I was browsing youtube, and saw all of these comments about the human diet, etc. You know how I am... vegan, pro-health, pro-environment, all that jazz, so I compiled them all to put here... haha. Most of them I already knew, but it's cool to have this all in one place. Editted for gramatical purposes, and I added/interpretted a few lines for re-wording. They were all separate as well, so I had to kind of put them in randomly.
Topsoil is what makes agriculture possible! In the last 200 years the US has lost 85% of topsoil due to livestock, and it takes over 500 years to rebuild a single inch. 280 million acres of US forest has been cleared for livestock. Employees from factory farms dump hog waste into our rivers which pollutes it. One acre of trees disappears every eight seconds to make grazing land for cattle.
Animals are in slavery, it's wrong! A single vegetarian saves one acre of land a year. 60 million people starve every year. One acre of land can produce 20000 pounds of potatoes, but only 165 pounds of beef. Now, if we stopped raising animals for our greedy pleasure, we would have enough food to feed the entire population of Earth. Do your research, and you will find this information is true.
Humans' DNA are 98% similar to chimpanzees, so our diet should be similar. If we were to live in the jungle without the use of fire, the food we would primarily eat are fruits and veggies. Raw meat can be fatal and grains are too hard, dry, and tasteless. Species have their own inborn instinct of food. Gorillas prefer veggies over fruits, Chimpanzees prefer fruits over veggies, Cows prefer grass over leaves. Panda bears prefer bamboos over fruits. Humans prefer fruits over veggies/raw-meat.
Veggies have the highest protein content per 100 calories compared to meat. That's why animals such as horse, gorilla, bull, cow, elephant are able to grow so big and strong. The protein we eat from meat comes from the green plants that the animals eat. Why not go to the first souce of protein, instead of the filter that is meat? That's equivelant to eating sugary high fat cereals, claiming to be getting "vitamins", when it would be more beneficial to eat something without the sugar and high fat. A human mother's milk only contains 6% protein, showing that humans don't NEED a HIGH protein diet. Coincidently, fruits have around 6% protein as well.
There is a way to to get enough calories from non-sweet/sweet fruits such as tomatoes, avocados,melons, bananas, nuts, berries, peaches, mangoes, apple, oranges, etc. For instance, a meal of 700 calories would consist eating 1 large mango, 4 bananas and 4 lettuce leaves or 2 large cantaloupes/handful of blueberries. Try blending with ice.
A plant-based diet is the best diet for kids, too: Studies have shown that vegetarian kids grow taller and have higher IQs than their classmates, and they are at a reduced risk for heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases in the long run. And animal life is being taken away due to taste buds. If we have enough compassion and respect for life, don't support any kind of violence/murder.
Thousands of species go extinct every year, due to the destruction of our rain forests. Producing just a single hamburger uses enough fuel to drive a small car 20 miles. Of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the US, more than one third are used to raise animals, a primary factor in causing global warming. Plenty of reasons of how eating meat harms the earth, and all of us. Plants are not sentient beings, unlike animals, and we can grow our own vegetables if we have to.
Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent less likely to develop heart disease, and they have 40 percent of the cancer rate of meat-eaters. Meat-eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than vegans are. Vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six to 10 years longer than meat-eaters. One of the oldest living persons was Jeanne Calment, who passed away at the age 122. She was a vegetarian. Trust me, you don't need meat, and that's the truth. It's just a habit, fight the addiction!
Collective comments from (compiled, then editted for gramatical purposes) http://www.youtube.com/ddon93
You're awesome man.
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beatnikprodigy's journal
In approximate order of what I read:
- You would need to eat a lot more potatoes than beef, by weight, to gain the same amount of energy. According to the first Google hit for "nutrition facts beef," one pound of generic beef, cooked, with "refuse" removed (which probably wouldn't happen if the consumer were starving), yields 447 calories, while a pound of potatoes yields 332. They contain 77 and 6g of protein, respectively. Please excuse the term, but you're comparing apples to oranges here.
Not to mention, there's already plenty of arable land (American corn farm subsidies, anyone?) that could be growing food to solve the world's hunger problem, if it worked that way. The fact is, people are motivated by money more than by compassion. Plus, no matter how much food you have, there will always be too many people for it to feed. Humanity always lives just a little bit beyond its means, and will unless a fascist worldwide government directly intervenes.
- I don't know where you're getting your information about other species, but it's long been known that chimpanzees hunt meat too. The dangers of raw meat lie mostly in the fact that we're not adapted to eating it anymore, just like drinking straight from streams. Asking the microbiologists sitting next to me confirms that you're just as likely to find a deadly microbe inside a plant as an animal, except the ones inhabiting plants are likely to be resistant to dessication, which is one of our bodies' main defenses against invasion. Not to mention that plants have a wider variety of toxins and other resistances to being eaten than animals do - with the exception of animals that consume poisonous plants in order to get the same benefit, if you're actually in a position to eat the animal, you're pretty much safe.
- The reason that humans go for the "filter" of meat in order to get the protein is that the animals that we eat are better adapted to eating plants than we are. Humans only have one stomach, we don't chew cud, and our appendix is shriveled and unused, so that makes us a lot less efficient at extracting the nutrients from plants than our ruminant counterparts. Back when getting enough to eat was a problem for humans in general, meat was much more valuable than plants because we could use so many more of the nutrients it provided. I'll admit that that's not an issue today for the people you're talking to, but it has been in the past.
- I think you need to check your definition of the word "sentient." That is, unless you believe that a fly, a raccoon, a goldfish, and a human all are self-aware and operate at least partially through conscious thought rather than instinct.
- Also be aware that statistics can be manipulated to say pretty much anything you want. People who have the luxury of buying or growing a full, balanced vegetarian diet are likely to be more healthy than those who buy the cheapest (and frequently least healthy) food, but those who can afford to could also eat a healthy diet that includes meat.
I won't say anything about the morality arguments - that's not my place to criticize, and it's not my aim to try to insult you or your beliefs. I'd just like to present a more balanced perspective so you're forming your opinions based on more accurate information.