chicken tastes good
George Orwell once said that the worst advertisement for Socialism was your average Socialist, and he was one himself. I find this to be very true and, like Orwell, I am also a Socialist, of course. I have seldom seen eye to eye or even gotten along with other Socialists (the last one was from Peru, but Latin American Socialists are a bit different
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Look, he's addressing the wackos that think humans ate ONLY vegetarian sources for most of history. Do you continue to pretend I'm saying that? Please stop with your straw man arguments and actually read what I write.
Let me repeat again: Humans are omnivores. Humans are omnivores. I agree. I've always agreed. What I've been trying to say all along was that throughout most of early human history, for millions of years (read: not paleolithic, but before), man subsisted overwhelmingly on plant sources, with meat sources being taken in as necessary during harsh weather, food scarcity, and the like. Our bodies evolved to fit this: omnivorous, adaptable, but still more suited along the plant-based diet than the meat-based diet. It's simply a question of degree. This didn't change anatomically with the rapid shift to a more meat-based diet that occurred later on.
However, strike all that. As I said, at the moment I no longer have an opinion either way, since I found a lot of gray area. The most honest thing I found was the sentence: We still don't know what early hominids ate. There's nothing left to say. Check it out, anything I've found so far, for or against, has been through googling and finding random websites. This is not real research. I finally admitted it, you should too. I see no reason why I should fall over and worship John McArdle, Ph.D., who might be as much of a wackjob and paid off by unnamed sources as anyone else on a random website. I'm pretty sure this dude has an agenda, whether he's vegetarian or not. One thing law school teaches you is that in issues of science, both sides can find some expert to say exactly what they want and back it up with sources.
There's not much more of a point in talking about it until both of us have done the serious, critical research - the stuff I don't have time for, unfortunately. And which will still probably end in a big "I don't know." I'm moving on...
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That's just it, Aroon, you are simply wrong: our bodies have adapted to be suited precisely for omnivorous diets. Whether or not that was what we were to begin with is irrelevant, in my opinion, because we omnivores now, by nature. Our bodies work best, on average mind you, when fed with an omnivorous diet. Otherwise, vegetarians and vegans wouldn't have to take vitamins and/or eat fortified foods to get all the of proper minerals and nutrients that our bodies need.
But if you must know, I really wasn't thinking of you when I wrote this entry. You and your friend who commented both put words into my mouth that I did not say, and that reminded me of how dogmatic non meat eaters tend to be. But I've seen far worse than that from non meat eaters, and those people are who I was thinking of (think PETA and the like).
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I said, "Don't kid yourself that everything would go to shit if we didn't eat steak at every meal," which I meant as just a form of expression.
You said, "I don't think we should eat steak at every meal either (I don't even eat steak, by the way), but I thought I made that clear previously. You are your friend in the other comment seem to like to either put words in my mouth or try to twist what I am saying to fit your agendas."
So yeah, the "steak at every meal" thing was just an expression meant to add levity, sorry if that wasn't clear. Anyone who did endorse that would be dead of a heart attack. :) I know, of course, that you think we need to cut back on our meat intake, and not consume so much in this society in general.
By the way, as for B12, let's be clear - it's only a problem for vegans. I won't address the moral quandaries of drinking milk, because I don't have a problem with it. All other minerals and nutrients can be received quite nicely with a vegetarian diet.
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As far as B12, vegans don't get ANY unless they take a pill or eat fortified food. Some vegetarians have a deficiency of it in their system, some do not. I'd imagine it depends on how much animal products they take into their system and what not.
I think vegetarianism can be an extremely healthy lifestyle...for some people. I think modern science tends to see each and every person as having the same body with the same needs, and I don't think that is true at all. For instance, old friend Caleb and Alison were vegan. Caleb did just fine, Allison did not at all. She was tired and weak all of the time, and the only way she ended that was by starting to take in animal products in her diet. They ate virtually the same things.
Now, I don't eat a lot of beef or pork, so this is probably just shit, but I've never had a problem with cholesterol and I've known people who can (metaphorically)eat a slice of bacon and see their cholesterol rate shoot through the roof. So that's another example.
But anyhoo, for me, it's not just the overconsumption, but how we go about consuming everything, food being the subject this time. I want to see a return to mixed farms, as I've said, and I think that's extremely important, for our health and the health of the world (some scientists think that the mass corporate farming is playing a not insignificant role in "global warming", by the way). Being vegetarian in the face of that is extremely honorable, but I fear many of the dogmatic bunch want to convert, and not change the way the system is ran. Seems like a missed opportunity to me, but I have to wonder if this is on purpose because of the fear that ending the corporate farming of animals would give people one less reason to be vegetarian. Of course, that's just stupid, really, and reminds me of how Marxists will often oppose Social Democratic reforms which do help the poor out immensely simply because it's not the full on Socialism they want.
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