Why Eat Meat?

Ruhl

New Member
Protein powder costs less, or at least mine does, you don't have to spend time cooking, and animals get to live. You can get micronutrients such as iron from tablets. So why eat meat?
 
Meat contains a lot more than just iron (and the iron in meat is better absorbed - well the 40+% that is heme iron)

and it tastes goooooooooooooooooooooooooooood!!
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Ruhl @ April 12 2003,8:00)]So why eat meat?
I don't -- for a variety of reasons. I do consume fish and eggs, though.

FWIW, you can still grow just fine.
 
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[b said:
Quote[/b] (Ruhl @ April 12 2003,6
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0)]Protein powder costs less, or at least mine does, you don't have to spend time cooking, and animals get to live. You can get micronutrients such as iron from tablets. So why eat meat?
I'm not aware of anything you can eat that was not once living (or could have been living such as eggs). What is most protein powder made of? I consider vegetables as living too. I'm not about to go all crazy about it because I have to eat something. Might as well eat what my body benefits the most from. Also not eating meat does no good. The animal has already been killed. If it sits on the shelf long enough it may have to get thrown away. I would rather it be eaten.
 
Besides - we were meant to eat meat. We were also meant to eat a whole lot of other things, but we function best on a mixed diet. Why try to do something that's not natural for us ?

If you stop culling animals (in one way or another) you'll probably get some sort of crisis at one point that would resemble removing a specie all together.
 
It has been estimated that if we were to stop eating meat altogether we would have to come up with other ways of controlling herbivores population, or else we would soon face serious worldwide famine because the crops wouldn't suffice for both humans and animals.
 
And also, millions of rats, snakes, bugs and other small mammals are killed every year by the machines used in the crops.


I've been a vegetarian, and while the unnecessary suffering most often inflicted in animals revolts me, I believe our natural diets include animal protein and fats. One day, I hope to be able to raise animals and plants to eat, for now, I have grass fed beef, horse and some fish as my main sources of protein. And whey of course.
 
Dear Ruhl,

Your posts never cease to bemuse and in this case, amuse.

Protein powder is perhaps, cheaper if you look at it in terms of price per gram of protein.

But to limit oneself to the purity of protein powder, notwithstanding the myriad flavours such powders might offer, is akin to a vow of extreme dietary celibacy where even the proverbial tossing-up of one's quarter-pounder by one's own hand is off-limits.

There is a reason we are at the top of the food chain. Over time, we have adapted to eating all sorts of food - animal protein, vegetables, fruit etc and it should remain that way. To abstain from meat is simply unnatural and goes against the very laws of nature.

If I did not get my meat, I'd be constantly craving for it. My dreams will be much wet from drooling whilst I dream of sinking my fangs into a juicy chunk of flesh.

So let's eat meat and be merry about it. Meat eaters have higher testosterone levels and are less deficient in micronutrients as compared to their plant-eating counterparts. As Aaron_F had pointed out, nutrients from animal flesh are better absorbed even though you might get the same or even more of such micronutrients in plants. Furthermore, plants do not contain any creatine whatsoever but you do get creatine in meat, especially red meat.

Your post is perhaps, an issue of time and financial efficiency, not so much the morality of meat eating but still, don't deprive yourself of the best thing in life - real food.

In short, if the meat is good, the meal is good.

Godspeed, happy feasting and happy HSTing :)
 
if god didnt mean for you to eat animals he wouldn't have made them out of meat.
 
Sorry guy but protein powder only contains about 2 of the 6 essential aminos in abundance. You're going to end up depriving yourself of the rest if you don't get a good helping of some kind of meat, legumes and whole grain oats/wheat to complete it. If you're not a big meat eater eggs and fish should do the job just fine.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Mindwraith @ April 14 2003,9:04)]Sorry guy but protein powder only contains about 2 of the 6 essential aminos in abundance. You're going to end up depriving yourself of the rest if you don't get a good helping of some kind of meat, legumes and whole grain oats/wheat to complete it. If you're not a big meat eater eggs and fish should do the job just fine.
What kind of protein powder are you using? Whey, casein, egg or soy contain all the essential aminoacids.
 
They contain all the essential aminos, but notice I said "in abundance". Look at the side of any whey protein container and the number of mg for each. This is why they say don't depend on just protein shakes.

I use 100% whey protein. The rest I get from other sources. Too expensive to buy all the different kinds.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Mindwraith @ April 14 2003,11:18)]They contain all the essential aminos, but notice I said "in abundance". Look at the side of any whey protein container and the number of mg for each. This is why they say don't depend on just protein shakes.
I use 100% whey protein. The rest I get from other sources. Too expensive to buy all the different kinds.
Ah, you're talking about ratios then.
 
Right, and tryptophan is a very important essential amino. Studies are showing the lack of this to be a link to sleep disorders and depression. One problem is that it gets bumped off by other aminos during transport unless it is mostly ingested by itself. Milk by itself or with honey is a good way to get a nice dose of this. Whey only contains 40mg or 1/21 of a gram.
 
I hear say a lot of things about how necessary meat is. I've learned not to buy into most of it. Some (few) arguments are well-reasoned. . . but they don't really wash, either.

I have not eaten meat or poultry for about 12 years now. For most of it, I didn't eat fish either, and had eggs and dairy only as ingredients in other things (never as primary ingredients.)

I did not waste away. When I lifted, I still grew. And I didn't even try to increase my protein intake back then.

Also, I recently (Dec-Feb '03) had my best-ever growth cycle. I consumed no animal or bird flesh, though I did consume fish and eggs. I grew well over 20 pounds in 40 days (to 236.)

If you want to eat meat, eat meat. If you don't want to eat meat, don't eat meat. But don't perpetuate all the BS about it just because you want or don't want.
 
this is a question that i personally have wrestled with. for almost 3.5 years, i was eating mostly vegetarian, and at several points was or was nearly vegan. the thing is, i never chose that lifestyle for the moral/animal rights reasons. it was mainly for the purported health and ecological/societal benefits. i realized a while back however, that i had mainly rhetoric to back those reasons, and not too much science.

i did some reading and research (albeit mostly from the net), and i concede there remain many differing views (some obviously erroneous or suspect). but i have come to the conclusion that vegetarian, and esp. vegan, diets are simply not anywhere close to "optimal" or "natural" diets for human beings. it's probably even detrimental to your health in the long term.

the vegetarian arguments about the cruelty and unnaturalness of modern industrialized agriculture and also its environmental detriment are true of course, but that in itself should not be a rationale for vegetarianism, as many adherents will try to argue (as i myself once did). it should instead be a rationale for organic agriculture and natural, pasture-fed, free-range livestock.

remember, grains and legumes were introduced into the human diet only about 10,000 years ago with the neolithic agricultural revolution - a mere heartbeat in our evolutionary timeline. that's one reason why gluten, soy, and peanut allergies are so common. it also explains why we have only ONE hormone, insulin, to lower blood sugar, whereas there are numerous hormones (glucagon, epinephrine, GH) that convert other sources of energy (protein and fat) into blood glucose. this indicates evolutionary redundancy, ie, it was always more necessary in our evolution to utilize non-carbohydrate-dense foods.

one should also be mindful of the omega6:omega3 fatty acid ratio in ones diet. the ideal ratio, as seen in existing or documented hunter-gatherer societies, was usually no higher than 2:1. but because of modern grain/legume-heavy agriculture, the use of processed vegetable oils, and the feeding of grains to livestock (which should ideally be grazing on pasture), the american diet has a ratio of around 10:1 to 20:1 or worse.

the only way for a vegan to get enough O3 in the diet would be to consume foods like flax and walnuts, and also take a DHA supplement from algae. that last aspect would be the most important, as flax and walnuts only contain ALA, not the more vital long-chain O3's like EPA and DHA. the body has a difficult time converting enough ALA into the latter two, and this process is hampered further by an imbalance of high amounts of O6 in the diet.

anyway, after sifting through all the info i've had to sift through, i recommend one search for an article called "myths of vegetarianism" to explain more simply or summarizingly what i've tried to say. (it contains errors though, such as its information on vit b12 in hindu diets - it CAN come from topsoil bacterial sources although not the ones in our digestive tract as he correctly states).

also, there is www.beyondveg.com - they're quite ardent and perhaps biased pushers of paleolithic diets, but the site has lots of info and links to studies and such. it's also specifically from the perspective of former vegetarians.

and definitely look into the omega-3 issue. that was one of the more convincing reasons for me to stop being vegetarian - not to mention i just wasn't *feeling* healthy from eating that way for all those years.

if you're trying to be vegetarian for moral reasons however, the above arguments won't help much. but MHO is that if you're doing it for moral reasons, vegan is the only way to go. lacto-ovo vegetarians do not fully free animals from cruelty or slaughter - even free-range animals. hormone-free milk requires the mother to give birth. what is one to do with the males? same with chickens.

ok... i've written enough. i just thought this was a good opportunity to share my recent revelations with people.
 
Very true tai4ji2x... People adhere to vegetarianism as if it was a secret occult. Too often they feel bad for a looooong time, but they convince themselves that they are going through the "detoxification" process...

Some people quit vegetarianism only to step in another nutritional pitfall and follow it with the same dogmatism... it takes a lot of thinking to learn how to deal critically with everything and accept that noone is infallible.

This is not to say that it can't work for some people. I just find unacceptable the obstinacy of most vegeterians.
 
Other animals eat meat so why not us?

The question is not whether we should eat meat - we should. It's whether we should eat meat other than for the necessity to feed.

FYI: TGI Fridays do a mean rack of Jack Daniel's ribs
 
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