:lol:
HA! HA! HA! I just looked at how she started this little talk. She said, "I follow a genetic diet..." HA! HA! HA! Since when do we have the genetics of a chimp? I wonder if she's aware that they use pig skin in skin transplants because their skin is so similar to ours? Or, what about all of the pig organs they're starting to use in transplants...they're pretty closely matched, too. Now, I may be a big, fat guy with a beard that looks like Santa to the kids and a biker low-life to their parents, but I don't actually think I look that close to a pig! Let me look in the mirror...well...yeah, I'm pretty big, still...hmmm, no snout for rooting out roots...gosh! My eyes look kind of pig-like! AWK! I better start eating pig food! I only need to get down on all fours and...voila!..yep! I think we are all pigs, in disguise! Forget the bed, I'm gonna build a sty in my back yard and sleep there, tonight. Gotta be a slave to my "genetics." You vegans are such a bunch of cut-ups! HA! Ha! Ha! I love this forum! Bring on more of these funny people! I especially loved the "Scientific" part...Ha! Ha! Ha! Hint: Look at the world, today. See all of the autoimmune diseases that there is no record of in the fossils of early hominids? Where did they come from? Whoa! That's pretty tough! MONOCULTURE AGRICULTURE started in the NEOLITHIC and so did autoimmune diseases! 1+1=2...get it? Nah! Let's just eat living things that don't have eyes...oh, my GOD! What if plants really do scream when we eat them...or cook them...and we just can't hear it? Humans are what's wrong with the earth. Let's all go on a big fast and eat dirt. That'll work. NOT!

such a shame
 

we can't all live and let live. For every ounce of research that you find pro vegetarian, you find pro carnivore. I think you have to just do the research and choose your own path. And respect the rights of others to do the same. My daughter and I have chosen to be vegetarians, for humane reasons. Her, because she loves animals and wouldn't hurt anything, even to live. And I do it out of respect for her. Now we do eat dairy and eggs, and many other vegetarian choices. But those are our choices for who we are and how we feel now, today. I personally am not related to chimps or pigs. Doesn't matter to me how humans lived a million years ago. That was then, life has changed dramatically for all since then. But I can see by this forum, man gets along no better now than Cain and Able did in their time. So blessings on you today and if conflict is what you are into, be you vegetarian or carnivore, I guess you are in the right place. :rolleyes:

hi Pam,

I understand how you feel. The original debate topic of this thread is not meat-eater vs. vegetarian -- rather, it's about the theory that humans are genetically designed to consume the same fruitarian diet as chimps. I believe I was able to disprove that theory, but I made it very clear that we humans have been given the capacity to CHOOSE. Whether we choose to eat meat, no meat, only fruit, only raw foods, strictly vegan etc ... we have the capacity to make the choice for whatever is our belief system, and that should be celebrated.

Blessings to you too, and I wish you much low carbing success :)

Doreen

thank you Doreen, I knew there was still kindness out there some where.

Pam,

This thread if you follow it from the start is not about respecting each others opinions, it's more about self-rightiousness for anti-low-carbers.

It's basically about the political correctness and media hype against low-carbing weather it with meat or vegetables.

Having been bombarded by too many opinions against low-carbing, our forum provides a safe place for low-carbers to demand proof of any one who have claims they are unhealthy.

So yes, we are bound to offend many people, who are well-meaning to save us from our politically incorrect diet if they come here and expect us to take their arguments without demanding the facts.

This is done in the hope they'll open their eyes. They don't have to convert to become low-carbers, but at least, with no supporting research, they could admit that they're not sure. If they're open minded enough to admit that, then that's a good step. ;)

Wa'il

Hi Pam,

You seem to have a good handle on vegetarian low-carbing. The vegetarian forum could probably use some help with someone, such as you, who has experience in it. There are always people asking for advice and not many of us have that type of experience. Having an experienced person there will really help that forum grow and be a great help to others who visit it.

Karen

could someone please help me get to the vegetarian forum?

I see that you just posted there a few minutes ago .. but .. here's an easy route - click on the home icon up at the top right. That will take you to the forum's main index page. Scroll down the index of forums till you see the Daily Low-carb Support Category. Look for Vegetarian in the listing (they're alphabetical). Voilà :)

Doreen

Here it is:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/forumdisplay.php?forumid=109

It's also visible from the main page, listed among the Daily low-carb support.

Wa'il

:roll:
Pam! For crying out loud! Get a sense of humor! I didn't write that stuff to hurt your feelings....geez...It's just that another person, who started this whole thing came on and started preaching to us about how bad our diet was and that she had all sorts of scientific proofs...which she hasn't yet posted, incidentally. If you want to be a vegetarian, so be it. I believe in letting people live in any way they feel that's best for them. But, when somebody comes on this forum and starts preaching to us about how bad our diet is, when it's pretty well proven that it isn't, well...
As far as eating vegan for humanitarian reasons, here's food for thought (get it? HA!). The primary reason for the extinction of so many species in the last 10,000 years has been monoculture agriculture. In order for a farmer to make a field to grow his/her crops, he/she has to irradicate the beasties who might eat the crops. The pesticides used today are killing off entire fauna, and flora, ruining the soil and the crops are depleting the soil of whatever nutrients are still there. Farmers add in nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium...that's it...because it makes the crop yield better. No more micronutrients, etc. The near extinction of wolves, and Grizzly bears, for example has been caused by the need for farmers and ranchers to protect their herds.
How is it humanitarian to kill off entire species so we can eat grains, dairy, and nightshades? This is not meant as a slight against you for your moral convictions...just something to think about.

Like I said before "live and let live". The first two pages of this thread were, for the most part, all in fun. But somewhere along the third page it got way side tracked, and turned into something else. It was ugly and no longer edifying, for me or likely anyone else reading it. Blessings on your low carb efforts. I assume if anyone reading this thread wants "scientific support" they can just as easily go to a PETA website as any one else. Or for that matter the anit-PETA websitses.

I just have to put in my two cents. Man was created by God, not as chimps and then evolved to man. I know that plenty of people consider evolution to be truth. But I do not. So...with that in mind, I do not agree with VegiMax, because I do not agree with her first premise. We all are here to learn from each other. But I think VegiMax is here to spar. ;) Which is fine. We all enjoy discussion. There are vegetarians doing low carb, as well as meat eaters. And we learn to respect each other's choices. :daze: Victoria

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread. It is my view that we all have to find our own path, and tweak our own ways form a variety of influences - and respect everyone else and their choices. For instance, my wife is a vegetarian, and so are most of my children. I do not eat vegetables at all. We respect each other's positions, and I feel the same way about other members here.

I have one snippet to add that has not been mentioned yet, and to show my lack of bias, it rather favours the vegetable-eaters, who hold very different views from mine. A study was done into "primitive" tribes in the third world, to try and discover traces of digestive disorders, such as diverticulitis, constipation, appendicitis, cancer of the colon, and so on. None were found. The tribes in question were consuming carbohydrate levels which, in industrial countries, was associated with exactly these digestive conditions. Further research showed that the difference turned out to be purely the amount of refining which was taking place with the carbs. Flour was rough-ground, and the husks and other outer layers were left in with the flour, thus retaining all the nutrients and vitamins which industrial refining removes, and of course, increasing the amount of fibre. The same was true of other cereal crops, which were winnowed by hand, and coarse-sieved.

The conclusion was that it is not the carbohydrates per se which were causing intestinal and digestive ailments (as well as obesity) in industrial societies, but the degree of refining. If only we could persuade refiners to go back a hundred years in their refining methods, we could all eat far more carbs than is safe for us now, and be much healthier for it. This, I think, may well support some of Vegiemax's earlist arguments.

However, Doreen is also right. The one thing we need more than anything else for healthy brain and central nervous system development is fatty acids. A study which deprived two volunteers of all dietary fat for a week had them frantic for fat, and exhibiting various signs of physical distress.

My final point is this, and it argues against the vegetarian way of life. There are certain vitamins which man needs, that he is not able to synthesise himself. The only way he can obtain them is by consuming organisms that have already manufactured these vitamins and enzyme chains themselves, that is to say animals which provide us with red meat.

Each person makes their own choice. I live with vegetarians, while they live with a carnivore. We accept each other's right to choose, and allow them to live by that decision. There is no harm in bringing new information to the other's attention and debating health implications, provided all parties are prepared to talk and listen with mutual respect in intelligent, respectful debate.

May peace, harmony and happiness be with you all, and may you all find your own effective solution to long-term eating.

Andy

food for thought
 

:q:
Wow! Andy!
Good stuff about processing. I would like to read the studies about that stuff regarding vegetarian diets in third world countries. Can you reference one or two of them? Would be appreciated. My understanding is that grains and milk are thought to be very high in humanly harmful lectins, which are very bad for us in the forms that they exist in those types of foods. It is being studied, even as I write, to get a definitive answer on that one. Because of the harmful lectins, those foods are thought to cause many of the autoimmune disorders present in the world, today, since agriculture became prominent. Those diseases don't show up in the fossil record until the advent of agriculture about 7,000 years ago. This, of course, was before the highly processed foods we have today. Anyway, would love to read that stuff. Always looking for answers.

Hi Captxray,

There is a considerable amount of material I think you would like to see, including the items you mention, which I have written up in a long Word document and I can send to you by e-mail I will be sending you a PM message to arrange this.

Andy

LOL
 

LC Sponge,

That made me snort my decaf coffee (with cream!)!

Thanks for making my day!

Jilly

As an anthropology instructor, I run into the same misconceptions about human evolution as VeggieMax has. While it is completely true that chimpanzees and humans share over 98% identical genetical material, making them our closest living relative, fully anatomically modern humans did not evolve from them or even in the same environment as them. About 5 million years ago, living on the edge of a mixed forest-grassland environment lived a species of primate. Over hundreds of thousands of years, some members of this population moved deeper into the forest, and through many transitional phases, evolved into chimpanzees, perfectly adapted to life in a forest eating fruit and leaves, termites and the occasional monkey. The rest of this ancestral ape population moved farther out onto the savannah, adapting to eat the grasses, roots, shoots and other vegetable matter available on the plains. This was not enough to sustain them or their ever increasing brains and upright posture. So they began to scavenge on the carcasses of animals that were brought down by predators. Through time, these early "transitional" humans, became more and more reliant on the fat and protein obtained through animals. Their big brains lead them to invent tools and with that they began hunting. Fossil evidence and archaeological digs clearly show that humans hunted and ate meat. The seemingly pointless and often dangerous, human appendix is a vestigel organ that probably helped early humans digest the massive quantities of raw meat they consumed (other hypotheses exist). With the innovation of cooking meat, the appendix function has become unnecessary and the energy required for the body to maintain it has been better diverted elsewhere. We are not evolved from chimps, our ancestors were homo neanderthalensis ("cave men"), home erectus, homo habilis, and a slew of australopithecines. All of which lived in an environment that required them to exploit animals as food.

Thank you Speck for that very interesting contribution. Our paths have not crossed before, so let me welcome you very warmly to this Forum. I hope we will be seeing many more posts from you - you clearly have a lot to offer!

Andy

Just to clarify for readers' benefit -- my original argument was not that humans simply need fatty acids. Such need could be met adequately through the consumption of nuts, seeds, oily fruits and other vegetative sources.

My assertion is that humans require two specific fatty acids, DHA and EPA, which are found in nature ONLY in animal sources. While many people are able to convert some vegetable-derived fatty acids to DHA in a rather inefficient but adequate manner, a significant percentage of the human population lack the enzyme necessary to carry out this function. This strongly indicates that humans were designed to acquire nutrition from animal sources, and the ability to convert vegetable fatty acids has developed as a survival adaptation.

Doreen

Do we have to act like chimps as well? I recently watched a documentry where wild chimps murdered another chimps baby and ate it.

In my mind the reason there are no fat chimps in the wild is because they have to expend a lot of energy in the collection of food, no jumping in the car and driving to the corner shop for them, they are out climbing over trees looking for their din dins. I could go out and do that here, but the only trees I got are Gum trees, look what they do to Koalas. I'd not only be fat but drugged too.

Cheryl

Imagine there was a sudden mass extinction and our "closest living ancestor" turned out to be ant-eaters, should we then start eating ants? :p Caveman, who are genetically more similar to us than the chimps, actually ate more meat than we do! Ofcourse, it was in the form of deer and elk and the such, not farm-fed cows and pigs. As for the milk thing, if you're lucky enough to have the "mutant gene(s)" that can tolerate lactose, why pass up enjoying an ice-cream every now and then?

Why the preoccupation with dieting? Isn't it obvious? (oh, pardon me if it's not for someone who's 6'2 and 160lbs) Socially, people who are over-weight (or, nowadays, even just a bit chubby) face very unpleasant discriminations. Moreover, the media gives added pressure, REAL and powerful pressure. Ironically, so do advertisers of food products. We are surrounded by easily accessible (not to mention many processed) food, a very "unnatural" environment. Even dogs and cats could become obesed in this environment. It is actually "natural" for animals (including humans) to give in to temptation and overindulge given a chance (not to mention enough "conditioning trials"). And not everyone can (genetically) "afford" to eat alot and remain at a healthy weight. Most importantly, preoccupation with weight has to do with health issues. I don't need to spell out the adverse effects of being overweight now do I?.....

And by the way, you ARE on a "diet" too, just a different one and at a different stage. You may not be counting anything (calories or carbs or whatever) but it sounds as if (if you're eating like a chimp) you are staying away from certain foods and not eating whatever is out there, no? Well, many here are basically doing the same thing, only a little differently. If you have no trouble or interest in giving in to temptations, and/or if you naturally have a high metabollic rate, and/or if you enjoy exercising, if you've managed to make healthy behaviours automatic then good for you! Congratulations on your accomplishment! The rest of us are only trying to built a healthier life for ourselves too, and "preoccupation" with dieting is usually the starting point. Whether or not you approve of the means, well, that's really none of your business..... :) Take care!

My apologies to Doreen. Strangely enough, what I had in mind when writing that post was "dietary fat from red meat", but I must have been distracted at the point of posting. And just to reinforce the point, the dietary fat the two volunteers were deprived of was the fat that came with red meat.

Andy

I have to admit that when I follow a higher protien eating process like this one, I feel much better about myself, I don't crave sugar, and I have more energy. Trying a vegetarian one just doesn't work for me at all. And I have to admit have a reference to chimps is not a complimentary comparison. HMMMM.
:(

:dazzle:
Note to Speck. Where do you teach? I went to Cal St. Northridge and was a Paleanthropology major back in the late 60s and very early 70s. My undergraduate degree was in Anthropology. I'm very interested in the new stuff that has come down the pike since then. Questions: 1. You say that we evolved from Homo Neandertalensis...really? Back in the "old days" we were of the belief that Homo Sapiens Neandertalensis was a race of Homo Sapiens that died out, or was overtaken by Homo Sapiens Sapiens (us, and what we call, "Cro Magnon Man"). I thought they quit calling old Neanderthal a separate species about thirty five years ago. 2. All of what I was taught said that Australopithecus (most of its' various forms, except one) was a separate division on the scale of evolution and most were not really our ancestors. Although, Homo Habilis was thought to have evolved from one branch of them. I'm trying to remember the species name we called it...Australopithecus pithecus (?). Very interested to read your further posts.

Hey Capt, thank you for pointing that out... I get so used to lumping them all together as relatives/ancestors of ours for simplicities sake, I should have been more clear. There are always differing opinions about which hominid was the direct ancestor of which. The most popular family tree seems to be ardipithecus ramidus -australopithecus anamensis - australopithecus afarensis - australopithecus africanus (with the robusts branching one way and dead ending) - homo habilis - homo erectus - homo ergaster (may or may not be a side branching dead end) - archaic species (like neanderthals, h. antecessor, h. heidelbergensis, etc.) - anatomically modern homo sapiens (first Cro-Magnons then us, more or less). Neanderthals have been pretty much ruled out as a direct ancestor, more of a cousin, but sharing a common ancestor probably with h. erectus, although some still hold to Neanderthals as direct predecessors of amhs, it's less popular.
And to answer your question I teach at a Cal State campus (not Northridge ;) and a very large community college in So. Cal.

afarensis!!! Lucy, Yes! And africanus...
 

:p
Hey Speck! It's all starting to come back to me, now! Thank you! Once a teacher, always a teacher, eh? I'm a teacher, too, up here in Klamath Falls. But, I teach emotionally disturbed adolescents in high school, and then I am a divorce/child custody court mediator and a psychotherapist in the evenings...kind of goes along with primitive Man...don't you think? Anyway, thanks, so much for the update...Thirty years ago we hadn't (at least, I hadn't) heard of ardipithecus ramidus or australopithecus anamensis. Is ramidus what we used to call Ramapithecus? Not sure of the spellings, anymore. Who was anamensis? This is great! An anthropology teacher in our forum! Being as how I am on Neanderthin, I am very interested in the early hunters and gatherers and I'll bet you can answer many questions some of us have in this regard. Looking forward to more of your posts.

Chimps do eat a lot of meat. As well as hunting monkeys they fish for and eat termites and other insects. They also eat roots, vegitables nuts and fruit. They do not eat large amounts of cellulose (leaves) because like us they can't digest it.

What chimps do NOT do is grow wheat, bake bread, eat pizzas and pasta, and crush sugar cane to get out the sucrose and then add it to everything.

I would suggest that the majority of people who use this board eat a diet much more similar to a chimp's one than to a vegitarian's.

I'm a reformed vegitarian myself. I gave it up when I realised I was living a lie. All life is sacred and we all kill to eat. How far removed that life is from humanity is irrelevant. Boiling a cabbage is killing as sure as any animal is killed to eat it. Life and death are all intertwined.

Just my two pence worth.

Robert

Hi Robert,

I agree with you. You make a logical and sensible case, and it certainly has my vote.

Best wishes,

Andy

Robert, I especially appreciate your point that we must consume other life, no matter what we eat.

Absolutely right. It's what's inside that counts. Please read this comparison of the digestive tracts of the sheep, wolf, and human. We are much closer to the wolf than the sheep (but you would only have to watch the news to know that.) ;)

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/ca...comparison.html

BTW, I knew that chimps would eat meat when they could, but I was fascinated recently to watch a nature film of chimps hunting monkeys. A couple of chimps would select hiding places and the other chimps in the group would chase some monkeys into the ambush. Pretty effective, but our ancestors must have been even better, because we are the ones who developed the big brains.