There are Africans and Americans, Christians and Hindus, Blacks and Whites, rich people and poor people, but for some people there are only two kinds of people: Meat-eaters and vegetarians.
Both have their own lifestyle and their own beliefs and both can’t stop criticising each other. Let’s take a look at the common clichés about both sides:
Vegetarians are hypocrites who do not eat meat, have no fun, are sick and pale, need supplements because of malnutrition and go round criticising meat-eaters for their morally unacceptable lifestyle.
Meat-eaters are stupid, have high cholesterol, exploit all the animals on earth, will die of diabetes, heart-disease and cancer, destroy our planet and make fun of vegetarians – but only because they’re jealous.
I’m sure, you’ve all heard these “facts”, which the two parties have been using to bludgeon each other to death for ages. But what are the real facts? What does science say about the two lifestyles? Are meat-eaters stupid and vegetarians malnourished? The following showdown, scheduled for five rounds, will show who’s the ultimate winner of the competition.
Round One: Nature
Meat has always been a part of our diet. Our ancestors went hunting; we go to the supermarket. To say that eating meat is completely unnatural for humans cannot be true then, right? Of course we know that our ancestors might not have hunted down a large animal every day – they might have been lucky one day and then it took them a few weeks to catch another animal. Today, we just go and buy meat whenever we feel like it, so the thing that changed is not that we eat meat, but how much we eat.
However, if you look at this issue from another perspective, you have to think about the question why our ancestors ate meat – and when. There have been claims that humans are natural herbivores and that they only ate meat when there were more extreme situations during which no plants would grow, namely droughts and winter.
Also, if we compare ourselves to carnivores, we find predators with fangs, which are extremely fast and can actually stomach raw flesh. We don’t have fangs, and we’re not really fast. It was only the use of tools and weapons that enabled us to catch animals, which does not seem very natural compared to the predators.
On the other side, as we have established, meat helped us survive extreme situations. Meat has a lot of calories, so it certainly wasn’t bad for our survival during the winter. Also, if you look at tribes living in the rainforest somewhere who eat meat, it doesn’t seem unnatural to eat it.
However, when you look in the mirror and check out how our body is built, we are more similar to herbivores than to omnivores or carnivores: Our teeth, our life-span, our stomach acid, our digestive system – they all point in a vegetarian direction. But there are also “true omnivores” (like pigs and bears) and carnivores with whom we share some bodily features.
Looking at the facts, humans are – apparently – able to digest (cooked) meat, but it is questionable whether we are naturally meant to eat it, especially as much as people do nowadays. A look back at our ancestors shows that humans used to eat only very little meat since it was much harder to get than it is nowadays. Also, they only ate it to survive extreme situations. So we can say that we can eat both, though we have to keep in mind that the amount of meat we eat is not very natural anymore and also that meat was used to survive winters, which is not a big problem anymore. Looking at all the PROs and CONs of both competitors, this round ends with one point for each party.
Round Two: Health
As we’ve already established, our body is more similar to that of a herbivore. And everyone needs to eat vegetables, because without vegetables we would soon lack all kinds of nutrients. Science has already taught us a lot about the differences between meat-eaters and vegetarians and it is a fact that vegetarians live longer. Meat-eaters, on the other hand, more easily develop diabetes, heart-diseases and cancer. But this has a lot to do with the kind of meat that is eaten. Red meat, for example, is much more unhealthy than poultry. Red meat has certain ingredients which are carcinogenic and can, for example, trigger breast cancer. In fact, more and more people are realizing that turning to a vegetarian diet has helped them fight cancer (see article by William Harris, MD and an article by the BBC).
But this does not mean that being on a vegetarian diet keeps you healthy until the very end. We need to keep in mind that chocolate, oils, chips, pizza and all kinds of foods that are vegetarian do not necessarily have to be an advert for low-fat diets. Not only meat-eaters but also vegetarians can have too much cholesterol (which they consume via eggs and dairy products).
But what about malnutrition? Defenders of the meat-eating society claim that vegetarians lack all sorts of nutrients such as iron, B-vitamins, zinc or calcium. Personally, I know four people with iron-deficiency (which is a very popular argument against vegetarianism): Two are vegetarians and two are meat-eaters. This shows that both groups can develop health-problems if they don’t watch their diet. If you have a very one-sided diet this can harm your body one way or another.
Illnesses like cancer, heart-disease and diabetes can be triggered by a diet containing too much meat. On the other hand, one cannot eat too many vegetables. Vegetarians definitely survive without meat; otherwise their life-span wouldn’t be longer, but shorter. Considering that both diets can be unhealthy, but that only eating too much meat can be harmful, this round is won by the vegetarians.
After the first two rounds the current score is:
Meat Eaters 1 : 2 Vegetarians
But the fight’s not over yet...there are still three rounds to go:
Economy, Ethics and Social Life.
To be continued...
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