plant based scientific studies

From what my mother has told me, while humans are omnivorous, we have evolved to be mostly plant based, and because of this, eating meat so much is not what we were made for. back a long time ago, when we had to hunt and forage for food, we would not have meat very often, but nowadays, meat is to easy to get. leading to us eating to much of it. although I have done no research on the matter, and this is just an opinion. which should be taken like a grain of salt.

Glad to see that you are playing attention to what we post...

More information is always better . I might not have read it because I prefer video over text but I think other peoples opinion and experience would help build a broader picture.

Edit
Just read it. Kinda. I read 2/3 of it but I got the jist.

thinman there is defiantly a problem with both sides (vegan and carnivores). I think I am too uneducated in the vegan dietary lifestyle but my first exposure to veganism was not great, i seen a youtube video by "Vegan Gains" and he is nuts, he goes on videos with 12 inch butcher knifes and threatens meat eater.
I think I will watch Game Changers and then do my own research into the articles that are mentioned (but to be honest I'm too lazy so may not do this but if I have any free time I'll do it) but my brother watched it and went vegetarian for nearly a week and today he said his body didn't feel the same.

Kakarot I have watched many films through Netflix that are all about the food industry and for being very pro-Vegetarian/Vegan. I found that they seemed to cherry-pick their data. But I noticed that many of them excluded a point that was made to me in a nutrition class, that meat contains some essential amino acids that cannot be found in plants. It will have to be taken through supplements which can be a problem because some scientists have been debating if our bodies are able to absorb those nutrients in supplements as effectively. Again, I'm going based off the information I was told in a nutrition class in university. I don't have access to many scientific articles at the moment but I'll see if I can find some good articles.

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/ve...vegan-athlete/
Great research analysis from a great resource

AmazonianRookie your nutrition class was most probably referring to B12. It is the one vitamin that the body cannot synthesize. We get it from animal sources of food (primarily meat) but animals do not synthesize it either. They get it from bacteria in the soil. You may want to check out our article on protein, nutrition and the research studies we used as sources.

I'll need to read some of these when I have nothing else to do. There's so much. Definitely before the new year.

AmazonianRookie Damer
It might have been fatty acid DHA.
An interesting article about the fact that human brain needs DHA and DHA cannot be synthesized by a human body and is found only in animals and algae.

Jarod thank you for adding this article to the conversation. I need to address it, for the benefit of everyone on this thread, at length and I am on the road right now. I will get back to it a little later today when I get back home. The title of the article is misleading to the extreme however which is not a good start. Until later. (And thank you!).

Jarod I just opened that article and, I'm no scientists but I don't think it's written with actual scientific evidence. The title alone (which is as far as I got) makes no sense. If animal nutrition is what powers our brains, how did humans survive when meat was scarce?

Jarod thank you for your patience on this. I will deconstruct this article a little. Before I do so I need to mention that my background is in Chemical Engineering. My Masters (MSc) is on "quantum mechanical phenomena in laminar flow dynamics". My role within the Darebee Team is to make sure the science we use in our articles is sound and we back everything we say with the latest research. Food and exercise are essentially forms of energy management and, as such, follow fundamental Thermodynamic Laws that are the foundation of all laws of physics.

Now, this piece you cited. First, the title. Although the article is titled ""The Brain Needs Animal Fat" is misleading. The author herself says in the "Unanswered Questions" section of the article that there are other sources of DHA that can be derived from algae and (more importantly) supplements, that wouldn't need us to consume animal fat. There is a deeper issue here too. The author of this article is a nutritional psychologist who hopes to use better nutrition to reduce psychological issues. While she is correct that DHA is needed by the brain and this is a nutrient the body cannot manufacture easily her insistence on consuming animal products at a time when mounting medical research indicates that consuming animal products causes cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and poor circulation - ailments that adversely affect brain health, creates a bind where what she proposes as a solution may be part of the problem.

We can discount the quantum mechanical properties of DHA as they have zero bearing on this piece (no idea why they're included as they're still highly speculative and untested). This leaves us with the focus of it which is muddled at best. Each informational piece has to work with a particular audience. Nutrition in particular is very difficult to target correctly. During development, for example, children and young adults can safely ingest animal products because their bodies are geared to making good use of them. In our adult form we no longer need milk (studies have shown it doesn't help with osteoporosis and bone density) and we may no longer need to consumer as much (or any) animal protein. The author's piece is using the development needs of the young brain which needs DHA and absolutely must not be deprived of it to conflate the need for DHA of the adult brain. A need which, by nature, is going to be different in both amounts and usage.

Similarly, her suggestion that we just eat more seafood in order to get the right kind of omega-3 (a.k.a. DHA) risks us poisoning ourselves as fish and shellfish contain higher amounts of mercury than say meat or vegetables.

Algae, do contain, DHA. It is not yet certain how effectively we can digest that (but more studies are coming out soon.) The human body can convert some DHA from other fatty acids (like alpha-linolenic acid - ALA for short) but the process is inefficient. In addition a diet rich in omega-6 nutrients counteracts some of our ability to manufacture or extract omega-3 ones.

The best answer on this is to use supplements that are lab-made, where DHA is extracted from algae. Like with B12 (a vitamin which animals get from bacteria in the soil ) DHA is derived from primary sea organisms (in this case algae) and in balancing things out we need to go to the primary source. People on a mainly vegetarian or vegan diet get B12 in the form of supplements, they should also get DHA.

I hope this has helped. Feel free to ask any questions that may arise.

In an update to this please see my follow-up comment.

My mind is

Damer Thank you for your inputs.
There are still many things in areas of fitness and nutrition I don't know and I'm always interested in getting new info. But I had to learn to read in between the lines because many people seem to be pushing their hidden agendas. For example I see increasing efforts to make meat-eaters feel guilty and it makes me wonder...

I joined this thread only because there was a mention of an essential nutrient missing in plants, I tried to think of what it might be and I remembered that article. It's clear to me that it's no peer-reviewed study for a scientific magazine but a column for folks on the internet. Perhaps the author should have had more responsibility not to use slogans, not to exagerate and not to oversimplify. But the two key pieces of information for me are 1) DHA is essential for healthy human development and 2) DHA is not found in plants. You confirmed those two facts.

Animal products have been part of human nutrition ever since, in various periods for various groups in various amounts. Only since recent times food is available so easily (alas not yet in all parts of the world) that it's sometimes becoming unhealthy.
I say let everybody eat whatever they find convenient/suitable and whatever God/creation/nature/evolution/culture/local and global economy made them available, provided they decide responsibly with the correct information and they learn to eat in moderation.