Do humans require meat?

This calls to mind a question I've dealt with before: Why do the Eskimos (or Inuit, as those in Canada and Greenland generally prefer to be called) stay there? It turns out that the people of the north have a highly evolved physiology that makes them well suited to life in the arctic: a compact build that conserves warmth, a faster metabolism, optimally distributed body fat, and special modifications to the circulatory system. One marvels at the adaptability of the human organism, of course, but still one has to ask: Wouldn't it have been easier just to move to San Diego?

Much of what we know about the Eskimo diet comes from the legendary arctic anthropologist and adventurer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who made several daredevil journeys through the region in the early 20th century. Stefansson noticed the same thing you did, that the traditional Eskimo diet consisted largely of meat and fish, with fruits, vegetables, and other carbohydrates — the usual source of vitamin C — accounting for as little as 2 percent of total calorie intake. Yet they didn't get scurvy.

Stefansson argued that the native peoples of the arctic got their vitamin C from meat that was raw or minimally cooked — cooking, it seems, destroys the vitamin. (In fact, for a long time "Eskimo" was thought to be a derisive Native American term meaning "eater of raw flesh," although this is now discounted.) Stefansson claimed the high incidence of scurvy among European explorers could be explained by their refusal to eat like the natives. He proved this to his own satisfaction by subsisting in good health for lengthy periods — one memorable odyssey lasted for five years — strictly on whatever meat and fish he and his companions could catch.

A few holdouts didn't buy it. To settle the matter once and for all, Stefansson and a colleague lived on a meat-only diet for one year under medical supervision at New York's Bellevue Hospital, starting in February 1928. The two ate between 100 and 140 grams of protein a day, the balance of their calories coming from fat, yet they remained scurvy free. Later in life Stefansson became a strong advocate of a high-meat diet even if you didn't live in the arctic; he professed to enjoy improved health, reduced weight, etc, from meals consisting of coffee, the occasional grapefruit, and a nice steak, presumably rare. Doesn't sound half bad, and one might note that until recently the Inuit rarely suffered from atherosclerosis and other Western ailments.

Vitamin C can be found in a variety of traditional Eskimo/Inuit staples, including the skin of beluga whales (known as muktuk), which is said to contain as much vitamin C as oranges. Other reported sources include the organ meats of sea mammals as well as the stomach contents of caribou. You're thinking: It'll be a mighty cold day in the arctic before they catch me eating the stomach contents of caribou. Indeed, you have to wonder whether the Inuit really ate such stuff either, since Stefansson describes it being fed to dogs.

Other aspects of the arctic diet also remain controversial. For example, some say the Eskimos could get vitamin C from blueberries during the summer months, while others say you'd be lucky to find enough berries to cover a bowl of Rice Chex. I say let's not sweat the details of the menu, which varied from region to region anyway. We know Eskimos got enough vitamin C in their traditional diet to survive because obviously they did. Now it's academic — most arctic natives live in villages and get their vitamin C from OJ and Juicy Juice, just like you and I.

Oh, and for all you vegetarians who've seen the error of your ways and were thinking of adopting the Inuit diet — think twice about the raw meat thing. Vitamin C might not a problem, but E. coli might.

"Around 800,000 years ago we see some of the first evidence for hominid controlled use of fire," said study leader Kyle Brown, a graduate student in archaeology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and at Arizona State University

No, my original post referred specifically to the conditions in which our early modern human ancestors developed their dietary preferences.

you have onlyONE post that has satisfied the topicthough I did disagree with several of arguements

It was not an appeal to emotion, although it is certainly useful to you to characterize in that manner, so that you can dismiss it without addrressing it.

Playing word games does not alter that all you have offered in the way of evidence is a questionable (in that it makes assumptions and claims which are unsubstantiated,

and which FM has now directly contradicted) graph from a commercial source that flogs TVP.

If you don't know what evidence means, i suggest you invest in a dictionary. They are most useful books.

If you fling terms such as "the paleolithic concept," in which the operation of the definite article implies that such a concept is a recognized scientific or academic term, then you have the burden of proving it as such. I am in no way obliged to play your game.

My diet attempts to practice the paleolithic concept.

You silly attempts at rhetorical questions are meaningless in the face of what we know from archaeological sources about the diet of early modern humans.

Hominids had mastered fire before h. sapiens arose. Any grain in the human diet was gathered, not the product of agriculture, and therefore was not a significantly large food source. Other gathered foods would have been of just as much significance, and game animals, including fish and shellfish where applicable, would have been a much more important food source in terms of the proportion of the diet. I know these things because of the archaeological record.

Yours is basically an argument from ignorance. Saying that your claims are silly is not an emotional appeal, it is an accurate description of where you are lead by your ignorance.

I suggest to you that you know nothing about the evidence archaeology provides us about the diet of early modern man, and so you make these silly arguments up as you go along. They are silly because they are evidence free.

Meat is not necessary to your diet because you live in a post-industrial, agronomic society. That has no bearing on the dietary habits humans developed before either agriculture or industry were developed. A realistic justification would be founded on what archaeology tells us about our ancestors' diets, not the meaningless word games you play.

I am providing scientific reasoning, you are the one who is not relying on any scientific reasoning. I was glad to see that you worked your "normative" bullshit into your response, though. That idiocy always cracks me up......Spend a few years educating yourself about archaeology and paleoanthropology and then come back and we'll talk.

Once again, your argument is evidence-free. Paleolithic refers to a tool-making level of culture of early modern humans. Hominids had mastered fire before paleolithic culture arose. You're talking out of your ass, once again. You don't know what you're talking about, and, as always, you just indulge in perorations based on your shallow knowledge of the jargon of philosophy. There is not a shred of scientific content in your babblespeak

Furthermore, yes, I have accepted refutation by MontereyJack, who may have also accepted refutation by ehBeth, is MontereyJack sources "evidence free/bullshit"?

You have alleged that humans cannot manufacture proteins in their bodies, and FM has refuted that

You have argued that paleolithic man had to have eaten raw meat before he could have cooked it, and MJ has pointed out that man mastered fire before paleolithic man existed.

Fire has been part of the food prep for more than 500,000 years

ehBeth did not refute MJ's assertion, she merely refined it and provided a source.

Red meat is an excellent source of B vitamins. One hundred grams of red meat provides over two thirds of the daily requirement of vitamin B-12, and up to 25% RDI of riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6 and pantothenic acid. Liver is an excellent source of vitamin A and folate.

Why is meat cooked, if the paleolithic humans consume meat, it must have been raw prior to fire, has culture decreased the efficiency of the immune system, specifically in this case?
Is vitamin b12 exclusive to diary and meat, are you certain it would have not been the lakes/rivers/other water sources?

As it appears, I will be defending specifically veganism, and vegatarians to a lesser extent, however acknowledge that I am NOT a vegan, my nutrition does have poultry, fish, and occasionally diary and meat.

About 2 million years ago, the human brain rapidly increased its mass until it was double the size of other primate brains.

"This happened because we started to eat better food, like eating more meat," said researcher Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai.

The research is detailed in the August 2008 issue of Genome Biology.