I think that is because vegetarians are more likely to avoid junk foods (processed foods like those described previously).
Also, explain why obesity and diabetes has increased so much in recent decades despite no increase in meat consumption (see second page, per capita consumption). Obviously, something else is causing Americans to get fat and get diseases like diabetes, and the culprit is more likely than not processed plant-based foods (and again, explain how the Inuit and others lived long healthy lives (if infant mortality and infectious diseases didn’t get them) eating almost nothing but meat).
Which is why I didn’t disagree with the fact that it could be argued that plant matter contributes more than meat to obesity. I was just saying that it’s irrelevant to the fact that meat eaters have a greater prevalence of obesity.
We’re not comparing the average carnivorous diet to the average herbivorous diet, we’re discussing the practicalities of vegetarianism or omnivorism for humans. While the thread is predicated around what is natural, it doesn’t really have any relevance to the fact that meat eaters do have a greater prevalence of certain illnesses and thus is a strawman argument.
it’s the “if I make eating meat sound as garish and violent as possible, I might convince you to stop” mentality. Witness SnakeBabe’s repeated use of the phrase “eating dead animal flesh” in this thread. Fairly juvenile and simple-minded.
because some people don’t want to admit that. Our consumption of sugar has skyrocketed yet people who say that is at the root of the West’s obesity and health epidemic get scoffed at.
I invite you to figure out the difference between “correlation” and “causation.”
No, drewder constructed a strawman to attack (namely, the average vegetarian diet), which was expanded by ZenBeam. I created the mirror strawman for meat eating in order to illustrate the details of the strawman. Regardless of one’s opinion on vegetarianism, this particular meandering juncture of the conversation should not be difficult to comprehend.
I didn’t say that the average meat diet causes obesity, just that the fact that non-meat may be responsible for more obesity is irrelevant considering that vegans are less likely to be obese. Besides, the study I linked on obesity accounted for several variables with a regression analysis. They also determined that omnivores had a significantly lower carbohydrate intake than any of the vegetarian groups and yet each of those groups still had a significantly lower body weight after the regression analyses had been performed.
so you’re saying that on average, a group of people who have to carefully consider and plan what they eat tend to be less obese than people who don’t pay attention to what they eat?
A group that constitutes a very small percentage of the over all population, avoids highly processed and unhealthy foods and is more focused on health matters is, in fact healthier and less prone to obesity than the general population?? Seriously?? :eek:
It has to be the meat!! I mean, have you ever seen a fat elephant or skinny tiger lighting a fire to cook it’s food while enjoying a vegan light beer? Well…have you???
The question in the original column and the question I was addressing was if humans were natural meat eaters. If you note I said herbivores not vegetarians and herbivores main source of calories is from plant matter that humans are completly incapible of digesting. Remember also that our stone age ancestors did not have the advantage of domesticated plants which we enjoy today so their choices in plant matter would have been very limited and gathering enough nuts/berries would have been very labor intesive where as if you are a hunter the world is a virtual meat locker. This meat had a much better calories/work ratio which lead to them being able to spend less time running around desperatly trying to find food and more time to found civilization. In fact many anthropolgists suspect that it was the very fact that we had to work in groups to get food which lead to the start of civilization, after all if you are a person trying to live off whatever plant matter you can find having others around means there is less for you.
As has been stated above vegans are MUCH more carefull in their food choices. They have to be or else they would die from lack of nuterients. So it only stands to reason that they would be less obese than the average american. I wonder what you would find if you did a study between vegans and atkins adherents.
I think though on focusing on diet you fail to see that exercise is the more important component healthyness. Having been in the Army I never met a vegan Ranger/Green Beret but I defy you to find a healthier person. Also just look at Michael Phelps’ diet I see quite a few vegan nonos there and yet he is probably the most fit person on the planet. Yes there are a few top athletes who were vegitarians and a very few who were vegans and that’s my point, health doesn’t come from what you eat it comes from a combination of what you eat and how you use your body.
Going back to our caveman ancestors or even 70+ years ago getting enough exercise wasn’t a problem for the most part they got it naturally in their day to day activites. I also don’t buy the idea that lower weight = heathier because if that were the fact then Anorixics would be the healthiest among us.
I explicitly pointed out why I’d avoid saying so in my second post in the thread. Though I’m glad you’ve dropped the “correlation/causation” and “appeal to ridicule” arguments.
Irrelevant for the sake of statistical analysis.
Likewise, especially when considering that the goalposts shifted immediately from “it’s the carbs that do it”.
Do you really not follow the fact that I decried the naturalistic fallacy earlier in this thread and was illustrating drewder’s strawman?
Which is another example of the naturalistic fallacy / appeal to tradition / genetic fallacy. Though I cede that it may be useful to refute the other naturalistic arguments expounded about humanities lack of capacity to eat meat. At the moment, far more calories are expended in meat production as energy is lost through trophic levels in raising livestock. I think you overestimate the difficulty of foraging historically and underestimate the difficulty of hunting.
I haven’t seen a study documenting differences in rates of malnutrition between vegans and omnivores.
First of all until you can show me eskimos, eating their traditional diet, with heart disease, diabetes or other such diseases I’ll keep blaming the carbs.
Second the reason I am refering to early peoples in their natural state is that is what the article was about Are humans meat eaters or vegetarians by nature? so yes I’m making references to people in their natural state. The part of our exsistance where in we had access to farms being a mere blip in the full history of humanity, far too short a time.
Also a true vegan without the bennifit of modern foods and science would likely have a problem getting the nessasary nutrients in their diet missing things such as b12 and complete proteins which to me shows that our bodies are meant to have atleast some meat/animal protien in our diet.
Furthermore an ancient hunter does not have to run down every gazel on the savana to hunt. They developed a brain and a language which led to much more efficient hunting such as driving herds off cliffs and other methods. Which proved quite sucessful.
If you’re trying to establish that veganism is better in the modern world feel free to do so but I would think that discussion should take place in a different catagory thread. I would go with the Great Debates catagory.
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Irrelevant for the sake of statistical analysis.
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Sez you. I think it’s highly relevant and yet another attempt by you to do a ridiculous apples to bananas comparison.
Likewise, sez you. You simply don’t seem to either grasp the argument or are trying to spin your way free…and frankly it ain’t workin, kimosabe. The only one attwmpting to shift the goalposts here is you…again. Seriously…you should go back to that prof that taught you philosophy 101 and ask for your money back. Or take the course again.
And do you really not get the fact that I didn’t accept this horseshit when you attempted to serve it up previously, so I’m unlikely to buy it now either? It’s not a straw man no matter how you wave your arms. Either you don’t understand what a straw man is or you are deliberately trying to muddy the waters by continuing to toss out terms you THINK the rest of us don’t understand.
No, in fact, there are Eskimos today living their traditional lifestyle, eating their traditional diets, and who are in excellent health.
Annabella Piugattuk is an excellent example of a member of one such group, from very remote northern Alaska. Google her name.
Vegans like to use reports of Eskimos’ poor health from AFTER they started eating the white man’s food to cast a bad light on the Eskimos’ traditional diet, but careful study of the literature shows that those vegans are misinformed and/or liars.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson did an excellent field study of the Eskimo diet back in the 1920s. He also ate an Eskimo-style diet for a year while living under constant supervision, to prove that it did not damage his health.
Point out an instance of me shifting the goalposts.
Wilful ignorance. The average herbivorous diet is explicitly irrelevant to what we consume. Ignore the fact that I already discounted appeals to nature from either side and it’s still worthless. Not a single person has claimed humans are ruminants - our physiology refutes it.
As for the eskimo tangent: see my earlier post in the thread comparing the average omnivorous to the average vegetarian diet; this aint it. Not to mention that 1. it’s funny to complain about a sample of over 1200 and then uncritically accept the results of a sample of 2, especially when for the sake of adequate comparison the average eskimo would have to be compared to the average omnivore and then extraneous variables accounted for (which didn’t happen: there are no lifespan indicators in the Stefansson study) and 2. the guy put on 14kg during the time he exclusively ate meat.
I don’t have time for people who want to slander the traditional Eskimo diet.
It makes you look like a whiny14-year-old from the suburbs who’s never been more than 5 miles from a McDonald’s.
I’ve actually spent time with Native Americans who eat their traditional diets. Not Eskimos, but still people who’ve been eating the same diet for hundreds of years.
Your study that you cite is looking at Eskimos who were already tainted by the white man’s food.
And that’s the end of the Eskimo discussion. Don’t bring it up again. You got defeated, any miniscule credibility on the subject is now gone, to anybody who is bringing an unbiased perspective to the discussion.
She’s kinda hot, and you gotta love a woman in fur.
Now that that is out of my system, how does she eat a traditional Inuit diet if she lives in Vancouver? Do the fisheries people let her hunt sea lions and bears that prey on migrating salmon? What do her neighbors think of the fish-drying rack in her back yard? Does she use the white man’s rifle to hunt seals or does she use a bow and arrow? Does she serve blubber when her Hollywood pals come for dinner, or decline the white man’s food when she visits them? How does she reconcile her love of snowmobiling when a dogsled is more traditional?
My point is that she’s probably not the best example of an Inuit “living their traditional lifestyle, eating their traditional diets, and who are in excellent health.”
A fat animal is one that survives the winter which is why breeding time is in the spring