there is a screening of this movie tonight at the scandinavian film festival la.
it is in beverly hills at the writer's guild of america theatre.
i would have posted earlier but i just found out late last night.. .
Just to let you know, it's on Youtube, just do a search for it and you'll find it in 15 parts, for as long as it lasts. I didn't post it but it came my way. Enjoy... W.Once
It's also available as a torrent, if you are into that sort of thing
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my new year's resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the vegan-pure vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.. it is a change i have considered before on different occasions.
i didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet.
i've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs.
here is another straight-forward but seemingly well informed discussion on the matter:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/674/are-humans-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians-by-nature
(hmm... can't make it clickable)
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my new year's resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the vegan-pure vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.. it is a change i have considered before on different occasions.
i didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet.
i've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs.
Do you think we are better off eating a largely plant based diet with small amounts of animal derived food?
Like the cover of the book of the "In Defence of Food". (Same person who wrote the (I hear excellent) book "The Omnivores Dilemma") :
Eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants.
It seems to me that by the measure of health (if not happiness) we modern humans tend to eat quite a bit
too much meat. And likely cheese/butter too, if even only for reason of high fat content.
Dave, do you plan on taking B12 supplements?
I have grave concerns about industrial scale animal "farming."
I used to love Dr. Pepper. Then I moved down to Coke and Pepsi. Finally, I was buying diet 7-UP.
I'm trying stevia as a naturally derived sugar substitute.
Hello Dave, I agree with your concern. I currently eat meat, because it is convenient .
especially if you have a space ship and a tractor beam....
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my new year's resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the vegan-pure vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.. it is a change i have considered before on different occasions.
i didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet.
i've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs.
primates share characteristics with herbivores such as type and form of teeth
Teeth like these?
Damn, those veggies don't stand a CHANCE!
Seriously though, here is a good link with an scientific take on the question:
"Are humans vegetarians or omnivores?"
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-05/959372412.Ot.r.html
First you can look at the teeth.
Molars are broad flat teeth that are useful in grinding up tough fibrous
material - such as plants. Animals that are primarily plant eaters have
very large molars with six pairs (three uppers and three lowers) on each
side. Animals that do not specialize in eating plants tend to have a
reduced number of molars. Humans are equipped with six pairs of molars.
Although they are not very large, this would suggest that humans have the
ability to process fibrous plant food.
Premolars (bicuspids) are the slicing teeth. Mammals originally had eight
pairs of premolars, although most mammals alive today have fewer. Premolars
are the primary teeth used by meat eating specialists, and are frequently
missing in animals that specialize in plant foods. Humans have four pairs
of premolars, which suggests that humans have the ability to process animal
food.
Incisors are grasping teeth, that change shape depending upon how they are
used. The broad flat surfaces of human incisors is most associated with
animals that specialize in eating fruit.
So, if we just look at our teeth - humans are clearly built to be
omnivorous. But, of course there is more data. We can look at how nutrients
are processes and absorbed in the body.
Meat and fruit are high quality foods that are not difficult to assimilate.
Animals that specialize in these types of food tend to have a short
digestive tract, with a very short large intestine. Plant foods can be
nutritious, but take longer to absorb. Therefore, animals that specialize
in plant eating tend to have long and elaborate digestive tracts. Humans
are clearly intermediate here. We have a long large intestine (more common
in plant eaters), but we lack the elaborations that would allow us to
digest and assimilate nutrients from high fiber plant foods (such as
grass or leaves). So, again, the human digestive tract can be used to argue
that we are omnivorous.
Finally, you need to look at nutritional requirements. There are some
B-complex vitamins that are available only by eating other animals. The
human body requires this nutrient, but does not synthesize it the way some
other animals do. Therefore, if humans truly ate no animal foods, and had
no artificial vitamin supplements, they would sicken and die. In nature,
there are no true "human vegetarians."
Humans are omnivores. The order of mammals that includes humans (the
primates) are all omnivores. To be sure, the modern American diet includes
a lot more meat than is healthy. And the human animal can be very healthy
by being a lot more vegetarian.But to never eat meat is both unnatural and
unhealthy.
Finally, you ask about my credentials to answer this question. Well, I am
employed as an anatomy professor (and am therefore a specialist in human
anatomy). I teach at a college that specializes in training health care
workers (so I am familiar with issues of human health an nutrition).
Finally, I earned by Ph.D. in Physical Anthropology (which sort of makes me
an expert in how humans adapt both biologically and culturally to the
environment).
my new year's resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the vegan-pure vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.. it is a change i have considered before on different occasions.
i didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet.
i've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs.
Mr. Cow, I know you have hopes and dreams and feelings,
no they don't. They're cows.
Well, exactly. That's the question. I don't really think they do, at least not as much as some of the "higher" animals,
but it's a fair question to ask and think about. Saying "they are not like us, so it's ok to do whatever" has made alot of
sense to humans in the past, and allowed them to enjoy such things as slavery and live autopsy on dogs.
I'm just saying, we should'nt assume we have allready achived the highest-possible ethical water mark.
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my new year's resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the vegan-pure vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.. it is a change i have considered before on different occasions.
i didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet.
i've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs.
Let's all eat a bloody steak to celebrate.
Of course, we have all been carefully ignoring any underlying ethical issues...
"I'm sorry Mr. Cow, I know you have hopes and dreams and feelings, but you are effing delicious, and I am going to eat you."
Yeah, I am going to just pretend those don't exist. Ethics make my steak taste funny.
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my new year's resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the vegan-pure vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.. it is a change i have considered before on different occasions.
i didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet.
i've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs.
But I sure love my meat.
This is another interesting point...
When I say a diet that is part of "living well", that is clearly based on a value system of sorts.
For some people, the enjoyment of rich and likely life-shortening diet is worth the price.
What is the point of a long life lived in self-depriving misery?
Not that a vegan can't love and enjoy their food as much anyone, but for someone who REALLY loves
steak, what is the cost of their personal happiness paid so that they might live a few years longer?
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my new year's resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the vegan-pure vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.. it is a change i have considered before on different occasions.
i didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet.
i've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs.
some people cannot digest meat, and for those people, it works. Dave, you could be one of them.
This is an excellent point... Not that Dave is or isn't, but just that the "model" of human we are building
an ideal diet for is really varied. Obviously high quality protein can be found in some meat and dairy, but
NOT if your particular body cannot process them well, or without dangerous side effects.
We need to use wisely whatever tools our genes gave us. If only I understood those tools better.
my new year's resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the vegan-pure vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.. it is a change i have considered before on different occasions.
i didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet.
i've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs.
Can you point to a specific scientific study that proves that hypothesis?
Not at the moment, no. To be fair, you havn't either.
A vegan diet has an uber-healthy image, and I ask how you know that to be accurate.
Our body may easily adapt to changing lifestyles. After humans started keeping cattle a lactose gene mutated allowing adults to digest dairy products.
This is true. We can, and do, given enough time/generations, adapt to new kinds of food.
However, we cannot "think" or "will" ourselves to adapt. My interest is what is the optimal diet for
modern "model" of human, because that's the only "model" I can work with. I don't know what that
ideal diet consists of, but I'm not willing to assume that just because something has a "Whole Foods"
aura that it is necessarily better.
After all, lactose intolerant is how nature intended us to be.
Well, nature actually does not "intend" anything. All nature can "do" is create variation in a population and place that
population in an environment. At the dawn of farming/herding, the vast majority of humans we lactose intolerant. (actually,
worldwide today the majority still are) However, those few that DID have a gene that allowed them to process dairy had
a strong advantage over their "rivals", because all of a sudden (metaphorically) a whole new food source became uniquely
available them, with no competition from their lactose intolerant peers.
Hell, nature didn't "intend" for us to cook our food, but that turned out to be a really good idea. (Cooking breaks down food
in a way that much more of it's energy is accessible. Same with fermentation.)
The fact that many humans can live to old age on a Standard American Diet isn't necessarily a recommendation of said diet so much as a testament to the adaptability of the human body.
Agreed. I am not, of course, advocating the "Standard American Diet". (aside from it's effectiveness at dosing us with lovely
warm fuzzy dopamine) Americans, though being genetically diverse, don't live especially long or well, and I assume this has
something to do with diet.
However, this once again does not prove that a vegan diet will be an improvement by default.
The Japanese diet has much to be proud of, and it is obviously not vegan
Dairy... What in fact is the main cause of osteoporosus?
This is a new claim to me, and it strikes me as highly dubious.
Could you provide a reference, preferably from a less than batshit-crazy quack "doctor"?
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my new year's resolution is to make the lifestyle change to the vegan-pure vegetarian diet: no animal derived foods.. it is a change i have considered before on different occasions.
i didn't stick with the diet in the past due to lack of information, or perhaps the abundance of misinformation available on the optimum diet.
i've never been grossly overweight, probably never over 170 lbs.
On what are you basing the idea that a vegan diet has positive long term health effects? We are omnivores by nature, and a varied diet including reasonable amounts of meat and dairy is what we are "optimized" to run on. (by either evolution or god, depending on your version of reality currently installed)
Agreed, that is a far cry from the diet of the average human "omnivore" today, but there is certainly no
guarantee that a vegan diet is going to be the ideal diet, or even an improvement, if not very carefully executed, and even then debatable.
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