Vegetarian anatomy

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Wisdom_Seeker, May 23, 2011.

  1. Bells Staff Member

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    Chimps actually hunt and kill monkeys and the brain of their kill is the most prized meat. Why do you think they eat their kill and why do the females fight to ensure their offspring ingest some of the said meat?

    Evolution is an ongoing process. We are but one step in that process. It probably doesn't just stop with us.

    You're going with that argument when pesticides and depleting river and natural water sources to water vegetable farms... you're going with that argument?

    For example, irrigation of crops in a region of Australia has endangered one of its biggest river and water systems to the point of nearly killing it.
     
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  3. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    And add to that the Colorado river - which is ALREADY dead by the time it reaches the Mexican-U.S. border.
     
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  5. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    They also have cannibalism, infanticide; they throw feces to each other. I mean I like chimps, they are our cousins, but I’m not going to start acting like them.

    I didn’t think that the extremely negative impact of the environment from eating meat was in question; I stated it as a known fact. The over production of crops are damaging, but cows need food sources too you know. It takes over 16 pounds of grain to produce a single pound of meat.

    It has impact on fossil energy use:

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    Water:

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    Land:

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    Last edited: May 23, 2011
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  7. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    If you are like my dad (avid meat eating Biologist) you could not deny the negative impact of eating meat to the enviroment. But his argument goes something like: "Earth goes to a natural cycle of warming and cooling, we are just accelerating the process".
    But for me that is like saying: "That person is going to die anyway, I don't care if we accelerate the process"; but in a much bigger scale.
    In a world were 13% of the population is starving, it is just mean.
     
  8. MacGyver1968 Fixin' Shit that Ain't Broke Valued Senior Member

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    It's hard to take a source seriously when their data is clearly inaccurate.

    According to that graph, 2.5 acres of chickens would only produce enough eggs/meat to sustain 1 or 2 people. Seriously? Even if you "free range" your chickens instead of "cooping" them, you could have like 300 chickens or more on 2.5 acres. My cousin keeps about 50 chickens and collects 2 or more dozen eggs everyday. How many people will 24 eggs feed?

    According to the graph 2.5 acres of milking cows can feed 2 people. A single Jersey cow produces around 6 gallons of milk a day. Each gallon of whole milk has 2500 calories...so how many people will that feed? The general rule of thumb is 2 cows per acre...so that's 5 cows producing somewhere around 25-30 gallons of milk a day....somewhere around 75000 calories. How does that equal 2 people...unless they are consuming 37,000 calories a day?
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2011
  9. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    You're absolutely right, Mac - that graph is meaningless. It must represent a desert somewhere in Sudan. :shrug:
     
  10. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    If I don't eat red meat I get anemic.
     
  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    And if you don't eat raw garlic you can get scurvy. Fortunately for people who don't eat raw garlic (or red meat) there are plenty of other sources for both iron and vitamin C.
     
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    One. Medium eggs are about 60 calories a piece. If you assume a 1500 calorie diet (a little low but very livable and healthy) you need 25, or a little more than two dozen, eggs a day. Of course, most people's diets are a little more diverse than that.

    That's in the summer, of course. In the winter you have to run through your stored feed (which presumably you grew on another few acres somewhere.)

    A heavily medicated Jersey cow, fed grain, will produce 6 gallons a day. A grazing cow with minimal supplements will produce about 3.5 gallons a day, and will graze over about 2 acres. (Call it 4 acres to account for winter stores.) So that's about 2100 calories per acre from a cow's milk. For 2.5 acres that's 7300 calories, on which you could feed 3-4 people.
     
  13. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    It is not that you need to put 2.5 acres full of chicken to feed 2 people on a full year, the chickens also have to eat something. The land required to grow the grains for the chicken or cattle is also considered on these charts, as it should be.

    The source is the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (2), (3):

    This is from another source, although if you investigate, you will find many other sources:
    - Many of the problems inherent in industrial agriculture are more acute when the output is meat. Our food supply becomes more resource intensive when we eat grain-fed animals instead of eating the grain directly, because a significant amount of energy is lost as livestock convert the grain they eat into meat. Cattle are the most inefficient in their energy conversion, requiring 7kg of grain to produce 1 kg of beef (compared to 4:1 for pork and 2:1 for chicken).
    - The grain raised to supply feedlots and factory farms is grown in intensive monocultures that stretch over thousands of acres.


    Other sources:
    The Telegraph

    BBC

    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
     
  14. Skeptical Registered Senior Member

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    That is not what I claimed. I said that a vegan diet made it difficult to balance all essential nutrients. Not impossible - just difficult.

    However, ovo-lacto-vegetarianism is not the same as vegan. A good balance of eggs, dairy products, and fruit/nuts/vegetables can be quite healthy.

    This may need to be the wave of the future. Egg and milk production takes less acreage than meat production, and if the bulk of calories comes from fruit and veges, the overall acreage requirement can be kept under control.
     
  15. MacGyver1968 Fixin' Shit that Ain't Broke Valued Senior Member

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    This statement seems to assume that we feed livestock grain that could be otherwise consumed by humans. Livestock feed is generally made up of the "fodder" left over from the production of crops for humans. Stuff like wheat stalks, corn cobs and husks and such...things humans can't consume, but livestock can.
     
  16. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    Yes you are right about that; although try to convince factory farmers to go back to sustainable development. It is not that profitable. The prices of meat would go up and the consumption would go down, so it would be good overall; but in this profit-inclined economy it would be almost a miracle for this to happen.

    But this still doesn't counter for the extreme environment pollution that cattle produces.
    Also, the water that the cattle needs for living and at the same time the water sources that contaminates is maintained by the whole population, since water is a non-renewable resource. This should be accountable in the cost of meat also; but it is not, it is sustained by taxpayers.
    Water will be a luxury in the future, and we are spending it and polluting it in high quantities.
     
  17. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    Fair enough, vegans are hardcore

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  18. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    Everything that lives clearly feeds on something, and the plants and animals that we eat likewise require a source for their nutrition.

    The lost of natural habitat to an increasing population is one piece of the problem. We further degrade natural habitat as we march like army ants to enjoy recreation in the wilderness every weekend, especially noticeable on long weekends, this migration. I have just returned from town and the place is nigh deserted with the residents out enjoying the first long weekend of summer, Victoria Day.

    Human activity is the data more in need of looking at, and our intensive factory style farming and resource management strategies, transporting food out of season to the other side of the globe.

    In my cynical moments I'm inclined to suggest that it doesn't matter what you eat, because unless we get our head around our own numbers, it's going to get downright ugly soon enough.

    A good time to study up on what non-agriculture managed plant life (weeds, wild berries etc.) in your region has nutritional value, I would suggest. In these parts, we are fortunate to have a good supply of fresh water and firewood. It is a harsh climate with not much growing during 8 months of the year, so one would have to include some protein from fish, small mammals and ungulates in the diet, as well as farm some seasonal greens and root vegetables for winter storage.

    A bit of scarcity would do many North Americans good I'm thinking as it is rather obscene to require a health care system that is predominantly utilized by conditions related to disease caused by excesses of all kinds.

    Just my opinion, and I am a rather opinionated B.I.T.C.H.

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    Please note that the above is an acronym and not the correct term for a female of the canine species.
     
  19. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    I am vegetarian but eat (free range) eggs. I'm doing just fine except for mild orthostatic hypotension. Just my 2 cents.
     
  20. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    I wouldn't argue with you on that.


    Acronym or not, I find it quite sexy

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  21. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    Me too.

    Camellia sinensis, and korean ginseng can help

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    . I am a hopeless tea drinker, and I have found that is benefits health and the inmune system overall, including blood pressure.
    Off course, a little daily physical exercise don't harm anybody.
     
  22. Wisdom_Seeker Speaker of my truth Valued Senior Member

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    I used to eat a lot of red meat, as a conditioned habit from my family, friends and my country's culture in general.

    When I first started going vegetarian my body started going through a change in its metabolism, the first year you get a lot of undesirable metabolism changes. You feel week, you get diarrhea-like poop, and it is not pretty.
    After the first year, the body’s metabolism is transformed; I’ve never been healthier in my life. I have 2 sisters that are living with me since 6 months ago (both eat meat) and they have gotten sick a few times since we moved. I haven’t got sick once in the past 2 years, not even a mild headache or stomachache; with these benefits I don’t even think about going back to eating meat.
    The only headache I got was from a party I drank more red wine than I should have, I had a strong headache but that was my bad. Red wine is not your friend the next day.
     
  23. Bells Staff Member

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    How lovely for you.

    I am severely anemic, to the point where I have blood transfusions every few of months and have iron shots weekly. Yes, that's right, iron shots because the iron tablets isn't enough. I also have vitamin B shots every couple of weeks and I supplement it all with iron tablets and vitamin C tablets. The only thing keeping me where I am now that I can go for a couple of months without a transfusion, is the fact that my daily diet consists of lean red meat, along with stupid amounts of iron rich vegetables and grains - as in large plateful amounts. That has been my life for a few years now. I tried not eating meat and it made my life and my health worse. I become weaker and tired more easily and my blood count would plummet faster than when I ate red meat.

    So when I hear people such as yourself espousing how lovely and healthy vegetarian is and how evil meat is, I want to to commit a violent act. It is not healthy for everyone. If someone suffers from a low blood count, it is dangerous and detrimental to their health and sometimes, popping pills or eating a couple of kilos of spinach leaves a day won't work. Taking iron supplements to make up for the fact that your body is not absorbing more easily absorbed iron from meat and accompanied with iron from vegetables and vitamin C also results in constipation and a wealth of other uncomfortable things for your body (such as diahorrea, stomach cramps and nausea and vomitting). And any of those symptoms are not that uncommon.

    So please, stop advertising a diet as if it works for everyone and is beneficial for everyone. It clearly is not.
     

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