vegetarian action : articles

The meat industry is shaking in its shoes.

There's no other explanation! Once again they've made a massive investment in nationwide TV ads featuring big-buck famous faces and backed by expensive advertising campaigns.

Last year we saw the "Lamb on Australia Day" campaign in which Mad Sam Crapovitch, or whatever his name is, was paid big bucks to convince us it was "Un-Australian" to eat anything other than lamb on Australia day.

Recently Meat and Livestock Australia, lurking behind a snazzy website and a TV ad featuring the urbane face of Sam Neill, launched an advertising campaign to convince us we were "meant" to eat red meat. (Funny how neither the TV ad, nor the website, openly identify MLA as their source. Do they think people wouldn't believe the ads if they knew who produced them?)

There's only one problem. It's not that they were UN-truthful, exactly. It's just, let's say, that they left a few things out.

The Story of Evolution... as Meat & Livestock Australia have rewritten it

(Meat & Livestock Australia says...)
Source: http://www.themainmeal.com.au/index.cfm?pid=102 , Meat & Livestock Australia, accessed 29/3/06)

"To understand the importance of red meat, you have to go back millions of years to the time when our ape ancestors came down from the trees and moved to open grasslands.

"During this time, only the fittest species of early man would survive. Those who adapted to the new surroundings lived on. The big leap came when our ancestors started to eat red meat.

(Vegetarian Action reponds...)

Actually, the big leap came when our ancestors learnt to plant crops.

This allowed them to meet their communities' nutritional needs without expending most of their time and energy in hunting and gathering, activities which required enormous amounts of both to provide at best a scanty food source.

"The nutrients in red meat helped our brains grow.

Many carnivores have been hunting and eating red meat for millions of years and have not experienced any significant growth in brain size. And none of them can play chess!

In 2004, scientific papers were published which identified the crucial gene responsible for the growth in human brain capacity.

Our brain size is a matter of genetics - like the other physiological developments which make us distinctively human.

In any case, human brains started to grow one or two million years ago. Because meat eating doesn't come naturally to us, unlike other meat-eaters, humans need control of fire to consume significant amounts of meat. We gained control over fire about 800,000 years ago - leaving at least 1,000,000 years, maybe double that, of human brain growth before we began hunting on a widespread basis.

"Hunting forced us to think. We learnt how to shape tools, communicate and work together – we were turning into human beings.

On the contrary. With the advent of agriculture, life ceased to be purely about survival.

With our bellies full and our nutritional needs met, for the first time in our history we had the time to think about other things in life besides where to get our next meal.

Hunting for meat required a nomadic lifestyle, following migration routes of wild animals and chasing them for long distances. Agriculture allowed us for the first time to settle in one place, build permanent structures and gather resources.

In these conditions, written languages and other types of social and cultural development became possible for the first time - the elaboration of arts, architecture, technology, science, mathematics and philosophy - all the things which set us apart from other animals.

Thanks to agriculture, we were turning into intellectually and technologically sophisticated beings.

"Over thousands of years, our bodies adapted to a diet high in red meat.

In fact, over thousands of years, most human beings most of the time had very limited access to meat. This only changed in the last 50 years.

In pre-agricultural times, hunters had to run for days to catch a single animal, which then had to be shared with the whole community.

Following the domestication of animals, farmers had to provide enormous amounts of feed before a single animal was ready for slaughter. They had to sell most of the animals they raised.

From pre-agricultural times when eating meat was necessary for survival, we retained the habit and taste for meat. But until the second half of the 20th century, eating large quantities of meat on a daily basis was out of the reach of the huge majority of the world's population. For most of our history, we never had a diet "high in red meat".

Since World War II, when high volume meat consumption became available to the masses, meat-related diseases like heart disease and colon cancer have skyrocketed - precisely because over thousands of years our bodies were not adapted to this diet.

If our bodies were adapted to a diet high in red meat, then eating red meat wouldn't produce colon cancer. It's really that simple!

"In fact, our bodies and nutritional needs are very similar to our early ancestors.

Our bodies and nutritional needs are very similar to those of our closest living relatives.

The gorilla, one of the world's largest and most powerful animals, is entirely vegetarian.

On the other hand, our other relatives, the chimpanzees, do eat meat, and this has apparently made little difference in "helping their brains grow" or "forcing them to think", since they've shown no sign of evolving into human beings.

The fact is, our physical characteristics are shared with other plant-eaters and distinctly different to those of meat-eaters.

Like other herbivores, we have flat teeth for grinding, not sharp teeth for ripping flesh; fingernails, not claws; and long intestines in which - frankly - meat has time to go rancid. Just compare our teeth and claws to those of cats, dogs, lions and tigers and ask yourself if our bodies are "made for meat".

"This is why your body instinctively desires red meat for health and wellbeing.

When was the last time you seized a small furry animal, ripped it apart with your bare hands and ate it on the spot, with the dripping blood still warm?

If your body "instictively desires red meat for health and wellbeing", then like other carnivores, you should desire your meat raw.

For that matter, why do we disguise it by calling a dead cow "beef", or a dead sheep "mutton"?

And why do we prefer eating cows or pigs than dogs or cats - as a great source of red meat, shouldn't our furry friends have us salivating?

Ever heard the classic one about the school class going on an excursion to the abbattoir and all the kids turning vegetarian?

If your body desires meat instinctively, then whatever age you are, you should come out of an abbattoir feeling appetised.

Actually, given that meat-eating is a habit ingrained for generations and fostered in most of us since we're babies, it's amazing how quickly this acquired taste dies out. After being vegetarian for as little as 5 or 10 years, most people find the taste, smell and texture of meat disgusting. Quite amazing how quickly we revert to our instictive tastes.

"Today, red meat still remains an important part of the diet. Lean red meat has an impressive bundle of nutrients: Omega 3s to help keep the heart in good shape and to support brain function Zinc to help maintain the immune system Vitamin B12 to help protect DNA and the nervous system Iron to carry oxygen in the blood for energy and vitality Protein to help satisfy the appetite for longer and help control hunger pangs.

Yes, Omega 3s, Zinc, Iron, Vitamin B12 and Protein are vital to human health. And yes, they are contained in red meat.

However, the ads neglect to mention that all of the above are readily found in meatless diets* - which don't, however, share the nutritional negatives of meat - such as cholesterol, saturated fat and high levels of oxidants.

In fact, there's more iron in 100g of raisins than there is in 100g of beef steak. (Yes, contrary to popular belief! It pays to check your facts!)

On the other hand, meat lacks essential nutrients like fibre, vitamin C, folate, antioxidants and complex carbohydrates.

And it's not just a numbers game. Nutrients which are found in high quantities in a meat-based diet, such as protein and iron, can cause serious health problems if you eat too much. And most people in Western countries, because of their high meat consumption, do eat several times too much.

It's also the form of the nutrients which matters, and which differs in meat versus plant foods. For example, the iron in red meat produces compounds which cause DNA damage which leads to cancer.

Trying to meet your dietary requirements for things like iron, protein, omega-3, vitamins and zinc by eating meat can be very dangerous!

"It’s no wonder the Australian Dietary Guidelines continue to recommend we enjoy lean red meat 3-4 times every week. After all, that’s the way nature intended it."

The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend that Australians choose LEAN meats, because of the serious health risks associated with the cholesterol and saturated fats in meat. Recognising that most Australians do eat meat, the Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend quantities which represent a reduction of meat consumption for most people.

Before they get to any mention of meat, the Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend that we increase our intake of fruits, vegetables and legumes, as well as grains and cereals - all the foods that make up a plant-based diet. They also recommend that we "Limit saturated fat and moderate total fat intake" - thus explicity recognising the health dangers of meat eating (meat is the primary dietary source of saturated fat).

There is ample evidence to suggest that a vegetarian diet is healthier than a meat-based one. Most of this research is independent - unlike the research behind the Australian CSIRO's Wellbeing Diet, which was paid for by the meat industry.

The last word.... is meat an "ESSENTIAL" part of the human diet?

The current, "Foundation Food" phase of Meat & Livestock Australia's red meat campaign:

"is designed to take red meat to a whole new level in the minds of consumers, positioning red meat as an essential ‘foundation food’. Foundation Food [the capaign] tells the story of how mankind evolved on red meat over the past two million years and why red meat remains as essential to our health and wellbeing today." (Source: www.mla.com.au/TopicHierarchy/Marketing/DomesticMarketing/Consumer+Campaigns/Red+Meat.+Feel+Good.htm)

There's just one problem. It's false - and it's easy to prove it!

Meat of any sort is not essential to human diets. Vegetarians are the living proof!

Millions of vegetarians all over the world live long and healthily and in many parts of the world have traditionally done so for generations.

Right here at Vegetarian Action, our Coordinator has been a strict vegetarian for over 20 years. Aged 45, fit and strong, in perfect health, he has paid one visit to a doctor in the last 10 years. (Can Sam Neill say as much?)

His daughter, now 15, was born to a vegetarian mother and has never eaten meat in her life (barring the odd teenage experiment). She's in perfect health and topping her class in science.

We are the living proof that it is NOT essential to eat meat in order to live, function, and be strong and healthy.

Meat & Livestock Australia call this a "consumer nutrition campaign". (www.mla.com.au)

We call it - misinformation!

The interesting thing is that Meat & Livestock Australia themselves admit, on another website, that meat is not essential to human health and wellbeing.

"In the past vegetarians were believed to be healthier and live longer lives than those who ate meat. However.... vegetarian diets are not necessarily healthier than meat-based diets. Those who eat meat and are health conscious can live just as long as vegetarians."
(Source: http://www.foodfacts.com.au/FoodMythology.aspx, "myth" # 12)

WHAT DO YOU THINK? DON'T BUY THE BEEF!!! MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND.

Thanks to Geoff Russell for additions to our orginal arguments.

* To B12 or not to B12?

Vitamin B12 is an essential dietary nutrient. Although required in very minute quantities by the human body, deficiency of this vitamin has very severe consequences for the body and nervous system.

Vitamin B12 is readily available in a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet through the consumption of eggs and dairy products. However, it is not readily available in vegan diets. (For more information on where vegans can get it, please see our article Vitamin B12: what every vego needs to know.)

Because Vitamin B12 is not naturally occurring in modern vegan diets, some people argue that this is proof that vegetarian diets are not "natural" - that we were "meant" to eat meat.

It's a complex issue but there are a number of ways to refute this.

B12 is a unique nutrient. It is produced micro-organisms are found in the soil and on the surface of plants. (However, it's destroyed by pesticides and washing.)

B12 is not produced by the bodies of animals. Herbivores eat raw and unwashed plant foods, such as grasses and fruits, and so ingest the micro-organisms. Carnivores eat herbivores, and receive the B12 "second hand" from them.

In some herbivores, the micro-organisms can get established in the gut of the animal and live there, producing B12 which then supplies some or all of the animal's B12 needs. Thus, some animals can live without a continous external supply, instead meeting their body's needs from "within".

B12 is not an argument against the "natural-ness" of vegan diets, because:

Humans, as plant eaters, would naturally ingest B12-producing micro-organisms by eating unwashed and naturally grown fruits and vegetables. However, in the sanitised modern world where vegetables are sprayed, washed, sterilised, transported, stored etc, the poor little mites are all gone by the time we eat it. Therefore the lack of B12 is not caused by the plant-based diet, but rather, by modern methods of prdoucing food.
Scientists have found that some herbivores don't need a continuous supply of B12 through their food. Instead, the B12 micro-organisms can become established as live colonies in their guts, where they produce B12 which the animal is able to assimilate to meet its needs.

It has not been categorically established, but it seems a reasonable hypothesis, that human beings originally also had this capacity. However, through thousands of years of meat-eating, our capacity to meet our B12 needs in this way has atrophied, leaving us with the need for a continuous external supply.

(The idea is that when meat putrefies in the long human intestines - we have long ones like herbivores, not short ones like carnivores - the acidic environment which results is fatal for the micro-organisms. Continuous meat eating over time therefore has prevented the micro-organisms from being able to get established in the human body. It's also hypothesised that due to the long absence of the micro-organisms from our guts, the human body's ability to assimilate B12 from micro-organisms living in its own guts may have changed.)
Some vegans claim to have lived healthily on an exclusively vegan diet for many years without developing B12 deficiency. If this is true, it would appear to suggest that some people may have the capacity to host B12-producing micro-organisms. Accepting the atrophy hypothesis (see point 2), it could further be hypothesised that with long enough adherence to an exclusively plant-based diet, the atrophy may be reversed and our species could begin again to produce B12 to meet our own needs without a continuous external supply.

* To B12 or not to B12?

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