[extropy-chat] what is the upside / advantage of meat ?

[Brian Lee]

At least historically animal products were useful in converting vegetable 
matter that humans couldn't digest (grass, straw, etc) into protein, milk, 
fuel, etc.

I've found that it is certainly easier, in the US, to get one's nutrients 
through meat than through vegetable substitutes. Not to mention the cultural 
constraints of not eating meat.

So path of least resistance leads to meat being consumed, historically and 
currently.

I too, know some beefy, strong lifelong pure vegetarians so it is certainly 
possible (look at the population of India).

BAL

>From: Ensel Sharon <user at dhp.com>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] what is the upside / advantage of meat ?
>Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:16:00 -0400 (EDT)
>
>
>Hi,
>
>On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, spike wrote:
>
> > Definitely.  Eat light, live long.
>
>
>Right ... but there must be a flip side to that, right ?  That is the
>point I am trying to get at.  Not that I necessarily want that flip side,
>or that that flip side is anything more than an anachronism...
>
>
> > > My own well being and positive results suggest I will continue to 
>remove
> > > meat, and animal products in general, from my diet, but I'd like to 
>have a
> > > better grasp of what I am giving up, and what, in most basic terms, 
>meat
> > > is good for.  All comments appreciated...
> >
> >
> > I can assure you that you can be very healthy with little or no meat, 
>and
> > can show you maaany examples of people who do so.  They grew up big and
> > strong eating no meat ever in their lives, and I do mean no beef, pork, 
>fish
> > nor foul, nothing that ever had a face.
>
>
>I totally agree.  But again, meat is expensive to produce and keep - even
>if the 10/1 ratio of feed input to meat output is not exactly right, there
>is still a negative ratio at work ... so why have people, historically,
>wanted it ?  What short term benefits does it provide, and why was it
>worth the cost ?
>
>Do you have more testoterone ?  Are you more aggressive ?  Can you reach a
>higher amount of anerobic exertion, like high power or strength
>movements?  These all sound like short term expedients that have long term
>negative side effects...
>
>I don't think it was just an accident of history that all of these
>primitive peoples worked and built themselves into a life of more meat
>consumption ... and I don't think that our own modern meat diets are
>purely the result of nostalgia, or the meat lobby.
>
>If meat has long term detriments, what are its short term expedients?  Why
>did chiefs measure their wealth with it ?  Why do people almost
>instinctively crave it ?
>
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