Farquad_38 said:
I have to admit, I came at this debate a bit sarcastic, and that was unecessary. It was pretty arrogant of me since you all probably know a lot more on this subject than I do, so I apologize for shooting off my mouth. Believe me, I do it pretty often. :o
Your humility is appreciated but don't worry about it. I'm the last one in the world to be slapping someone else down for a bit of sarcasm.
Farquad_38 said:
So, that being said, I ahve some points to make and questions to ask;
I agree completely. This is why, over the centuries, man has found new and easier ways to kill a deer than what you suggested. I guess "back in the day" is a pretty general idea, but even so, I don't think even back in the caveman's day I would be stupid enough to go after a deer with a stick. Early man usually hunted in packs, using many men with many sharp sticks to go after a slower target than a deer.
Certainly man has developed better ways to kill but you seem to be overlooking the fact that this didn't occur in an hour or a day or even a month. In all likelihood, it took many generations. So what did man do in the mean time? Even hunting in packs doesn't help much when you have no true canine teeth or claws. Rock throwing is a skill that takes some time to develop to the point where you can hit what you aim for and with enough force to cause damage. Primitive man had to have lived off plants almost exclusively. When he first began to eat meat, it was likely carrion, though he would have had to obtain it while fairly fresh. Humans don't have the strong stomach acids of omnivores and carnivores so we're very vulnerable to the kinds of bateria that infest decaying flesh.
Farquad_38 said:
A single buffalo, for example, could provide food for a small tribe for weeks at a time. A wooly mammoth could provide food for a large tribe for several months.
Not without refrigeration. In some seasons and in some climates this might have been possible but men who had the choice would have chosen temperate climates over frozen ones. Can you imagine taking part in a hunting party that was attempting to chase down and kill a mammoth? Sorry, I know many scientists say it happened but I must contend that this only happened in environments where no other food source was available. Consider the potential for serious injury or death.
I know eventually man learned to smoke and dry meat to make it last longer but if you consider the amount of time it would have taken for him to discover this process of preserving meat, we have a very long time during which plant foods were the staple and meat the extreme rarity.
Farquad_38 said:
Man has found new and better ways to hunt over the centuries; as you say, using as few calories as possible. The bow and arrow was a big step up from a stick. A musket was a big step up from a bow and arrow. A rifle is a big step up from a musket. And so the process continues. Even "back in the day", domesticating livestock was a big step up from hunting. Keeping a cow in a field would cost a lot less calories than chasing down a deer and killing it.
True on every count. But again we have a long time passing before man learned to do any of these things. This would indicate that early man was largely vegetarian while more modern man turned to an omnivorous diet.
Farquad_38 said:
We also have big brains, so we can invent machines to compensate for our lack of hunting ability. Despite my strength being tiny compared to a whitetail deer's strength, I am far more superior than the deer and remain on the top fo the food chain. Why? I can outsmart the deer.
That big brain is certainly responsible for man being able to do the things he can now do. How else could man have ever caught and killed something the size of a blue whale? But as before, we have a rather lengthy gap before man progressed to this level. So to contend that man has always eaten meat seems to lose some favor.
Farquad_38 said:
I don't see what that proves...people don't usually eat bones, or plant stalks for that matter...Any other part of meat and plants are going to be too far gone for them to be of any archaeological value...so why would plant stalks and animal bones matter?
Perhaps I should have explained in more detail. Archaeologists dig into the ground looking for remnants of early man. When they find indications such as sharpened stones, make-shift utensils and the like, they comb through every square inch of soil to find every artifact. Then they use these artifacts to determine as much as they can about the life lead by these early men. If you were to sift through an archaeological site and find many scraps of bone, perhaps with notches and cuts in them from stones, you might conclude that this is evidence of man consuming meat and cutting the meat from the bone with sharpened rocks. This would likely be an accurate conclusion. But you will find little evidence of the plant-based foods eaten because it is more likely to decay and not become fossilized. So it's easy to mistakenly conclude that meat was the basis for the majority of man's diet where in all likelihood, plants were the mainstay. Plants just leave less evidence behind.
As for your statement that people don't eat plant stalks, perhaps you neglected to consider asparagus, celery, green onions, rubarb, sugar cane, mushrooms, broccoli (buds and stalks) and spinach (leaves and stalks), to name but a few.
Farquad_38 said:
I guess this is where I began shooting off my mouth. Point taken, meat is not essential for survival. But certainly, it provides many fats and protiens that simply can't be found in plants. Am I correct?
Well, again, I appreciate your humility but it's not really necessary. What you've stated here is another long-held misconception. People sometimes confuse amino acids and proteins. Proteins are constructed from amino acids but not all kinds of proteins contain all amino acids. And the human body doesn't need to consume all 20 of the amino acids. There are 11 amino acids that the body can synthesize so only 9 are considered to be essential. Here is where things start to get confusing for most.
No plant-based source of protein contains all 9 of these essential amino acids while some meats do. So it was understandable when nutritionists started with the idea that meat represents a better protein source for humans than any of the plant proteins. But most modern nutritionists have found that this isn't true. In fact, many now recognize that plant proteins are superior to animal proteins for human consumption. All one must do is vary the plant sources a few times a week and the body receives all of the amino acids it needs and in quantities well beyond what it needs.
As for fats, (and I know we're straying off topic here), rarely do you find a great deal of saturated fats in plants. Meat is a fairly rich source of saturated fats. But saturated fats are the ones you should stay away from. Man, with his superior brain has figured out how to take the unsaturated fats more common to plants and turn them into saturated fats. It's certainly not uncommon for us to take something healthy and turn it into something unhealthy and this is just what happens.
Not to go into unnecessary detail but a fat is said to be saturated if each of the carbon atoms in the long chains in the fatty acid molecules are each flanked with hydrogen atoms. That is to say; two hydrogen atoms linked to each carbon atom in the tail of the molecule. Humans tend not to digest these well enough to break them down and keep the fat from entering the bloodstream in a form which can build up on artery walls. When man takes an unsaturated fat and converts it to a saturated fat, he does so through a process called hydrogenation. The unfilled hydrogen positions alongside the carbon atoms become filled. But when we do this, the angle of the attachment is different than in the natural connections. It fulfills the purpose of causing the fat to be a solid at room temperature, but our digestive systems no longer cut the hydrogen-carbon bond properly. So we've turned a necessary fat into a potential problem. Saturated fats and cholesterol are the two key components in the plaque which forms on artery walls and leads to heart attacks and strokes. And both are present in substantial quantities in meat.
So if we stick to plants, and don't hydrogenate the oils, we receive all of the fats we need. If we turn to meat for our fats and proteins, we get an unhealthy quantity of saturated fats and cholesterol. Since plants can't produce cholesterol, it is only present in animal-based foods. And just as with every other natural herbivore, the human body produces all of the cholesterol it needs. Any you get in your diet is excess.
Sorry to be so wordy but it starts to become a fairly complex subject very quickly.
Farquad_38 said:
Beastt said:
Many religions have believed that their gods wanted sacrifices, both human and animal. If you believe that the Christian God wanted these sacrifices, then you have no reason to doubt that all of the other gods wanted them as well.
In reality, sacrifices are man's idea. We shouldn't be blaming God for such barbaric, misguided and useless acts.
...A bit confused here;
A) what does this have to do with anything?
B) What do you mean, we shouldn't "blame" God? Do you not believe that the laws in Exodus were given to Moses by God himself?
C) Are you a Christian? I'm only asking so I can better understand where you're coming from, not so I can label you or anything like that...just curious.
This was in response to your comment;
Farquad_38 said:
Also, I'll see if this has been brought up; Animal sacrifices were required in the Jewish Law. God obviously found it okay for us to kill animals, chop them up and burn them. I don't think God would have much of a problem killing animals and eating them today, either. The priests pretty much lived on animal sacrifices offered by the Israelites.
So what I'm saying is that while the idea of sacrifices is attributed to God, this is the case in a great number of religions which worship different gods. So it seems quite likely that sacrifice isn't God's idea, but man's.
And no, I'm not a Christian. I'm an atheist so I don't put a lot of stock in the Bible, especially when it contradicts itself or contradicts things we know to be factual now, but weren't known as such when the Bible was written.
Farquad_38 said:
Immediatly, yes, hunters destroy wildlife. But this is where so many northerners and liberals so grealy misunderstand us hunters (Im sorry if you're neither liberal nor from the north, but you seem to be from the way you talk). You have to look at the greater picture. Looking at it's immediate effect takes away from it's purpose and keeps us from understanding it's full value.
What if we applied this way of thinking to everything we do in our lives? Take, for example, raising a child. Disciplining a child, immediatly, brings pain and sadness to him/her. We want what is best for them, and we don't want to bring them pain or sadness. Does this mean we shouldn't discipline our children?
Okay, that wasn't a very good example...but I think you get my point.
Do you get my point?
Yes, I get your point and I understood what you were saying before. This is another topic that has been beaten to death. But the whole idea that hunting solves a problem neglects the fact that hunting is almost always what caused the problem in the first place. I don't mean to sound overly blunt, but hunters absolutely do hunt predator species. It's the minority of hunting to be sure, but then predator species are always present in populations markedly smaller than that of their prey.
Most cases of overpopulation of prey species in the wild are attributable either to natural disaster or loss of the predator species. Loss of the predator species is almost always due to hunting. So rather than reintroducing predator species, the hunters attempt to take their place and in so doing, claim that they're being humane to the prey species and restoring a balance.
But this just isn't the case. Human hunters aren't part of the natural predatory role. As such they don't practice predation as predators do and they leave the predators with only one opinion - die. The predator/prey relationship is a natural check and balance system. Removing half of that system will always result in an imbalance. And letting hunters step in to take the place of the predator species only prolongs this imbalance. And since hunters don't go after young, weak, sick and injured animals; rather than strengthen the gene pool like natural predators do, they weaken the gene pool and eventually reduce the ability of the prey species to compete and to survive.
Farquad_38 said:
Natural predators usually aren't hunted...it's animals like deer, rabbit, squirrel, and birds, generally better classified as prey, not predator, that are hunted...maybe I'm just misunderstanding what you're saying. ?
I'm not sure where this idea comes from. They certainly are hunted. In fact, here in the southwest, the government actually pays a cash reward for each mountain lion head turned in by ranchers. Coyotes, foxes and all other forms of natural predators are looked upon as competition by ranchers and hunters alike and it's not just in the southwest portion of the U.S. If you look at the post immediately following your's you'll see feral cats and crocodiles among those mentioned as being hunted. Hunters don't want to allow predators to fill their role in nature. This would deprive man of the "need" to hunt. So the predators are seen as the enemy and the resulting overpopulation of prey species allows the hunters to introduce themselves as the heros who offer these animals a more humane death than starvation. But if hunters would allow the natural balance to be restored, they could put away their rifles and let nature go back to doing the job it does so well.
(cont.)
