Guys, please don’t think that because one vegetarian told the OP this, that all vegetarians think the same way. I feel like the replies are leaning that way. I certainly don’t believe that, and I betcha a lot of vegetarians on this board don’t believe that. I don’t think that eating meat is bad for a person, I just don’t want to eat it for myself (it’s a personal ethical thing). I believe that since I’m a human being with freedom to choose, I can either choose to be omnivore, carnivore, or herbivore. Um…or ovo-lacto vegetarian (whichever category that fits into…LOL) . And if you’re making good food choices (getting all the calories, protein, carbs, and fats you need), then eat what you want to eat.
OK, according to my New Age source, the meat doesn’t just sit in the colon but rather attaches itself to the lining of the colon walls as a “mucoid plaque”. Personally, I think it’s all BS, but at least that would explain how other stuff would pass through the colon while the meat remained.
And according to a friend who had found it at some other New Age site, that’s into intestinal cleansing, (unfortunately the site is only in Swedish) it takes around 24 hours for a meal to pass your body.
Well, the problem is that there isn’t evidence that “mucoid plaque” exists.
Mucoid plaque is a pet theory of Dr. Richard Anderson. Anderson is a professor of natural medicine in Arizona(I think it’s Arizona). Anderson believes that when a person ingests toxins, they form a “mucoid plaque” in the large intestine, which contributes to disease. He therefore reccomends things like high colonics, to cleanse the mucoid plaque.
On an almost daily basis, I see pics of the lining of the bowels. It’s called colonoscopy. I have even gazed upon the wonder that is my own colon. I was unimpressed. Not a trace of the prime rib I had the week before or even the pork chop I had the day after that.
Unless you suffer from severe obstipation or possibly diverticuli, nothing is still in your colon a week after you eat it.
excerpted from Stephen E. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage. [Just read this page today, so I had to share.]
These Indians, who had been living on berries, were undoubtedly not unique. Stories of the frontier, of explorers, and of people who just wind up lost and starving will have untold numbers of incidents in which people eat raw meat.
If you go back far enough in human history you will find a time before fire, in which all meat eaten was raw. It’s not likely that all of our more recent ancestors had fire on hand at all times for their convenience, either. It is as much a certainty as we can know about history that human digestive systems evolved to handle raw meat as a normal diet of the diet.
I’ve written books in which digestion played a large role, so I’ve done a fair amount of research into the subject. The above posters are of course correct in debunking the OP’s vegan friends. I am constitutionally against proselytizing of all kinds, because it almost always leads to people telling outrageous lies (conscious or not) as part of the process. There are many vegans who live lives of conviction without inflicting falsehoods on others, but, as always, the few tarnish the many.
Just a small nitpick. While nutrients in your body may last awhile, your body replaces the cells, bones everything every so often.
From: http://www.cybermacro.com/articles31.html
Just for the record = fire was discovered and used by hominids about 100,000 years ago by homo erectus - that gives plenty of evolutionary time to develop a constitutional preference for cooked food. If we were “bloody raw carnivores” it seems to me, we would have developed larger canine teeth for tearing. Neanderthals had much broader surfaces, a different cusp shape and heavier enamel on their teeth for grinding tough, raw foods.
Just for the record = fire was discovered and used by hominids about 100,000 years ago by homo erectus - that gives plenty of evolutionary time to develop a constitutional preference for cooked food. If we were “bloody raw carnivores” it seems to me, we would have developed larger canine teeth for tearing. Neanderthals had much broader surfaces, a different cusp shape and heavier enamel on their teeth for grinding tough, raw foods. Our teeth are delicate little things by comparison.
I appreciate SuperLorie’s comments - we are perhaps the only animal that can consciously choose our diet - that’s a great thing. I’m not a vegetarian, but I do think there are a lot of ethical and socio-ecological reasons why eating less meat is a very good thing. I was reading Fanny Trollope’s “Domestic Manners of the Americans” written in 1828 and she marveled that “even the poorest among the Americans eat meat three times a day.” That in a time when most Europeans saw meat on the table once a week or less. We have always been richly blessed in this country, and I think that this historical legacy encourages many Americans to be vaguely suspicious of vegetarians and like types - as if they are somehow unpatriotic.
Just to dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s” on Colibri’s post here is what the Britannica says about cellulose: “The basic structural component of plant cell walls, cellulose comprises about 33 percent of all vegetable matter (90 percent of cotton and 50 percent of wood are cellulose) and is the most abundant of all naturally occurring organic compounds. Nondigestible by man,[bold face added] cellulose is a food for herbivorous animals (e.g., cows, horses) because they retain it long enough for digestion by microorganisms present in the alimentary tract; protozoans in the gut of insects such as termites also digest cellulose.”
It is also well to remember that the ruminants have an extra digestion compartment, the rumen, where the cellulose is held for a period to be partially digested and then brought up, chewed again to further break it down and then reswallowed. That cellulose is really, really tough stuff. The cell walls of trees are of cellulose and they manage to support trees over 300 ft. high in high winds.
Isaac Asimov points out in one essay that strictly vegetarian animals have one type of bile salts that help break down vegetable matter, strict carnivores have a different type of bile salts for handling flesh, and man has both kinds. This indicates that people are biologically omnivorous.
Just another vegan checking to say that all vegans/vegetarians don’t think these things: meat staying in your body for some ridiculous time period is patent nonsense.
But I would like to add some other “getting sick from food” info: You can get sick from eating raw vegetables. And not just from the natural poisons contained in sprouting potatos, raw beans, or certain mushrooms. Vegetables can also carry pathogens they pick up from the soil, from the groundwater, or even from the air. Overuse of pesticides can also make some people sick. Meat and dairy products seem more likely to carry microbial pathogens and other assorted gastrointestinal nasties such as protozoans and helminths, but vegetables are suspect as well. The important thing is food safety: good washing techniques, thorough cooking, and making sure you are not contaminating whatever food you are preparing with dirty hands, dirty utensils, or dirty kitchen surfaces. (Cutting boards are apparently a big source of microbial life.)