[Closed] Vegetarianism - Is it natural?

Homo Sapiens = Omnivorous

Anything else is a lifestyle choice.,

God has given us the wonderful set of cutting and crushing teeth we have in order that we can enjoy all the wonderful eating on offer.

If we were supposed to suck lettuce, we'd have gobs like the tortoise.

I don't really care if people are vegetarian etc...but I'd say it's definitely not natural for humans.

Soya is exceptionally bad for the environment, and apparently unless prepared properly incredibly bad for you too.
I think that the real issue about most UK people's diet is that it includes too much intensively farmed meat and grain.

Not at all natural - a lifestyle/ethics/health choice that our comfortable western lifestyle lets us choose. And yes i am a vegetarian.

If we were supposed to suck lettuce, we'd have gobs like the tortoise.

I'm veggie and its a choice. And that choice was **** all to do with saving the environment.

Your "friend" sounds like a pain in the arse veggie that gets us a bad name?

Fatboyjon - those teeth cam about through evolution not some bloke with a beard... but that's a different argument....

No it's not natural, evidence shows we evolved as a running race that practiced [url= http://alistairpott.com/2009/04/15/persistence-hunting-humans-running-antelope-to-death/ ]Persistence Hunting[/url] The problem is the crap diets many people eat nowadays, so vege becomes a viable alternative, beyond some peoples values & beliefs.

meat is murder.

tasty, tasty, murder.

I'm sure i eat way more meat than i need. so i try to keep my carniverous side under control. but it's not easy, you can't just replace meat with beans.

meat represents lots of land/energy/water - it's already expensive and will only get more so.

I can think of other native protein sources from back in the day - walnuts and beans for starters. I think veganism is a very modern fad, but suspect that for most of history most people lived a fairly vegetarian diet because of the difficulty or expense of killing lots of meat.

Clearly our ancestors were omnivores but they also swung from the tress to but it does not mean we have to does it?

i am not going to bother posting as i will be wasting my time and dont want my blood pressure to go up. enjoy your colon cancer and lets see you eat a raw chicken with your incisors and cutting teeth! i didnt think so.

See those 16 teeth at the front of your mouth?

They're are for tearing at flesh not grinding down plants.

I made the choice to become a lacto-ovo vegetarian 23 years ago - I don't really include soya in my diet but chick peas definately feature quite a lot. Most food contains protein and vegans tend to eat nuts, lentils, seeds, pulses and rice to get it -other sources include broccoli and potatoes.

I'm with momentum on this (I think)

Vegetarianism is not natural, but then eating the quantity of meat (particularly processed meat) that we eat today is not natural either.

Plenty of ways of getting protein including
Barley, Beans, Sesame Seeds, Lentils, Sunflower Seeds, Broccoli,
Oats, Peas, Walnuts, Rice, Peanuts, Cashews, Pasta,whole Grain Breads
They are just Incomplete proteins so you have to have mixture.

Oh and Walnuts are native to Britain for about the last 2000 years
yes I am veggie and your friend does sound a bit OTT

If god hadn't wanted us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat!

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i am not going to bother posting

surprise !!!!

You just did

enjoy your colon cancer and lets see you eat a raw chicken with your incisors and cutting teeth! i didnt think so.

I have a healthy balanced diet, so really not sure where the colon cancer would come from. Oh, and raw meat? Not really my scene, apart from a nice Steak Tartare or some Sushi (if that counts!). Luckily, man make fire. Man cook chicken. Chicken taste lovely.

I can think of other native protein sources from back in the day - walnuts and beans for starters. I think veganism is a very modern fad, but suspect that for most of history most people lived a fairly vegetarian diet because of the difficulty or expense of killing lots of meat.

Walnut has always been a rare wood in the UK and certainly wouldn't really have been used as a source of nuts, as for beans, the more native beans grown in the UK are not particularly high in protein especially runner beans. Broad beans are not too bad. Plus they were too obvious to mention in my original post.

Also, pea proteins (peas and beans) are low in some amino acids that promote cell growth. So why is this type of diet supposed to be healthy?

Wearing clothes isn't "natural". Living in houses isn't "natural". So why does it matter that vegetarianism meets this description? We eat far more meat than is healthy, purely because of affluence and intensive farming. It's also bad for the environment. There's no way I would give up meat altogether, but we could all survive perfectly happily on much less of it.

[i]enjoy your colon cancer and lets see you eat a raw chicken with your incisors and cutting teeth! i didnt think so.[/i]

Only if I can see you eat some raw wild potatoes, cassava or kidney beans 🙂

Plenty of ways of getting protein including
Barley, Beans, Sesame Seeds, Lentils, Sunflower Seeds, Broccoli,
Oats, Peas, Walnuts, Rice, Peanuts, Cashews, Pasta,whole Grain Breads
They are just Incomplete proteins so you have to have mixture.

Oh and Walnuts are native to Britain for about the last 2000 years
yes I am veggie and your friend does sound a bit OTT

Still not sure it answers my original question to the pain in the arse vegan and yes she is totally OTT.

If it wasn't for globalisation, could you maintain a healthy diet from the foods native to Britain?

If it wasn't for globalisation, could you maintain a healthy diet from the foods native to Britain

Very much so. Lots of fish, game and plenty of wild veg if you know where to look. Hell, even nettles can form part of a very healthy diet! (plenty of iron!)

Dr Mike Stroud, the other half of the Ranulph Feinnes Antarctic crossing duo, has written a fascinating book based on his research, [i]The Survival of the Fittest[/i]. In a nutshell, he concludes that the human body has evolved to metabolise and run on a staple carbohydrate based diet. Protein is also essential, but in nothing like the quantities we the 'normal' western populus consume.

Many more interesting facts and well worth a read. I'd go so far as to say it is lifestyle changing.

There's no way I would give up meat altogether, but we could all survive perfectly happily on much less of it.

and therein lies the moderate solution of most reasonable people. Everything in moderation.

On one hand though you will get the screaming vegamentalists and on the other the slobbish over-consumers of processed meat and earth-raping excess.

Sorry that should have read.

If it wasn't for globalisation, could you maintain a healthy vegetarian diet from the foods native to Britain?

They are just Incomplete proteins so you have to have mixture.

I don't agree with 'incomplete' - they are completely functional for the plant in question - they just lack certain amino acids we need...

Probably not. Certainly as you travel north it becomes harder. Certainly impossible once you reach Greenland and Iceland. I know they grow a bit of veg there but nothing that could really sustain a human.

It isn't 100% natural, but the omnivorous diet that most non-vegetarians eat nowadays is much less natural.

In the distant past, in hunter-gatherer societies, the reality was that the vast majority of people's diet came from plant sources, i.e.gathering food, with a relatively small proportion coming from hunted animals.

It is only in the last 100 years or so that meat has come to make such a large proportion of people's diets.

If we were meant to have a primarily meat based diet, we'd have mouths like dogs, rather than just a few pointy teeth.

The thing about protein and vegetarianism being a problem is a bit of a myth though - as long as you get a varied diet, you can easily get enough protein. For example wholemeal bread has 10g of protein per 100g, so you can get 10% of your 50g just by the bread on a single sandwich.

In terms of globalisation and environment, the impact of meat farming is massively massively more, as it is a very inefficient way to create calories or protein. That is why there is an environmental movement for people to pledge to not eat meat for one day a week (or more).

Joe

I'm afraid my weakness is neither meat or veg. It's those overly processed sugars that find their way into the brightly packaged containers of Sir Walter Raleigh's greatest discovery (no not tobacco!!)

Yes you can maintain a healthy vegan diet on uk only produce but it would need thinking about to get the balance right.

a lifestyle/ethics/health choice that our comfortable western lifestyle lets us choose

tell that to the people of Gujarat 😯

Got any examples of diets mt? Presumably they're must be plenty of vegans who have tried this sort of thing.

I believe 49er Jerry is about right. we are evolved as omnivores but I believe that large chunks of red meat would have been a rarity in our diet before the development of farming. Meat would have been the occasional rabbit rather than the daily cow and very rarely the tribe would have killed some big animal. Domestic animals such as cows and pigs have been bred to be docile and easily caught. Try catching wild boar or and auroch!

The excess of red meat in the average western diet is definitely linked with disease including bowel cancers.

Meat production is unsustainable. on average 10kg of plantstuffs make 1kg of meat, cows fart an airship of methane a year

I eat meat as an occasional treat. Salami or similar a couple of times a week - a chunk of real meat every now and then

10% of your 50g just by the bread on a single sandwich.

indeed, however in order to get 100% you would need to eat the equivalent of 10 sandwiches which is a lot. In a day I probably eat the equivalent of only 5 or 6 "sandwiches".

All you have demonstrated is that the concentration of protein in a sandwich is very small and impractical as a source of protein other than an incidental one.

[i]i am not going to bother posting as i will be wasting my time and dont want my blood pressure to go up.[/i]

So your vegetarian diet is doing your blood pressure some good then. 😆

Want to be a veggie could for you!

Want to be a vegan good for you!

Want to be the latest fad diet or what ever is trendy, good for you!

But please don't preach me.

[i]Meat would have been the occasional rabbit[/i]

Very occasional in the UK, in fact probably never as they were also farmed.

definatley never as they aren't native 🙂

a lifestyle/ethics/health choice that our comfortable western lifestyle lets us choose

tell that to the people of Gujarat

In answer to the post

I don't really care if people are vegetarian etc...but I'd say it's definitely not natural for humans.

But yes, others may not be able to make the same choices we make....

Joe

The thing about protein and vegetarianism being a problem is a bit of a myth though - as long as you get a varied diet, you can easily get enough protein. For example wholemeal bread has 10g of protein per 100g, so you can get 10% of your 50g just by the bread on a single sandwich.

The Vegetarian Society says you only get about 7.0g of protein from 2 slices of bread. That makes 14 slices to get the 50 grammes. That's one hell of a butty.

In terms of globalisation and environment, the impact of meat farming is massively massively more, as it is a very inefficient way to create calories or protein. That is why there is an environmental movement for people to pledge to not eat meat for one day a week (or more).

I agree that modern farming techniques and the over consumption of meat by the western world (in general) has severely damaged the environment. But I'm not sure that the majority of peoples diet did actually come from plant sources. There is so little nutritional value in plant material (calories, vitamins and minerals) that can be extracted by the human gut, it's not really worth eating (you use more calories eating and digesting celery than are actually contained in it).

the same post has just appeared above !

8)

indeed, however in order to get 100% you would need to eat the equivalent of 10 sandwiches which is a lot. In a day I probably eat the equivalent of only 5 or 6 "sandwiches".

Do you have nothing inside your sandwich? And none of the many other sources of protein in the rest of your diet? All I was pointing out is that by a typical lunch and a couple of slices of toast for breakfast, you'll end up getting a fifth of your protein intake, before you even consider adding obvious sources of protein (like nuts or whatever) to your diet. Protein is a bit of a red herring really, because if you just eat a healthy diet, chances are you'll pick up enough just through incidental things that you don't think of as a lump of protein.

When I was vegan (for two years a bit back), I was maintaining a constant weight, commuting for 1.5 hours a day, riding off road for 8-10 hours most weeks, swimming for 40 mins every weekday morning, and not having any health problems. All by just eating a varied, mostly home cooked vegetable based diet. Oh and I got me a world record for off road unicycling, competed in a bunch of bike races and other stupid sporting events, I wasn't unfit. Anyone saying that you need meat to be fit and healthy, or that it is hard to get enough protein as a vegan is just plain ignorant.

I stopped being vegan because I like the taste of cheese and eggs a lot. It was a lifestyle choice that I made, and I don't try and kid myself that it is something I needed to do, it is just something I did because I wanted to.

Joe

There is so little nutritional value in plant material (calories, vitamins and minerals) that can be extracted by the human gut, it's not really worth eating (you use more calories eating and digesting celery than are actually contained in it).

Whilst that may be true of celery, it isn't true of many other plant sources of nutrition. Which is why no-one worried too much about the Irish Celery Famine, but the Potato Famine was quite a big thing.

Joe

i think you only need to look at size of people today to see that something is very wrong. i clearly remember a fat person standing out in a crowd only 20 years ago. now its a case of spot the normal size person. i dont preach, i dont like the cruelty involved in making that harmless looking red stuff in a plastic carton. all i can say is 22 years a vegan. my red blood count is far better than average and i still get my arse in the same size jeans i wore when i was 18.

My other half isn't is not 'vegetarian' but mostly eats vegetarian meals.
This seems sensible to me and i'm doing the same now. Most meat is bad quality, good stuff is expensive, and it takes up loads of land.

Can you really consider the reconsitituted low-quality meat that most people eat 'natural' anyway?? Have you seen how battery hens are kept?

[i] i think you only need to look at size of people today to see that something is very wrong. i clearly remember a fat person standing out in a crowd only 20 years ago. now its a case of spot the normal size person. [/i]

Were there more vegetarians/vegans 20 years ago then?

Were there more vegetarians/vegans 20 years ago then?

no but meat production has changed significantly.

we now ingest loads of hormones intended for the animals.

Joe

I thought a potato was a tuber? And they are different all together. Great source of carbs but still only about 2.5% protein.

Aren't the plant bits (i.e. the leaves) of a potato poisonous?

I've never questioned the health benefits of a balanced diet or vegetarianism. In fact, in an attempt to prolong the life of my wife (who had Cancer) we both became Organic Vegetarians. And apart from Tomatoes, that I can't stand, I really enjoyed it. Meals took longer to prepare, but I'm not sure if that was because of our inexperience.

After all the replies though, I think the answer to the questions are, "No it is not natural, it is a life choice (not sure it's healthier yet)" and "No, you could not be totally vegetarian living solely from the produce produced in Britain"

and pesticides intended for animals.

Okay. But what i was getting at is there are a lot more factors at play than diet to explain people getting fatter.

After all the replies though, I think the answer to the questions are, "No it is not natural, it is a life choice (not sure it's healthier yet)"

I'd agree with that, it isn't natural, it is a life choice, exactly the same as all other modern diets.

and "No, you could not be totally vegetarian living solely from the produce produced in Britain"

I think that's probably not true, although you might have a somewhat more restricted diet than many of us do and it maybe would not be quite so healthy (not convinced either way on that). If you look at what a lot of poor people ate historically in the UK and Ireland, it would have been a primarily meat free diet with no imported goods, so it is clearly possible to survive.

Joe

Well to all the vegan/veggie ninja on here that pretend to be the heathiest on the planet bla bla bla... Do you drink alcohol? If yes forget about it the healthy side then.

As for the OP, well human body is incapable to metabolise essential amino-acid. Hence you need them from an external source.
Being veggie is fine, as fish, eggs, dairy do contain a lot of such nutriments. I do however understand that you don't need g of red meat everyday (actually red meat is by far the worst meat one could eat, no matter how tasty is it) and that there is a problem in farming (yes your pig will grow heathly and tasty if you actually give him scraps to eat). Now vegan. Before I start I have to say I am biased due to the attitude of vegan ninjas from this very same forum.
What is the ****ing point of that? No meat, no fish, no sea food, no diary what you tell me where you get your AA from... Oh yes tofu, because soya is such a native plant from the UK, and having it overfarmed and shipped all over the world is obviously doing mother nature such a favour...
I think most of the vegan are just fashion victims. If you actually want to remove the suffering of small and cute animals etc etc well lets face it.

Throw yourself in front of the train (make sure it's not stoner's one) as human have become the dominant species of earth and as such just do every animal at the top of the food chain does... Eat the smaller ones.

yawn

another reasonable post from Juan :roll:.

EVERY TIME THIS COMES UP SOME MEAT EATER ALWAYS ENDS UP BEING INFURIATED BY MY EATING HABITS WHY?

I am a vegan *as I pesonally would not kill animals to eat (clearly a lifestyle choice ) you would/could /do excellent eat meat .
All for choice

Back on topic I doubt really that either a vegie or a meat etater could eat their current diet without imports so perhaps in that sense I doubt it is natural.
Then again neither is exchanging views on an internet forum , riding bikes or watching tv.

*sorry Juan dont drink either However I doubt I am the healthiest person on the planet and I am not a ninja either.

first off i'm a recent veggie convert - several illogical reasons, but i won't bore you with that.

I can't stand people who force their ideology down your throat wheter that be eat meat, don't eat meat, political or straight edge. blah blah boring.

No modern dieat is particually natural due to the way we ship food around the world, eat foods out of season.

a 'natural' diet would be that of a hunter gatherer or early arable farming - eating what would be produced locally. the problem with this is it has to be a snapshot in time. whgat is grown locally now is not what was grown locally 100 years ago....

[img] [/img]

EVERY TIME THIS COMES UP SOME MEAT EATER ALWAYS ENDS UP BEING INFURIATED BY MY EATING HABITS WHY?

Well if bloody vegan were not so offensive to start with (I think it was xerbivorx). It's like ss to be honest each to their own, but FFS why do you have to willy wave it, or jump to any one throat when they dare to say "I like meat".

No modern dieat is particually natural due to the way we ship food around the world, eat foods out of season.

Agree maybe time for a change? The market place have a small producer aisle who actually produce seasonal food. I'll ask the butcher if he know where is meat come from next time.

 

Where did the thing about ninjas come from? 😯

Isn't to do with their farts - silent but deadly?

[i]Back on topic I doubt really that either a vegie or a meat etater could eat their current diet without imports[/i]

I only ever buy british meat and try to get local if I can.

Where did the thing about ninjas come from?

I think in our dim and distant history the more concentrated amounts of protein in meat enabled our brains (that take a lot of energy to run) to grow and hence evolve into the people we are today (most predators are 'clever', most prey tends to be not).

As science has evolved we can now work out the levels of protein/carbs/vitamins etc. required to sustain our bodies. So in the days of transport/air travel (to import all those foreign nuts/veggies etc.) then it is probably feasible to be a vegetarian in this day and age.

(And all those saying eating meat means we eat pesticides etc. are conveniently forgetting these things are also used on vegetables too...).

So technicall not 'natural', but as other people have pointed out, getting your hair cut, driving cars and living past 40 are not 'natural'. I'm sure progress and pressures on the earths resources will see an increase in high protein vegetable alternatives. Still, the odd t-bone will still be a treat.

For Juan

A french person was once rude/offensive to me should I dislike all the French now or just that rude person?
DISCUSS

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I'm a vegetarian. Is it a lifestyle choice? Of course it is. Do I still cook/prepare/serve meat for my family or visiting friends? Of course I do. Do I know that I am lucky to have this choice? Of course I do.

Why get so hung up on what other people eat? I would no more tell someone else what to do with [b]their[/b] diet as I would criticise someone for [b]their[/b] choice.

I suspect it is perfectly legitimate to criticise people for their diet if you build in the impact of that diet on other people.

If you were a bangladeshi peasant whose land had been flooded and salted over because somebody had realised that if they cut down a mangrove swamp so they could supply British people with jumbo king prawns too cheap to meter they would make a killing, you might reasonably ask whether that was fair. ([url= http://www.eurocbc.org/page777.html ]One quite interesting link here[/url])

6 billion people cannot eat anything like the amount of meat we eat without establishing a pretty big farm on Mars. Our "fair share" of the amount of meat the world can sensibly expect to produce is a damn sight less than most of us currently get through. 🙂

^ fair point.

Humans are natural Hunter gatherers, adapted to survive on most things as seasons and location dictate, our ancestors had neither the big Mac nor the Quorn burger, they either hunted it, picked or dug it up, meaning they would probably have gone months without meat at times and when they did get a nice chunk of antelope or boar they’d soon burn off the calories. I doubt many of you Audi driving, Accountant, Meat lovers have been hunting or for that matter farming lately, I also doubt you burn off all the high calorie meat you take in straight away.

I’m a Pescatarian (Fishetarian), almost, but not quite a veggie, not on ethical grounds or anything, mainly for the protein, Iron and Fat deficiencies a proper Veggie diet would have, initially I changed diet for 4 reasons:

1- A bet, which 15 years on I have not yet won!
2- A fair few of the “proper meat eating men!” I’ve met have been wheezy lard arses.
3- I though Women would think I was more sensitive, They didn’t…
4- I’m very keen on sea food anyway so if I’m going to eat just one type of meat it may as well be my favourite.

If I was still a proper Meatatarian I have no doubt I would be a total lard bucket by now (I barely do enough to shift the fat from a lentil)…
I’m not militant and would never advise anyone what to eat, it’s completely up to them, the one thing I do dislike is the modern militant carnivore, Billy big bollocks that feel all clever after a good Gordon Ramsey sponsored Veggie bashing session, you like meat, well done what does telling me prove?

As for the OP question on veggies surviving on indigenous UK produce, it is possible, there would need to be a fair amount of growing things at home, and allowing for Dairy and eggs I think protein would not be a major problem, most would probably be healthier.

Vegans are a different matter, there is actually very little a strict vegan can eat, even less if you stick to UK produce only, I think they would struggle without supplements and imported foods, they would be spending the majority of their time gathering berries and nuts, with a Net nutritional value lower than that involved gathering them…

If I may, I shall applaud you for your choice Barry, which is one that I currently lack the moral fibre and good judgement to make. 🙂

Of course it's natural. Everything is natural, how can it not be?

Unnatural things are green men from Mars, god, and the flying spaghetti monster.

mainly for the protein, Iron and Fat deficiencies a proper Veggie diet would have

Trade with people of different nationalities is unnatural and food preservation is the work of Satan

Do cows produce more methane per tonne bodyweight than a lentil and chick pea powered ADH?

I think not.

*parp*

I love threads like this...

Go get em Johnnie. Where's xherbivorx when you need a proper hardcore vegan terrorist to spice things up.[img] [/img]

Spice?

*sucks teeth*

They come from a long way away. You'll have to make do with some mallow and some parsley.

Most of our calories come from Oil. Fertiliser, herbicides, insecticides, transport, diesel etc. if you eat vegetables or meat so there should be no big disagreement. Not sure what will happen to our farming system when it gets more expensive though.

Not sure what will happen to our farming system when it gets more expensive though.

Or we could just farm in a more intelligent way, if you can't force yeilds up with oil-derived fertilizers and mechanisation, you have to think again. Permaculture for example. Acceptance of GM.

That and hope swine flu lowers the burden a good jolt.

Being veggie is fine, as fish, eggs, dairy do contain a lot of such nutriments

That's a very Spanish approach to vegetarianism: fish is an animal...