I've been feeling more conflicted about consuming meat lately, but it's blanket assertions like this that trigger my inner libertarian hard, and I come out swinging. There is considerable evidence suggesting meat consumption contributed significantly to our cerebral expansion (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/701477?mob...). Unlike most great apes today, whose diet is primarily plant based, we can thank the incredible nutrient density in meat and our incredible hunting and tool creating ability for prefrontal cortex development. Humans are alpha predators, more so than any other animal in the world. We were pack hunters, forging tools and strategies capable of taking down mammoths. Call it 'diabolicaly evil' if you want, but this is simply nature and survival. Eat solely plants without supplementation and you will become deficient in B12 and iron (amongst other things, contributing to early age mortality). I don't personally believe highly processed plant alternatives such as Beyond meat are a long term option if you're even vaguely interested in your own health. So call me evil, I see myself as a pragmatist, more in touch with nature than you are. I recognize the alpha predator in myself. I lift weights, consume lean, well sourced and organic meat. I've hunted and eaten what I've killed as my forebears. I'm resilient and healthy. If that makes me diabolical I'll take it.
Human evolution is poorly understood, and the assumption that any choice $X supposedly made by early humans led to our forefathers’ anamolously rapid brain development is flatly speculative.
> Unlike most great apes today, whose diet is primarily plant based, we can thank the incredible nutrient density in meat and our incredible hunting and tool creating ability for prefrontal cortex development.
Complete and utter speculation.
> We were pack hunters, forging tools and strategies capable of taking down mammoths. Call it 'diabolicaly evil' if you want, but this is simply nature and survival.
Subsistence hunting amongst early human tribes is not comparable to modern day factory farming in any conceivable way.
B12 doesn’t come from eating plants OR animals: it comes from bacteria, and ironically that bacteria is in such short supply on factory farms that the animals need to be injected with synthetic B12.
> I don't personally believe highly processed plant alternatives such as Beyond meat are a long term option if you're even vaguely interested in your own health.
I eat raw soybeans, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds. I’d recommend watching the documentary Forks Over Knives [1] if you care about your personal health, and the documentary Dominion [2], if you’d like to see what really happens on factory farms.
Whether that specifically is speculation or not, it is a fact that we have adapted to live off of both meat and plants, and are some of the best known generalists (in terms of adaptation), among large land-dwelling animals. Other apes are much better at specific things that help them do what they do (specialists). We're just different, and we gradually became to be that way. There are specially adapted humans as well, less-speculatively as a result of rare rich protein sources like fish, milk. By extension, it's also probably inarguable that certain groups of people would have disappeared completely had it not been for the capability of them to adapt, bioculturally, to a changing world or simply changing circumstances. By saying their claim about meat and big brains is "Complete and utter speculation", you're at least implying that there's very little substance to the claim, and that you have a better explanation with more than a documentary to point to. But why is it that we're not competing with other apes at this moment? Why are we well-adapted to eat animals? Do you have a more substantial proposition?
Zero speculation regarding the diets of chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas (well studied and documented) [1].
[2] B12 sources up until it was possible to synthesize in the 60s were exclusively from animal products. Also, if you're even vaguely predisposed to anemia, you will likely struggle getting enough hema-available iron from plant sources without supplementation.
Glad you are able to live off of entirely soybeans, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds. For a lot of people, this isn't sustainable. Would love to see your bloods, discuss athletic performance and energy.
Actually, there are top of the line athletes with a vegan diet. It's not very popular, but that is probably because being vegan is not popular.
The B12 source argument has recently been solved as well. Most animals source their B12 from micro-organisms in the soil. If humans stop washing their food excessively, this would fix the B12 intake problem.
