, then we are in fact as the writer points out, "dumb".
There is a vegetarian, as-authentic-as-they-get, inexpensive Indian restaurant where I currently live that gets very faithful patronage from me, especially for their mysore masala dosa and badam milk with cardamom. "Carb" overload it may be, but it's nutritious!
Off topic: German shepherd? I am positively in love with the long-haired variety, which are considered to be "faulty" for their breed. Gorgeous dogs, but, unfortunately, due to their long hair, not well suited to the climate of my current abode.
Oh, not to insult basset hounds - I like them, too.
1. Indian traditional diets rely heavily upon animal foods for protein and fermented foods for the B vitamins.
2. VERY FEW Western Veggies eat a traditional Indian diet, or any traditional vegetarian diet. Their diets are as hodge-podge and poorly rounded as the rest of ours are.
3. The traditional Indian diets are a response to crowded conditions in a sub-tropical or desert, or monsoon climate and bioregion. Protein and raw calorie requirements are greater in the cold, dark north. Also plant varities are less, microbe varieties for fermentation are different, and the growing season is at best 1/2 as long. In this environment, it makes no sense to raise animals only for milk and eggs -the food situation is too desperate.
Good points, especially #2.
Many vegetarians in India do so out of religious choice. Many more do it out of the necessities of economy.
And all it will take one major drought, crop failure or similar catastrophe to have these people eating whatever they can find. Or sitting by the side of the road passively starving to death.
Given that meat production is approximately 10x more resource intensive than vegetable production, restricted resources or crop failures will actually force more people to become vegetarian due to sky rocketing meat prices.
Yep.
You are forgetting vermin and small game.
The monkeys that plague many parts of urban India would be goners.
Except those monkeys that live at the temple of Hanuman, the Monkey King.
Ha!
What sort of crisis will end the good fortune of the rats at that one Jainist Temple whose name I forget, I wonder?
My understanding is that beef production is 1o times more resource intensive. Poultry farming is 3 to 5 times more intensive.
And ALL of it has MUCH more to do with the technics employed than the foods themselves.
A hog raised on restaurant scraps/trash in the lot behind a butcher's, slaughtered and cleaned on site individually, stored on site as a carcass, then cut and packaged in paper and sold out of the front of the house, is MUCH LESS net resource intensive than a "Baby Mixed Salad" grown in various "organic" monocultures, cut by laser-guided robots, packed in a refrigerator truck by migrants, driven on a highway to a giant refrigerated factory to be washed by more migrants, packaged in a special breathable plastic box with extensive labelling and plastic seal, taken by refrigerator truck on another highway to a giant box supermarket, then -finally!- sold via computerized check-out counter to a suburban dweller who will drive it 10 miles down ANOTHER highway to put it in THEIR refrigerator for a week or two, then throwing half away because it browned a bit while hiding behind leftovers from a chain restaurant. ;)
All "environmental" Veggie people better have AT LEAST a potato box around their home somewhere or they are SCREAMING hypocrites!
Yes, but if you smoke or jerk your deer meat, it IS procesed meat.
We cook from scratch most of the time and we get our meat fresh and usually organic. We believe in eating meat and are going to continue. We even make our own sausages which are quite yummy.
I agree processed meats from the large companies are pretty awful for one.
OwlyCabango, yes, and predatory vegans are waiting on every corner to pounce upon law-abiding meat-eaters. Criminal isn't it?
You betcha!
That's why I always carry a bag of radishes whereever I go.
When the angry Vegans come at me with their hoes and rakes, I scatter a few dozen radishes and escape in the confusion. Then I go home and munch on a pound or two of bacon until all is well again.
Excellent reply, thank you very much.
Owly Cabango
Have a look at your own anatomy, without tools you couldn't catch, outrun, kill any prey!
You seem to be a nice case of cognitive dissonance. Enjoy your corpses
I guess you'd starve on an island in the Pacific surrounded by coconuts.
"When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores."
"Because humans get atherosclerosis, and atherosclerosis is a disease only of herbivores, humans also must be herbivores."
William C. Roberts, M.D., editor, American Journal of Cardiology
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Humans are ecologically defined like all creatures.
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Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study, explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today. He explains that "the birth of agriculture only started about 10,000 years ago at a time when it became considerably more convenient to herd animals. This is not nearly as long as the time [that] fashioned our basic biochemical functionality (at least tens of millions of years) and which functionality depends on the nutrient composition of plant-based foods."(quoted from: http://ca.sudeshkumar.org/2010/07/humans-are-natural-vegetarian.html)
----
Comparative Anatomy of Eating by Milton 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
"Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles frugivorous animals in every thing, and carnivorous in nothing; he has neither claws wherewith to seize his prey, nor distinct and pointed teeth to tear the living fibre."
A Vindication of Natural Diet by Percy Bysshe Shelley London, 1813
“Either nature failed us in the engineering of our anatomy, or we failed when we selected animals as a food source.” Rex Bowlby, Plant Roots: 101 Reasons the Human Diet is Rooted Exclusively in Plants
Good post, tellthetruth. The same point I've made before, a few times, actually. Like Whac-a-mole, the same bogus talking point about humans having "evolved" to be meat eaters or omnivores keep popping up!
Just to add to what you've outlined here so clearly- Virtually ALL predatory land mammals not only have the characteristics you've outlined but, beside having claws & paws- are 4 LEGGED [an obvious advantage for hunting, running down & pouncing on 4 legged prey] - while humans are 2 LEGGED & Claw-less [an obvious DIS-advantage for hunting 4 legged prey]. And most predatory land mammals have an especially acute sense of smell [an advantage for sensing & tracking unseen prey], but humans have a rather dull sense of smell. Evolutionists say that the Great apes [Chimps, gorillas, orangutans] are man's closest relatives - yet most great apes' diets consist of 90% - 98% plant based food while consuming less than 2% - 5% of flesh for their diet. In fact most great apes diet consist of 50% - 90% fruit, berries, nuts & seeds - meaning they are basically frugivorous creatures- which implies that man is supposed to basically be vegetarian / frugivorous also.
The problem is that too many westernized folk [especially in the US] are not prepared to give-up nor even moderate their wasteful & unhealthy meat centered SAD diet- not for the love of animals, nor for the love of the eco-sphere, not even for their own health. And then McDonalds, Pizza Hut & Taco-Bell, wants to Globalize this SAD meat centered diet!
totally sorry for the repeat.. trying to delete.
Interesting. I have noted that people with their eyes spaced close together, like George Dubya, for example, are dumber that a box of hammers. But people with widely spaced apart eyes are very bright. This sort of further supports your statement.
Really?
So Gorillas and Koalas are meat eaters?
Both Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey observed the 'great apes' catching, killing and eating small animals, as well as engaging in same-species cannibalism.
So *bang* goes that simplistic argument...
Interesting though that other researchers studying apes were unable to find examples of many of Jane's claims. Furthermore, Jane Goodall's research was not in the wild but done on a preserve... and, she did engage in feeding the animals to influence them.
Jane Goodall enjoys much undeserved credibility.
So Koalas and Gorillas are meat eaters?
I eat local clean meat. I eat it because, if I didn't, the connective tissue around my spine would once again start to disintegrate and I would be in chronic pain with severely impaired mobility.
I was a vegetarian for decades. I am sympathetic on many levels, however when someone, like this author, makes such broad generalizations, I feel like responding. Ms. Ellen, you do not have the whole picture. I don't enjoy the arrogance of many vegetarians and vegans, but I was just as arrogant so I do understand. Ms. Ellen, as you get older, as things change in your body, or if you sustain serious injury, it will be interesting to see you change your tune.
arrogance is not confined to the flesh-eating community, it's true. most of us make our choices on not much more than personal whim most of the time and then get all self righteous about it as if we had just found a cure for cancer. (we may have!)
i also suspect that those who have found health issues coming up in their lives and return to meat-eating will find whatever opinion exists, professional or otherwise to justify that decision. i seriously doubt that there exists some absolute proof in the science of nutrition such that the presence of certain ailments require a meat-based diet for producing a cure. if anyone can refute this claim, i'd be happy to look at the evidence.
>>starkraving wrote: "I seriously doubt that there exists some absolute proof in the science of nutrition such that the presence of certain ailments require a meat-based diet for producing a cure. If anyone can refute this claim, I'd be happy to look at the evidence."<<
Good point, starkraving! There is a growing list of practicing physicians who are not lazy to put the latest information and research results on diet, nutrition and health studies to excellent use to treat their patients of chronic ailments. They also go the extra mile by offering up this information to the public in an easy-to-access form, by way of books, online info, videos, newsletters, PBS specials, etc. It would be a shame and most unfortunate not to make use of such new information.
I would URGE people to check out books, videos and online info. by
** Joel Fuhrman, MD : www.drfuhrman.com
** John A. McDougall, MD : www.drmcdougall.com
** Dean Ornish, MD : www.pmri.org (Preventive Medicine Research Institute)
** Neal Barnard, MD (founder and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine - PCRM) : www.nealbarnard.org
** Dr. T. Colin Campbell (not an MD, but a Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University and author of "The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health" : www.tcolincampbell.org
and many, many others, I'm sure.
I know a lot of ex-vegetarians and ex-vegans, too. Spinal degeneration seems to be compulsory. A friend of mine, after being a vegan for six years, started eating meat again when the whites of his eyes turned yellow. He also noticed that now, if he cuts himself or gets a bruise, the wound will heal on its own (like magic!) in just a couple of days.