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Originally Posted by tore
Interesting hypothesis regarding the adaptiveness of vegetable cooking as a strategy, Vegangelica  Although I haven't read anything about it, I assume that heat preparing meat, aside from making the food more easily digestible, it must also have been a super strategy as it kills parasites which is potentially a huge problem when you're on a meat diet. |
Our human ancestors lived for millions of years without cooking meat, since fire is a fairly recent tool, so I don't really know how huge a problem a raw meat diet was for our ancestors or is for current mainly meat-eaters (Eskimos), Tore. Also, people still eat meat partially raw (such as rare steaks and sushi). *I* wouldn't do it, of course, for a variety of reasons, including pathogens.
As an aside: many pregnant women usually develop a strong aversion to meat during crucial times in the embryo's development, and such pregnancy sickness is hypothesized to be an evolutionary advantage because meats can cause illnesses, like you say, due to pathogens.
When I was pregnant, my whole sense of smell changed: spicy foods and fireplace smoke were VILE VILE VILE! For around 1 month (second month of pregnancy) the only thing I wanted to eat was peaches. I didn't have to confront meat, so I couldn't test out how my response would be...but I know the smell of spicy food was horrendous. (Spices like turmeric are also sometimes teratogens, so avoidance during pregnancy is understandable.) And any kind of smoke was horrible...so I suspect the smoke from burning meat would have made me run away.
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I posted some time back that in the future, I believe meat will be grown in factories in rough equivalents to petri dishes. How would you feel about eating a lab grown beef?
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I still wouldn't eat lab grown beef because I can eat vegan foods just fine, but I feel lab grown meats are preferable to slaughtering animals. However, Tore, this method sounds very expensive and slow and so I doubt will ever be financially viable large-scale. Wealthy people will be able to afford lab-grown beef, but I doubt poor people will.