That's a generous generalization.

We mammals developed lungs 'out of pure necessity' when we crawled onto the land from the sea - since gills are pretty useless here.

Ergo, following your reductionist argument to it's logical end - humans are biologically amoebas. Arms, legs, eyes, teeth and hair - to say nothing of a brain - mere 'gene mutations' from the original, according to your hypothesis.

Oh wait - that's called evolution. Where the something that exists today evolved from something else many eons ago - and where 'mutations' develop and thrive (get passed down to successive generations) when they further species survival. Necessary mutations, in other words. Which leads us back to your theory.

Reductionist and Tautological - well done!

Lisa

(Science Daily)

Eating red meat increases a woman’s chance of developing breast cancer, according to new research from the University of Leeds.

The findings are most striking for post-menopausal women – those with the highest intake of red meat, the equivalent to one portion a day (more than 57 grams) - run a 56 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than those who eat none.

Women who eat the most processed meat, such as bacon, sausages, ham or pies, run a 64 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than those who eat none.

Researchers at the University’s Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics have been tracking the eating habits and health of more than 35,000 women for the past seven years, and their latest findings are published in the British Journal of Cancer.


I wish it were true that only "one scientist" was getting money for studying the possibility of problems with human red meat consumption.

There are so many studies similar to the above linking red meat and compromised human health that it’s almost incompressible.

Certainly your not implying that all scientists world wide who do these studies and reach simular conclusions are clueless in the dark idiots?

Bo

Yes, I am implying that.

Any scientist who concludes that red meat is bad for humans is a clueless idiot. Is that better? Now I'm not implying it -- I am flatly saying it.

Yes BoBo, many epidemiological studies which as you and I well know do not prove causation and have many, many variables which are not taken into account. These studies are also generally funded by low-fat special interest groups.

"Vegetation in the human digestive tract is mainly undigested. It would take at least one more stomach, 2 1/2 times more length of digestive tract and 60,000 times more of the enzymes that disassemble cellulose to derive much protein and fat from vegetables. "

And I do believe that if i concentrate very very hard I can make the rain stop. Sometimes it just takes a little more time than other times. Rain is fickle that way. I have better luck with making the sun rise in the morning. I know it's a big responsibility but someone has to do it.

Fail #1: You read 100 news reports about 1 study and conclude there were 100 studies.

Fail #2: What about the reports that eating meat doesn't cause cancer? Why do you eliminate those from your reasoning?

Fail #3: All these things say "red meat", not "meat, dairy, insects, poultry, fish"

Fail #4: Why do you fail to explain the low cancer rates in primarily low carb eating Inuit and other groups?

Fail #5: Why do you discount the studies of cancer in high carb consuming diets?

Fail #6: Why can't you account for the biological need that humans have for things found in animal proteins (and fats)?

Fail #7: Why can't you find any examples of vegans in history if that is the way humans are supposed to eat?

You seem to be wearing a pair of industrial strength blinders.

Remember a few years back there were all these reports that eating fat caused cancer? Well, they did more studies and found out the first studies were wrong. Remarkably you don't hear those fat causes cancer studies in the media any longer.

Methinks he is just enjoying stirring us all up...

I think the message board term is a 'swoop-n-poop'. The poster swoops in and poops all over a thread, or all over the founding principles of the board. It's more common on political message boards but we see it here occasionally too.

I agree that our human ancestors did indeed adapt to acquire energy from a more plentiful source. Their only choice was to supplement their diet with animal protein or perish.

The problem is that while humans did indeed change their diet out of necessity to survive, their bodies did not biologically evolve to consume this new energy source due to a simple mutation that (knocked out) a gene found in animals from the human body.

These many studies seem analogous to a tree. The studies are the branches that all lead back to the common trunk and root of the problem which seems to be the simple molecule found in red meat that modern human bodies view as an invader.

We are the only primates, other than our distant Neanderthal cousins, whose bodies do not produce this particular molecule. Unfortunately, this has resulted in fundamental genetic and biochemical differences between humans and other animals that many believe compromise our health when we consume red meat.

Kathy, I’m a simple seeker of the truth regarding the human dietary absorption of a cell-surface molecular sugar found in non-human mammals which would imply we are indeed biologically vegan.

I’m not a “swooper and pooper” !!!

Bo

A simple seeker of truth would be hunting this truth on a vegan board rather than playing games on this board.

A simple seeker of truth would respond to Nancy's questions rather than playing avoidance games.

Unless I misunderstood how you meant the word "simple" to be read, that is...

I think there's an assumption that needs corrected. Protein is not the "more plentiful energy source". Fat is.

Protein is barely used for energy. Instead, fat is the primary source of fuel. Between plants and animal flesh, it's obvious which provides the most fat and the most readily available fat. With populations that have limited access to fatty animal flesh they supplement their diet with some form of fatty plant like coconut for instance.

As Stefansson observed, lean animal flesh is not suitable on its own. We must eat the fat as well or we quickly suffer. We could argue that the results of various studies showing a problem with meat consumption found a problem because those people did not eat enough fat. I could name a few examples like Kimkins, Ancel Keys or Stefansson to support this idea of toxic protein in the absence of fat. In the case of Kimkins and Ancel Keys, the subjects suffered emaciation. In the case of Stefansson, the subjects suffered from something called rabbit starvation.

On the genetic aspect, we could argue that since humans lost the ability to produce vitamin C our body must see this molecule as an intruder and the body must defend itself against it. However, a hypothesis is based on the facts and the facts show that vitamin C is beneficial to some degree. If other animals have the ability to produce this molecule, it can't be that bad for those who eat them. It can't be bad for those who adapted to eat those animals.

We could also make the case of cholesterol. All our cells have the ability to manufacture cholesterol yet cholesterol is blamed for heart disease. It's absurd to contend that our cells work to destroy the organism that they compose. In a similar manner, it's absurd to contend that NeuG5c is now bad for those who have lost the ability to produce it merely because they have lost the ability to produce it. For this molecule to be deemed bad, we would have to show its effect by excluding all other potential sources of harm. Specifically, we would have to put people on an exclusive all red meat diet for a period of time and see if they develop cancer. Because that is the contention: That this molecule causes cancer in humans.

Correction. The contention is that the molecule causes cancer. This molecule is found in red. Therefore red meat cause cancer.

As history has shown, red meat in any quantity does not cause cancer nor does it cause any ill whatsoever unless the meat in question is still alive when we try to eat it and tramples us to death instead.

We could also make the point that since we have lost the ability to produce NeuG5c, we hunt, kill and eat other animals that still produce this molecule in order for us to continue to benefit from its effects. Why would other animals still have the ability to produce this molecule if it was toxic?

There's this saying about poisons: The dose makes the poison. It's entirely possible that like glucose and many other substances that we need, NeuG5c is toxic in quantities above normal. All that's left now is to find what's normal.

Bacon often contains sugar, ham usually does, sausages contain grains or potato starch, pies contain grains. So if processed meat is worse than fresh meat (as the article seems to imply) it's obviously the meat that is the problem...

And those who eat processed meat are also those who are less wealthy and eat more grain products because those things are cheaper. And those poorer are less educated. So unless we control for that, we can't possibly make a case against processed meat let alone red meat.