No, I haven’t gone carnivore (although animal foods dominate my diet). It just so happens that most of the interesting items to land in my inbox recently are related to meat – or the people who want us to stop eating it. So here we go with the first all-meat edition of From The News …
Why Eskimos had good teeth.
This is no surprise. A 1929 article reprinted by The Harvard Crimson says Eskimos (we’d call them the Inuit now) had good teeth because of their all-meat diet:
By means of some 90 models of Eskimo teeth, Dr. Adelbert Fernald, Curator of the Harvard Dental School Museum, has proved that eating a strictly meat diet is the ideal way in which to keep the human mouth in a healthy condition, and that it is due to the fact that civilized people do not eat enough meat that they as a rule have decayed teeth.
Commander Donald B. MacMillan, the noted Arctic explorer, obtained about 90 impressions of the teeth of the Eskimos of Smith Sound, “the meat eaters,” who live the farthest north of any human beings. From the impressions, models have been constructed. Commander MacMillan said that “the Smith Sound Eskimos average about four ounces of vegetable matter each year per capita.”
What, no whole grains? How did those people live past puberty?!
Only one tooth of the 616 contained in the models is deformed. All the models represent mouths and teeth wonderfully developed.
Many of the models of the Eskimo teeth are perfect in every way, not having the slightest defect either of form or condition. Dr. Fernald states that is the 32 years of his dental practice he has seen only one set of teeth which were perfect in every respect.
It has been the experience of most dentists that those people who have the healthiest teeth are those who eat the most meat, which points to the same conclusion as Dr. Fernald’s researches.
Ahh, the good old days of 1929, when Harvard was more interested in facts than in pushing an anti-meat agenda. Nowadays, of course, we have Dr. Willett of Harvard telling us eating meat will kill us. More on that later.
How not to convince people eat meat.
Folks, I’m all for prompting the benefits of eating meat. But let’s not be as pushy as this guy:
A door-to-door meat salesman who refused to take “no” for an answer has led the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office to launch an investigation into the sales tactics of a Pinellas Park frozen meat business.
The investigation by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office began May 11 when an 85-year-old Largo woman reported that she’d been harassed by a frozen meat salesman. The victim said she was retrieving mail from the mailbox of her home in the 9900 block of Ulmerton Road when Ronald Vanwie Jr., 44, approached her.
Note to people selling meat or any other product: approaching an elderly woman retrieving her mail is not a good way to start a sales pitch. Ever.
She told the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office that Vanwie began trying to sell her frozen meat through the company he represented, Gourmet Grocery LLC of Pinellas Park. The woman wasn’t interested in purchasing meat and walked back to her front door. But she said Vanwie followed her, continuing to pitch the meat he was selling.
The victim entered her home and tried to close the front door but she said Vanwie forced his way inside her home, pressing her to purchase meat. The victim said she asked him to leave several times but he refused.
Note to people selling meat or any other product: forcing your way into a home is not a good way to continue a sales pitch. Ever.
“Vanwie insisted she was going to purchase meat from him and became increasingly more aggressive each time she declined to purchase the meat,” said the sheriff’s office.
I wonder if Vanwie tried selling her on the idea that meat is good for her teeth.
“(The victim) told detectives she was frightened of Vanwie who insisted she pay $500 for the package of meat,” according to the sheriff. The victim told him she didn’t have $500 but wrote him a check for $200. Vanwie then placed a package of meat in her freezer and left.
Okay, this guy’s a loon. On the other hand, maybe he learned his sales techniques by spending too much time online. You’ve probably had this experience: an ad pops up in your browser. You click to close it … which causes another ad to pop up. Close that one, and another ad pops up. Apparently someone teaching classes at InterWebz Sales School believes we say to ourselves, Well, now that you’ve annoyed the @#$% out of me by refusing to go away, OF COURSE I’ll buy from you!
I have two Rottweilers who eat raw meat and have excellent teeth as a result, so I assume no salesman will ever try pushing his way into our house.
Why people hate vegans, part 100.
Actually, I lost count of how many “why people hate vegans” items I’ve posted over the years, and I don’t want to search the blog to find out. So I’m being lazy and resetting the NextVal on the primary key to 100. (That’s a reference for you fellow programmers out there.)
Anyway, if you’re familiar with actor Chris Pratt, you know he’s a super guy who donates a ton of his time and money to charity. So why would a TV Guide reporter write a hit piece on Pratt? I bet you can guess:
“Guardians of the Galaxy” star Chris Pratt was characterized as “problematic” by an entertainment magazine because he hunts in what many are calling a “hit piece.”
TV Guide published an article titled “How to love Chris Pratt without hating yourself” by senior editor Kaitlin Thomas as part of a series that ranked different actors named Chris.
“It’s impossible to ignore some problematic aspects of his life offscreen,” she wrote, noting that Pratt once attempted to give away a cat via Twitter before the author went on to attack his hunting hobby.
“Adding fuel to this particular fire is the fact that Pratt, an avid hunter who has often spoken about his love of hunting, currently raises lambs on his farm,” Thomas wrote.
“The enthusiastic tone he took when speaking about ‘eating fresh farm-to-table lamb’ in an Instagram video earlier this year — ‘They are the happiest lambs on the planet, they are so sweet and then one day they wake up dead and they’re in my freezer’ — sparked backlash from a number of fans, and not just those who are vegetarians or vegans,” Thomas added.
A backlash from fans who aren’t vegetarians or vegans? Suuuuuure, that happened.
Thomas listed other reasons why Pratt is problematic, such as apologizing in advance for anything he would accidentally say during the “Jurassic World” press tour and saying he considers himself an average, blue-collar American.
He hunts, he farms, and he considers himself an average, blue-collar American. Yeah, we’d better beware of this guy. Heaven forbid he becomes a role model for the nation’s young.
Why people hate vegans, part 101.
The good news is that people who go see Pratt’s movies at theaters in Los Angeles may finally be able to order vegan snacks:
If one Los Angeles City Councilman has his way, major entertainment venues in the city, including movie theaters, will be required to provide at least one vegan option at their concession stands.
Standing at the podium alongside representatives from animal welfare organizations and the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, councilman Paul Koretz outlined the legislation he has proposed that would require the city’s movie theaters, concert halls, zoo and airport to provide plant-based options for their patrons.
That’s got to be a huge relief for the vegan movie patrons who are outraged at only being offered meat-based popcorn.
LA is routinely near the top of the list of top vegan cities in the United States and has one of the largest concentrations of vegan and vegetarian restaurants in the world.
One of the largest concentrations of vegan and vegetarian restaurants in the world? Well then, obviously the city council needs to jump in and make sure vegans who prefer buying their meals in movie theaters have more options.
If this legislation passes it will mean that movie theaters located within the city of Los Angeles will need to start providing at least one vegan option at their stands.
Or the vegans could just let the free market work and announce they won’t patronize movie theaters that only serve meat-based popcorn.
Major theater chains that do business in the city include AMC, Regal/Cineworld, Cinemark, Landmark, iPic, Laemmle, and Arclight/Pacific. Being a vegan I can confirm that a circuit like AMC does provide vegan options in the form of bagged nuts and dried fruit. How heartily those vegan options are advertised is another matter.
I see. So theaters do offer vegan options, but don’t advertise them heartily. Yes, this is definitely the kind of life-or-death issue the city government needs to jump in and solve with the use of force. Without hearty advertising, vegans attending movies may not know they can order nuts, or dried fruit, or popcorn and die of starvation during a three-hour film.
Is it any wonder I left California?
Why people hate vegans, part 102.
I sometimes refer to vegan zealots as disciples of The Church of the Holy Plant-Based Diet. That’s because their beliefs strike me as yet another religion. The vegan zealots deny this … which makes this news article from the BBC interesting:
A tribunal is being asked to decide whether veganism is a “philosophical belief” akin to a religion, in a landmark legal action.
Jordi Casamitjana says he was sacked by the League Against Cruel Sport after disclosing it invested pension funds in firms involving animal testing. He claims he was discriminated against, and the tribunal will now decide if veganism should be protected in law.
Mr Casamitjana says he is an “ethical” vegan.
“Some people only eat a vegan diet but they don’t care about the environment or the animals, they only care about their health,” he told the BBC.
“I care about the animals and the environment and my health and everything. That’s why I use this term ‘ethical veganism’ because for me veganism is a belief and affects every single aspect of my life.”
Sounds like a religion to me.
Mr Casamitjana worked for the animal welfare charity the League Against Cruel Sports and claims that, to his surprise, he discovered it was investing its pension funds in companies that carried out animal testing.
He says he drew this to the attention of his managers. When nothing changed, he informed other employees and was sacked as a result. He is now bringing a legal case, claiming he was discriminated against on the basis of his vegan belief.
Well, here’s the relevant question, Mr. Casamitjana: would the charity have fired a meat-eating Catholic for the same behavior? A meat-eating Protestant? An atheist who only eats fish now and then? Yes, they all would have been fired. So your oh-so-very-special status as a vegan had nothing to do with it. You’re just another weenie demanding special treatment.
But thanks for admitting “ethical veganism” is a religion.
Why people hate vegans, part 103 … and how to respond to them.
Vegan zealots (as opposed to those who choose veganism and then mind their own business) are fond of invading steak houses and yelling at the diners. Well, the diners at this restaurant responded exactly how I’d respond:
Stag do revellers have told how they drowned out vegan activists who tormented diners with the sound of cows being slaughtered by mooing at them and chanting ‘stand up if you love meat’.
I had to look it up to be sure. A stag do is apparently what the Brits call a bachelor party.
The group responded after demonstrators from Direct Action Everywhere entered Touro Steakhouse in Brighton and waved around signs and placards, with a £250 Oompa Loompa ‘impersonator’ chained to groom David Elvin leading the fight-back.
One of the revellers, Dan Holmes, said: “We felt they had said what they wanted to say and now it was time for them to go away and let people eat. We came up with some fun chants and the whole restaurant stood up when we sang ‘Stand up if you love meat.’”
“A protest is fine, but they overstayed their welcome and were becoming annoying. If they had just had signs then that’s one thing, but playing sounds of animals being killed was going over the top.”
Actually, no, invading a business to protest isn’t fine. It’s trespassing. Protesting on the sidewalk outside the restaurant is fine.
A person filming one of the activists’ video – who is a vegan – can be heard saying: “This smells horrible, look at all the flesh.”
Well, here’s an idea: if animal flesh smells horrible to you, stay out of steak houses.
Behind the camera, a voice said: ‘They’re letting us protest but they’re eating the flesh of animals in front of us.”
You mean people who chose to go to a steak house didn’t immediately stop eating steaks just because you marched inside and started screaming at them and trying to ruin their dinners? Well, I am shocked at how insensitive people can be.
Mr Holmes added the manager of the restaurant even gave them free shots after the protesters left.
Free shots? Hell, I would have picked up their dinner check as well.
Why people hate vegans, part 104.
I know, I know … I should stop picking on vegans. I’m beating a dead horse. And by using phrases like I’m beating a dead horse, I’m apparently annoying the heck out of some vegans:
“Bringing home the bacon” may soon be banned in order to stop offending vegans, an academic has claimed.
Other expressions including “killing two birds with one stone” and “flog a dead horse” could also apparently go out of fashion. This is to avoid offending animal lovers, according to Shareena Hamzah of Swansea University.
Animal rights charity PETA is also on board and wants people to replace sayings such as “take the bull by the horns” with “take the flower by the thorns”.
Way to take the flower by the thorns and latch onto an issue the public can really get behind, PETA.
Dr Hamzah believes that the influence of veganism will bring awareness of animal cruelty and encourage people towards using less meat-themed phrases. “The increased awareness of vegan issues will filter through our consciousness to produce new modes of expression.”
What would be a PETA-approved substitute for crazy as a loon?
PETA has suggested the following can be used instead of meat themed phrases:
Out: Bring home the bacon
In: Bring home the bagelsOut: Let the cat out of the bag
In: Spill the beansOut: All your eggs in one basket
In: All your berries in one bowlOut: Open a can of worms
In: Open Pandora’s box
I can see these less cruel phrases catching on any day now. Then once our consciousness has been raised as a result, we’ll stop eating meat. But if that doesn’t work, maybe the folks at PETA should try claiming meat causes global warm—er, climate change. After all, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Why people hate vegans, part 105.
Okay, these people might not be vegans in the strict sense of the word, but they’re certainly disciples of The Church of The Holy Plant-Based Diet:
The world must drastically reduce its meat consumption in order to avoid devastating climate change, scientists said Wednesday in the most thorough study so far on how what we eat affects the environment.
Thorough, and no doubt very objective.
Without a huge drawdown in the amount of meat consumed, its authors said, the food industry’s already vast impact on the environment could increase by as much as 90 percent by mid-century.
And these doom-and-gloom predictions always turn out to be true.
The stark message comes just days after the publication of a landmark UN report in which some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists warned that governments must fundamentally change course in order to keep global warming under 1.5C by the end of the century.
Ah, well, if it’s a U.N. report, it simply has to be true. It’s not as if these people ever fudge the data to promote an agenda.
U.N. report on meat and climate change is flawed – surprise!
Boy, we didn’t see this coming, eh?
The UN has admitted a report linking livestock to global warming exaggerated the impact of eating meat on climate change.
Hey, dummies, the term is “climate change” now. Saves a bit of embarrassment when the darned globe refuses to warm up on schedule.
A 2006 study, Livestock’s Long Shadow, claimed meat production was responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions – more than transport. Its conclusions were heralded by campaigners urging consumers to eat less meat to save the planet.
None of those campaigners are simply against eating meat, of course. This is purely about the science, ya know.
However, one of the authors of the report has admitted an American scientist has identified a flaw in its comparison with the impact of transport emissions.
Dr Frank Mitloehner, from the University of California at Davis (UCD), said meat and milk production generates less greenhouse gas than most environmentalists claim and that the emissions figures were calculated differently to the transport figures, resulting in an “apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue”.
The meat figure had been reached by adding all greenhouse-gas emissions associated with meat production, including fertiliser production, land clearance, methane emissions and vehicle use on farms, whereas the transport figure had only included the burning of fossil fuels.
Had to be an honest mistake. U.N. scientists would never exaggerate a problem just to promote a particular agenda.
Earlier this year, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change apologised after wrongly claiming the Himalayan glaciers could vanish within 25 years.
Remember how The Anointed work: they come up with a Grand Plan to fix a supposed problem (and the plan usually requires spending more of other people’s money, or restricting more of other people’s freedoms, or both), and then claim WE MUST ACT NOW or it will be too late.
That’s the advantage of being 60. You’ve lived long enough to see numerous predictions of If we don’t act now, in 10 years [insert disaster here] will happen! come and go.
Why people hate vegans, part 106.
If telling people the production of meat will ruin the planet doesn’t convince them to eat less of the stuff, there’s always this:
Hundreds of billions of dollars could be put toward health-care costs every year if a tax was applied to red and processed meat, Oxford University researchers said Wednesday.
A new study from the U.K. university said introducing a health tax on such products would offset health-care costs and prevent more than 220,000 deaths a year globally.
Riiiight. Because if we make meat too expensive and people eat more grains instead, that will really improve our health. Just like when consumption of red meat plummeted and consumption of grains skyrocketed in the U.S. after the Food Pyramid came out . You remember how much healthier we all became, don’t you?
According to the World Health Organization, beef, lamb and pork are carcinogenic when eaten in processed forms, and possibly still carcinogenic when consumed unprocessed. The organization also links them to coronary heart disease, strokes and type 2 diabetes.
If you’d like to see just how full of beans the World Health Organization’s report on meat and cancer is, watch this excellent speech on the (ahem) “evidence” by Dr. Georgia Ede.
Back to the article:
Researchers estimated that in 2020, 2.4 million global deaths will be attributable to the consumption of red and processed meat — as well as a $285 billion health-care bill.
And as we’ve already established, if the U.N. says it’s true, it has to be true.
Marco Springmann, who led the study, said an overconsumption of red and processed meat had a negative economic impact on many countries.
“I hope that governments will consider introducing a health levy on red and processed meat as part of a range of measures to make healthy and sustainable decision-making easier for consumers,” he said in a press release Wednesday.
Well, that’s what The Anointed do best: find ways to make decision-making easier for the rest of us — for our own good, of course.
“Nobody wants governments to tell people what they can and can’t eat. However, our findings make it clear that the consumption of red and processed meat has a cost, not just to people’s health and to the planet, but also to the health care systems and the economy.”
Ummm, did he just say Nobody wants governments to tell people what they can and can’t eat … ? Excuse me while I go laugh my ass off for a few minutes …
… Okay, I’m back.
To those of you who cheer when governments impose high taxes on sugar to encourage people to eat less of it, sorry, but you’re part of the problem. Once you grant governments the power to decide what people should and shouldn’t eat and apply coercion accordingly, you can’t complain when they target a food you believe is healthy. If you’re okay with minding other people’s business, don’t be surprised when other people decide it’s okay to mind yours.
This is only going to get worse, by the way. On January 17th, the Eat-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health will be launching the first of a series of “global events.” That’s the group of social-justice warriors which now includes Walter Willett as co-chair, as I described in this post.
Willett has become such a shill for The Church of The Holy Plant-Based Diet, he’s now willing to claim that if we all went vegetarian, we’d prevent one-third of all premature deaths – an astronomical (and impossible) figure not backed up by any reliable evidence whatsoever. To the contrary, a recent study concluded that vegans take more sick days than meat-eaters:
Vegans take the most days off work due to cold, flu and minor ailments, a study claims.
People on a meat-free diet take almost five days off work a year – twice the annual sick day total of the average Briton, the research shows.
The study by the vegan-friendly Fisherman’s Friend brand claims vegans are more likely to succumb to our wintery weather, taking almost double the average time off work due to cold-related sickness than their non-vegan colleagues.
So how would Willett explain that one away? Tell us that, sure, vegans succumb to more colds and flu infections, but live longer? And if giving up meat would prevent one-third of all premature deaths, how would he explain away large observational studies like this one and this one showing no difference in mortality between vegetarians and non-vegetarians?
Given the data, a real scientist would be ashamed to make such an outlandish claim. And yet he’s making it. Science be damned, we must pursue social justice and save the planet, even if we have to lie through our teeth to do it!
So prepare yourself for a steady stream of media articles claiming that meat causes cancer, meat drives up health-care costs, meat causes global warm—er, climate change, etc.
And then hang onto your steak. Because if you think The Anointed won’t try to take it away from you someday, you haven’t been paying attention.
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Younger folks around me can’t understand why I refuse to accept global warm, er “climate change”. I explain that I was scared to death in grade school by teachers showing us the cover of Time warning about “The Coming Ice Age” and how so many people would freeze to death. Their response is generally “yeah but, now we know better”. Yes, because they know better.
And instead of trying to show them the error of their ways, I just tell them I’m gonna grab some bacon*. Another joy of getting older, knowing when I don’t need to fight.
* fyi – 2 years off all T2DB meds after going keto, and watching Fat Head at the start of that journey. Programmer to programmer, thank you!
Programmer to programmer, I appreciate you letting me know.
I remember lectures in high school on how a new ice age was coming. There’s a term that I can’t remember, but it means we assume we’re not as easily duped as people in previous generations. Suuure, they might have been taken in by snake-oil salesmen, but we’re too sophisticated today. We’ve got it figured out now.
Decades from now, people will be laughing at us because we thought low-fat diets and statins were a good idea … meanwhile, they’ll be believing some new and improved form of nonsense.
So nutritional scientists are idiots because they DON’T change their models when new evidence is presented and environmental scientists are idiots because they DO change their models when new evidence is presented. Got it.
Both are idiots when they let an agenda instead of a desire for truth drive the science. The U.N. climate scientists didn’t change their minds because they went back and carefully check their own data. They changed their minds when they were busted in public and had no choice.
Unlike nutritionists, who have the luxury of claiming their advice is good but people aren’t doing it right, climate scientists can’t blame the earth for not doing it right when it fails to warm according to their predictions.
The climate scientists only changed their model to “climate change” because they could no longer predict constantly rising global temperatures without looking like idiots. Many still pretend they can predict the future, which they can’t. Humans are quite lousy at predicting the long-term future. Always have been and always will be. Taleb’s books are full of example after example of long-term predictions made by The Most Very Learned Experts in various fields, and how they’ve nearly always been wrong — wrong as in “not even close.”
A few climate scientists have been honest enough to admit — usually when they retire and can no longer be fired — that they don’t know all the factors that influence climate and can’t predict how those factors interact. Duh. Scientists haven’t identified all the chemical interactions in a human body, but we’re supposed to believe climate scientists have the whole planet figured out.
On the linkage between meat eating and climate change I think this is the last (and best) work.
https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en
I have watched it multiple times.
Makes me want to move to a dry state and start a cattle ranch. I will definitely be donating to https://www.savory.global/
I don’t agree with the grant suckers or vegans. This is really great, gets them at their own game.
John.
I’ve seen that talk. Great stuff.
“Your theory is not even wrong” Wolfgang Pauli
I am in absolutely no doubt that something is happening – here in the UK over my lifetime birds are nesting and plants are flowering about three weeks earlier, we now have a lot of species moved in from the south while others have declined. Blaming this on human activity, not so sure.
I DO think pollution and other environmental degradation is a Bad Thing. Curiously the grain growing farmers are the ones with huge diesel bills from their huge tractors and huge chemical bills from their sprayers. The meat farmers don’t have anything like the same environmental footprint. Much of my food could walk or fly here, it doesn’t have to be transported halfway across the planet. And those “vegan meat” factories are going to use a LOT of energy. Look at the Big Picture and things are quite different.
Here’s something that has personally bugged me alot. I had a diesel Renault that did over 60 mpg (UK gallons). I replaced it with a Nissan with the same engine and despite being bigger and heavier with more performance it did over 57 mpg. The Government whacked up the annual car tax because it was “high emission”. Now I have a “low emission” version which unlike the VW it genuinely is. But it is hard pressed to do over 50 mpg and I have read the same for trucks, buses and agricultural machinery – current “low emission” engines are far less fuel efficient than the previous generation. I am still waiting for someone to explain how something that uses MORE fuel generates LESS emissions. Of course what it does is sell more fuel which benefits the oil companies and benefits the Government in higher fuel taxes. Do not look at the man behind the screen.
To be clear, I believe humans need to limit the man-made chemicals we’re releasing into the environment for all kinds of reasons — one of the reasons being that we CAN’T predict what the effects will be. Humans are lousy predictors of long-term consequences.
I’ll be as happy as anyone when some genius figures out how to produce clean, efficient energy that replaces fossil fuels.
@Tom
Here’s one option:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weIXuYikqeE
Cool! And I mean that literally.
“I’ll be as happy as anyone when some genius figures out how to produce clean, efficient energy that replaces fossil fuels.”
Yes but where’s the profit in that?
We have a lot of wind turbines, especially in the sea offshore from the nuclear power station. Electric cars would be good except for the batteries and all the extra power cabling to bring the power to our houses, etc. It’s all a trade-off. Maybe vegans should be forced to collect their gases. They fart so the cows don’t need to.
Someone called cows solar powered bioreactors – they turn the solar energy that grows the grass into food a lot more efficiently than factories. In the end we either use the solar energy as it arrives or we dig up what was laid down in the past. Fewer people would help too.
If some genius figures out how to produce clean, efficient energy, I promise there will be huge profits. Notice the word “efficient,” however. Wind turbines aren’t efficient. I’m talking about something that can actually replace fossil fuels in terms of bang for the buck.
“The climate scientists only changed their model to “climate change” because they could no longer predict constantly rising global temperatures without looking like idiots”.
I am a fan of this blog but on this subject you are simply wrong. The IPCC was set up in 1989. Not the IPGW. “Climate change” is a term that has been in the literature since the 1960s. Global warming drives climate change. This is referring to the fact that say a 2C rise does not mean a uniform and perhaps benign slight warming everywhere. It means wholesale changes in climate patterns, from the timing and location of monsoons to the breakdown of the jet streams to accelerated warming at high latitudes.
CO2 induced global warming is a threat. Unlike the saturated fat hypothesis of heart disease, this was predicted back in 1896 based on established physics. The mechanism was understood before the warming was observed. Predictions from models based on those equations have been reasonably accurate. And unlike medicine, an arena muddied by big pharma interests, climate scientists did not profit personally from any climate agenda.
1970’s scientific predictions of a coming ice age were nothing like the sensationalised press releases of the time. Having confirmed that the orbital Milankovitch cycles explained the previous glaciation cycles quite well, scientists predicted that in about 16,000 years we would be heading deep into another glaciation, and the (very gradual) cooling had been underway since the Holocene Optimum in 6000BC. This in no way contradicts the prediction that elevated CO2 levels would heat the Earth in the coming decades and centuries. It might even be an argument for some deliberate elevation of CO2…but we”ve now shot well past levels seen in the last 10 million years and heading towards hothouse Earth levels. This is fine for life, and and no ice caps even at the poles was more the norm over the last 500 million years than the current ice age. But then…sea levels were 80 metres higher back then, and the equatorial belts close to uninhabitable.
Though I tend to the Right in most things, on this issue I am disgusted and embarrassed by the Right’s attitude that ignoring the science will make the problem go away. This was not natively a “left-wing” issue. It was made into one by the stupidity of the right who have ceded the initiative completely to the Big State do-gooders you hate so much. You battle their doctrinaire attitudes on food using good science…then ignore good science when it points in a direction you do not like. Are you any better than a Vegan in this respect? Vegans, climate change deniers – yes, I see the commonality.
Sorry, but you and I will have to disagree on whether the people telling us they can predict what the climate will be 50 years from now are engaging in good science or not. I don’t believe good scientists act like this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/#5331349d27ba
I didn’t just pull my opinions from right-wing news sites. I read several books on the subject that changed my mind, just as reading up on diet and health changed my mind. So yes, I’m far better than a vegan on this topic.
The word “denier” is tossed around whenever we want someone to stop thinking about an issue and simply accept the consensus, but as Professor Bob Carter points out, the proper word is “skeptic” — and good scientists are supposed to be skeptics. Here’s what I consider a good scientist speaking on the subject:
http://www.tomnaughton.com/index.php/baby-its-cold-outside/
Everything you said is wrong, and I refuse to argue religion with people, but I have to say this takes the cake:
” climate scientists did not profit personally from any climate agenda”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Actually, the truth about nutrition has been widely known since the 1850s or earlier. Our grandparents or great-grandparents were in no doubt that a healthy diet was based on meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy, and a modicum of good-quality vegetables and fruit. Bread and other cereal products were for filling up on, or for the poor who couldn’t afford better food.
Contrary to stories that are often put about, 19th century Americans hardly ever ate green vegetables. For one thing, they carried a heavy risk of food poisoning. As early as 1800 Europeans reported with wonder that, in America, even working people ate meat three times a day – whereas European workers got it about once a month.
Actually, beef was the driving force when it came to eating meat. Poultry and fowl were considered delicacies. Chickens were valued more for their eggs than for their meat.
“A backlash from fans who aren’t vegetarians or vegans? Suuuuuure, that happened.”
While “backlash” might have been an exaggeration, I’ve learned to be very cautious about who I tell that I raise meat rabbits. The way some people react, you’d think I was clubbing baby seals.
I figure this is a safe place. 🙂
Tell people you raise big-eared rats. Maybe they’ll get over themselves.
I read a book about 40 years ago about a family whose sailboat sank and left them with a dingy and a raft. They survived for a long time (months and months) eating fish, turtles, and catching rain water. They even grabbed an occasional small shark that swam too close and left it to thrash around until it expired. They ate what they could, dried the rest on lines, caught rain water and so forth. They ate any edible innards, found all sorts of stuff in the sharks stomachs, turtle eggs, drank the turtle blood and used the turtle oil which has some antibacterial properties to treat the sores from constantly being wet with sea water. “Stem to stern”
When finally and miraculously rescued, I recall the author and father of the family saying the ships doctor gave them full physicals and other than being a bit underweight they were in very good condition and I still recall him noting “Our teeth were clean and unfurred”. That last part, stuck in my head for four decades.
“Unfurred” … now that’s an interesting description.
Maybe that’s why it stuck with me. Perhaps they were from another country? I read it that even though they didn’t have a tooth brush or toothpaste, that their teeth were as clean as if they’d been regular brushers.
Fits well with Fat Head’s neanderthals having good teeth and the lead in the blog post about the inuit having great teeth.
Oh and doesn’t PETA stand for People Eating Tasty Animals?
It does in my house.
When I was young my teeth used to pretty much come through with holes already in them. This was blamed on “eating too much sugar” which I never did – but I DID eat too much starch, enough to spike my blood glucose. I remember reading a document stating that “increased dental caries” would be a consequence of high carb low fat diets but it was considered a “trivial problem” which could be overcome by employing more dentists.
During the last fourteen years of low carb/paleo/keto my teeth hardly even need cleaning, the only problems have been with old fillings needing replacing. It bugs the hell out of me to realise that I spent over fifty years with unnecessary and self-inflicted problems. And going back as far as Weston A Price it was known that rotting teeth corresponded with rotting arteries and other tissues.
I wonder how Walt Wallett’s teeth are holding up with his Gorilla Diet.
Yup, I was still getting cavities filled as adult, and I didn’t drink sugary sodas, eat candy or desserts, etc. But I was basing my meals on “healthy” breads and cereals. I haven’t had a cavity since going low-carb.
You don’t even imagine he has the *guts* to follow his “Gorilla Diet”.
They’ve toned it down a bit
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46865204
but not a lot
Actually this is a compromise that satisfies almost nobody.
The vegans will be screaming bloody murder about the meat; we don’t like it; and the vast bulk of rest won’t like it either.
I thought the Gorilla diet was to appeal to vegans.
The book is Survive the Savage Sea by Dougal Robertson. I remember reading that too.
“Take the flower by the thorns” – nice one!
Yep, at age 56 I remember enough about the “if we don’t DO SOMETHING we’re all gonna die” episodes in the media. Anyone remember “zero population growth” and how humanity was going to breed itself out of existence? Well, “Soylent Green” was set in 2022, and I don’t see too many plankton crackers being sold yet. Haven’t had the nerve to try any of the real Soylent Co.’s offerings, but I’m pretty sure they’re not grinding up elderly folks just yet.
Cynical? Nope, just recognize the limitations of the scientific method, and the difference between interpolation and extrapolation.
As for me, think I’ll stick with eating foods that don’t blow my blood glucose into the stratosphere (blood glucose of 83 as of 20 minutes ago, and HbA1c of 5.2 last time anyone checked) and keep my weight down comfortably near normal.
Let’s not forget “The Population Bomb.” Billions were going to starve to death by the 1980s.
How about banning idiotic vegan blather because it offends us carnivores?
Fortunately, we’re not so delicate.
“The world must drastically reduce its meat consumption in order to avoid devastating climate change, scientists said Wednesday in the most thorough study so far on how what we eat affects the environment”.
Er, who exactly said that it was “the most thorough study” – and how did they know?
I am always amused and perplexed when I hear politicians say, as an aexcuse, that they took “the best scientific advice”. That doesn’t seem quit logical. If they know so little about science that they need advice to make up their minds, how can they possible tell which advice is bad and which is good – let alone “the best”?
The “best scientific advice” is whatever advice tells them they should do what they already wanted to do.
“A 1929 article reprinted by The Harvard Crimson says Eskimos (we’d call them the Inuit now) had good teeth because of their all-meat diet…”
That’s old news in more than one way: see “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” by Dr Weston A Price (passim). Dr Price’s surveys in the 1930s found about a dozen entirely different groups of people, from Alaska to New Guinea and Peru, all of whom had exceptionally good teeth despite never cleaning their teeth at all. (Well, why would they? There was nothing wrong with their teeth).
As Dr Price put it, all the “primitive” people he surveyed who ate their traditional diets had near-perfect teeth and gums in spite of using absolutely no dental care. And his patients back in Illinois had teeth riddled with caries, in spite of having the benefit of the very latest American dental techniques. He even demonstrated the different effects on teeth of being immersed in the saliva of people eating different diets. The saliva of those eating the US diet standard US diet rotted teeth all by itself. Whereas the saliva of those eating the diet Dr Price prescribed, based on his experiences, actually repaired damage.
Mind you, given the dates, it may be possible that the research quoted by Tom even prompted Dr Price to embark on his travels. It would have been logical to wonder if the good effect of meat-eating extended to others living far away – such as the Masai. And it did.
The utterly astonishing thing is that, although these results, Dr Price’s book, and Stefansson’s book about the benefits of carnovory, were all published before WW2, they have all been studiously ignored by scientists, doctors and dentists.
“Follow the money”, eh?
Dental damage is also inflicted by dentists, many of whom should not be in the trade as they are butchers.
Dentists have the highest rate of suicide among medical professionals. (It’s true)
That’s because they’re always down in the mouth.
Actually I believe one problem is the mercury fumes. Yes that mercury that they stick in our teeth which is “healthy” as long as we are alive but becomes toxic waste and has to be removed before we are cremated. And as if that wasn’t bad enough I’ve heard exactly the same of the current plastics used to replace it.
You met him too?
Yes my dentists have if possible varied even more than my doctors from highly competent and knowledgeable to cowboys with sharp instruments.
“The world must drastically reduce its meat consumption in order to avoid devastating climate change, scientists said Wednesday in the most thorough study so far on how what we eat affects the environment”.
Of course this is utter garbage. Quite apart from the fact that it appears to place unrestricted population growth ahead of people’s health. (Of course, those who believe meat is bad for you don’t have a problem there; but I’m talking about the real world).
Anyone read “Farmageddon”? Everyone should – and I mean everyone. Parts of it will turn even the average stomach, but as citizens we need to know what is being to our food, why, and with what consequences.
Short summary: to pocket the largest possible profits as quickly as possible – and the hell with the medium, let alone the long, term – some people (I use that noun in its loosest sense) are doing appalling, frightful things to animals, fish and even plants. They are trying to turn farming into a factory industry, with the animals and plants as components. Cows live their whole short lives in dark sheds, never see a blade of grass, have no room to move, and are fed ghastly slops compounded of (among other things) GM soya and ground-up sea-bottom creatures from Peru. Pigs and chickens fare even worse. It’s all powered by huge amounts of fossil fuels, and is therefore completely unsustainable. All in the holy name of “efficiency” – in other words, more profits quicker.
Of course all know that cows should live in grassy fields and eat the grass, being brought indoors for as short a time as possible only when it’s too cold outside.No one, and probably no animal, needs to eat soya (even non-GM), and sea-bottom creatures should be left to play their important part in the ecosystem.
This is a crisis point where two radically incompatible ideologies clash. The one that prevails today is that money is the measure of everything, and “efficiency” – getting more money faster – is all that counts.
The other takes the side of humanity and the global ecosphere – Gaia, if you like. Obviously all our lives, and those of our children forever, depend critically on food, and we get food from animals and plants. The two vital priorities are getting adequate healthy food, and getting it in a way that is perpetually sustainable. In the name of money, the present system does the opposite of both.
I saw the film “Farmageddon.” Haven’t read the book. Most of us can, of course, afford to eat meat in countries like the U.S. And that’s the problem, according to the social-justice warriors. It isn’t fair, ya see, and something has to be done about it.
“You’re just another weenie demanding special treatment.”
A soy-based weenie.
And, what meat eater would eat meat based food in a movie theater? That stuff is nasty!
I believe that was a line in “Seinfeld” … something about never eating a movie-theater hot dog.
My theater serves Nathans hot dogs for $2 on tuesdays, and they’ll toss in a cup of sliced jalapenos for free!
They also sell beer and wine at relatively reasonable prices.
“A stag do is apparently what the Brits call a bachelor party.”
In Australia, it’s called a “Buck’s Night” for men and a “Hen’s Night” for women. (This useless information brought to you by my Hulu account and the wonderful TV programs from Australia that they stream.)
See a meat tax is ideal from the point of view of the Anointed. It will keep the commoners from eating meat making more available to them. Plus the revenue can be used to lower taxes.
Lower taxes? The Anointed never want to lower taxes. Our money belongs to them.
Lower taxes for the 0.1%, I should have said. Putative tax cuts that expire for the rest of the taxpayers.
“vegan-friendly Fisherman’s Friend” – Am I the only one having trouble with that snippet…? I would think that vegans didn’t like fishermen.
I wondered about that one myself.
Fisherman’s Friend is a cough lozenge.
The weenies don’t stop to think beyond stage 1: if you stop eating calorie-dense meat and dairy, you need to replace those calories with something else. The “something else” usually involves grains and soy, and growing those involves destroyed habitats, fossil fuels to fertilize, and pesticides even if they’re organic. Ruminants, OTOH, can eat perennial plants.
Unfortunately, many vegans are convinced plant-based diets don’t impact the environment. Yes, it’s completely illogical, but that’s what they believe.
And the oddly amusing (Oh, hello Schadenfreude, is that you?) thing is that before the “Center for Science in the Public Interest” screwed it up, the movie-theater popcorn *WAS* vegan: corn (grain… but not animal!) and coconut oil (much saturated fat.. but not animal!) and salt is, well, salt. But they had to mess that up… I don’t know what nasty things they decided to use instead of coconut oil, but I’m fine with butter if popcorn is to be had.
Theaters switched to hydrogenated seed oils. Still vegan. A lousy choice for health, but still vegan.
“A lousy choice for health”
So, *more* vegan, really.
+1.0E69
But, of course, coconut oil is mainly saturated fat and vegans don’t want people to accept that any saturated fat can be healthy to eat.
They certainly don’t want people to know the primary fat in beef is quickly desaturated into oleic acid an unsaturated fat that is the primary fat in olive oil.
Also that the Dalai Lama consumes beef on doctor’s orders.
I don’t think what they put on buttered popcorn is even butter but some chemical device made to taste like butter, which it doesn’t.
Just like school lunches designed to be filling aren’t. I think the word appropriate here is “BAD” — “Broken As Designed”.
I’m just glad the vegans let us know what annoys them, much easier on my part to make sure I offend them every which way I can…I don’t mind beating that dead vegan.
Apparently, some of us skipped past that section of the Constitution guaranteeing the right not to be offended.
I just received a notification from Roku that they are removing The InfoWars Channel because a few people complained about its content. I didn’t even know it was available, and I am not a fan of Alex Jones, but man it pisses me off that a small group of people are so upset that they have to complain and prevent those who do enjoy that content from watching it. If you don’t like the channel, don’t download it, don’t watch it.
“1984” was meant as a warning, not a user’s guide.
I’m afraid there’s a lot of that going around. Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin recently canceled their Patreon accounts in protest over Patreon banning politically incorrect content producers. Kudos to them for being willing to take a financial hit to stand up for free expression.
If they got rid of everything that offends someone or is viewed as “propaganda”, there’d be nothing left to watch.
Yup, but we now have groups of people who have decided they’re entitled to be the arbiters of what’s offensive and shut it down. I find them very offensive.
Mastercard has been stopping payments to various people designated “haters” by hate group Southern Poverty law Centre.
Twitter has informed a couple of counterjihadists that they are breaking Pakistan’s blasphemy law and therefore have received “warnings”. From Twitter, an American company.
Good. Grief.
Currently half way through antiveganuary, today’s dose was lamb’s liver and bacon with Brussels sprouts and a giant mushroom. Also in my fridge, rump steak, chicken breast, salmon and smoked haddock, and I’m due another pheasant from a friend who shoots. Pheasants and partridges make a good second crop for the farmers, low input and high output, the opposite of the grainz.
I am pretty sure the food pyramid with the 6-11 servings of grain at the bottom showed up in 1992 or so. I know this because I started putting on the pounds big time in 1995. I was a good rule follower. Prior to that, if my memory serves me correctly, we were told to eat from the ‘four healthy food groups’ and I was under the impression it was equal size servings.
Ahh, good catch. The USDA began issuing dietary guidelines in 1980, but the actual Food Pyramid came later. The 1980 guidelines told us to cut fats and cholesterol and eat more grains in the form of breads and cereals, but didn’t call for 6-11 servings per day.
This might be of some amusement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdJZJ7g2sBE
re: «That’s the group of social-justice warriors…»
Some fodder in case you’re contemplating addressing that oxymoronic puffery (and I’ll ignore the “warrior” part of it for brevity).
Justice is a noun. Social, in this context, becomes an adjective, which modifies the noun. Most terms prefixing “justice” are thus “something other than simple justice”. These modifiers need, by default, to be read as “not” or “in-“, because that’s what they do to that word.
That it is sometimes necessary to put the word “equal” in front of justice merely highlights the abuse suffered by poor justice. “Social” might be the poster child for this malady. Social justice is not equal justice. It’s a corruption of justice.
Because the ever-iffy Wiki is apparently infested with editors suffering from SJW syndrome, we can to some extent rely on their own definition for SJ. As one can see, it gives a synthetic construct (the tribe, aka society) at least equal standing in dispute resolution and grievance remedy. Moderns facing down a horde of SJW zombies need to understand that what SJ really means is: justice-like-theatre for all the other kangaroos except you — and perhaps no one at all — but in any case, you, personally, may always expect to lose.
You may have noticed someone in comments a few posts ago asked me to stop using the term “social justice warrior” because he considers it insulting. Yes, I meant for it to be insulting, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.
[Most terms prefixing “justice” are thus “something other than simple justice”. These modifiers need, by default, to be read as “not” or “in-“, because that’s what they do to that word.]
nb, same for “science.”
i.e., “nutrition science,” “climate science,” “political science”
And another reason CSPI implemented with help to be sure from other vegan anointed the replacement of animal fat with transfats and of course the idea that transfat laden margarine was superior to butter.
This no doubt shortened the lives of may parents and indeed me.