Trying to understand for health reasons, why meat is bad?!
Trying to understand for health reasons, why meat is bad?
I totally agree on the issues about the environment and animal cruelty, but how do studies prove that it is bad for our bodies? Most people believe that when they eat meat with minimal or no fat that it is better for the body, I agree. But what are some other factors why we shouldn't for our health? Don't mean to sound redundant...I know that protein is hard to digest, any other suggestions? If you have other ideas or sites to show why it is unhealthy, please answer, thanks so much!
Answers:
It takes a LONG time to get through (digest) your system, that's not good because it means it's just sitting in there, "rotting", blocking things up, etc.
People say "my grandparents ate meat and they lived to 98 years old", BUT they didn't eat the meat that we're eating. Our meat (animals) take a LOT of drugs, mass produced, exposed to lots of chemcials, etc.
I eat meat, but it's not the "center" of my food. I think a little is fine, a lot or too much focus on meat being the center of everything isn't good.
I have meat that is good for you
MEAT IS GOOD !!!! YAAAA!!!!< TAKE A BITE OUT OF YOUR DOG !!!! BLAAARRRGH !!!!
If the meat has steriods or other chemicals it is bad..if you eat meat in moderation with a balanced diet it is very good for you...the moral aspects aside
It is not unhealthy to eat meat. It is unhealthy to not eat meat. This has been proved by science.
you can get colon cancer for eating too mush meat, the way or teeth are designed we werent meant to eat meat
red meat is bad because it causes some type of heart problems.
you're not supposed to eat the meat everyday! thats why people become so unhealthy. Meat is good, stop picking on meat!!!
All in moderation that is the key. Body needs fat and protein. My grade school teacher was a vegetarian, she died before she was fifty of cancer. If you want to eat meat, eat it, but in moderation, nothing is going to make you so healthy that you wont die and enjoying life I think is more important than struggling to not eat something you like.
i heard that eating meat makes the eater smarter
thats why i'm retarted
Meat, is a poor choice of protien because it will often contain hormones, not to mention the nitrogen. It is more difficult for your body to digest and is a poor source of energy. NEVER commit yourself to an Atkins diet. Your body needs a balanced diet, including carbohydrates and Good fats (such as avacados). Too much meat will make you lathargic and feel as if you have less energy. Follow the food pyramid, but stay away from such carbs as breads but eat firmer carbs as pasta. Eat lots of fruits and vegatibles for their vitamins and dietary fiber.
I was vegetarian for three years, and vegan for one of those years. I completely agree with the ideology of a meat-free diet - the evidence for it is compelling - but in practical use -
health wise I am never healthy on a meat-free diet.
I wish I was, because I know the statistics, "If we fed what we feed to cows that we eat for meat to people -corn, oats, etc. we would have enough food to feed the world many times over." I have always had high blood sugar and suffered unknowingly from it for many years. In addition, I am completely intollerant of whole grains, and milk, both give me gas so bad my co-workers were like - dang you've got to do something about that! But the high blood sugar and lack of protein was just impossible to deal with. I am also aneimic. I think some people can be healthy on a meat-free diet, but some cannot, despite supplementation, natural therapies, and other remedies to try and integrate some of the staples of a vegetarian diet. You have to do what is right for you and your body. And remember too, that even if each American just reduced their meat intake by TEN PERCENT it would create an effect of reducing world hunger (if we could get all those extra grains to hungry people).
Your morals are your own. If you live by then, great.However, expecting or even asking another person to live by your morals is wrong. Let each person live how they see fit so long as they do not harm you.
We are omnivorous by nature and should eat a wide variety of foods including meat, grain, fruit and vegetables. Removing any one class from your diet is not going to improve your health. In general it is going to require you compensate for the nutrients that food group should have provided.
a. less protein than veggie foods (ie beans, tofu, etc)
b. more fat
c. HIGH cholesterol
d. more sat fat than unsat fat (harder to knock off the pounds)
e. more risk of food poisoning
f. higher risk of heart disease
g. causes some types of cancer
h. cows gas destroys the enviorment
Hello (:
By examining the human body externally and internally some scientist have shown that the human body is much more adapted to herbivorous diet, read here to learn why. http://www.tierversuchsgegner.org/gesund...
http://www.dbc.uci.edu/~sustain/global/s...
Think about it no other omnivore or carnivore needs to use tools to kill another animal let alone use tools to help rip a carcase oppen and then cut it in bite sized pieces, what do you think humans ate many years ago before we made tools? Early humans unless they came across a dead animals carcas had no choice but to eat a vegetarian diet. Humans would not even make a good scavengers, our sense of smell is very poor, and eating bacteria filled rotting meat would very likely cause us to become sick as we lack the enzimes in our intestine to handly the bacteria. Does the smell of a dead animal make you hungry? you would probably puke before you got within 10 feet of the carcase. Carnivores and omnivoreson the other hand love the smell of a dead animal and are happy to eat it. Humans have color vision that work great for seeking out colorfull fruit and plants If you were dropped in the middle of a jungle what would you eat to survive (you can't use tools, no other animal needs tools) so what would you eat? You would probably eat a diet very simular to your cousin apes (mostly fruit, some kinds of plants, nuts, seeds, herbs) Yes humans have been eating meat for thousands of years our culture has changed to do so, but it takes millions of years for evolution to occur, eating meat was what got us through tough times like the ice age, but for much of the worlds population eating meat nowadays is unneeded and there are much healthyer choices that will lead to a longer life span and better quality of life and general health . We still commonly suffer unnatural diseases and health problems that other animals who consume the right food for their bodies rarely suffer if at all. Read here for some really great eye opening information...http://www.nealhendrickson.com/mcdougall...
http://www.drmcdougall.com/medical_hotto...
Dr John Mcdougal a doctor who believes in a vegetarian/vegan diet and you could probably get all the information you need on this website alone.
Good luck on your research!
Meat is good in moderation it cannot be the center of your diet and also types of meat are better and others are worse for your health. Red meats are not that good for you. Also eating to much meat can lead to colon cancer just saw something about it on the news. Eating fruit lowers chances of colon cancer. Eating a balanced diet including meat is a good choice for your health so is being a vegetarian.
There are many benefits to a diet containing meat. Many vegetarians claim that meat is unhealthy. This is a blatant fallacy.
It is well established that eating meat improves the quality of nutrition, strengthens the immune system, promotes normal growth and development, is beneficial for day-to-day health, energy and well-being, and helps ensure optimal learning and academic performance.
A long term study found that children who eat more meat are less likely to have deficiencies than those who eat little or no meat. Kids who don’t eat meat ― and especially if they restrict other foods, as many girls are doing ― are more likely to feel tired, apathetic, unable to concentrate, are sick more often, more frequently depressed, and are the most likely to be malnourished and have stunted growth. Meat and other animal-source foods are the building blocks of healthy growth that have made America’s and Europe's youngsters the tallest, strongest and healthiest in the world.
Meat is an important source of quality nutrients, heme iron, protein, zinc and B-complex vitamins. It provides high-quality protein important for kids’ healthy growth and development.
The iron in meat (heme iron) is of high quality and well absorbed by the body, unlike nonheme iron from plants which is not well absorbed. More than 90 percent of iron consumed may be wasted when taken without some heme iron from animal sources. Substances found to inhibit nonheme iron absorption include phytates in cereals, nuts and legumes, and polyphenolics in vegetables. Symptoms of iron deficiency include fatigue, headache, irritability and decreased work performance. For young children, it can lead to impairment in general intelligence, language, motor performance and school readiness. Girls especially need iron after puberty due to blood losses, or if pregnant. Yet studies show 75 percent of teenage girls get less iron than recommended.
Meat, poultry and eggs are also good sources of absorbable zinc, a trace mineral vital for strengthening the immune system and normal growth. Deficiencies link to decreased attention, poorer problem solving and short-term memory, weakened immune system, and the inability to fight infection. While nuts and legumes contain zinc, plant fibre contains phytates that bind it into a nonabsorbable compound.
Found almost exclusively in animal products, Vitamin B12 is necessary for forming new cells. A deficiency can cause anaemia and permanent nerve damage and paralysis. The Vitimin B12 in plants isn't even bioavailable, meaning our body can't use it.
Why not buy food supplements to replace missing vitamins and minerals? Some people believe they can fill those gaps with pills, but they may be fooling themselves. Research consistently shows that real foods in a balanced diet are far superior to trying to make up deficiencies with supplements.
Lets not forget either that protein, while it is found in plants, is better quality in animal products.
Some people claim that meat is unhealthy because it contains saturated fat. So does margarine and olive oil, and they're vegan suitable (in fact the hydrogenated fats in Marge can be very bad, but that's another story). Besides, any excess calories in your diet, any excess sugar, starch or carbohydrates are stored in your body for later use. This is done by turning them into saturated fats.
Cholesterol too. Your body on average creates four to five times more cholesterol than the average person consumes, and compensates by creating more when less is consumed. Cholesterol isn't evil, it is essential; it makes up the waterproof linings of all our cells and without it we would die. Too much can be bad, but as with saturated fats there are more healthy ways of disposing of it, like regular exercise. Anyway, it isn't so much how much cholesterol you eat, but how well yur body handles it. A person who eats loads of dietary cholesterol and leads an unhealthy lifestyle can still have low cholesterol, and vice versa. Most people's bodies are able to take a large amount of cholesterol without getting atherosclerosis. The ability to deal with it normally decreases with age, hence why 80% of heart disease sufferers are over 60, whereas even the teenager who eats nothing but fatty meat is *incredibaly* unlikely to get heart disease, at least until he's a good few decades over. For this reason that eating meat gives you heart disease is very misleading, and for the most part untrue. Of course, if you do have a problem eating loads isn't a good idea, but for most people there is nothing at all to worry about.
Yes, there are things in meat that there is some evidence can cause cancer in some people, but there are as many in plants too. Soy especially has some very potent carcinogens. Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.
Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women. Also they are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.
Soy is bad for numerous other reasons, but that isn't the point, I'm just using it as a quick example relating to cancer not being exclusive to some animal products. The evidence that claims meat does cause cancer is patchy anyway.
Some people also claim that we aren't designed by evolution, to eat meat. They claim that our digestive system is quite long and that we produce amylase, a starch splitting catabolic enzyme, akin to herbivores and unlike carnivores. Apparently this clearly shows that we were designed to eat plants. Such people should go and look up 'omnivore' in a dictionary. They have also been known to cite other reasons we are like herbivores and unlike carnivores: that we suck water instead of lapping it, and that we perspire through our skin, such things have nothing at all to do with whether or not we were designed to eat meat, and nothing to do with how our body handles food. I might as well say that because we, like most carnivores and unlike most herbivores, have eyes that face forwards, we must be carnivorous. Of course, that's not true for precisely the same reason.
The fact is Humans are omnivores, with the ability to eat nearly everything. By preference, prehistoric people ate a high-protein, high-mineral diet based on meat and animal sources, whenever available. Their foods came mainly from three of the five food groups: meat, vegetables and fruits. As a result, big game mammoth hunters were tall and strong with massive bones. They grew six inches taller than their farming descendants in Europe, who ate mostly plant foods, and only in recent times regained most of this height upon again eating more meat, eggs and dairy foods. We are adapted to eat meat, and it is just as natural as eating plants.
Some also claim that the digestion of meat releases harmful byproducts into our system. This is true, however such are our adaptations to eating meat that our bodies are quite able to dispose of said products without any adverse effects.
So, in summary: it isn't healthier to avoid meat. You can be healthy without meat, but likely not as healthy as if you did, assuming you kept things like the wide range of fruit and veg that a veggie diet usually entails. Too much meat can be bad, but normal amounts are no problem at all. Any health benefits that come from a veggie diet come from a wide range of fruit and veg, and being health conscious, as veggies often are; that doesn't require you to not eat meat.
I don't think a vegeterian diet benefits anyone in any way better than a better meat eating diet could at all. If you have no ethical qualms, it's quite pointless. PETA will tell you otherwise, but they have very strong ethical opinions, and mould their 'evidence' around it. There is, for example, some evidence that vegans live longer and are at less risk from cancer and heart disease; however those studies show only a very marginal and insignificant difference and none of those studies have yet managed to identify meat as the only variable. Veggies are less likely to smoke, drink or eat junk food, and eat a wider range of fruit and veg, making the test results inaccurate and unreliable.
@ Laurence
Meat is easier to digest than most plant matter, because it breaks down relatively easily, whereas most plants are made of cellulose, a protein we cannot digest at all.
And yes, it does rot, but rotting, or breaking down, is a huge part of digestion and it has to be broken down to get the nutrients. It's not the same as meat going rancid and disgusting, nor is it unhealthy in any way.
@ Angie
"If we fed what we feed to cows that we eat for meat to people -corn, oats, etc. we would have enough food to feed the world many times over."
Yes, true, but this ognores several points.
Firstly, if youjust ate corn and outs you'd die of malnourishment as you'd hardly get any nutrients.
Secondly, there is already enough food in the world to feed every single person, and then some. Huge amounts of food goes to waste every day, but people starve because they cannot afford to import it, and if we just gave it to them it would undercut their own industries.
@ Veggie girl
a. Meat is much more full of protein than any veggie food, because that's what meat mainly is: protein, as well as water.
b. So, every unused carbohydrate you eat your body turns into fat, which is still an excelent form of energy. Does it matter if the fat is made before or after you eat it, because really it makes no difference.
e. Not really, cooked meat is very safe to eat. Hell, even if you ate raw meat you'd be unlucky if you actually did get food poisoning. It's when meat is undercooked and a few bacteria survive that there's a chance. but most of the time there'll be no problem. I, for instance, eat meat very often, and often parts of it are raw or bloody, even chicken and pork which are the ones you're actually likely to get food poisoning from, and I've never had food poisoning so long as I can remember.
@ Barebackrider
No sensible vegans can contest that we were deigned to eat meat. Even most vegan scientists agree that human's are designed to eat meat, that is not in question.
That we do not have claws, talons, or incisors to hunt proves nothing. When early hominids ate meat they scavenged it, as vultures do, using their fingers to get the sinews and meat other animals couldn't. It was only after that that they began to hunt the meat themselves, and only much later they began to cook it. It is interesting that even now if someone was brought up eating raw meat he would have no problem with it.
The last few million years of human evolution have revolved completely around tools. We used advanced stone tools long before we began to hunt our own meat, and as such there was no need for evolution to bestow us with large claws or teeth to kill prey.
Simple research into human biology reveals how we are meant to eat meat. For one thing, our body produces hydrochloric acid and meat splitting enzymes that herbivores don't produce and are solely used for the digestion of meat. There are adaptations to our teeth (not incisors, rather the size of the jaw), stomach and intestines which have made a human being very adept at meat digestion. There is nothing wrong with the way our body digests meat, and we are so adept at eating it no scientists are of any doubt we've evolved to eat it.
In contrast, there are many reasons we aren't naturally herbivores. We cannot naturally get all the nutrients we need without animal products naturally. Vitamin B12 cannot be got, even now, without animal products or supplements, and a lack of it can cause anaemia and impending death. 60% of vegans even now have some level of B12 deficiency, as opposed to no meat eaters, which says something about how well adapted we are to a vegan diet.
All other nutriets can be got natually. That owes to that vegtables can now be sold all year round, even out of season, and can be flown into the country from all over the world. In bygone times people could only eat the relatively small range of plants that grew in their ecosytem, and only when they were in season. Thus many more nutrients would have been unavailable and still more unavaillable for most of he year. Until very recently it would have been impossible for a vegan human to live naturally without dying very quickly.
Now, meat makes up for all these lost nutrients very nicely, and it really shows how we aren't naturally vegans, as until very recently it was impossible to live like that.