Dawgphood001 said:
How do you live?
Were you ever not a vegan? How long have you been one? What made you change? Can you see yourself losing your vegan status in the future?
How do I live?? Pretty easily. Did someone try to convince you human life was impossible without meat & dairy?
In answer to your other questions. I was "not a vegan" for 23 years. Been one for three. I changed because I was feeling ill, I found out I was allergic to wheat and dairy products so I dropped those first. Felt a lot better better but by that point I was very interested in nutrition so I continued experimenting. Eventually I started replacing out meat. I remember going two days without it one week, then three. Then a whole week. All the propaganda saying I'd feel "weak", etc. was not my experience. I felt fine and do not crave it at all (those I did have a dream I ate a Wendy's cheeseburger once, it tasted pretty bad though
).
I just examined the evidence and gradually changed. It's not something you jump into overnight (although some can do it). I have nothing against meat eaters (though I do always urge them to buy organic, free-roaming, humanely-slaughtered animals for their own health, the ecological impact and compassionate reasons), in fact I buy a few pounds of free-range chicken every week to fed to my cats (I chop it up for them and give it to them raw, bones and all, now THAT'S a carnivore!
).
Hotpoint said:
Physiologically Humans are omnivores with both our teeth and digestive systems designed to consume meat as well as vegetables. There are certainly indications that the percentage of meat in our diet should be substantially lower than our intake of other foods, but given that we are evolutionarily designed the way we are, the optimum diet would include meat.
Our closest living relative, the Chimpanzee, is also an omnivore by the way and it is also thought our closest non-living relative (Neandethal man) ate a diet which was overwhelmingly carnivorous (maybe 80%+ meat).
Our teeth and digestive system are designed like a frugivores. Our teeth are perfect was masticating fruit and vegetables. Try ripping a piece of flesh off a live (or freshly killed) rabbit and see how easy it is.
The length of our digestive track is many times longer than say a cat or even a wolf (and even dogs can be vegetarian though I'm not sure I'd make mine one, supposedly the longest lived dog is one).
Chimps eat some animal food (maybe 3% of calories, much of it insects :yum: ) but our other biological cousin (who some argue we are even more related to the Bonobo (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo) which eats almost 100% plant based (fruit, vegetables, nuts, etc.) diet.
As for Neandethals, it is irrelivant what that ate since they were annhilated by their more intelligent cosins - the Cro Magnons (aka : us).
Ansar_the_King said:
This girl in my history class claims to be a vegetarian...
She doesent eat meat(steak, porkchops, etc.), but she eats chicken and fish.
Yep, there's a lot of those phonies, making us look bad.
mrtn said:
jonatas comment on how they're skinny and weak doesn't hold water as far as I'm concerned. Two of my best friends and my girlfriend is vegetarians, and I'm the skinniest of us all. And I'm not the strongest either.
I didn't think it did either. I just didn't choose to comment on it because he said it was only the ones he met (which I figured is a pretty small sampling).
mrtn said:
It's quite possible to eat just as unhealthy as a vegatarian than as a omnivore, cheese all day long...
Oh definitely, most vegetarians probably eat a ton of cheese as well as a lot of soy. Neither one was good for me.