When I say I'm sceptical towards a vegetarian diet, it's not because of the things you'd miss because I accept that you can get all essential amino acids and vitamins and so on. What I'm sceptical towards is more what comes with those nutrients. In the study I quoted about autists behaviour in relation to diet, the change in behaviour is blamed on peptides derived from gluten. The ultimate answer to the problem is we have not evolved to eat starchy grains and so it affects us. In that study, it seems it changes the way autists respond to their environment -> it changes behaviour. More typical for such diet studies, it could be shown to be connected with lifestyle diseases.

A vegetarian diet will have us eat much more stuff we are not adapted to eating. This will cause changes in health and behaviour, just like gluten does. The reason it seems healthy, I think, is that it's now always compared to some idea of a normal western diet which probably includes stuff like fries and coka cola. If you compare a vegetarian diet to something like a paleolithic caveman diet, I think it would come out as worse. This is why I think a choice to be vegetarian is still a choice to be "unhealthy" .. ;)

Stone Birds, who do you feel has more feelings and sensations of awareness...a carrot or a cow?

If you answer, "A carrot," what are your reasons for feeling this? If you answer, "A cow," then this would be a good reason for being vegetarian. If you were truly concerned about the feelings of carrots, then I can only assume you would have even more concern for the greater feelings of cows and other animals whom people slaughter.

Also, if it were true that vegetables and fruits had a great awareness and an ability to suffer, then being vegetarian would actually be better than being a meat-eater. Why? Eating animals (who eat plants) results in a larger number of plants being killed than if a person simply eats plants directly! So, meat-eaters cause the deaths of more animals *and* plants than vegetarians do!

Tore, I feel you are making an incorrect assumption when you state that "vegetarian diets cause people to eat much more stuff we are not adapted to eating." How are you determining the foods to which people are adapted to eating?

One issue to consider is that humans do not all respond the same way to foods: some people have food intolerances and a small minority have food allergies, and not all of these reactions are to plant-derived foods. For example, eggs (which *evolutionarily* should be extremely easy to digest) and shellfish are common foods to which some people have bad reactions. Celiac disease (gluten intolerance) is fairly common among some ethnicities. This does not mean all people have problems eating seeds that contain gluten.

People's response to food is complicated by the fact that often the foods that people eat the most (for example, rice in Asian countries) become a food to which people develop allergic reactions. In fact, some people have allergies to meat (see this 2010 article)...but this does not mean humans didn't evolve with the ability to eat meat: Severe allergic reaction to meat may not be rare | Reuters .

It certainly is plausable that milk products (a recent addition in the diets of some but not all humans) and the grain protein, gluten, can harm the development of some people who have a genetic sensitivity or develop one during childhood, but if true this does not mean that casein and gluten are bad for all people, or that vegetarian diets are bad. Vegans, after all, avoid all milk products! :) And people can be vegetarian and eat grains that lack gluten.

I looked at more recent studies on the relationship, if any, between autism and consumption of gluten and casein, and the conclusion of a double-blind study was that there was no statistically significant difference in symptoms resulting from the control diet and the diet lacking gluten and casein:

Elder, et al. (2006) The Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet In Autism: Results of A Preliminary Double Blind Clinical Trial, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Volume 36, Number 3. SpringerLink - Journal Article

Another brief report found that a child suffering from autism had undiagnosed celiac disease: Celiac disease presenting as autism. [J Child Neurol. 2010] - PubMed result. Someone with celiac disease does have unique dietary needs. Again, this does not mean vegetarian diets are less healthful than the diet people are assumed to have eaten during the Paleolithic period.

You propose that a person eating a (well-planned) "hunter-gatherer diet" (no animal milk, few grains, no beans) would be healthier than a person eating a (well-planned) vegetarian or vegan diet. However, I haven't found any articles that describe short-term or long-term studies doing a direct comparison of both diets.

The most recent article that I could find online about this topic of paleolithic diet said the following:
How is the Canterbury week shaping up, btw? ;) I will take a break from our caveman vs. vegetarian debate and go check out the music sections, Tore, now that I've got the urge to dazzle you with my research on this topic out of my system (for an hour or so)!

My brother is autistic, and my parents had put him on a gluten-free diet for a couple of years upon the recommendation of a pediatrician. We did not notice any changes in his behaviour, positive or even negative. But autism + diet is a whole different topic that is not really relevant to this thread.

A break sounds good to me as well! You certainly bring up some interesting points and the arguments from me from now on following that same vein would be based on speculation more than facts and I'm not entirely comfortable in that territory. I guess from both a caveman and a veg diet, it makes more sense to argue the roughly common consumerist western diet which I'm sure we can agree is the worst of the three!

As for the theme week, hmm .. I'd almost forgotten about that. Thanks for the reminder! :)

The reason it might be relevant, Burning Down, is that if it were true that wheat (and related grains) resulted in higher risk of certain illnesses or developmental issues, and since so many vegetarians eat a lot of grains, then this could be used as an argument against vegetarianism. My counter-argument would be that vegetarians can avoid gluten and casein (dairy protein).

I hope your brother is doing okay and enjoying himself. The nephew of someone I once dated was diagnosed with autism, and over time he has been able to make more eye contact, which I hear is a good sign, but it is hard to get the proper help he needs through the public school system.

Agreed, Tore! :)

wow vegangelica i cannot believe that you didn't realize i was joking about the vegetable feelings

Oh, I knew it was a joke, Stone Birds. The joke of feigning concern for vegetables is one we hear frequently when people want to trivialize animals' feelings. I think most people feel plants and their body parts (roots, leaves, fruits) don't have much awareness, since plants lack brains.

Except perhaps AwwSugar, who was worried about strawberries a little earlier on in this thread. ;)

that's because veganism is srs bizness

Srs bizness, yes!

How's the vegan/vegetarian decision-making going, btw, Paloma?

let's just answer the thread's title: is meat murder? yes, because it comes from killing an animal will that stop people from eating very few