> Fresh veg and fruit are dear compared to the packets of cheap snacky food. I think many vegans junk out as often as other people. No idea if vegan junk food is healthier than other junk food!
Vegans I've spoken to tend to be trying to "eat the rainbow" and such. As it's hard to get full nutrition from only plant sources, you have to eat a wide variety of stuff or you will get malnourished. Vegans have told me this so I'm going off that.
> But if vegans are healthier than average, would you accept that it's not necessary to eat meat to be healthy.
I'm sure some people can be healthy and vegan, but that doesn't necessarily follow that they wouldn't be healthier as carnivores!
> What's the value of this digestive argument, we don't physically resemble predators any more than plant-eaters.
I believe we do. Large brains and small digestive tracts. Look at a herbivore. Huge bodies and small brains because the energy required for a digestive system that will properly break down plant matter didn't give their brains enough energy to evolve to be more complex. We are predators with grasping hands and our eyes at the front of our heads and not at the sides like prey animals.
> Anyway, no animal can cook.
I believe cooking can make meat easier to digest, but that doesn't change the basic nutritional value of foods.
> The whole evolutionary argument I find unconvincing. I say, let's evolve to be even better! This is assuming certain kinds of values, of course.
Evolution takes thousands of years and longer. Humans evolved into humans because they were able to use their ability to wield tools to crack marrow bones of carcasses left by bigger hunters and get at the fat inside them. Our brains are made largely of fat so hence were able to grow (on an evolutionary time scale of countless generations I mean). Also this made our digestive tracts like those of carrion eaters. Short and highly acid.
> Um. Is this an Atkins diet or variation?
I don't know very much about the Atkins diet. As I mentioned elsewhere there is lots of information on the Internet about carnivore diets and people in the west who've been doing it for years and decades and rave about it. Not to mention all the peoples around the world (who I've already mentioned elsewhere) who live their whole lives like this as part of their culture.
Look up Dr Ken Berry as a start point if you're interested. He has a YouTube and other social media to get the basics down and the benefits of it fairly quickly and easily. > Gaining muscle, without exercise - so has it made you physically stronger? If it does, would you not get the same effect from plant protein sources?
I don't think I would, because they aren't as easily digested as meat, have fewer nutrients, aren't as bio available as meat and have all sorts of other things in them like carbohydrates, oxylates and other things that block the uptake of vitamins.
I'm not saying I'm Dolph Lundgren now. As I say I don't exercise, but I'm no longer out of breath or keeling over when I have to leg it for the train. I feel stronger though and the missus says I look it. I'm more agile and have much more energy. I'm also a stone and a half of beer gut lighter from it. Also I have fewer aches and pains, I get fewer colds and they're much less severe, my digestion is much happier, my eczema has disappeared, I didn't get hay fever this year. Mentally I'm less anxious and the missus says (and I agree) that her bouts of depression have gone. She's been strict carnivore for about 18 months. Me slightly less strict but for about 10 months with 5 months being ultra low carb before that.
> I think going by instinct is more reliable than abstract excuses. I don't have the time to research your 'growing plants kills lots of small animals' argument, though I do find it interesting. I would need to see evidence as the evidence of direct harm to some animals is pretty obvious.
Not sure what "abstract excuses" refers to. I don't deny the power of instinct, but it can easily be hijacked by narrative. When everyone's telling you something is the best way and giving cute reasons for it, then it can probably seem pretty instinctive. Doesn't mean it's not snake oil though.
I think research on this is very small because commercial interests dictate that it ought to be. As I said elsewhere, Monsanto/Bayer would go out of business if they didn't get to sell GMO seeds and pesticides because everyone was only eating beef!
It's fairly instinctive though when you think about it. If you are tilling fields you haven't got space for insects and burrowing animals to be screwing with your crops. Who cares if an insect flies past your cow or a mouse goes "Eek!" at your sheep?