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Meat-Eating vs. Bestiality
- Thread starter Debater Slayer
- Start date
Curious George
Veteran Member
Hmm, it is not a matter of whether you have a problem or not. Not sure of it was you who sent us down this tangent of humans eating animals is unnatural...But either way, it is clearly erroneous. You are mixing your arguments. If you want to talk morals, be my guest. If you want to talk biology be my guest. But don't try to imply it is immoral because eating animals is not biological. It has been clearly demonstrated that humans can eat animals, have benefited from eating animals, and the closest species to humans have done the same.
Curious George
Veteran Member
All? Lol. We can start with homo neanderthaensis and homo erectus.
I cited you earlier a quote that said pig molars were most often mistaken for human molars at archeological sites. So I suppose you can add pigs to the list. Do you count chimps? Idk. Feels like you are reaching here. Either you have a point or you don't. Look through scientific journals. While the terms omnivore, herbivore, etc are not the best. If we are to employ them humans are omnivores. If you want to start noting how classical herbivores can on occasion eat meat...Sure. that doesn't change any sort the general consensus that humans are omnivores, if the term is to be applied.
But more so, that even herbivores are known to eat meat is further evidence of the natural fact that animals, including humans, eat other animals.
Moral arguments are different. Sure we have a choice. And when you are ready to move from this ridiculous stance that humans have not evolved whilst eating other animals such that eating other animals has benefited mankind, then we can discuss questions of whether we ought to continue to eat meat.
Just start making your argument based on morals, not biology.
dawny0826
Mother Heathen
Animals can be terminated quickly and peacefully - without suffering.
I don't partake in activity that results in mistreatment of animals. I'm incredibly conscientious about the well being of the animals in my care and I've no reason to feel guilted or remorseful for my minimal consumption of meat.
Apparently you have a comprehension problem. There is no evidence quoted from the peer-reviewed literature by which anyone concluded that human ancestors began eating "significant quantities" of meat "several million years ago."
Thank you so much for this, Chakra. I had not seen this study, and might not have anytime soon without your link. I love it that we’re on the same page here.
The Hardy et al. study builds on the evidence that it was consumption of cooked food, especially starches, that was responsible for providing the additional calories and glucose required to fuel the rapidly increasing brain size of humans’ Homo ancestors.
The Importance of Dietary Carbohydrate in Human Evolution
Absract
We propose that plant foods containing high quantities of starch were essential for the evolution of the human phenotype during the Pleistocene. Although previous studies have highlighted a stone tool-mediated shift from primarily plant-based to primarily meat-based diets as critical in the development of the brain and other human traits, we argue that digestible carbohydrates were also necessary to accommodate the increased metabolic demands of a growing brain. Furthermore, we acknowledge the adaptive role cooking played in improving the digestibility and palatability of key carbohydrates. We provide evidence that cooked starch, a source of preformed glucose, greatly increased energy availability to human tissues with high glucose demands, such as the brain, red blood cells, and the developing fetus. We also highlight the auxiliary role copy number variation in the salivary amylase genes may have played in increasing the importance of starch in human evolution following the origins of cooking. Salivary amylases are largely ineffective on raw crystalline starch, but cooking substantially increases both their energy-yielding potential and glycemia. Although uncertainties remain regarding the antiquity of cooking and the origins of salivary amylase gene copy number variation, the hypothesis we present makes a testable prediction that these events are correlated.
http://www.chilecrecesano.com/medios/Sabermas/Estudios_cientificos/Carb_importance.pdf
The authors go on to note:
Although the timing of widespread cooking is not known, Wrangham and Conklin- Brittain (2003) argue that it was long enough ago to allow for biological adaptations to take place, including changes in digestive anatomy around 1.8 million years ago, reduction in tooth size, and reduced capacity for digestion of raw, fibrous foods. They further propose that cooked foods were soft enough to be palatable by infants, potentially leading to earlier weaning and shorter interbirth intervals (also see Carmody et al. 2011).
Ancestral Diet
Plants produce a wide range of carbohydrates to serve as energy reserves or for structural functions. Reserve carbohydrates can be deposited in underground storage organs (USOs) such as roots, tubers, and rhizomes, or above ground in seeds, certain fruits and nuts, and in the inner bark of some trees. Starch constitutes up to 80% of the dry weight of edible roots and tubers and, if left undisturbed in the ground, they remain stable and can be harvested as needed over a period of months. USOs can also be dried to increase durability and portability, and have been proposed as important foods for early hominins (Laden and Wrangham 2005). The ability to exploit starch-rich roots and tubers in early hominin diets is considered a potentially crucial step in differentiating early Australopithecines from other hominids and to have permitted expansion into new habitats (Wrangham et al. 1999; Laden and Wrangham 2005). The consumption of USOs could also explain differences in dentition between early hominins and African apes (Laden and Wrangham 2005). USO-rich aquatic habitats such as deltas have been proposed as an intermediate niche in the adaptation of early hominins to savanna habitats, with the need to forage in shallow water promoting bipedality (Wrangham 2005, 2009). O’Connell et al. (1999, 2002) suggest that postmenopausal females played a central role in foraging for USOs and food sharing, which directly enabled younger female relatives to reproduce more frequently. They further proposed that meat formed an irregular component of the diet and that hunting by early hominins may have been as much to do with status as nutrition, something that has also been proposed for chimpanzees (Nishida et al. 1992; Stanford 1998). Although meat may have been a preferred food, the energy expenditure required to obtain it may have been far greater than that used for collecting tubers from a reliable source (Carmody et al. 2011).
Many other lines of evidence support consumption of starchy USOs by early hominins. Correlation of evidence for C4 plants in the diet of Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, and specific-use wear traces on teeth are proposed to be indicative of consumption of sedge corms (Dominy et al. 2008; Ungar and Sponheimer 2011; Grine et al. 2012; Ungar et al. 2012). A C4 signal identified in the tooth enamel of a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus bahrelghazali from Chad has been interpreted as evidence for exploitation of Cyperaceae sedge tubers (Lee-Thorp et al. 2012). Evidence of abundant suids in many African hominin sites has been taken to suggest that USOs, the predominant food source for these animals, were plentiful (Reed and Rector 2007). The presence of palms in the Olduvai Gorge region date from around 1.8 mya (Albert et al. 2009); palms often have abundant edible starch in their trunks, and some species also produce dates. The roots of lilies (Liliaceae), rushes (Juncaceae), and sedges (Cyperaceae) have also been identified at Olduvai Gorge from a horizon dated to between 1.89 and 1.75 million years ago (Bamford et al. 2008). Edible USOs from these monocotyledons, along with grasses (Poaceae) identified at the same sites, offer evidence for the abundance of edible starch at a time that hominins were present.
Ancestral Diet
Plants produce a wide range of carbohydrates to serve as energy reserves or for structural functions. Reserve carbohydrates can be deposited in underground storage organs (USOs) such as roots, tubers, and rhizomes, or above ground in seeds, certain fruits and nuts, and in the inner bark of some trees. Starch constitutes up to 80% of the dry weight of edible roots and tubers and, if left undisturbed in the ground, they remain stable and can be harvested as needed over a period of months. USOs can also be dried to increase durability and portability, and have been proposed as important foods for early hominins (Laden and Wrangham 2005). The ability to exploit starch-rich roots and tubers in early hominin diets is considered a potentially crucial step in differentiating early Australopithecines from other hominids and to have permitted expansion into new habitats (Wrangham et al. 1999; Laden and Wrangham 2005). The consumption of USOs could also explain differences in dentition between early hominins and African apes (Laden and Wrangham 2005). USO-rich aquatic habitats such as deltas have been proposed as an intermediate niche in the adaptation of early hominins to savanna habitats, with the need to forage in shallow water promoting bipedality (Wrangham 2005, 2009). O’Connell et al. (1999, 2002) suggest that postmenopausal females played a central role in foraging for USOs and food sharing, which directly enabled younger female relatives to reproduce more frequently. They further proposed that meat formed an irregular component of the diet and that hunting by early hominins may have been as much to do with status as nutrition, something that has also been proposed for chimpanzees (Nishida et al. 1992; Stanford 1998). Although meat may have been a preferred food, the energy expenditure required to obtain it may have been far greater than that used for collecting tubers from a reliable source (Carmody et al. 2011).
Many other lines of evidence support consumption of starchy USOs by early hominins. Correlation of evidence for C4 plants in the diet of Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, and specific-use wear traces on teeth are proposed to be indicative of consumption of sedge corms (Dominy et al. 2008; Ungar and Sponheimer 2011; Grine et al. 2012; Ungar et al. 2012). A C4 signal identified in the tooth enamel of a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus bahrelghazali from Chad has been interpreted as evidence for exploitation of Cyperaceae sedge tubers (Lee-Thorp et al. 2012). Evidence of abundant suids in many African hominin sites has been taken to suggest that USOs, the predominant food source for these animals, were plentiful (Reed and Rector 2007). The presence of palms in the Olduvai Gorge region date from around 1.8 mya (Albert et al. 2009); palms often have abundant edible starch in their trunks, and some species also produce dates. The roots of lilies (Liliaceae), rushes (Juncaceae), and sedges (Cyperaceae) have also been identified at Olduvai Gorge from a horizon dated to between 1.89 and 1.75 million years ago (Bamford et al. 2008). Edible USOs from these monocotyledons, along with grasses (Poaceae) identified at the same sites, offer evidence for the abundance of edible starch at a time that hominins were present.
http://www.chilecrecesano.com/medios/Sabermas/Estudios_cientificos/Carb_importance.pdf
(Continuing in next . . . )
Hardy et al. cite the important recent work of Suzana Herculano-Houzel on primate brain scaling and number of neurons. In a series of studies, she and Karina Fonseca-Azevedo show brain growth among Homo erectus could only have been achieved by way of the increased calories and glucose obtained from a cooked diet:
Metabolic constraint imposes tradeoff between body size and number of brain neurons in human evolution
Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3494886/
It only makes sense that the “major driving force to the rapid increase in brain size in human evolution” was the shift to a cooked diet, not meat-eating as speculated by some--if meat-eating were the factor that leads to brain development, then it would be carnivores, not humans, with the neuron-rich brains. Humans are not biologically adapted to meet their daily energy requirements by eating other animals; carnivores are. See Milton and Zucoloto below. Humans are not biologically adapted to catch and kill other animals of any significant size without great expenditures of energy. What distinguishes early Homo from all other animals is not eating meat but cooking food.
The following is from Herculano-Houzel’s 2012 study published in June prior to the November 2012 publication:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3386878/
In a letter published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2000, Katharine Milton pointed out:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/72/6/1590.full
Zucoloto’s 2011 review in Psychology and Neuroscience provides further details:
Evolution of the human feeding behavior
The human species is not adapted to the consumption of large amounts of animal (i.e., protein-rich) feeding sources to meet their energy needs because serious renal and hepatic problems can occur from high neoglucogenesis. Proteins are formed by amino acids that have, as their basic structure, the chemical elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, with some exceptions, such as the insect chitin. To liberate energy, the organism uses carbohydrates and lipids. If they lack these substances, then they use amino acids. To utilize amino acids as an energy source, the organism must remove nitrogen through a process known as deamination. Thus, an amino acid molecule without nitrogen atoms can be metabolized or transformed into glucose and metabolize. In the human species, this metabolic process, known as neoglucogenesis, occurs in the liver, and the excess nitrogen must be excreted. This causes a work overload, which can seriously affect the liver and kidneys (Sackheim & Lehman, 2001).
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pne/4/1/131.html
In Milton’s 1999 paper, after noting the variety of ways that humans are biologically distinguished from carnivores, she discusses some of the known detrimental effects of high-protein diets on non-carnivores. Ultimately she points out that “adult humans apparently cannot catabolize sufficient protein to meet more than 50% of the daily energetic requirements.”
Metabolic constraint imposes tradeoff between body size and number of brain neurons in human evolution
Abstract
Despite a general trend for larger mammals to have larger brains, humans are the primates with the largest brain and number of neurons, but not the largest body mass. Why are great apes, the largest primates, not also those endowed with the largest brains? Recently, we showed that the energetic cost of the brain is a linear function of its numbers of neurons. Here we show that metabolic limitations that result from the number of hours available for feeding and the low caloric yield of raw foods impose a tradeoff between body size and number of brain neurons, which explains the small brain size of great apes compared with their large body size. This limitation was probably overcome in Homo erectus with the shift to a cooked diet. Absent the requirement to spend most available hours of the day feeding, the combination of newly freed time and a large number of brain neurons affordable on a cooked diet may thus have been a major positive driving force to the rapid increased in brain size in human evolution.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3494886/
It only makes sense that the “major driving force to the rapid increase in brain size in human evolution” was the shift to a cooked diet, not meat-eating as speculated by some--if meat-eating were the factor that leads to brain development, then it would be carnivores, not humans, with the neuron-rich brains. Humans are not biologically adapted to meet their daily energy requirements by eating other animals; carnivores are. See Milton and Zucoloto below. Humans are not biologically adapted to catch and kill other animals of any significant size without great expenditures of energy. What distinguishes early Homo from all other animals is not eating meat but cooking food.
The following is from Herculano-Houzel’s 2012 study published in June prior to the November 2012 publication:
It can thus be seen how any increase in total numbers of neurons in the evolution of hominins and great apes would have taxed survival in a limiting, if not prohibitive, way, given that it probably would have to occur in a context of already limiting feeding hours: The added 60 billion brain neurons from an orangutan-sized hominin ancestor to modern Homo require an additional 360 kcal/d, which is probably not readily available to great apes on their diet.
It has been proposed that the advent of the ability to control fire to cook foods, which increases enormously the energy yield of foods and the speed with which they are consumed (92, 93), may have been a crucial step in allowing the near doubling of numbers of brain neurons that is estimated to have occurred between H. erectus and H. sapiens (94). The evolution of the human brain, with its high metabolic cost imposed by its large number of neurons, may thus only have been possible because of the use of fire to cook foods, enabling individuals to ingest in very little time the entire caloric requirement for the day, and thereby freeing time to use the added neurons to their competitive advantage.
It has been proposed that the advent of the ability to control fire to cook foods, which increases enormously the energy yield of foods and the speed with which they are consumed (92, 93), may have been a crucial step in allowing the near doubling of numbers of brain neurons that is estimated to have occurred between H. erectus and H. sapiens (94). The evolution of the human brain, with its high metabolic cost imposed by its large number of neurons, may thus only have been possible because of the use of fire to cook foods, enabling individuals to ingest in very little time the entire caloric requirement for the day, and thereby freeing time to use the added neurons to their competitive advantage.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3386878/
In a letter published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2000, Katharine Milton pointed out:
The technologic abilities of humans derive from their unusually large, complex brain, a brain that, under normal conditions, is fueled by a steady supply of glucose. Consumption of digestible carbohydrate is the most efficient way for humans to obtain glucose for brain function. Potential alternatives--gluconeogenesis or the use of ketones to fuel the brain--represent alternative, more costly metabolic solutions.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/72/6/1590.full
Zucoloto’s 2011 review in Psychology and Neuroscience provides further details:
Evolution of the human feeding behavior
The human species is not adapted to the consumption of large amounts of animal (i.e., protein-rich) feeding sources to meet their energy needs because serious renal and hepatic problems can occur from high neoglucogenesis. Proteins are formed by amino acids that have, as their basic structure, the chemical elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, with some exceptions, such as the insect chitin. To liberate energy, the organism uses carbohydrates and lipids. If they lack these substances, then they use amino acids. To utilize amino acids as an energy source, the organism must remove nitrogen through a process known as deamination. Thus, an amino acid molecule without nitrogen atoms can be metabolized or transformed into glucose and metabolize. In the human species, this metabolic process, known as neoglucogenesis, occurs in the liver, and the excess nitrogen must be excreted. This causes a work overload, which can seriously affect the liver and kidneys (Sackheim & Lehman, 2001).
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pne/4/1/131.html
In Milton’s 1999 paper, after noting the variety of ways that humans are biologically distinguished from carnivores, she discusses some of the known detrimental effects of high-protein diets on non-carnivores. Ultimately she points out that “adult humans apparently cannot catabolize sufficient protein to meet more than 50% of the daily energetic requirements.”
So apparently you are unable to either morally or rationally justify humans raising, killing and eating animals to eat or fishing the oceans dry. (I already knew that you can't justify human meat-eating.)
So it's only Homo who has omnivore teeth?
What exactly is the characteristic of human teeth that identifies humans as omnivores? When someone looks at humans' teeth, what is it that causes them to say, "Oh, that's an omnivore"?
How do you kill animals without causing them to suffer?
How do you keep animals on factory farms without causing them to suffer?
So you just pay someone else to cause animals to suffer at the factory farm and slaughterhouse.
Well, I'm done talking to someone who refuses to accept valid citations, ridicules cited evidence, and simply repeats the same argument ad infinitum without citing evidence (yes, I looked at what you just quoted extensively, from someone else's post...).
Have a nice life. I'll not be responding to you any more, since you are not interested in actually learning anything from other, or providing evidence to support your own position.
Curious George
Veteran Member
Lol, I did not say such a thing. Rather, I feel the need for you to clearly get ta grasp on this biological understanding.
Curious George
Veteran Member
I would imagine that teeth are just one facet of many in such classification.
dawny0826
Mother Heathen
A cow, in example, is typically put down with a bolt gun. Death is usually instantaneous. If death isn't instantaneous - the animal is instantaneously rendered unconscious and would not feel a subsequent bolt.
Not all "factory" farms yield inhumane conditions. And yes, I pay for meat. Your emotional objection to this is moot with me.
Ever seen a slaughterhouse video? 95% of all farms in America are like that. If you think that the meat industry runs on happy animals that lead happy lives and are slaughtered "humanely" (which btw, does not exist), then you should do more research. This isn't a call to emotional manipulation, but a call to rational thinking.
Obviously you haven't provided a single "valid" citation that substantiates your claim that the peer-reviewed literature provides evidence that human ancestors consumed "significant quantities" of meat "several million years ago". If you were to read the peer-reviewed literature on the topic you would presumably eventually recognize that that claim is as ignorant as your claim about humans having evolved to "have" a diet of 30-60% animal protein and fat (even though such a diet is not healthy for humans).
Why don't you articulate a biological fact that relates to the topic here, or that substantiates your claims such as about humans' "omnivore teeth"? Obviously you cannot identify any trait about human teeth that classifies humans as omnivores.
So you would have no problem with someone doing such painless stuff to, say, your child?
Thanda
Well-Known Member
Consent is an interesting thing.
I don't think consent is the reason we are against bestiality. We simply believe it is wrong. And laws ultimately come down to what people believe, not to what is objectively true.
For example in some countries the minimum age for marriage is 12, others 18.
I don't think consent is the reason we are against bestiality. We simply believe it is wrong. And laws ultimately come down to what people believe, not to what is objectively true.
For example in some countries the minimum age for marriage is 12, others 18.
Curious George
Veteran Member
Lol. Nope. We eat meat. Have for quite some time. It is a settled fact that we are omnivores, if the term is to be used at all.