There's absolutely nothing wrong with eating lots of fruit and vegetables in your daily diet. It's advisable and I personally recommend it - highly. But, people who choose to become vegetarians or vegans and give up animal meat, usually do so based on an emotional "belief" concerning health, religion, cruelty to animals, or damage to the environment, and unfortunately, often lack critically pertinent information.
Without a lot of knowledge and planning, trying to live exclusively on fruit and vegetables is sure to lead to nutritional deficiencies and the inevitable health problems. If only for that one reason, parents who force their children to become vegetarians may actually be practicing a subtle form of child-abuse.
In the grand scheme of things, vegetarianism, as a life-style, has existed for a long time but not with significant numbers of adherents. During the 20th Century, when prominent health experts, alarmed at the sudden increase in heart-disease, examined the diets of their patients and compared them with those in other "healhier" countries it seemed that an increase in the consumption of vegetables helped in disease prevention. The media, without any proof whatsoever, jumped on the band-wagon and trumpeted that "vegetarianism" was the cure-all for everything.
The cult-like vegetarian societies that existed at the time capitalized on the publicity and made (and continue to make) unfounded claims to persuade an unwary public that a "no-meat life-style" is the healthiest and "kindest" of all dietary options.
"Vegans", as a separate group, emerged around the time of the Second World War and declared that the farming of animals was cruel and that the use of animal products should be banned. However, they often use militant and terrorist tactics in their attempts to convince the public to accept their point of view.
ãEUREURãEUREUR But what, exactly, constitutes "vegetarianism"?
Can you eat eggs, the product of birds?
And fish? Isn't that meat or does the fact that they live in water make it O.K.?
Milk, cheese, ice-cream? Don't they all come from cows or goats ? So, you can't eat the animal but you can eat its milk and the by-products?
But vegans say a resounding "no" to all of the above except for soy products.
Well, what about soy? Now that's a whole other category discussed in a separate report.
The question most proselytizing vegans or vegetarians put to their targeted recruits is:
"How can you justify slaughtering an innocent animal for food?"
When the impressionable student learns that some animals are brought up in un-natural surroundings and fed hormones and chemical supplements to make them grow faster, fatter or leaner and that those substances remain in the meat we eat and that pollutants, pesticides and other toxic substances drain into our waterways and seas and are consumed by fish which we then eat, the general reaction is the desire to eschew all animal products. That's a common, emotional response, even though meat may have formed part of the person's diet almost since birth.
But then, killing the animals and preparing them to eat had always been somebody else's responsibility anyway. And when it's revealed that certain combinations of crop-foods such as cereals, beans, nuts, seeds and tubers contain protein, that seems to be a "nicer" food option. Then, the media propaganda that better health comes with a diet lower in meat and higher in vegetables seems to make it even more logical to go to the extreme and exclude all meat.
Vegans claim that the high-quality grain which is fed to the animals which are then fed to us, would be used more efficiently if we did without the animals and ate the grain instead. The proposition is, that not only would that very grain feed more people, but the land presently used to raise the animals could be used to grow even more grain to feed the starving multitude. It would seem evident that in our modern world, where a third of the population is starving, meat production by any country must constitute criminality.
The Facts:
At the turn of the 21st Century the human population of planet Earth hovered at around six billion and, even if world-wide birth-control became a reality, it's estimated that our total population will more than double to around fifteen billion. The Earth's total land area is 69,479,518 square miles which means, that even if all of it were cultivated, every square kilometer would have to support approximately thirty-three people.ãEUREUR
The reality is, that only about 10% of our planet is arable and available for cultivation. Those vast regions covered in ice, the deserts, marshes, lakes, cities, roads and rain-forests can't be cultivated to grow food crops. However, roughly 20% of the Earth's surface while not suitable for food crops, does support the growth of grass which we humans cannot utilize directly. The only way of converting that grass into food for Man is by using it to raise edible animals. In most areas where animals are farmed, that's the only thing the land can support anyway, which makes it the most efficient use of the land.
Currently 30% of the world's population suffers from starvation and if we all became vegetarians we still couldn't use most of the land that can only support the grazing of animals for anything else. And in any case, most of the world's surface is not dry land - it's covered by water. At present, millions of tons of fish are caught or farmed each year. If vegetarianism really caught on and everybody on the planet stopped eating fish, the two-thirds of the population who are presently not starving would soon join the third that is. (Read more about the Health of the Oceans)
The argument that uncultivable land can be converted to agriculture has already been shown to be unsound. In many areas which can naturally support only limited agriculture, irrigation is used to increase productivity. Irrigation, however, carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. Semi-arid soils are characteristically salty; the artesian water from the same region is also usually saline and without adequate drainage, the irrigation water seeps into the soil and raises the water table. That brings the underlying ground-water nearer the surface where it evaporates more freely, leaving behind a salty residue. In time, the salts of sodium, magnesium and calcium clog the pores in the soil and leave a whitish bloom on the surface.
That process destroys the soil structure so that crop yields fall and eventually the level of salinity is such that plants can no longer grow. Right now, millions of acres of irrigated land are slowly being transformed into deserts.
As the world's population has increased, so the amount of land available for cultivation has decreased. Where deforestation has made way for crop cultivation, the thin soils have been exposed to higher precipitation and temperatures which deplete the soil's organic matter. As the soils harden they eventually become barren, wind-blown deserts. In 1882, desert or wasteland covered an estimated 9.4% of the Earth's surface. By 1952 deserts had increased to almost 25%. Once a desert forms it's almost impossible to reverse and then only by reforestation which makes the land unusable for agriculture.
So, back to that earlier question:
"How can you justify killing an innocent animal for food?"
Ask yourself, would it be reasonable (even if it were possible) to ask a lion to justify his killing of an innocent gazelle?
Of course not! It's Nature's way for the lion to eat the gazelle and that should be justification enough. And the same is true for us for Man is not a vegetarian species either!
But what of the gazelle's right not to be eaten?
Isn't it obvious that such questions really aren't valid, that they're designed only to arouse emotions so as to convert the un-informed to a certain point of view? Often, sensitive environmental issues that might be raised are completely and falsely exaggerated as well. In fact, the opposite point of view actually makes more sense. Consider:
Vegetables and cereals are the foods of many animals.
For rodents, crops are a real bonanza in terms of food and shelter as it allows them to multiply rapidly which only increases the potential death-toll during field preparation and harvest. Unavoidably, plowing destroys nests and burrows and the babies within. To small amphibians, reptiles, ground-nesting birds and mammals, agriculture is devastating! Even the occasional larger mammal is injured during the cropping process. Those massive harvesting-machines kill some animals directly and expose others to the not-so-tender mercies of predators such as hawks and coyotes. When land is farmed for food crops, more animals are killed than before.
The raising of animals for meat, especially if they aren't fattened with agricultural products, is far less devastating to animal life than is agriculture. Consider: If one acre of land produces one sheep or cow each year for slaughter, one life is taken. If one acre of land is put into cereal production the cost in mammalian life alone, can be measured by the dozen.
That vegetarianism is un-natural is not a modern claim. The Bible indicates, that even "back then", vegetarianism was not held in high regard. Genesis , Chapter IV reveals:
"And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground."
That "but" is the first clue to disapproval which is confirmed by verses three to five wherein Abel and Cain presented their offerings to God - Abel of his sheep and Cain, the fruits of the ground. God, we are told, had respect for Abel's carnivorous offering, but He had no respect for Cain's vegetarian one.
Now, while that may give an indication of the feeling of the time in which it was written, it still doesn't provide a convincing answer to the question as to what we really should eat for our health and survival.
Are we a carnivorous, omnivorous or vegetarian species?
The Standard American Diet (SAD) we now try to live with is a very recent invention thrust upon us by industrialization a few hundred years ago. As a species, we cannot have adapted to it in such a short time-span. The diet we evolved on and should eat is not a matter for dietary faddists to proclaim, it's encoded in our genes. So, to determine what foods are likely to make up an ideal diet for us as a species, we must look further back, into our evolutionary history.
From remains found in Africa and other parts of the world, Man's evolution can be traced as far back as five and a half million years ago. Stone tools and implements have been found that must have been used for the killing and cutting of flesh or for the grinding of plants. Waste and fossilized bone records of both Man and animals have been carefully examined and the results have led to a great deal of speculation.
We call our ancestors and the various modern primitive tribes, "hunter-gatherers". In the world today, some of those tribes live exclusively on meat and fish while others live largely on fruit, nuts and roots - although meat is also highly prized. It is obvious, therefore, that we can survive on a wide variety of foods. But which, if any, is the healthiest, most natural diet for humans?
There are only three possible types of diet we can consider:
1. that we were wholly carnivorous, hunting and killing animals; or
2. that we were omnivorous, eating a mixed diet of both animal and plant origin; or
3. that we were herbivorous, i.e. vegetarians.
The fact is that Man's digestive system and the digestive enzymes it produces are more similar to the Lion's than the Gazelle's. However, the following scientific facts allows us to come to a firm conclusion:
Man's brain is considerably larger than that of any of the apes, all species of which are primarily vegetarian. Human milk contains the fatty-acids essential for large-brain development - cow's milk does not. It's no coincidence then, that in relative terms, Man's brain is fifty times the size of a cow's and Man's superior brain development could never have occurred if our ancestors had not eaten meat. The committed vegetarian will be dismayed to learn that while the soy bean is rich in complete protein, and that grains and nuts can be combined to provide complete proteins, no seed, nut, grain or vegetable contains the fats that are essential for human brain development.
As well, the Framingham Heart Study revealed that even 39% of the participants who ate a "normal", mixed diet, were deficient in Vitamin B12. And plants alone cannot provide the form of vitamin B12 with the cyancobalamin analogue that's essential for the development and maintenance of the myalin sheath that protects our nervous system. Meat does!
Also, an adequate supply of calcium to maintain bone health is very difficult to obtain from plant sources without consistent, careful planning.
There can be no doubt whatsoever that we are a meat-eating species. From at least the time when Homo erectus appeared in the cold, Eurasian continent some 500,000 years ago, we must have lived on, and adapted to, a diet almost exclusively of meat. Although the eating of fats today is erroneously believed by many people, health professionals included, to be a cause of heart disease (see The Cholesterol Myth), we know conclusively that our ancestors ate large amounts of fat.
Man could not have developed so successfully if we had been forced to rely on only one source of food. It's obvious from archaeological remains that we tended to be more opportunistic eaters. Our ancestors hunted and ate meat primarily but, if meat was in short supply, we would eat almost anything - as long as it did not require cooking in a container (cooking pots are a quite recent invention). When meat was in short supply, we got our protein from nuts and ate fruits and berries. During our evolution, therefore, when we lived well, our diet was high in protein and fat and during lean times it was richer in carbohydrates. So, our ideal diet, the one we evolved on and adapted to, must also be one which is high in proteins and fats, and relatively low in carbohydrates.
In this modern age it's impossible for all of us to survive on a vegetarian diet. Without animal farming many more people would starve to death and the environment would suffer irreparably.
But even though vegetarianism and veganism may be elitist and wrong for Man's and the Planet's survival, meat-eaters must still have empathy for, and agree with, the animal-rights campaigner dedicated to changing the way animals are treated. Instead of grazing in fields, animals are often penned or caged while their natural habitat is turned into golf courses and leisure grounds for the wealthy few.
Vegetarians and vegans are in a very privileged position and as long as they are not the majority they can afford to indulge their naive dietary fads in a way that is denied to most people on this Earth. The legendary Three Musketeers lived and died by their motto: All for One and One for All, but vegetarians must seriously consider the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant who proposed that what would be wrong for the masses is also wrong for the privileged few.
However you choose, for health's sake, eat well!
| Price : | Post Date : Oct 20, 2011 02:22:05
