Should you feel guilty for eating meat?

[Vivi22]

The average American gets 200% of their daily allotment of protein.

Most of this comes from meat.

The research on meat heavy diets- especially the lower quality meats that tend to creep up most often because of their lower price points- is pretty much open and shut. What's more, the most prized meats are valued for their marbling- which is to say their fat content.

200% of the bare minimum is still not a whole lot. And while I agree that quality may be an issue (ie: grass fed beef is preferable to grain fed), it's not nearly as problematic as the general public believes. Again, the research on diets heavy in meat isn't open and shut unless you only look at poorly designed and controlled observational studies, and even then, I've yet to see a meta-analysis of the observational studies out there which showed anything resembling a consistent and reproducible result from them. And once you start looking beyond those into clinical and intervention studies where the variables are much more strictly controlled and tracked, the old lipid hypothesis (which your bringing in fat content tells me you subscribe to) which tells us that meat is making everyone fat and sick completely falls apart.

In fact, despite eating less meat than the population did 50-100 years ago, obesity and heart disease rates continue to rise.

Then I guess you must know better than the "supposed experts" at USDA

The USDA is a political organization first and foremost. And like Health Canada and any other government organization which has purported to be an expert on human diet, they've been more than willing over the decades to bend either to the will of lobbyists, or whatever politicians are running the show at the time. Several decades ago, despite many of the best scientists at the time telling George McGovern and his committee on the subject that though they weren't sure what was causing heart disease, it probably wasn't fat, he ignored them and recommended low fat diets because he couldn't see how anything but eating fat could clog arteries with fat. It's worth pointing out that he wasn't a scientist but a politician with no expertise in the matter. His subsequent report on dietary guidelines was also drafted by an assistant who was a vegetarian.

because according to both USDA and the ADA, vegitariens are at lower risk of developing; "Heart disease, Colorectal, ovarian, and breast cancers, Diabetes, Obesity abd Hypertension", and they live longer and healthier lives than their fellow meat eaters.

When you say ADA are we referring to the American Dietetic Association or the American Diabetes Association? Not that it much matters since both make recommendations fairly in line with each other, and both are quite ignorant of reality.

First, heart disease isn't caused by eating meat. The best current indicator of heart disease risk is the level of small LDL cholesterol particles in the blood. Note that there is more than one kind of LDL so I am not saying all LDL cholesterol is bad. The larger particles are actually very good to have in the blood stream. But the smaller kind are the ones that invade the walls of damaged blood vessels and cause arteries to narrow. Except these particles aren't ingested through food intake. The body produces them on its own through a process called glycation when blood sugar is frequently and repeatedly elevated. This doesn't happen as a result of eating meat, but rather an over consumption of carbs, particularly carbs like sugar and wheat which have the largest impact on blood sugar. These diets are also made worse by the fact that they promote inflammation which damages the artery walls in the first place. Low carb diets with plenty of meat and fat have actually shown to improve levels of small LDL particles, and to not produce the inflammatory effects that those other carbs do.

On the topic of cancer, I've yet to see anything other than an observational study show a link. Observational studies can't be used to show cause and effect by design (not that that stops these organizations from using them as proof of their claims), and none that I've seen have shown more than a miniscule change in the absolute cancer rates (though they try to make the risk seem larger by throwing out numbers like "200% increase in cancer risk" even though a 200% increase from next to nothing is still next to nothing) and these studies tend to have such strange groupings of food in different categories and other confounding variables as to make them absolutely useless for anything more than developing a hypothesis for further and more detailed testing. To use them as the basis for dietary advice is not only disingenuous but outright unprofessional.

Claims of avoiding meat reducing risk of obesity and diabetes are perhaps the most laughable of all to anyone who understands even at the most basic of levels how the body stores fat and how the pancreas is damaged causing type 2 diabetes. The hormone most directly responsible for fat storage is insulin produced as needed by the pancreas. When blood sugar increases, insulin sends signals to the muscle tissue to burn it for fuel. The trouble is that muscle tissue can only burn it so quickly. When the glucose spike is too much for muscle tissue to efficiently handle, insulin will also trigger the storage of glucose in fat cells. The issue comes, once again, when blood glucose is frequently and repeatedly spiked (such as when someone consumes a lot of sugary soda or grains). Again, muscle tissue can only burn glucose so quickly, but if it's spiked to an extremely high level, it has to be dealt with sooner rather than later as high blood sugar is generally quite bad for us (ie: it could kill you). In these cases, the body has to store much of it to get it out of the blood stream, and the pancreas has to produce more insulin to deal with the spike. It gets worse though because in the long run if this continues, many people will have their muscle tissue become insulin resistant, requiring ever larger amounts of insulin to get it to burn the same amount of glucose, meaning more gets stored as fat. And in the long run, this constant strain on the pancreas to produce more and more insulin is what causes permanent damage and eventually type 2 diabetes.

So sorry, but not eating meat isn't going to reduce your risk of heart disease, obesity, or diabetes. But if you pass on the sugary drinks and cereal for breakfast you'll be off to a great start.

And this is simply because they eat less than meat than we do.

I disagree. I'd argue that many of the people who eat a vegetarian diet go that route for health reasons. By the same token, they likely stop drinking soda and eating a lot of sugar, while eating more fruit and vegetables instead of the large quantities of grains that the average person eats, in part due to their need to supplement for missing protein and fats from other sources. It's more likely that they simply have their blood sugar more under control than someone who regularly gets a sugary soda to go along with that bread filled burger and super sized fries (with lot's of starch which is also bad for blood sugar) they bought for lunch at McDonald's. It's not so much that meat is bad for you. Just that meat has been demonized for so long that many of the people who still eat it also happen to not give a shit and eat other things which are actually bad for them.

So no, it seems like we don't need more meat to stay healthy. If anything we need to eat less meat and consume more vegetarian alternatives.

I'll be sure to tell my immune system which requires saturated fat to function optimally and my brain which is mostly made of saturated fat that they don't need meat and the fat that comes with it. Never mind the fact that I literally suffer from depression if I eat a low fat diet (an effect which is very real and reproducible), or that I'm not alone on that one. I've spoken with a number of people who used to be vegetarians, suffered from depression, then saw their symptoms disappear when they changed their diet and included more animal fats.

We evolved to eat meat and dietary fat, including saturated fat. A lot more than most people actually eat now. Instead we've replaced these foods which we adapted over literal millenia to eat with an amount of carbohydrates which wasn't available to humans in most parts of the world until a few thousand years ago, and even more so now. It's no surprise that when we started eating diets completely foreign to us that we started having problems.

 

[Ledan]

There is nothing inherently wrong with killing other animals for sustenance. We are omnivores, so we require a varied diet. I don't feel bad for eating meat because it's a natural part of life. I am against unnecessary pain or violence against animals, especially when you have better technology that can limit the pain of animals even further.

 

[Xisin]

Anyway to cut the long story short, I'm very confused if eating meat/seafood is justified and that we shouldn't feel guilty for killing living things for our consumption.

I always found guilt over this to be laughable. Just because lettuce can't scream doesn't make it any less alive. Almost everything that can be digested by a human is alive, so unless you wish to starve there is no point in feeling guilt over what you eat.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Thats a decision you have to make... Personally, I get immense pleasure and sustenance out of eating meat. I love it, and I will always do it. In fact, its as natural for me as breathing.

 

[Steinar Valsson]

Meat is foor and food is good...
Plants are alive, they might not think or be concious, but then again, I've never seen an intellectual chicken.

As long as the species is not an endangered one or killed in any sadistic way, I don't mind.

Humans are omnivores and I don't like to disappoint evolution.

(Sharks don't cry over humans they eat and I don't cry over the shark I eat! Although they taste really bad.)

 

[KiKiweaky]

People are supposed to eat meat, it tastes good for a reason your body is hardwired to like it.

We are? My body must have jumped out of the human making machine too early or something because meat tastes pretty stupidly bad to me, to be honest.

Fair enough to the rest of your point, though, and have a good day.

Well theres always an exception to every rule, I know somebody that doesnt like water because she can drink tea instead.

I can guarantee though if you could only eat meat to sustain yourself you wouldnt really care what it tasted like if your choice was either eat meat or starve to death. The same goes for the girl I'm talking about, all the talk about not liking water would disapear if she started to suffer from dehydration.

Btw can I ask you, what dont you like about it? Just the taste or is it a combination of the idea that your eating another animal that was raised to be slaughterred when it got big enough or what?

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I know right. What an absurd thing to suggest. Only that this is exactly what we're already doing. So we consume 9 billion animals per year for food. Just keep up the pace we're going and those cows will be gone in a matter of months.

Then we can start to face out the meat industry over time. With other words, the problem you suggested would never at any point we a problem.

Yes you're right, genocide is really so much more humane.

I'm confused about your agenda. If its save the animals, then killing them is retarded. If it's to feed the people, there is already more than enough food being produced, and even more could be produced with farm subsidies removed. Starvation in other countries is either unwillingness to move food supplies or insufficient infrastructure; neither of which are solved by ruining the meat industry.

 

[Sandjube]

People are supposed to eat meat, it tastes good for a reason your body is hardwired to like it.

We are? My body must have jumped out of the human making machine too early or something because meat tastes pretty stupidly bad to me, to be honest.

Fair enough to the rest of your point, though, and have a good day.

Well theres always an exception to every rule, I know somebody that doesnt like water because she can drink tea instead.

I can guarantee though if you could only eat meat to sustain yourself you wouldnt really care what it tasted like if your choice was either eat meat or starve to death. The same goes for the girl I'm talking about, all the talk about not liking water would disapear if she started to suffer from dehydration.

Btw can I ask you, what dont you like about it? Just the taste or is it a combination of the idea that your eating another animal that was raised to be slaughterred when it got big enough or what?

It's really mostly the taste. Like I love tuna, and a few other seafoody things, but just like chicken and especially red meat I have never liked. I always quipped at the table when I was younger that when I grew up I'd be a veggie, so most of my family wasn't surprised when I just up and stopped eating most meat. I mean yes, a part of me also doesn't like the whole animals dying thing, but since I eat some fish, that's somewhat hypocritical of me, but eh.

So yeah, my diet consists of mostly vegetables and every 2 weeks or so maybe some fish with it, or like if we go out and I can't find anything else on the menu I might get some calamari or whatever. But as you say, if I had to eat meat to survive, I obviously would, but If I can avoid eating something I dislike in favor of things I DO like the choice is pretty clear to me.

 

[TomWiley]

I know right. What an absurd thing to suggest. Only that this is exactly what we're already doing. So we consume 9 billion animals per year for food. Just keep up the pace we're going and those cows will be gone in a matter of months.

Then we can start to face out the meat industry over time. With other words, the problem you suggested would never at any point we a problem.

Yes you're right, genocide is really so much more humane.

I'm confused about your agenda. If its save the animals, then killing them is retarded. If it's to feed the people, there is already more than enough food being produced, and even more could be produced with farm subsidies removed. Starvation in other countries is either unwillingness to move food supplies or insufficient infrastructure; neither of which are solved by ruining the meat industry.

No, simply what I'm saying is that it won't be a question of "genocide" to begin with. It'd be a matter of facing out the meat industry, simply breeding less livestock each year. And even if it was, the argument still wouldn't make sense seeing as, as mentioned, we are already slaughtering them in preposterously large numbers.

And I'm not saying that by getting rid of the entire meat industry, we would automatically solve world hunger. I'm just saying that it's a huge waste of resources, which it undoubtedly is.

 

[TomWiley]

At this point, I'm not really sure what you're trying to prove. Are you questioning my sources or my interpretation of them? Because I doubt you're in position to do the former, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be right about the latter either.

Either case, I'm happy to see someone at least taking the time to read the entirety of my comments before replying! I guess I'm forced to do the same now..

The USDA is a political organization first and foremost. And like Health Canada and any other government organization which has purported to be an expert on human diet, they've been more than willing over the decades to bend either to the will of lobbyists, or whatever politicians are running the show at the time. Several decades ago, despite many of the best scientists at the time telling George McGovern and his committee on the subject that though they weren't sure what was causing heart disease, it probably wasn't fat, he ignored them and recommended low fat diets because he couldn't see how anything but eating fat could clog arteries with fat. It's worth pointing out that he wasn't a scientist but a politician with no expertise in the matter. His subsequent report on dietary guidelines was also drafted by an assistant who was a vegetarian.

Okay, so I have three problems with your reasoning here. Firstly, I think i'd be hard to find a government organization that has not at any point been accused of bending to the will of their contemporary political administration. It doesn't have to mean that their experts aren't trustworthy. Secondly, just about any research organisation or body can be accused of political bias or partisanship, so whatever source I can give you to support my claims, you can just ignore them saying that they aren't trustworthy. And of course, it would just end up being your word against mine, and we wouldn't get anywhere.

And thirdly, you mentioned George McGovern as an example of how these experts cannot be trusted. However, this is just an example of the unprofessional behavior displayed by one researcher, several decades ago. It doesn't have to mean anything! If you wanted to prove that "experts" aren't always right, well congratulations. But nobody is trying to dispute that. I'm just saying that when the consensus amongst several experts from several different highly regarded research groups supports a claim, it's pretty likely to mean that claim is true.

And lastly, do you really think that, lets say the ADA or USDA, are in bed with the vegetarian community? I think you greatly overestimate the political influence of vegetarians! I find it hard to believe that some vegetarian lobbyists have managed to infiltrate each one of these government organizations and corrupted their research to support their vegetarian agenda. Because that's essentially what you're suggesting.

When you say ADA are we referring to the American Dietetic Association or the American Diabetes Association? Not that it much matters since both make recommendations fairly in line with each other, and both are quite ignorant of reality.

Yes, that would be the American Dietetic Association. I guess I just made the mistake of assuming that they know more than you do.

The best current indicator of heart disease risk is the level of small LDL cholesterol particles in the blood. Note that there is more than one kind of LDL so I am not saying all LDL cholesterol is bad. The larger particles are actually very good to have in the blood stream. But the smaller kind are the ones that invade the walls of damaged blood vessels and cause arteries to narrow. Except these particles aren't ingested through food intake. The body produces them on its own through a process called glycation when blood sugar is frequently and repeatedly elevated. This doesn't happen as a result of eating meat, but rather an over consumption of carbs, particularly carbs like sugar and wheat which have the largest impact on blood sugar. These diets are also made worse by the fact that they promote inflammation which damages the artery walls in the first place. Low carb diets with plenty of meat and fat have actually shown to improve levels of small LDL particles, and to not produce the inflammatory effects that those other carbs do.

Yes, we can all read a wikipedia article. And you're right to say that low density lipoprotein is relevant when we discuss the risk of heart decease. However, you'd be wrong to say it's the only possible cause of heart decease. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on this subject, simply because that would be terribly dishonest of me. However, that doesn't change the fact that I have on summary from Brown University, questing research from ADA amongst others, and one article from New York Times quoting research from the American Medical Association, along with some other seemingly trustworthy sources I found in about 2 minutes of Googling, that more or less disagree with you.

The consensus seems to be that the intake of red meat is directly linked to the risk of developing both cardiovascular death and death by cancer, so much so that: each daily increase of three ounces of red meat is associated with a 12 percent greater risk of dying over all, including a 16 percent greater risk of cardiovascular death and a 10 percent greater risk of cancer death. Furthermore, according to some research from Harvard Medical School(in their study of more than 120,000 people!), the risk of processed meat when it comes to cancer and heart decease are even greater: "20 percent over all, 21 percent for cardiovascular disease and 16 percent for cancer.". Now these are not some few, hand-picked unreliable studies. Data collected from 30 years of research on the health risk associated with red meat all supports the same, more or less irrefutable, conclusion, which is also supported by the World Cancer Research Fund, and good look of accusing them of being politically subjective. In fact, the studies are so numerous, you can read summaries of most of them in this wiki-article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_meat.

You could probably lower these risks by trying to eat a lot of fish instead, but that doesn't change the fact that you're wrong when you say that meat isn't associated with cancer or heart decease. You also say that the link between eating meat and diabetes and obesity is laughable. Now this statement is in risk of being hilariously ironic because I read here in an article from Brown University that a high meat intake may very well lead to increased risk of diabetes, obesity. And the NCBI agrees.

And yes, I personally think that it sounds reasonable that having a few extra stakes is more likely to increase your risk of obesity than some more salad, or beans or fruit or whatever it is that vegetarianism have to eat instead of meat.

I guess you can sorta see my predicament. I'm asking you know, if you were in my position, who would you trust to tell the truth, you or the sources above? And who is repeating completely irrelevant research in an attempt to sound trustworthy?

I disagree. I'd argue that many of the people who eat a vegetarian diet go that route for health reasons. By the same token, they likely stop drinking soda and eating a lot of sugar, while eating more fruit and vegetables instead of the large quantities of grains that the average person eats, in part due to their need to supplement for missing protein and fats from other sources. It's more likely that they simply have their blood sugar more under control than someone who regularly gets a sugary soda to go along with that bread filled burger and super sized fries (with lot's of starch which is also bad for blood sugar) they bought for lunch at McDonald's. It's not so much that meat is bad for you. Just that meat has been demonized for so long that many of the people who still eat it also happen to not give a shit and eat other things which are actually bad for them.

I disagree with your disagreement. It's true that many decide to go vegetarian for health reasons, like for example to lower the risk of heart decease and cancer as we've already established, just like many are vegetarian for religious reasons, or reasons concerning animal ethics or the environmental impact of the meat industry. However, I DON'T think that all vegetarians collectively decided to start eating extra healthy just to prove us meat eaters a point.

I think the reason why vegans and vegetarians live longer and healthier lives is because they eat no meat at all. As we've already established, consuming too much meat is never a good thing for neither your body or your life expectancy. And also, and perhaps more importantly, as vegans and vegetarian eat less meat, they are forced to eat alternatives to meat to consume all necessary nutrient. Most of these alternatives are likely to be more healthy than meat. Vegetarians often eat more fruit, salad, beans and have a more varied diet. They have to.
And with that comes better health.

In fact, I think that if more or us started eating less meat and look for more vegetarian alternatives, I think we'd all be a lot healthier. Don't you?

So anyway, we've established that vegetarian are not prone to unhealthy lifestyles which many people seem to think, and that they in fact seem to live longer than us meat eaters. So where is the problem? At this point, it feels like we're just nitpicking facts and points, often going so far as to state things that have been directly disproved, just to find anything to criticize the vegetarian and vegan community for. Why does it have to be like that? I mean, they are hardly that annoying, are they?

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I'm just saying that it's a huge waste of resources, which it undoubtedly is.

No it isn't. People enjoy different things. You could use the same logic to say that art is a huge waste of resources.

 

[Kuroneko97]

If apples screamed in pain every time I started slicing their skin, I might feel a little bad. But then I'd forget about it when their screams died away, and I'd eat that fucking apple.

Hey, it's the apple's fault. He couldn't run away fast enough.

Not sure how to interpret what you went for there.

We have apple trees, as in we own them. We didn't put them there, the old folks say some students rented a room some thirty or fourty years back, and they had the bad, bad habit of spitting out the seeds in the back yard. So we got apple trees now.

I think it's wonderful to see apple trees just outside your home when you wake up and manage to catch the sunrise moment, with the light coming through the branches and leaves.

We free the trees from strangling, parasitic vines. We help them when insects of all sorts give them a hard time. We would be willing to help them if some other lowly critters or things were to try to infest them and do them harm. Right now, I'm looking at one of those trees, and it's only a month or two now before those apples turn golden and red and sweet. All in all, we spend an average ten hours working on/for those trees. We get free apples in return. I like that. And I like to have the children understand that throwing stuff away in nature is only OK when it's bits of nature, such as seeds or minimal amounts of waste. No plastic, no metal, no painted stuff. They seem to understand that very easily, as they really like apples.

We always leave some fruit to rot on the ground, as the ground seems to like it, and the wasps really go for it, leaving us mostly alone in return.

It's not about running away. Some of the animals that are to be hunted as long as they keep breeding merrily as they do are really, really quick and we wouldn't stand much of a chance in a hand-to-hooves/teeth combat. We have big brains to enable us to solve problems, not keep coming up with new ones.

Not sure if the joke went over your head, or you're trying to add on to my original joke.

 

[the December King]

I've seen what animals do to each other and to humans when they get the chance.

So no, not in the least bit guilty.

Really? To me, it seems we do way worse things to animals, and each other.

 

[Ryotknife]

I've seen what animals do to each other and to humans when they get the chance.

So no, not in the least bit guilty.

Really? To me, it seems we do way worse things to animals, and each other.

How often do you, personally, rip throats out, inject people with toxins that paralyze their breathing, run people until they literally collapse dead of exhaustion, bite so hard and we shatter their bones and muscles in one go, devour our own foetal offspring, or simply rip limb from limb just because you're peckish or bored? Compared to animals doing it daily, I mean?

well...we do boil some sea creatures alive. That is the biggest dick move that we do.

 

[the December King]

I've seen what animals do to each other and to humans when they get the chance.

So no, not in the least bit guilty.

Really? To me, it seems we do way worse things to animals, and each other.

How often do you, personally, rip throats out, inject people with toxins that paralyze their breathing, run people until they literally collapse dead of exhaustion, bite so hard and we shatter their bones and muscles in one go, devour our own foetal offspring, or simply rip limb from limb just because you're peckish or bored? Compared to animals doing it daily, I mean?

What, me personally? None of those things!

But some people do, don't they? Some people do waaaay worse than this, don't they? And those people should know better than to do such things, right? But they do them anyway- even with those big brains. Humans can always justify the cruelty. That doesn't make it right.

 

[kannibus]

For thousands of years, human ancestors were prey to larger predators. Now, we are the ultimate predator. Every time I eat meat, it's like a tribute to my ancestors that dodged life and limb and evolved.

At least, that's what I say to justify it to my intellectual friends. Otherwise, taste rules supreme. Hell, I could feel guilty about eating a tub of ice cream, but no.