I haven't eaten any for about a year now. I quit slowly cutting out red meat first, followed by white meat, poultry etc. I feel much healthier for it. My digestion seems much better and I have more energy. Meat feels too heavy, I like light meals.

"Some of the nutrients we need come mainly from meat or animal products."

Can you list those nutrients? I tend to disagree with that statment, from both personal experience and hospital tests.

Minxx got sick a few week ago and I took her to the hospital becasue it was late at night and they made us wait hours whiel they ran full blood tests to see if they could find anything wrong, or low etc..everything came back normal..even b12 levels and she has been 100% vegan for years.

I just dont believe for one second that any of the nutrients we need come mainly from meat.

Some doctors also believe based on the length of our digestive tracts that we have not evolved to eat meat.

I have told this story so many times here but I was very very ill at one point, and I went on all sorts of diets doctors prescribed..I went on all orgnic diets that included freerange organic meat..none of this helped much. The only thing that did was going vegan and cutting out grains(which I had tried while eating meat as well). I was also tested as low b12 years ago when I got sick eating meat..and somehow I am not anymore..hmm

What you have said here describes the rudiments of a SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT. It's reasonable. You tested to see whether something "works," and it DID. Therefore...

(Of course, I'll leave out the fact that your experimental design is flawed in some ways, and that even if it were perfect it would nevertheless require more experimentation to produce a statistical basis that supports broad applicability)

So...you have shown that you think the scientific method is appropriate. Why then do you so easily REJECT so many scientific results found (by quite CAREFUL use of the scientific method)?

B12 IS necessary for humans, and it DOES come almost exclusively from animal products--although people can sometimes live (in SOME cases) for DECADES without animal products or other forms of B12. The existence of B12 was found BECAUSE of the disease "pernicious anemia," and because that disease was CURED with liver extracts.

I recommend the wikipedia articles for a well researched discussion of B12 and why it's needed. They're here and here.

How hard would it be to grow at home the bacteria that makes b12? Is it possible to purchase it?

I take B12 pills. Problem solved, they're easy to find.

b12 has been proven to be present by japanese scientists in some cultured foods in low ammounts, as well as it is found in wild water sources, like rivers, lakes and springs due to to the bacteria present.

there is also a theory that b12 is not as necessary in non meat eaters..it is still required but in much smaller ammounts..this has not been proven or disproven yet as far as I can tell..but from what I understand the idea is that a proper vegan diet will proved larger ammounts of the other b vitamins and that b12 is needed more when the other b vitamins are lower..basically it is that meat eaters require more b12..I dont know anything else about that theory though..never really concidered it to be honest just read it a few times.

I am well aware of how vital b12 is in the human body..but that fact that long term vegans can go in to the doctor and test for normal b12 levels tells me that something else is going on. For one thing many meat eaters test positive for b12 deficiency as well..

One theory is that these people have mineral deficiencies that cause them to have absorbtion difficulties..if you body is not absorbing minerals and vitamines etc you can eat all the cobalamin you want and it wont matter much.

Another thing is that alot of vegetarians and vegans dont really eat the best diets. Some people think that if they just cut meat out they will be somehow healthier which is unrealistic..in reality they might just get even sicker and weaker becasue with all of the crap people eat that meat might be the only thing really giving them enough minerals..the only healthy looking vegans and vegetarian ones I know are the ones that eat very complete and banalced diets full of whole foods instead of just white bread and canned beans with some tufo and maybe an apple here and there..

I eat alot of cultured foods..I eat cutltured foods every single day, as well as drinking all wild water I collect myself and I also eat alot of food directly from the ground where the b12 producing bacteria is, and especially durring the summer when I pick wild foods..so all of that together might account for me not really having a b12 problem.

I know that in my case I had an absorbtion problem as well, becasue I had some serious damage to my intestinal lining..I was not absorbing minerals properly and could nto gain weight..I could eat all the meat I wanted and would not gain weight. Everyone noticed the change though after a few months of raw vegan eating..at first I lost a bit more weight..maybe detoxing or something..but then I started to gain weight and slowly still am gaining weight..all muscle too..I am still really thin but stronger and dont look so sick.

Honestly I'm more worried about Iron that B12, but I take that as well.

Indie Anthias, but where is the b12 from? If it's from, say, a big pharmaceutical company, wouldnt it be counterproductive because you're just giving your money to another nasty industry (that also do animal testing) ?

Fractal, it would be nice if you could quote some sources for b12 content in lakes and in the ground and so on. I remember researching this some years ago and reading some convincing debunking of this idea because the b12 vitamin content elsewhere was minute and not reliable in the least.

I think vitamins tend to be less pharmaceutical, but honestly I have no idea. Anyway, they're cheap as hell and you get like 500 per bottle, (almost 2 years worth)... a tiny little pill per day vs a slab of steak?

Your point is completely valid, of course. I'm just trying to put in into proportion. In fact I sometimes have qualms with the suppliers of my plant-based food as well, I'm not into my garden-growing years just yet.

But if you can come up with a way to produce B12 without paying a big supplier, I salute you. I'm always inspired by anything DIY.

Here is a short and sweet article about B12, where it comes from, and why vegans need to be sure to get it, from a seemingly well-organized and rational vegan website.

I'd just like to add that for the past week I've been eating a raw fruit/vegetable/nuts/seeds diet and today for my dinner I thought I'd do some fish with it, just to see if I felt any benefit as over the years my body has been using meat.

For the first time this week I can feel my digestive system under strain. I expected as I hadn't had any I may be craving it on some level, but I wasnt overly anticipating and now Im feeling some discomfort.

I may cut it out completely instead of slowly transitioning.

Other than that, I've been 100% raw and I feel great for it... though not so much right now. The fish was thoroughly cooked.

I found this also. Nothing but fruit and veg for a month, then a meal of fish one night and I had a horrible crampy stomach the next day.

It Quite surprised me really, I will retry some fish in another month to see if it happens again and to make sure it wasn't a coincidence

Over the past 2 years or so I have been forced to completely reconsider the intake of food around me. While in junior high school i learned of my bodies sensitivity to foods containing gluten, red meats, beans.. ect. Which resulted in a failed diet plan as a still very young kid. Over the past year i have tried to come to grips with how my body should be using food, which is still hard. So as of my recent diet I have been learning the ways of proper food combining, mostly on a fruit vegetable, and nut diet. However i have not cut our white meats and fish yet. And i still will eat some local red meats on occasion. I guess right now as far as animal products are concerned I am trying to restrict myself completely to locally produced, farm products. I am happy to say all processed foods have been cut out.

Its good to see how many people on this site are conscious of things so many people don't even think about anymore =)

I'm not sure if I'll bother.

I may try something like a small portion of chicken, but now I'm thinking that I was feeling pretty good as I was, so why bother?

I think I'm going to carry on as I was until something doesn't feel right, then maybe think of some refinement I can take on board.

I'm gonna do it just to prove to myself that the fish was the reason it happened, if it happens again then I'm done. I'm just so surprised that if we are "meant" to eat meat that abstaining for as little as a month would cause such unpleasant effects when some meat is eaten again.

Xmas is gonna be a nightmare

I'm surprised to find this type of vegan-talk in a forum that is largely focused on the lives of our ancient ancestors. Before the advent of agriculture, the diet of most populations of people consisted mainly of meat, fish, leafy veggies, insects, tubers, and a few fruits (i.e. hunter gatherer) - anthropology shows that these populations of people did not generally suffer from the types of diseases that are rampant today (diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity, etc.). It is the high fat, moderate protein diet that we switched to as we descended from the trees of Africa years ago that allowed us to develop large brains and small stomachs. Since the development of agriculture, diets have shifted greatly towards grain consumption (most notably wheat in recent history) and our health has declined concurrently. There is a HUGE amount of propaganda out there these days stemming from the agricultural industry, the USDA, and "nutrition experts" that pushes for a "plant-based whole foods diet". This recommendation comes without any scientific consensus that this type of diet is healthier than a "meat-based" or many other types of diets. You guys are quick to criticize the meat industry (i am too!) but fail to acknowledge that selling grain is several times more profitable than selling meat, especially in this country - this unhealthy food is even subsidized by your tax dollars (ridiculous!).

I was a vegetarian for 7 years because I was morally opposed to animal cruelty, but I now believe that when animals are treated with care and allowed to graze freely in an open environment that these concerns are largely unfounded. I'm 110% against factory farming, just as I'm sure you all are, but I eat a ton of grass fed meat each week, mostly beef and lamb that comes from a few of my favorite local farms neighboring the area where I live. Grain fed meat cannot be compared to grass fed meat - animals that live on fields grazing the food they are meant to eat are happy and healthy and their hormones/body composition reflects this. I also eat fresh local veggies (kale, squash, tomatoes, etc.) when they are in season. Eating this way dramatically decreases the amount of fossil fuels that it takes to feed me and this type of diet has benefited my health greatly. Since cutting out grains, legumes, dairy, and nuts I have made gains in the gym that I had not previously thought possible for myself. I've also lost nearly all of the chubbiness that stopped my muscles from being seen. I've never had my blood lipid profile tested or any other biomarker tested, but I imagine these have improved as well.

There is so much misinformation out there regarding meat, grains, dairy and vegetables that it can be hard to navigate. The idea that meat/saturated fat causes heart disease and cancer has been based on bad science that has been debunked several times over. The truth is that nutrition is a hard thing to study an that no really scientific cross-over studies have been performed to show diet superiority. Until such scientific studies have been preformed and replicated, the government has no business making recommendations about peoples diet.

I highly recommend people try a "paleo" type diet for a while and see how the feel and perform. I also cook all of my vegetables because there are so-called anti nutrients in a lot of these things that can prevent nutrient absorption or mess with the guy. Cooking destroys the activity of most of these compounds so I generally don't eat raw vegetables. I do however eat raw meat sometimes, because this eliminates the possibility of HCAs plus it's delicious. Unlike a lot of vegans I know/have met, I only take two supplements - fish oil and vitamin D. If I had the choice, I would have a job working outside (for the vitamin D) and would each more cold water fish (if it were cheaper where I live) and I wouldn't need to take any supplements.

There is too much info about nutrition facts/fiction to go through every piece in this thread, but I STRONGLY encourage you to do your own in depth research into nutrition, you'll see how shaky most of the science is. I recommend picking up Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. That book is an amazingly researched review of dietary studies and is possible the most life changing book I've ever read. (i am not affiliated with Taubes)

note: i havnt read a single post here: but i smoalk'ed yesterday and coming back to baseline i walked in the kitchen to see cut meet marinating in a bowl and i felt like it had bad intentions,so i didnt eat it. my dad asked why and i said i just dont want to that meat has bad intentions and today he was sick with food poisoning. he asked how i knew and i just said idk i was tripping and the meat just had a bad vibe. he no longer thinks im crazy ( iv shared some of my experiences with him only to be met with closed mindedness and laughter )

Another point I wish to make: The only time I've gotten food poisoning was from chicken fingers at school. I've never gotten sick from eating locally raised, locally butchered meat even though I've eaten this raw on quite a few occasions. Unhealthy/unsafe meat come from unhealthy/sad animals. Animals that are kept locked up and live constantly in there own filth and the filth of others are more prone to getting sick. Also the practice of mixing the meat from many different individual animals is poor practice. This means that infection of meat from one animal can spread to meat from another individual.

Eat Local!

The China Study has not been "debunked". I believe it is peer-reviewed and has clearly demonstrated that high amounts of ingested animal protein does in fact promote cancer and heart disease.

I eat meat, mainly chicken, turkey, pork/ham and fish. I'll have red meat about once a week, maybe. Some days I'll have a vegetarian/vegan dish. I like to eat a varied and balanced diet, high in fibre and low in saturated fat, with plenty of fruit and vegetables, as this is what makes me feel healthy and happy.

Peace

Macre