Dead at 42

[bloodline]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
fruit??! Vegetables you mean, fruit's really really a luxury (thus unavailable) through the centuries...

No, Kenny is right. Our far ancestors would have eaten mostly fruit, but the Human being is actually a scavinger. Like all scavingers it it an omnivore.

In adition to the vitamins we can't make (and must obtain from fruit), there are several amino acids that we cannot produce and can obtian only from meat (or eggs).

If you want to stay heathly, then have a balanced diet. Lots of green vegetables (and carrots), fruits and meats (Fish is exceptional).

Kenny is also right that a small portion of liver will provide most of the vitamins, and all of the minerals and amino acids a human needs for a month!

Lucky for vegetarians, most of them ingest plenty of Animal/insect body parts for them to survive quite healthily.

[that_punk_guy]

Vegetables generally have a selection of aminos rather than the full complement. But the body can synthesize complete proteins from different foods, even ingested several days apart, so there's little need to worry as long as you're eating a variety of foods. Soy also provides "complete" proteins.



Side ramble:

I don't know why people seem to think evolution stopped when we invented microwave dinners. Maybe they don't like the idea that they'll be "improved upon."

But mutations will continue to happen, and I don't think past ones are necessarily irreversible.

[KennyR]

tpg wrote:
Soy also provides "complete" proteins.

It's also been implicated in health problems and birth defects(!)

The vegan lobbies think with their emotions too much, not with their brains. They were already given a slap by the goverment for claiming that meat eaters had higher rates of cancer when their evidence did not support it. I don't really think these people have figured out everything a human being needs. Nobody really has.

I don't know why people seem to think evolution stopped when we invented microwave dinners. Maybe they don't like the idea that they'll be "improved upon."

Evolution only happens when it's needed, not otherwise. Horseshoe crabs have been horseshoe crabs for five hundred million years, because they've never had to be anything else. Mutations can happen, but if they don't impart an advantage, then they'll generally be lost and not perpetuated. As soon as we invented technology, evolution practically stopped, because there is no necessity for change any more. If it goes on, chances are human beings will still be more or less the same 500,000 years from now.

[bloodline]

that_punk_guy wrote:
Vegetables generally have a selection of aminos rather than the full complement. But the body can synthesize complete proteins from different foods, even ingested several days apart, so there's little need to worry as long as you're eating a variety of foods. Soy also provides "complete" proteins.

I'm sorry Chris, but that's not true. There are amino acids that we require that can only be obtained from meat (or eggs). We cannot synthesize them, and plants (and fungie) don't make them.
As for soy, yes GM soy does contain the essential amino acids. But since that plant has had animal DNA inserted in to it to make the amino acid, you might as well just eat an egg (dippy, with soldiers of course).

[that_punk_guy]

KennyR wrote:
I don't really think these people have figured out everything a human being needs. Nobody really has.

Funny then, that people are more than happy to jump all over me about my dietary preferences... :-?

@Matt

You have a link?

[Abou27]

As far as evolution is concerned, we are kind of pausing it.  Our advances in healthcare are keeping alive the genetically weak and allowing them to continue to pollute the gene pool.  Obviously we shan't notice any immediate effects from this but it is nevertheless as legitimate a  concern as others like to worry about.  Worldwide, we cannot provide the whole world with food (a worsening situation given population growth); more vegetarians and environmentalists would signify the continuation of the journey to the end.

[KennyR]

tpg wrote:
Funny then, that people are more than happy to jump all over me about my dietary preferences...

Sorry Chris, but it's an undebatable fact - eating meat for human beings is natural. Not eating it is unnatural. Unnatural things tend not to be healthy, since the body isn't designed to cope.

[bloodline]

that_punk_guy wrote:

KennyR wrote:
I don't really think these people have figured out everything a human being needs. Nobody really has.

Funny then, that people are more than happy to jump all over me about my dietary preferences... :-?

@Matt

You have a link?

I want you to know that I have great respect for your resolve to avoid food which you cannot morally justify eating.

I just want to make it clear that Humans are scavingers, and are designed to survive for as long as possible on what ever is available. It just happened that while the homosapiens was evolving, fruit and meant were both plentiful, and so our bodies have become adapted to relying on the nutrience they provide. I would also note that vegetable are generally energetically too expensive too eat unless you cook them first.

As for links, I am just remembering my Amine chemistry lectures. I'll have a look for my notes on the subject. But if Karlos took the same modules during his chemistry degree, I'm sure he can help out.

[bloodline]

As far as evolution is concerned, we are kind of pausing it. Our advances in healthcare are keeping alive the genetically weak and allowing them to continue to pollute the gene pool. Obviously we shan't notice any immediate effects from this but it is nevertheless as legitimate a concern as others like to worry about. Worldwide, we cannot provide the whole world with food (a worsening situation given population growth); more vegetarians and environmentalists would signify the continuation of the journey to the end.

The classic example is IVF. More and more couples are using IVF to conceive. This means genetically infertile people can have children. THeire child will also be genetically infertile. If this trend continues eventually the only way humans can have children is via IVF.

What if, at some point in the future, we are unable to perform IVF, the huamn race will be doomed to extiction by it's own selfish hands.

and good ridance too :-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

bloodline wrote:
The classic example is IVF. More and more couples are using IVF to conceive. This means genetically infertile people can have children. THeire child will also be genetically infertile. If this trend continues eventually the only way humans can have children is via IVF.

Nonsense.

Only if it's necessary to survive humanity would lose it.

[cecilia]

Caron Keating was a strict vegan, she always had been. She didn't even drink milk, instead using soya milk. By the vegan ideas she should have been totally healthy and immune to cancer. But she died young. Now, is that a statistical blip, or is there something deeper to it?

That's a real leap that I wouldn't care to make. to suggest another possibility.....what if she was always susceptible to getting cancer? What if her being a "strict vegan" actually let her live as long AS 42?
What if she had been a meat eater, she would have died sooner?

I'm not saying this is the case. I'm saying no one knows. The causes of cancer tend not to be well understood. This is because years of life and "bad" habits occur before the cancer shows up.
My cousin smoked since her teen years and in her 30's got cancer. it wasn't lung cancer, but I wouldn't be surprised if her smoking agrivated/weakened (?) her body and made it susceptible to getting cancer. I can't prove that.

I just have a feeling that doing dumb stuff is probably not a clever idea.

fruits and vegs have antioxydants. That's a good thing and anyway i like eating those fruits/vegs. I don't care too much for meat (well, my mother DOES make a great leg of lamb), but there's NO way I'm not eating fish! LOVE fish. plus fish has WAY too many good things.

humans can eat anything, but we did not evolve to eat all that crap "food" with processed sugars that has been too prevelant since the 20th century. :madashell:

[KennyR]

Speel wrote:
Nonsense.

Only if it's necessary to survive humanity would lose it.

No, it's not. It's a certainty that modern medicine and civilisation are allowing disadvantageous genetic traits to survive and propagate. I'm not a Nazi or a eugenesist, so I don't want to stop it. Unfortunately, I don't think it's leading us up the evolutionary ladder. Even war isn't the evolutionary device it used to be - it's so destructive these days that to die you just need to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Evolution thrives through need. Only when human beings are struggling to survive will they actually biologically improve.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

KennyR wrote:
No, it's not. It's a certainty that modern medicine and civilisation are allowing disadvantageous genetic traits to survive and propagate.

yes, but not 'take over the world!'

Unfortunately, I don't think it's leading us up the evolutionary ladder.

That matters what you want from evolution.

Even war isn't the evolutionary device it used to be - it's so destructive these days that to die you just need to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It has been that way since ppl began to fight in groups. Imagine a medieval battle, an arrow could hit you no matter how good a swordfighter you are.

[bloodline]

That matters what you want from evolution.

Evolution is just adaption to the environment via changes in the organism on a genetic level. If the organism no longer needs to adapt to it's environment but is able to adapt it's environment to itself, then it does not evolve.

It has been that way since ppl began to fight in groups. Imagine a medieval battle, an arrow could hit you no matter how good a swordfighter you are.

That is pretty modern by evolutionary standards.

[KennyR]

Speel wrote:
yes, but not 'take over the world!'

They will. All it takes is time.

That matters what you want from evolution.

More intelligence and less biological weaknesses would be nice, as well as rid of the genetic diseases.

Imagine a medieval battle, an arrow could hit you no matter how good a swordfighter you are.

But the stronger of us could survive the arrow. It's harder to survive than an attack by a big cat or the gore of a wild pig, but still easier than a bullet or two kilos of high explosive.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Evolution is just adaption to the environment via changes in the organism on a genetic level. If the organism no longer needs to adapt to it's environment but is able to adapt it's environment to itself, then it does not evolve.

Now you see we, as humanity, has reached another stage of evolution. I mean, there are multiple stages of evolution. The first is actually to reproduce and die (a way to adopt on the environment), second stage is to swap properties of cells using sex. Then it's combining properties of cells (for instance, light sensitivity) with becoming multiple cell creatures. Obtaining brains is also a stage. See how it becomes more and more 'software'.

bloodline wrote:
That is pretty modern by evolutionary standards.

That that is discutable. Some scientists claim that evolution goes with very sudden changes.