Do Positive Reasons Exist to be Vegetarian?

[iceaura]

All correlation comparisons between vegetarians and omnivores in industrial societies are corrupted by the circumstance that vegetarian diets are necessarily chosen, disciplined diets - a vegetarian in a First World country has to pay more attention to what they eat, and is automatically spared much of the effects of fast food and the like. A vegetarian diet is high tech, as well - food from far continents common in it.

It's maybe worth noting that there is no known way to do rainfall agriculture sustainably without raising animals in concert with the vegetables (the current reliance on cheap crude oil from far away and other depleting high tech stuff is not sustainable). If you raise animals and don't eat them, you'll be killing them anyway.

 

[billvon]

All correlation comparisons between vegetarians and omnivores in industrial societies are corrupted by the circumstance that vegetarian diets are necessarily chosen, disciplined diets - a vegetarian in a First World country has to pay more attention to what they eat, and is automatically spared much of the effects of fast food and the like.

That's a valid point, and it should also be pointed out that an omnivore who follows USDA recommendations is going to see many of the same health benefits. (This, of course, is in part due to the fact that USDA is very light on meat and heavy on vegetables.)

However it is also true that a vegetarian fast food diet is just as possible as a meat-oriented fast food diet. You can be a careless, undisciplined vegetarian and eat lots of cheese, potatoes and bread while drinking soda. An all-pizza diet is just as unhealthy as a burger diet.

A vegetarian diet is high tech, as well - food from far continents common in it.

That's true of US diets in general lately. Lamb from New Zealand, fish from the UK etc.

It's maybe worth noting that there is no known way to do rainfall agriculture sustainably without raising animals in concert with the vegetables

What drives this reliance?

 

[entelecheia]

Spears were invented at least half a million years ago. This means they were invented by one of our ancestral species, probably Homo heidelbergensis. H. neanderthalensis were making spears with fire-hardened wooden points 300K years ago. By the time H. sapiens came on the scene around 200KYA, the spear was already an established technology; we simply improved on it by attaching sharpened flint tips.

Chimpanzees have also invented spears. This suggests that it's not a difficult idea to think of, nor a difficult artifact to build. Therefore it's quite possible that early human ancestral species may have done it as long ago as five million years. But there's no evidence since wood does not last that long. Dead trees used to lie on the ground for millions of years until they fossilized into petrified wood or were compacted into coal or petroleum. But then mushrooms evolved with lignase, the enzyme that can digest lignin.

Orangutans have watched humans fishing with spears and copied the practice.

Im a follower of K. Popper. This was not a positive evidence.
All these rupestre art.? ? ? Could not be representations of defence against animal attack? The spears,...war weapons...

 

[entelecheia]

Reduction of mortality due to ischaemic heart disease would be one reason. Weight loss would be another.

Bingo!
:bawl:

 

[entelecheia]

There is no positive reason to be a vegetarian, unless you are really poor and can't afford meat.

Sounds elegant, but:

I see one, weird although, no positive evidence exist of this: The enormous increase in the protein in their diet allowed their brains to quadruple in size, eventually leading to our species about 200,000 years ago. At that point humans were obligate carnivores. And its continuity durin' the Agricultural Revolution.

:jawdrop:

 

[wellwisher]

If you had to lived off the land, in the natural environment, instead of the grocery store, being an omnivore has advantages. This would be especially true in colder climates, when there is nothing to eat, in terms of veggies, months at a time. In an artificial grocery store environment, warm weather crops are available when it is below zero outside. That is not being natural.

This all suggests the human evolution and meat eating was more than likely due to necessity, due to changes within the environment as they headed north. The cooling of the environment led to veggie food shortages, with meat becoming an important supplemental source in the off seasons. The pure vegetarians would fall by the wayside.

A good experiment would be a creating a veggie diet using only local products as they become available. This may preclude high protein peanuts or vitamin C rich oranges in many places. Lettuce is a cool weather crop and may not grow well where it is hot all the time. You need artificial means to have these products available, everywhere, which is why a vegetarian diet is not easy within the natural environment, beyond tropical zones. I don't see more than narrow natural selection.