Does meat have a protein that no other food has?!
Does meat have a protein that no other food has?
Answers:
Animal flesh has concentrated proteins. Protein is made in the body from amino acids. Animals eat plants that have some amino acids and then their own bodies make other amino acids. All the amino acids together make protein. The reason "meat" is thought of as being such a better source of protein is because you're ingesting those plant amino acids that the animal ate (and is now in the animal's flesh) plus you're eating the amino acids that animal's body made.
I eat plants and then my body makes amino acids, too, so I have the same kind of amino acids any other animal does. Explaining it this way should make it pretty clear that we don't need to eat meat to get amino acids (protein)!
If meat had protein all by itself, then carnivores (think real carnovores, like lions) would not care what kind of meat they eat, but they DO care. They'll only eat animals that eat plants because they need those amino acids. If all animals just went around eating each other and no animals ate plants we'd eventually die from malnutrition. Vegetarians cut out the middle man. I get my amino acids straight from the plants. I don't want them digested and then assimilated by some animal into its flesh before I eat them. Yuck!
Now, there is a VITAMIN that animal flesh has that we don't usually see in plant food and that is B12. We absolutely need B12. A lot of people will try and use this as an arguement that we must be meant to eat animal products if we need B12 and we can't find it in plant food. But, what those people must not understand is this: Animals do not magically make B12, so how do THEY get it so that it's present in their flesh? They get it through their food, which is tainted with bacteria! B12 comes from bacteria. Imagine our earliest ancestors, picking fruit from trees and eating fresh vegetables right off the plant and even grinding grain on stones. That same bacteria that infects the feed cows and other animals used for food eat infects plant food naturally, too. But, we wash our fruits and vegetables very well these days. A lot of people even use soaps to wash their produce. So, we can either eat "dirty" fruit and veggies and grains or we can use a nutritional substitute (Like vegetarian support yeast flakes or in enriched foods or with a supplement pill - I prefer the yearst flakes, they are a delicious seasoning). If animal feed was washed as well as our produce is then "meat" wouldn't have B12 either.
I hope some of this was helpful to you!