Be kind to veggies/vegans

Not flaming here, seriously trying to help.

Please read...

Vegetarians have smaller brains

"...If vegetarians — and vegans in particular — berate you for 'murdering' and eating animals, please be kind to them. They are almost certainly suffering from self-inflicted brain atrophy, and have little recognition of both the damage they are doing to themselves and the harm that are doing to others who follow their advice."


http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarians-have-smaller-brains.html


ZW

 

einstein's brain was of average size

i read somewhere that human brains have been shrinking over time; perhaps this is evolution? and thus vegans more evolved?

besides, it ain't how much you've got, but what you do with it . . .

 

Protein rich diet was essential for early brain expansion and this was made possible by omnivorous dentition. Our modern diet does not emulate our historical diet as now we have industrial processing.

 

from the article

"Since the advent of agriculture, there has been a worrying trend as our brains have actually decreased in size. A recently updated and rigorous analysis of changes in human brain size found that our ancestors' brain size reached its peak with the first anatomically modern humans of approximately 90,000 years ago. That then remained fairly constant for a further 60,000 years.[11] Over the next 20,000 years there was a slight decline in brain size of about 3%. Since the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, however, that decline has quickened significantly, so that now our brains are some 8% smaller. "


ZW

 

"An increasing proportion of meat in the diet would obviously have provided more animal protein, a factor perhaps related to the increase in stature which appears to have accompanied the transition from AustralopithecinesHomo habilis to Homo erectus.[3] But greater availability of animal fat was probably a more important dietary alteration. Crude stone tools allowed early humans to break bones and allowed them access to brain and marrow fats from a broad range of animals obtained by scavenging or hunting. These and other carcass fats were probably as prized by early hominids as they are by modern human hunter-gatherers.[4] Not only did more animal fat in the diet mean considerably more energy, it was also a source of ready-made, long-chain, polyunsaturated fatty acids, including omega-6 arachidonic acid (AA), omega-3 docosatetraenoic acid (DTA) and omega-3 docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). These 3 fatty acids together make up over 90% of the fatty acids found in the brain matter of all mammalian species."


P.S. I had really hoped you guys would actually have read the article...

ZW

 

Thank you.

 

why didn't i read the article?

i don't care if my brain is shrinking, and i don't give a crap about my health

i don't eat meat because i can't kill anything, and can't ask anyone else to kill for me

small brains? a small price to pay . . .

 

Fair enough...

 

Absolutely welcome.

 

I didn't read it either. I assumed that the article was in support of your claim. I had heard the conclusion before and the science behind it and understood that human brain development required a high value food source. When I thought animal I automatically thought protein, sorry for the inaccuracy.

In related studies it is speculated that the use of fire gained special access to increased nutrients, made food more digestible, by cooking.

 

Grinding stones or 'Metate' for grinding dried meat, seeds, etc. also gave greater access to nutrients.

ZW

 

Yeah, I won't waste my time reading that.

 

Cool, whatever you like.


ZW

 

i, apparently unlike the others, did read it. it makes perfect sense that humans of this day and age would want larger brains in order to gain smarts.
however, to go so far as to say that we veggies are disillusioned because of our brain's shrinking - that is ridiculous.
the thing is, people breed animals simply to slaughter and eat them. i find that horrifying, and i don't want to be a part of it.
whether my brain shrinks or not, it seems that the general human race's brains are shrinking (and have been over the past 10 000 years) and I don't think that eating more meat will change much. especially considering that if we eat more meat, we might run out of animals.. and the whole world will be offbalance if something like that happens. we've all seen those tv specials on how important even one link in the food chain could be.

I also dislike using terms like 'meat', 'pork', 'beef', etc. because it is just us simply distancing ourselves from the fact that we are eating animals. 'pork' is food. 'pig' is animal.

 

"In the earliest times , men lived in the dark and had no animals to hunt. They were poor, ignorant people, far inferior to those living nowadays.
They traveled about in search of food, they lived on journeys as we do now, but in a very different way. When they halted and camped, they worked at the soil with picks of a kind we no longer know.
They got their food from the earth. They lived on the soil.
They knew nothing of all the game we now have, and therefore had no need to be ever on guard against all those perils that arise from the fact that we, hunting animals as we do, live by slaying their souls.
Therefore they had no shamans, but they knew sickness, and it was fear of sickness and suffering that led to the coming of the first shamans"(Eskimo/Iglulik: Aua) (Halifax, 1979).

ZW eace:

 

Even though I'm late on this decision I will say this.Zombie was merely stating a fact.Like saying the sky is blue and getting upset by it.If you don't like it fine, but to totally disregard it because you disagree with the subject seems be selling your self short. At least hear ( or read) what has been said then argue with the subject in hand.

 

"Fact"? This is the Internet, dude. People make up all kinds of BS and call it "facts".

When I made my decision to be vegetarian more than 30 years ago, I carefully considered all the facts, then made my decision. In the years since then, I have had an intimate personal relationship with the subject. I consider myself quite well informed on it. My decision is a done deal. I assume that others who have said they didn't want to read the article feel the same way. You don't like it, too bad.

What reason would I have to read an article posted by someone who is trying to talk me out of my carefully considered decision? You can't live your life in undecided limbo forever. At some point, you grow up and commit yourself to a chosen lifestyle. At that point, opposing views are irrelevant.

 

^^^ prosecution rests.

 

There is overwhelming evidence that we can not be a vegetarian species. In 1972 the publication of two independent investigations confirmed this.

For the most part I'm going to assume that what he says are facts are actually facts. But not here in this part. pshaw!!! I'm not a scientist or a doctor, and I have litle interest in debating finer points of the human evolutionary process. But I want to say that for this guy to state that two "investigations" conducted some 40 years ago confirms anything is simply a case of someone having some knowledge on a particular subject seeking to bully those who do not have such spectific knowledge. It's the internet mode of argument - state opinion as fact. It stinks. I searched for the first citation he mentions, the first confirming piece of evidence he so briefly (yet significantly) alludes to and found this: It need hardly be said that the ideas put forward are controversial and that there are weaknesses in the premises. Well whatever... overwhelming evidence or weak premise. The point here is, to lead off by asserting the condition, consequence, and remedy are all settled matters (smaller brain size, losing intelligence, eat animals) is dishonest and besides that, just plain rotten. There are plenty of similarly/seemingly authoritative articles to be found on the net refuting most, and probably all, his arguments. I'm just tired of so-and-so being presented by such-and-such authority as being fact. That's not argument; it's deception. It's the opposite of what should be the point of argument - increased knowledge, even if a tiny little vegetarian brain can't really hold it.

If any more convincing that we have to be a meat-eating species is needed, there is one other essential nutrient that is not found in any plant food. That nutrient is Vitamin B-12[...] To enable vegans to survive, vitamin B-12 is added artificially to breakfast cereals in Britain and may be bought in pill form. This is hardly a natural way to get food and in many cases it is self-defeating[...]

There is very little "natural" about slaughterhouses or modern animal agricullture asa whole. But of course that's not how he meant for the term to be used... I do think that declining to eat animals is a very unnatural thing to do. It's unnatural both in the sense that so few choose to refrain from it but also in that it is a protest against institutionalized domination, exploitation and cruelty. Humans are capable of acting outside their interests - but it's an unnatural thing to do. It requires allowing for the consideration of interests other than our own. Some have empathy for this race or that species but not some other... that's natural. And it's wrong. The presenter of the article didn;t convince me that he is eating animals out of self defense. I think it's more a case of what Ben Franklin once wrote:

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for anything one has a mind to do.​

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And it stands to reason that the bigger the brain the more conveinent rationalizations one will be able to make.

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Scientists at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, recently discovered that changing to a vegetarian diet could be bad for our brains — with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage

Well could be bad is hardly the definitive statement. And what is the suffering involved of these people? Are they not as intelligent as those who have larger brains? Are they lower on the evolutionary scale? I may have just missed it, (and I mean this/not being snarky) but I don't recall seeing it mentioned what exactly the consequences of humans having a smaller brain happen to be. I know he says, leading off, that we can't be a vegetarian species, but if by that he means that we are literally going to revert back to some previous evolutionary step or species then I think he is mistaken.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-422756/Vegetarians-intelligent-says-study.html