What do the vegans and or vegetarians have to say about the arguments for the human brain evolution and meat?!

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The thing about theories of how and why the brains of humans developed as they did, is that they are just that - theories. No scientist alive today, nor any scientist in recorded history, was alive at the time that the proto-humans came either out of the trees or out of the caves or out of the garden of eden (or out of the primaeval oceans for that matter), so they can only speculate. The "meat-eating" theory just happens to be the predominant theory at the moment. Just because it's fashionable in scientific circles, it doesn't mean that it's true. Give it fifty to a hundred years and people will laugh and joke about us believing that crap, just the way we joke about mediaeval people believing that the sun revolves around a flat earth, or fundamentalist religious loons believing that the devil planted fake dinosaur fossils deep underground just on the off-chance that we might some day dig them up and question the biblical account of creation. But I digress (constantly!) - the latest theory I've heard, perhaps less than a year ago, is that it was not through eating land animals, as most people seem to think, but through our apelike proto-human ancestors eating things like mussels and other crustaceans and mollusks from rock-pools on the sea-shore. The evidence of more rapid development of proto-humans in seaside areas seems to back up that theory. If it came down to a choice between the two theories, I'd tend to believe this one over the hunting wild animals theory. These sea-creatures were a lot easier to catch and kill and eat than a woolly mammoth, and are extremely high in cholesterol, which is also, coincidentally, one of the major components of the human brain.

In the end though, it doesn't matter one iota which theory is correct - one of those, or some other entirely different one. It might have nothing whatsoever to do with food. "The human brain could not have developed without blah blah blah." It has absolutely no bearing on what modern humans eat. Modern humans are extremely adaptable, resourceful creatures - some of them are even intelligent! We can survive on almost any diet - whether it's raw, macrobiotic, fruitarian, vegan, lacto-vegetarian, ovo-vegetarian, ovo-lacto-vegetarian, pescetarian, selective omnivore, total omnivore or even total carnivore. Why? Because we have the resources, the infrastructure, the scientific and medical knowledge, the ready availability of just about any foodstuff. Modern transport can get our food to us, or us to our food, quickly and efficiently. Or we can easily grow our own. My point is that, throughout all of history and prehistory, it's never been easier to survive and thrive on a vegan (or strict vegetarian) diet than it is right at this moment in time. If you can do it, and you want to do it, and it eases your conscience to do it, and there's nothing standing in your way, then [insert blatant Nike slogan].

Brain development is a non-issue. My brain has been developing since before I was born (to a vegetarian mother, preceded by a vegetarian pregnancy, and followed by around a year of vegetarian breastfeeding), and even after being a vegetarian again from 14 to nearly 48, and a vegan for the last 17 months - and it is STILL developing. Whatever nutrients it requires, it's getting, along with plenty of external input and stimulation.

Vegan!

At the time, meat was the highest quality food that was readily available year round. Since the development of agriculture plant foods fill that bill-after all, what do we feed livestock? Grain.
In an environment in which food could be scarce, man evolved as a tool using omnivore. In civilization, we can make the choice to eat a certain way and still get sufficient nutrition.
There is nothing unequivocally positive about meat-it is still a high quality food but with the drawbacks of being high in fat and in our culture of mass production, quality of processing can suffer. Let alone having to take another creature's life to feed yourself when sufficient plant foods are readily available. There is no proof that meat is indigestible to humans.

Of course humans wouldn't be where we are now without eating meat. Meat allowed our brains to fully evolve and develop. The same could also be said about slavery, we wouldn't have great monuments such the pyramids or Great Wall of China without slaves.

Do you get what I'm saying? Even though something helped in the past does not mean it has a place in the modern world.

P.S: I'm not supporting slavery or anything, I just used it as an example.

The only thing postive about meat is that it has B-12 in it. However, you won't have to worry about taking any B-12 supplements once you're vegan for a couple of years, because your liver stores it for ages.

The meat that the cavemen ate didn't come from www.factoryfarming.com... meat from these farms will kill you.

www.pcrm.org

If meat eating makes a bigger brain, why aren't carnviorous animals such as lions and tigers smarter than humans?

Questionable a best, most likely specious

3 main hypothesis are proposed in the science community & i'm just a reader of such in no way qualified.

1) meat, as you stated

2) Fish, alot of evidence is pointing towards this with the omegas that help brain development & settlements found always next to rivers & oceans (also for water purposes). You can google this more if you want, the aqua-man/ape hypothesis however doesnt hold much water (no pun)

3) cooking vegetables, i can't recall the exact person but long story short he showed through fire-usage vegetables became easier to digest & unlocked more nutrients & calories with it. When consumed enough with small quantities of meat such as eggs from bird nests etc, then it would be very possible for humans to have brain growth.
The only downside to it is fire wasn't available to us from what little evidence we have at the time that brain growth started. However scientists recognise that this could be tossed upside-down very easily if evidence is found of fire, just as when the proof that homo-sapians lived among other evolutionary-humans (homo erectus and those others, i'm not sure what exact human group) came out. It turned the science world upside down.

Humans are omnivores simple as, i dont understand why people have this problem. The science community settled this long-ago & moved on. We can digest meat, a simple example would be that if we couldnt our bodies mechanisms of vomit or egestion will occur, neither does. (just one simple but big step showing how we can eat meat, regardless of whether its cooked or not fire +tools allow for a change in morphology)

Does the fact that we can eat meat make it a just reason? Not exactly, no more than it makes cannabilism because we can digest human meat ''just''

vegetarian

I've also heard this put forward and it is what we call in science "inductive reasoning." That means that the conclusion is not necessarily what the evidence indicates. Basically, brain tissue is energetically expensive and there has to be a good reason for it to develop, since it is very costly in terms of development. Something like the human brain won't have developed just because it could thanks to the nutrients in meat, there had to been one or more behavioural influences driving it.

Eating meat was obviously a factor in the evolution of our ancestors. Where these people go wrong in saying that "without meat we wouldn't have evolved our big brains" is a type of logical fallacy called "correlation without causation." The fact is, our ancestors did eat meat, but during the same time they developed cohesive social groups which allowed them to hunt animals, and as they experienced a climate change and more focus was placed on hunting the social groups allowed them to be better hunters. They also had to increase range sizes with fewer plant foods around so this required better memory, also better strategic skills were required for hunting and defending territory against neighbouring tribes.

Then there was the evolution of our useful thumbs. The bone in our wrist which allows us to apply pressure across the palm (thumb to middle fingers) is called the trapezoid bone. This provides us with more dexterity than the other primates, which allowed us to be better at using tools. Tool use is another influence on brain size.

However the major theory is that human brains could only get so large due to our strong social networks. Human brains continue to develop for years after birth, meaning they can't fend for themselves and require extensive parental care. As we all know, lots of problems arise when humans are in groups, and so it is likely that brain evolution was driven by the need to solve these problems. If their social groups were cohesive, their children were cared for and the group was successful. If social groups were disjointed, they struggled with providing for the group.

Robin Dunbar developed the social brain hypothesis which explains why we would have such large brains. Looking at the cerebrum of other social primate and carnivore species, he found that pair bonding was correlated to the volume of tissue in primate species... the stronger the bonds, the larger the brain. The diets of the species involved were not correlated.

http://psych.colorado.edu/~tito/sp03/753…
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/c…

The article you read is correct. Any anthropological scientist will tell you that as our ancestors ate more meat, their brains grew and their stomachs shrunk. Our brain requires a lot of calories to operate and it takes a lot of veggies to get those calories.

Why in the world would you claim humans can't digest meat? You've been digesting meat your entire life! And suddenly claim you can't?

Humans need vitamin B12. A lack of B12 is dangerous to your health. It can cause all sorts of permanent damage to your nervous system and puts you more at risk for heart attacks. And B12 is not available in plants at all. Don't you think if we were supposed to only eat veggies, B12 would be in them?

If you've been eating meat your entire life, you may have stores of B12 in your body to last you for several years....or not. Are you going to take the chance?

Read the VeganHealth link on B12: http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/vita…

humans digest the protein chains in meat just fine, as all other omnivores do!
where did you get that nonsense from?

i would guess the quest for superiority is the main argument for veganism.
morality is a personal thing.

i think taste is an issue.
also the choices of meat, and plants for that matter, you consume would be much more relevance, than just choosing not to eat meat.

if its for humanitarian or environmental reasons you dont want to eat meat, then do some UNBIASED research of your own.

many things commonly ok'd by the mass vegie/vegan group are just as unsustainable and damaging to the environment than the meats i eat.

there are alot of misconceptions out there and unless you are involved with how your food is produced every step of the way how do you really know what goes on?
and if your not sure, i feel you loose all right to an opinion as it would just be specullation.
am i wrong?
was it more environmentally sustainable to plant soy,corn,rice,(all high protein but also high inputs in the form of water and fert.) than to leave the natural system as is and harvest rabbit or roo on a quota system?
ferts for example, were they strip mined animal bone and meat meal, fish based,feather or what?
blah,blah,blah......

ALSO, id love to see just one piece of evidence to humans not being able to digest meat.
it would contradict so much scientific and dietry knowledge.
big money spinner and an easy win for the vegies.
if it existed.........
email me if its "top secret".

entitled to an opinion....

many thumbs down but no proof yet. theres a suprise from the emotional irrational vege group.
dont let logic get in the way of a good story.........