Is Human Evolution Linked To Meat Essay

As humanity becomes more civilized, many of us perceive that eating livestock is morally incorrect, but aren’t we are designed to be an omnivore? Our teeth and digestive system serve the purpose of breaking down animal and plant foods and to bring these important nutrients to every part of the body. Despite the fact that, in 2011, U.S. meat and poultry production reached more than 92.3 billion pounds, the ethic of killing and eating animals as well as the concern of the environmental burden caused by the production of meats is debatable. However, animal based diet is necessary for the human body to function properly and we can choose the meat produced from environmentally sustainable farms to avoid the moral ambiguity.

Meat is part of a balanced diet. If humans stopped breeding animals for meat, then we would have to hunt all the wild animals for food. The wild animals will be hunted into extinction because of gluttonous meat-eaters. Because of factory farming, meat is now available at all time at the super market. This makes meat convenient to obtain and eat nutritionally. Meat contains all the essential amino acids that we need every day to remain as healthy individuals. Minerals and vitamins that are also beneficial to the growth and development of the human body are found in meat too. Eating specific types of meat such as fish provides healthy natural oils that cannot be found anywhere else. Abandoning meat as a source of nutrition means we will need to compensate with another source of sustenance.

Brought up in the southern of China, I often heard about that people from there “eat anything with four limbs except tables, anything that flies except aero planes, and anything that swims except ships”. Nevertheless, I eat more fruit, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains but less meat to make careful choices for environmental protection. Similarly, Kathy Freston argues that animal agriculture is one of the top contributors to global warming. In her Huffington Post selection “Vegetarian Is the New Prius,” Freston lists how many emissions of greenhouse gases people make when they eat meat and illustrates the consumption of tree in animal agriculture. She effectively convinces her audiences that the livestock results in the most serious environmental problems and encourages people to lead a greener diet to protect our environment. However, ardent craving, poor health, and perpetual hassle and cost prevent all Americans from being vegetarian.

Tudge’s article, “A Case for Meat-Eating,” describes how the positives outweigh the negatives in the aspect of living meat-free. He suggests that the world going completely meat-free isn’t necessarily needed, but a reducing factor of meat would be adequate as well. Tudge also explains how he believes that vegetarians make a better use of the landscape and limit greenhouse gasses in a number of ways. He also says how supermarkets are dedicated to selling meat as a large income, and how it should be lowered.

In this article, Pobiner discusses the biological evolution of humans, how human meat consumption evolved over time to facilitate the growth of human brain size to become the intelligent and sentient beings we are today, and whether or not we still need to eat meat as our ancestors did. Pobiner references many other scientists’ observations and discoveries. For example, she uses the observations of a Mister Sherwood Washburn from the University of California at Berkeley to expound upon how early findings of human meat consumptions may have been wrong. According to Washburn, most current carnivores leave the skull and

Since the beginning of human existence they have always had meat in their diets. Hunting was their life and that is all they would do to survive. As civilization progressed animals became domesticated and farming was invented. The irrigation system further progressed farming allowing for more food yield and better nutrition. The domestication of animals also brought milk into the scene which was used for cooking. Ever since then humans have eaten a mixture of animal and grown food products claiming themselves as omnivores meaning that they eat both plant and animal based foods. This has forever been shown to the public as healthy with showings of calcium in milk helps build strong bones and protein in meat helps muscle growth. Until the 1900’s

According to the article “Meat Analogues” (2017), during the pre-historic era, meat was the best energy sources, high quality proteins, and tasty food ever. This explains that meat is important source of our food basket. However, some people cannot eat meat because of religious purpose, vegetarian and some health problems like cardiovascular and high cholesterols.

In chapter 3, John D. Speth discusses the role of meat and protein in hominin evolution. How and when meat was obtained is considered as well as meat’s impact on hominin development. Speth discusses when and where evolutionary factors, such as bipedalism, began and the possibility of it being where game was scarce; pointing out that meat eating came later in the evolutionary time scale. Therefore, meat eating cannot account for human’s two legs (bipedalism) but can account for the evolutionary increase in brain size. The author also discusses the hunting-scavenging debate to further question how the early hominins obtained the meat they did. Speth points out that they were likely scavengers not hunters this early in history. Speth states repeatedly

We need to alter the current farming methods to benefits the environment, making eating meat ethical. Industrial farming is the most prevailing way to produce animal products and is where massive animals’ flesh we eat comes from. Prince Charles of Wales in his essay “On the Future of Food” talks about the environmental problems we are facing (222). The pesticides and chemicals involved in the production process polluted the water supply and the nitrogen fertilizer used produced greenhouse gases such as nitrogen and methane, which enhance the global warming. The environmental problem is severe especially in the animal production process: 2,000 gallons water are needed to produce only 1 pound of beef (Prince Charles 225).

Another explanation is that early humans had a preference for meats as they would provide amino acids, nutrients, and

As we can now observe, vegetarianism has become something fashionable, and the number of people who reject eating meat is constantly increasing. In Britain, for instance, over 5 million people have done it so far. It is obviously connected with the recent animal diseases, but this tendency is likely to spread on the other regions of the world. However, it is not only a fashion or fear of illnesses. I myself became a vegetarian about 2 years ago, and I can see a number of reasons why people should stop eating meat. They are mainly of ethic, economic and health type. Those who think in an ecological way should also be aware of how this meat consumption ruins our environment. I don’t have an intention

First off, individuals should different kinds of meat there is so that the system of the individual’s body because even if we go back to the human ancestors such as the Orangutans, Apes and Chimpanzees ate various kinds of meat from different kinds of animals and insects that were available to their

Meat is an important part of our diet not only because it provides essential nutrients to our body, but also helps our body be effective. Many people think the only reason we eat meat is to satisfy hunger and to receive protein, but it is for so much more than that. Meat is more than just a complete protein unlike soy products, for example, which need to be combined with supplemental proteins to be considered "complete." It's loaded with other healthy goodies, including high levels of iron and B vitamins, such as niacin and riboflavin which enables the growth of healthy skin and nerves as well as help digestion and maintain good vision. Meat also contains selenium, which works as an antioxidant with vitamin E to protect the human body from heart disease and other health problems. Phosphorus, which helps regulate metabolism, is also

Consumption of meat by humans creates several problems. First and foremost, raising animals for food compromises the environment. For example, it takes a large amount of natural resources to sustain the meat industry. The use of water, land, and food to raise animals for human consumption is not an efficient use of our limited resources. In contrast, it is more efficient to feed humans directly than to use land, food, and water to feed animals to be used as food. There are shortages of fertile land, clean water, and food in several third world countries. Many of these countries’ resources are allocated to produce feed for animals in developed countries around the world. As a result, the citizens of these countries are stricken with water and food shortages, while their crops are feeding cattle from across the globe. However, this problem can be solved by adopting a vegan diet. The vegan diet will allow a more efficient use of resources that in turn can be used to feed starving men, women, and children throughout the world. Consequently, more people in the world could be fed if the land used to grow feed for animals was used to grow food for humans.

In his article, Johnson (2008) satirically expresses opposition to the former UN climate chief suggestion that the whole of human race should shun meat and consider converting vegetarianism, so as to, save earth from climate change. In response to this, Johnson argues that, he is simply not converting to vegetarianism just because the former UN climate chief had asked the whole of the human race to avoid meat. UN-FAO figures propose that, meat production puts more Green House Gases (GHG’s herein after) than the general global transport network. As reported by BBC (2008) meat production cycle accounts for 18% of the GHG emissions. In contrast, transport makes up just 13% of the world’s greenhouse gas footprint. Moreover, cows turn out