While it is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle and diet, it is also important to remember that our genetic background plays a much larger role than we may wish to think. My motto is everything in moderation.

Originally Posted by Arctic Fox:
the reason humans have large brains is because our distant ancestors ate cooked meat, which provided much more energy than uncooked meat...



The cooked meat CONTAINS no more energy than the uncooked meat (other than the added heat energy), but cooking it makes it much easier for us to digest it so it PROVIDES us with more energy:

a) we are able to extract more benefit from it; and

b) we use less energy in extracting that benefit.


Thank you for letting me clarify this.

:agree: Everything in moderation.
And people live longer if they have some good, supportive friends.

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Willpower vs. Foods With No Brakes
 

Here's a read I found on moderation, what do you think?

The problem is, moderation works for very few people.

You know this to be true. You’ve tried it countless times. (And if it actually worked for you long-term, you wouldn’t need any more diet advice, would you?)

For those who don’t have a health condition or food sensitivities, you may feel even more pressure (or desire) to “moderate” instead of deprive yourself—but there are perils associated with this dietary concept for you, too.
The biggest problem with moderation is that it relies on willpower. And given what we know about willpower, and the kinds of foods that are tempting us day in and day out, “everything in moderations” is a long-term losing proposition.

The kinds of foods we are attempting to moderate— “foods with no brakes.” These are calorie-dense, carb-dense, nutrient-poor foods designed by food scientists to make you crave them, without any of the nutrition or satiety factors that tells your brain to stop eating them. They rewire pleasure, reward, and emotion circuitry in your brain, creating habit loops that are near impossible to break with sheer willpower. Stress—any kind of stress—makes these cravings and habits stronger. And the kicker? These same foods also mess with hormones like leptin and insulin, creating metabolic imbalances that further promote cravings and hunger such that no amount of willpower can overrule them. (Hormones >willpower.)

The very concept of “moderation” is intangible—so fluffy as to be meaningless. Does it mean you only eat one cookie at a time, or cookies once a week, or just one bite of cookie a few times a day? The truth is, most of us haven’t take the time to map out exactly, specifically what “moderation” means to us. Even if we did, the “moderation” would probably creep when it suited our needs. (It’s easy to justify that second glass of wine when the bottle is open and you hate to waste it.)

We also like to negotiate with ourselves when we’ve set less-than-firm goals… “I’ll have two glasses tonight, but none tomorrow.” But what happens tomorrow? We are creatures of instant gratification, quickly discounting future benefits in favor of immediate payoff—which means tomorrow usually finds us justifying that one glass of wine yet again.:wine: Or one potato chip?

Habit research shows that black-and-white goals—without any room for interpretation, justification, or negotiation—are far easier to meet than squishy goals. “I will eat less sugar,” “I will exercise more,” “Everything in moderation”… all examples of squishy goals with loads of room for us to bend them to our will and desire.

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Everything in moderation - works for me ...and my genetic background. Try it, you might like it.

That is true, but willpower can be strengthened, especially if the "end result" is something which you sincerely want to attain, rather than just think you ought to attain or, worse, have been told you should attain.

I used to like sugar in my coffee but decided to cut down on my sugar intake for health reasons. It didn't take long before coffee without sugar tasted fine to me, and now I can't drink it if someone has put sugar in.

Likewise when cooking: I like to eat meat but have cut back the portion size to about half what I used to serve. A certain weight of meat now makes two meals for me and Mrs Fox rather than one and, since the other half is put away for the next meal, we are not tempted to eat it at this one.

With all due respect Jimbo, not all of us are seeking diet advice.
Some of us are reading this thread for the gay repartee that has ensued. :024:

I don't know why you're calling me Chicken Little, when you are the one claiming that the sky is falling.

Great not offering any !

http://www.dontshoot.com/images/logo.gif

7,000 animals?
 

Let's go back to the OP's OP. His statement is from an article in USA Today (not one of your more intellectual newspapers), and it quotes a prediction from an organization I can't even find in Google:

"An organization called Vegetarian Calendar is predicting how many animals the average meat-eating person will consume over a lifetime."

If I may borrow one of the arguments frequently used by Villages PL, this (not even a) "study" comes from a source with a specific bias/agenda.

I hardly consider it credible.

Your right it can't be found in Google if you search for the WRONG name of the organization :024:

try Vegetarian Calculator

it's calculator not calender

the issue of credibility is your choice, but it was picked up as valid article by hundreds of other media world wide..

The other choice is to do your own math :loco:

7,000 animals?
 

Having been picked up by world wide media hardly makes it a valid source(s). The media today are not worthy of being considered trustworthy scientific sources unless they carefully are sourced from true scientific journals. I've looked and cannot find any recognized scientific basis behind the site you note.