With America eating more meat than ever and growing sicker than ever, the dangers of a meat-heavy diet must be examined. We may now consider meat an essential part of the human diet, but in previous eras it was nothing more than a luxury. In addition, the present state of factory-farmed animals can lead to nothing but outrageously unhealthful meat. Many omnivores wonder how vegetarians survive on the nonstandard diet. Many vegetarians wonder how omnivores do survive. A meat-based diet is, all-around, hazardous. A vegetarian (or mostly vegetarian) diet seems best to promote health and well-being.
It is debated the length of time in which humans have consumed meat. Some archaeologists, based on excavations of fire-pits on the British Isles, suggest that at the very least Britons have been eating meat for the length of their occupation. However, it is unknown how much meat was consumed. Indeed, at least as relates to the Britons, we have little absolute knowledge of their civilization prior to the eleventh century. Many of the records we do have of human food consumption come from the records of banquets given by aristocrats, particularly the extravagant Romans. These records, of course, include many different meat dishes. The fact is, the records we have do not catalogue what most people ate or even what aristocrats ate on a regular basis (Fiddes 1992).
At least on the British Isles, people mostly consumed dairy, legumes (especially peas), cereal grains, perhaps fish, and meat on very special occasions. This may be extrapolated to suggest that many societies subsisted on mostly vegetarian diets for most of history (Pullar 2001). At the very least, it may be suggested that humanity, for most of its existence, has sought out whate...
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I will first show the lack of validity and soundness to Howard’s claim that A) a vegan lifestyle is a healthier choice and B) his claim that one must switch to that lifestyle to enjoy these said benefits. To the claim made in A, Howard uses his own health problems he endured on his meat diet, and uses it as a constant variable comparing it to his now relative healthy lifestyle as a vegan. On first glance anyone who eats a calorie-laden, unbalanced diet and ends up weighing 300 pounds, as Lyman himself admitted, will have health problems regardless of his orientation to meat or vegetables. With this said his comparing analogy is inertly flawed and must be disregarded from the argument he presents. On march 8 before the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, Mary K Young, MS.,R.D,NCBA Director of Nutrition Research and Information, presented the benefits of eating meat. Using Data from the 1995 USDA Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSI) she confirms that red meat enhances one overall diet quality. Young goes on to point out that red meat is the number one source for protein, B12, and zinc, number 2 source for B6 and third greatest source for iron, niacin and potassium. She also pointed out that red meat alone has the greatest concentrates of iron and zinc together. Also included cited in Young’s report was the research recently published in the Journal of the American...
Did they have a good quality of life before the death that turned them into someone’s dinner?” (Steiner 845). With these questions the author tries to hook up his audience and make them think about how and where does everyday meat comes from.
Distad, Merrill N. “Food and Diet.” Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1988. 304-307.
Spencer, Colin. The Heretic's Feast: A History of Vegetarianism. Hanover, NH: U of New England, 1996. Print.
Ungar, Peter S., and Mark Franklyn Teaford. Human Diet: Its Origin and Evolution. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 2002. Print.
Society has recently become increasingly obsessed with health and nutrition, as more and more individuals realize that they can dramatically change their quality of life by adjusting their diet and lifestyle. One way that people have tried to pursue a healthier lifestyle, is by removing meat and other animal products from their diets, whether they become a strict vegetarian who eats no animal byproducts, or a lacto-ovo vegetarian who still eats eggs and dairy. As with any other lifestyle, research is always being done to see if the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, and so far, the results of vegetarian diets have been encouraging. Vegetarian diets have proven to decrease the risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity, and many other health problems. With a little planning and dedication, a vegetarian diet will be healthier and more beneficial than a traditional diet
Today’s medical experts say that avoiding meat helps you avoid saturated fat. They have found out from studies that women who eat meat daily have a fifty percent greater risk of developing heart disease than vegetarian women and a sixty-eight percent greater risk in men (staff writer). People may not know about serious diseases meat can cause such as, mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease. In the September 1999 issue of the Emerging Infectious Diseases, approximately 76 million food-borne illnesses- resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths occur in the United States each year from improperly cooked or diseased meat (Licher). That is a lot of fun!
Scheer, Roddy, and Doug Moss. “How does Meat in the Diet Take an Environmental Toll?” Scientific American. ScientificAmerican.com, 28 Dec. 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.
Is it morally permissible to eat meat? Much argument has arisen in the current society on whether it is morally permissible to eat meat. Many virtuous fruitarians and the other meat eating societies have been arguing about the ethics of eating meat (which results from killing animals). The important part of the dispute is based on the animal welfare, nutrition value from meat, convenience, and affordability of meat-based foods compared to vegetable-based foods and other factors like environmental moral code, culture, and religion. All these points are important in justifying whether humans are morally right when choosing to eat meat. This paper will argue that it is morally impermissible to eat meat by focusing on the treatment of animals, the environmental argument, animal rights, pain, morals, religion, and the law.
The health benefits of a vegetarian diet are hard to ignore. Vegetarians have a lower chance of developing many diseases, such as cancer and diabetes. Women who eat meat daily are more likely to develop breast cancer. According to an article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, “consumption of well-done meats and, thus, exposures to heterocyclic amines (or other compounds) formed during high-temperature cooking may play an important role in the risk of breast cancer.” Men are also more than almost more likely to develop prostate cancer than those who do not include meat in their everyday diets. “Up to 80 percent of prostate cancer is attributed to dietary practices, and international comparisons show strong positive associations with meat consumption” (Alexander, 2010). Vegetarians have also shown to have lower blood pressure, better digestion, and more energy than humans with a meat based diet. The effects of a vegetarian life style ...
Society has recently become increasingly obsessed with health and nutrition, as more and more individuals realize that they can dramatically change their quality of life by adjusting their diet and lifestyle. One such way that people have tried to pursue a healthier lifestyle, is by removing meat and other animal products from their diets, whether they become a strict vegetarian who eats no animal byproducts, or a lacto-ovo vegetarian who still eats eggs and dairy. As with any other lifestyle, research is always being done to see if the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, and so far, the results of vegetarian diets have been encouraging. Vegetarian diets have proven to decrease the risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity, and many other health problems. With a little planning and dedication, a vegetarian diet will be healthier and more beneficial than a traditional diet that includes meat and animal products.
Vegetarians tend to be healthier than those who consume meat. This is due to the prevalent unnatural chemicals used in the processing of meats, and eating these are unsuitable for the body. Meats already contain harmful amounts of cholesterol, and over-consumption of red meat can lead to early heart disease. Animals that are raised on farms for their meat are not treated well, and this mistreatment can lead to harm in the meat they are producing. Although one life choice cannot change one’s environmental
For several years the issue of eating meat has been a great concern to all types of people all over the world. In many different societies controversy has began to arise over the morality of eating meat from animals. A lot of the reasons for not eating meat have to deal with religious affiliations, personal health, animal rights, and concern about the environment. Vegetarians have a greater way of expressing meats negative effects on the human body whereas meat eaters have close to no evidence of meat eating being a positive effect on the human body. Being a vegetarian is more beneficial for human beings because of health reasons, environmental issues, and animal rights.
As we can now observe, vegetarianism has become something fashionable, and the number of people who reject eating meat is constantly increasing. In Britain, for instance, over 5 million people have done it so far. It is obviously connected with the recent animal diseases, but this tendency is likely to spread on the other regions of the world. However, it is not only a fashion or fear of illnesses. I myself became a vegetarian about 2 years ago, and I can see a number of reasons why people should stop eating meat. They are mainly of ethic, economic and health type. Those who think in an ecological way should also be aware of how this meat consumption ruins our environment. I don’t have an intention to force anybody to become a vegetarian, but I hope that my argumentation would be strong enough to make some people think about it, at least. In this essay I will try to present this point of view, expressing my personal feelings and showing scientific facts about the problem.