Once in a blue moon I get these emails that just crack me up.
So one of my customers send me this:
I was having these days a quarrel with one of my friends, who stated that meat is crucial for the development of the human brain and that that has always been so. He also said that the brain of our pre-ancestors (those "monkey-men") was able to develop only because of the fact that they regularly started to eat meat. And because of those meat proteins the brain was ablae to develop from 300 grams into 1,7 kg. And that if it hadn’t been for the consumption of meat, we would still be in a monkey-like stage.
Also he stated that it is unhealthy for the development of a child (and its brain in particulary) to be raised up on a raw food diet. I have no contra-arguments. 
Let’s help this fellow out.
My first advice: don’t get into the argument. Just walk away. Tell your friend something like this ‘thanks for your opinion. If you choose to eat meat, that’s your choice and I respect that. I choose not to, and I hope you respect my choice as I do yours. If I develop an obvious brain-defect as a result of my diet, I’ll come back for a second helping of your opinion.’
That usually gets people off my back. But if that doesn’t work I follow it up with something a bit more direct. I usually say that everybody has an a**hole and an opinion, content of both of which are equally valuable to me. Yes, that’s rude, but at that point it’s obvious he doesn’t respect my choice and want to ‘convert’ me. I really have no interest in dealing with people like that anymore.
I’m saying this, and from a lot of experience and frustration, these so-called debates are not about diet. They are more about religion. For many diet has become a religion.
As a Christian it doesn’t help you to debate with a Muslim over the benefits of your religion. And this applies to any pair of religions. Similarly it does you no good to debate over the merits of one diet over another. That’s because rationality rarely enters these discussions.
When I was more active at acne forums I used to get into these discussion. Now I just couldn’t care less because they usually end up to what I call ‘food fights’ where people sling each other with different scientific studies or websites that support their opinion. The winner is the one with most ‘science’ backing their case, or the one who manages to sound more rational and unbiased.
Common sense and rationality are always the first victims. Manners and politeness are usually the next in line.
This is exactly in line with the way the human mind works.
I go into detail of how this happens in my upcoming book ‘How to be happy and optimistic before you get clear‘ (that may or may not be the final name). But basically our beliefs makes themselves true to us. What you believe literally comes true to you, or at least seems to be true, which, as far as your actual experience of life is concerned, is the same thing.
All the incoming information and everything that happens to you if filtered through your beliefs. It’s deleted, distorted and generalized until it fits what you believe. It’s like a looking at a world through colored glasses. Everything is tinted by the glasses. Logic is twisted to fit the beliefs, I’ll show you an example of this a bit later.
Contrary evidence be damned. It’s just wiped out or ignored. Even in the face of contradictory evidence people are quite capable of convincing themselves that their particular diet is the best. Just like they are capable of convincing themselves that aliens have taken over their fridge and telling them to prepare for that arrival of the mother ship.
Arguing against these beliefs is useless. People defend their beliefs to tooth and nail.
And unfortunately in many cases these people get fanatical. They cannot tolerate opposing beliefs. If you don’t follow their dietary dogma, they feel compelled to ‘convert’ you. Or at least to get into an argument with you. From my experience this behavior is far more common in meat eaters and low-carb people than in vegetarians. But it could just be a reflection of the sites I’ve visited and read frequently. Vegetarians are also guilty of this. Many raw food groups and gurus also flirt with religion in their approach to diet.
So let’s look at the original question and how it relates to this. Then I’ll give you more examples (if you haven’t doses off : )).
The argument that meat was crucial to the development of the human brain is a perfect example of how the religious aspect of a diet twists the original research and blows the thing out of proportion.
I looked into the matter and found the original research that touched this whole thing off. Here’s the summary of the findings.
It was this new meat diet, full of densely-packed nutrients, that provided the catalyst for human evolution, particularly the growth of the brain, said Katharine Milton, an authority on primate diet.
Without meat, said Milton, it’s unlikely that proto humans could have secured enough energy and nutrition from the plants available in their African environment at that time to evolve into the active, sociable, intelligent creatures they became. Receding forests would have deprived them of the more nutritious leaves and fruits that forest-dwelling primates survive on, said Milton. (emphasis added).
Meat-eating was essential for human evolution, says UC Berkeley anthropologist specializing in diet
So the only aspect of meat that made is, according to this thesis (in other words speculation) crucial is availability. It was simply a conveniently available source of calories, and some nutrients, that the people had before obtained from plant foods.
And the author of this these continues.
Milton said that her theories do not reflect on today’s vegetarian diets, which can be completely adequate, given modern knowledge of nutrition.
"We know a lot about nutrition now and can design a very satisfactory vegetarian diet," said Milton, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management.
Meat-eating was essential for human evolution, says UC Berkeley anthropologist specializing in diet
Of course the fact that the author is of this speculative thesis herself said that vegetarian diet is sufficient to meet the needs of human deters the religious meat eaters from using her research to back up their arguments.
Even beyondveg.com, the flagship of anti-vegetarian and anti-raw food websites, quotes research that says it mostly comes to getting sufficient calories.
These results imply that changes in diet quality during hominid evolution were linked with the evolution of brain size. The shift to a more calorically dense diet was probably needed in order to substantially increase the amount of metabolic energy being used by the hominid brain. Thus, while nutritional factors alone are not sufficient to explain the evolution of our large brains, it seems clear that certain dietary changes were necessary for substantial brain evolution to take place.
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-4a.shtml
It’s not enough that they use only a selected aspects of the research to support their claims, then they take the case further by venturing into these mind bending contradictions.
The thesis continues that because human brain grew in size (and in energy demand) other body parts shrinked to allow the brain to have more energy. According to the theory the human gut took the hit.
Since gut size is associated with dietary quality (DQ), and the gut must shrink to support encephalization, this suggests that a high-quality diet is required for encephalization. That is, a higher-quality diet (more easily digested, and liberating more energy/nutrients per unit of digestive energy expended) allows a smaller gut, which frees energy for encephalization.
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-4b.shtml
And this they use to justify meat eating???
Which one these is of higher quality (more easily digested, and liberating more energy/nutrients per unit of digestive energy expended, to quote the site)? Fruits, which require 15 to 30 minutes to digest, or meat that sits in your stomach for hours? Which one is going to liberate more energy/nutrients per unit of digestive energy?
It boggles my mind how these people can use that as an argument for eating meat. Digesting the complex proteins and breaking down the muscle tissues takes a huge amount of digestive energy.
Anyway, this is more about religion that about rationality.
The argument that not eating meat is bad for the development of child’s brain is in glaring violation of reality. If meat was somehow essential to the development of the human brain how is it possible that we have vegetarians, sometimes in many generation, with apparently healthy, happy, and, dare I say, even intelligent children?
According to the fear mongering of meat eaters these kids should be in a monkey-like state and possibly locked into a zoo. If that were the case I have a feeling I would have read about it somewhere.
On a vegetarian board we found another point of view to this discussion about brain evolution.
Thus, from what I learned, the correlation is less with the advent of hunting and meat, and more to do with the need for a larger brain to handle the complicated social orders that humans develop. This also coincides with other animals that have relatively large intelligence. Macaws and gorrilas, for example, do not eat meat, but do have a complex social network that nessesitates complex brains. Dolphins and crows aren’t intelligent because they dine on meat, but because they have very intricate and shifting social systems which nessesitate a complex brain to handle the ever shifting and changing needs to the group, and of the individual.
http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=40522
You pick the explanation which makes more sense. Meat or the demand for brain power as a driving factor of brain evolution.
Now that I’m on the roll let’s keep going.
This is again from beyondveg.com
Those who promote (obsessive) fear as a motivation for their "ideal, perfect" diet are promoting eating disorders (mental illness) rather than a healthy diet.
One does not have to go far in the raw vegan movement to find people promoting rawism using pathological fear as a major motivation factor. In particular, the following fears are often actively promoted: fear of cooked food, fear of protein, fear of mucus. Fear, if it becomes strong enough (which can happen if one believes the "party line" strongly enough), can turn a raw diet into an eating disorder similar to anorexia nervosa. Fear is not the basis for a diet; it is, however, the basis for an eating disorder.
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/claims-cred/claims-cred-1c.shtml#emot%20instab
I do agree that many raw food groups are highly dogmatic and guilty of this, consequently they also promote the high-fat version of raw foods that’s a dietary disaster.
But let’s not forget that meat promoters are equally guilty of this.
The friend of my customer was using a heavily fear-based argument. Most people who post about their vegetarian success at acne.org forum are meat with suspicions and questions about vitamin B12 (and issue that has more to do with the health of the digestive track and affects both vegetarians and meat eaters) and protein. Plus they are bombarded with horror stories of losing muscle and wasting away.
Low-carb fanatics have categorized vegetarians as weak, timid, pale and frail. Whereas meat makes people strong, sexy and athletic. Do I sense a touch of fear mongering there?
Another ‘quality’ raw fooders are accused of and is used as against raw food diet.
The hostility displayed toward those who disagree also strongly discourages dissent and independent thinking. This situation is a fascinating psychological phenomenon, except when you happen to be a target of the mindless hostility displayed by certain extremists! Such behavior, when evident, speaks directly to the lack of credibility and the mental balance (or apparent lack thereof) of the incurably fanatical dietary advocate.
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/claims-cred/claims-cred-1c.shtml#emot%20instab
A recent diet discussion at acne.org forum gives a nice example of this. It’s also a perfect example of how the beliefs people hold twist their logic and arguments.
The discussion is title Eat real food in it’s natural state, Your body will take care of the rest. I just chose this thread because I’ve been following it recently and it follows the same pattern as every other diet discussion there.
The original poster argues that we should eat foods in their natural state in order to stay healthy. I fully agree with that. It’s just that the term natural state is surprisingly fluid. By the way, this is not against the original poster. He’s just parroting the same arguments I’ve seen on so many other sites and in so many other discussions.
So the gist of the message is to keep foods in their natural state. The poster begins with animal products.
Animal foods- Don’t remove the fat from meat, don’t remove the yolks from eggs, don’t remove the fat from milk. Get unpasteurized, non-homogenized milk if you can. Don’t limit yourself to only muscle meats, the organ meats are by far the most nutritious part of the animal. Eat wild game if you can, if not try to find grass-fed, pasture raised meat. Don’t avoid saturated fat and cholesterol, our bodies have been consuming these substances for millions of years and we are well adapted to them.
But when he/she turns to vegetables the fluidity of the term natural state starts to show up.
Vegetables- tubers, roots, leafy greens; the more the merrier. Many vegetables are more easily absorbed by the body when they have been cooked and had fat added to them. Raw veggies aren’t necessarily better for you, they are the hardest for the body to digest and absorb.
So all of a sudden it’s ok to not only cook your vegetables but also add fat into them. Now, to me that seems like altering foods from their natural state, but maybe it’s just me.
When we move to grains the term changes again.
Grains- don’t eat them. They must be processed and refined to be edible. If you ate a grain in it’s natural state you would be eating a seed. Grains have only made up a significant part of our diet for the last 10,000 years, which is "coincidentally" when all diseases of civilization began to arise (including acne). Our bodies are not equipped to handle this amount of starch, not to mention the gluten and anti-nutrients.
So all of a sudden cooking is bad again. Since cooking is the main processing that’s done to grains.
He/she also says that "If you ate a grain in it’s natural state you would be eating a seed.". Ok, that’s all clear and good.
Now, let’s apply the same logic to animal products. For this I’m going to quote a girl there whose eating a raw vegan diet, very similar to what I recommend in Clear for Life. She put it so well.
Yeah I would too 
I’m guessing there isn’t a meat eater on this site with the balls to pick up a chicken, slit its throat and start munching the way nature intended lol yuk
That’s how real carnivores eat their food. They don’t just select the muscle meats and some organs. Aside from bones lions eat almost all of their prey. They drink blood, lymph and other liquids. They relish on intestines and other organs. Often they even eat bone marrows.
And they eat it all raw and fresh. Right after the kill.
That’s how you eat animal products in their natural state. You don’t carefully select the best parts, cut out the disgusting fat, then hang the meat to soften and finally cook it thoroughly and add spices to make it taste better.
Of course when you challenge these meat eaters for it, the logic changes.
Also in terms of food in its natural state. I take the rule of preferring cooked chicken (roasted/grilled etc) rather than processed chicken nuggets. I will eat cooked sweet potatoes, rather than potato chips. Trying to eat food as close to their natural state as possible.
Or they get abusive, and this is where the intolerance towards dissents starts to rear its ugly head. This is a mild example compared to some abuses I’ve seen.
Oh ffs there were no cookers of course but there were these miracles called FIRES.
People have cooked for millenia. Why do you think our guts cannot cope with large amounts of raw meats? We have evolved away from that. There is nothing ‘unnatural’ about cooking OR WE WOULDNT FUCKING DO IT.
Then the posts move onto more personal level.
IN MY OPINION, you came into the thread to indirectly say that eating meat is not natural and is not right to do, obviously knowing this would annoy people. You’re post had nothing to do with the original post, you just had to get your two cents in there IMO. Then when people oppose what you’re saying, which you had to know would happen…they’re being argumentative right? lol, that’s pretty childish IN MY OPINION
Ad it’s just going to accelerate from that. How far? Depends on how much personal abuse she is willing to tolerate. IT ends when she shakes her head in frustration and just stops caring. Then the meat heads say ‘UGH’ and conclude that they have won the debate (sorry couldn’t resist). Dissent opinion has been silenced.
This doesn’t really help anyone. Pretty soon she concludes, like I have, that posting on these forums is just a huge waste of time. Her experience and expertise, that could have helped many people, is not available anymore. The fact remains that she cleared her acne. She’s getting attacked simply because she did it while going against the beef. And this happens to everybody who promotes vegan diets there.
Dissent is not tolerated in religion.
Finally I want to add that this is not a crusade against meat or meat eating. The only thing I have against meat eating is that the way animals are raised currently makes it an environmental disaster. I still eat meat occasionally. I don’t think that health wise it’s very smart, but I have other reasons for eating it.
Take this as a lengthy warning against religious and fanatic beliefs when it comes to diet. They don’t serve you or anyone else you come in contact with.
I believe that low-fat, raw vegan diet is health wise the best for humans. Other people disagree with me and that’s ok. I also know that people may have preexisting condition (such as food allergies) that make following this diet difficult, and can even lead to health problems. Therefore individual approach is always needed. This applies to all the other diets also, thus there is no single ultimate diet that fits everybody.
Just remember that any diet that takes you away from processed junk foods is a step to the right direction. Also anything that simplifies your eating is a step to the right direction.
Be well, and be sane.
—
Clear for Life – The Fun, Easy and Delicious Solution to Permanently Clear Skin.
