# Would You Eat Meat, Not From Animals?



## The lion king (Aug 14, 2005)

Snatched this article form another site, thought id share this with you guys...

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Ian Sample, science correspondent
Saturday August 13, 2005
The Guardian

It is the ultimate conundrum for vegetarians who think that meat is murder: a revolution in processed food that will see fresh meat grown from animal cells without a single cow, sheep or pig being killed.

Researchers have published details in a biotechnology journal describing a new technique which they hailed as the answer to the world's food shortage. Lumps of meat would be cultured in laboratory vats rather than carved from livestock reared on a farm.

Scientists have adapted the cutting-edge medical technique of tissue engineering, where individual cells are multiplied into whole tissues, and applied them to food production. "With a single cell, you could theoretically produce the world's annual meat supply," said Jason Matheny, an agricultural scientist at the University of Maryland.

According to researchers, meat grown in laboratories would be more environmentally friendly and could be tailored to be healthier than farm-reared meat by controlling its nutrient content and screening it for food-borne diseases.

Vegetarians might also be tempted because the cells needed to grow chunks of meat can be taken without harming the donor animal. 


So what you guys make of this and whats do vegetarians, who do not eat meat for religious/personal reasons, make of this


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## CaramelChocolate (Aug 14, 2005)

Sat sri akaal GURNEK, I would not eat it because I am still indirectly eating flesh. I am vegetarian and I can live without meat, I am not dying or anything so I do not need meat anyway. If this grown meat gives me the same vitamins as meat then I do not need it anyway. Essentially it would still be meat and it is not the most natural process of getting food. The whole thing seems kinda dodgy to me and with the way meat is produced nowadays anyway I wouldn't trust this type of meat as much as I wouldn't trust any other type.


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## BhagatSingh (Sep 16, 2006)

AWESOME!   eremeber guru ji said being vegetarian for the sake of being vegetarian is stupid
i am vegetarian because of the cruelty to animals etc so this solves that problem lol


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## learner (Oct 10, 2006)

no meat


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## Randip Singh (Oct 10, 2006)

Eating meat or not eating meat is a non-issue for Sikhs!

It is purely a matter for conscience. Whether you eat Plant Flesh or Animal Flesh is immaterial to Sikhism.


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## learner (Oct 10, 2006)

> Eating meat or not eating meat is a non-issue for Sikhs!
> 
> It is purely a matter for conscience. Whether you eat Plant Flesh or Animal Flesh is immaterial to Sikhism.


 
randip singh ji 
can you please give me some reference of some sort from GGSJ or explain how eating meat or not eating meats not an issue for sikhs

Thank you in advance for your help


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## BhagatSingh (Oct 10, 2006)

I learned in school this thing about energy where energy obtained directly from a plant is more than energy obtained from animals and fish.


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## Randip Singh (Oct 11, 2006)

BhagatSingh said:


> I learned in school this thing about energy where energy obtained directly from a plant is more than energy obtained from animals and fish.


 
Thats debatable.......recent BBC programme on the origins of man stated if man had not eaten meat our brain would be of the same level as an ape.

BBC - Science & Nature - The evolution of man

*Food for thought - 3 million years ago*

*By three million years ago, the world of Lucy and Australopithecus afarensis had vanished. Hidden forces were transforming the Earth's climate, with devastating consequences for the African landscape.*


Temperatures in Africa plummeted and the air became stripped of moisture. Humid woodland shrivelled away, leaving wide belts of open terrain in its place.
*Spinning around*

The cause of this environmental upheaval was to be found in space. The Earth orbits the Sun at a slight tilt, known as the axis of rotation. This means that as our planet spins, it points towards the Sun at some times and away from it at others. This is the origin of the seasons on Earth. Three million years ago, this axis was changing so that the Earth pointed away from the Sun for longer periods. This caused an overall cooling of the Earth, locking away moisture in ice at the North and South Poles. It also made the climate more seasonal.

*Dietary dilemma*

In Africa, some animals that relied on the forests for their food died out. But others evolved to exploit other dietary sources. For example, many evolved physical adaptations to graze on the grass that colonised the deforested terrain.
Wildlife in Africa diversified as new animal species evolved to exploit different sources of food in a new mosaic of environments. The same seems to have happened to our ancestors, who had previously relied on forest foods such as soft fruit. After three million years, new ape-men were springing up all over the continent.
In East Africa, a hominid called _Paranthropus boisei_ became specialised so that it could eat tough-to-chew but more abundant plant foods such as nuts, roots and tubers - an underground vegetable a bit like a potato.

*Lantern jaws*

Paranthropus boisei developed an enormous jaw with massive chewing muscles and huge back teeth to help him grind down these tough plant foods. By becoming a highly specialised vegetarian, _boisei_ ensured a comfortable life for itself.
The ratios of different types of carbon atoms, or isotopes, in fossils can tell us lots about what a fossil creature ate because different foods have different carbon isotope signatures. Dr Julia Lee-Thorp of the University of Cape Town in South Africa has found that isotopes in _boisei_'s southern African relative, _Paranthropus robustus_, show that it ate a relatively high proportion of foods with a Carbon-4 (C4) signature. 
C4 carbon usually comes from grass. Since the teeth of _robustus_ show it did not graze on grass, Lee-Thorp suggests it was consuming grass-eating insects, including termites. Archaeological finds show _robustus_ dug termites out of their mounds using sharpened animal bones. But other scientists suggest that _robustus_ could have obtained its high proportion of C4 carbon from the roots of plants like papyrus, which also have high C4 signatures.

Unlike _boisei_, _Homo habilis_ ate almost anything that came their way.

*Tasty termites *

Food was not as easily available for _Homo habilis_, a hominid that lived alongside _boisei_ in East Africa. This ape-man could not eat the same tough plant foods that _boisei_ ate, because its jaw and teeth were too small.
_Homo habilis_ had small teeth and ate anything it could lay its hands on, especially meat. But _habilis_ was no hunter. Attracted by circling vultures, it probably scavenged the leftovers from a big kill such as an antelope left in a tree by a leopard, or a large animal such as a wildebeest that had been slaughtered by lions.


_*Brain food *_

*Because meat is rich in calories and nutrients, easy-to-digest food, early Homo lost the need for big intestines like apes and earlier hominids had. This freed up energy for use by other organs. This surplus of energy seems to have been diverted to one organ in particular - the brain. But scavenging meat from under the noses of big cats is a risky business, so good scavengers needed to be smart. At this stage in our evolution, a big brain was associated with greater intellect. Big brains require lots of energy to operate: the human brain uses 20% of the body's total energy production. But the massive calorific hit provided by meat kick-started an increase in the brain size of early humans.*


*Tooled up *

But around two million years ago, telltale cut marks on the surface of animal bones reveal that early humans were using crude stone tools to smash open the bones and extract the marrow. Stone tools allowed early _Homo_ to get at a food source that no other creature was able to obtain - bone marrow. Bone marrow contains long chain fatty acids that are vital for brain growth and development. This helped further fuel the increase in brain size, allowing our ancestors to make more complex tools.
The tools made by _habilis_ are called 'Oldowan tools'. The process used to make these tools was incredibly simple. Hominids picked up one stone, known as a core and broke it with another, known as a hammerstone or percussor. This gave them a sharp cutting edge that could pass through an animal's hide.
*Chimp test*

Yet even this crude form of tool-making required our ancestors to make a cognitive leap. When researchers at the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta showed an intelligent chimp called Kanzi how to strike a suitable flake from a stone core in order to cut a cord tied around a box containing food, Kanzi soon grasped the general idea. But after many months of trying, Kanzi had not managed to produce anything as deliberately crafted as an Oldowan flake.
Kanzi couldn't seem to comprehend that useful flakes are only produced if a hammerstone strikes the core at the right point, at the right angle and with the right force. By contrast, even the earliest Oldowan tool-makers understood this principle.

*A victim of success *

_Paranthropus boisei _would eventually pay for being a specialist in a changing world. Despite its successful way of exploiting the savannah, _boisei_ became a footnote in human prehistory. They were driven to extinction, probably by an intense period of cooling and drying caused by the Ice Age. By remaining adaptable, early _Homo_ ensured that when the world changed, they changed with it. But by two million years ago, a new species of _Homo_ was evolving - one that would expand its horizons beyond the confines of Africa.


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## learner (Oct 11, 2006)

SSA randip singh ji

I also think it is debatable. 

If eating meat increases the level of brain. That means all carnivores should have same level as humans. e.g Lions etc?

Please correct me if I'm wrong.


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## vijaydeep Singh (Oct 12, 2006)

Gurfateh

Well it is in between humans.Das is sure that Carniovrese do not eat cooked meat like us.

Anyway it like that if some one takes more of porteen from animal,then say from plants,decay in mind is more quick to be repaired.

But with the help of meditation without animal food also we can overcome this but too much of yoga can lead to high level of anger.


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## Randip Singh (Oct 12, 2006)

learner said:


> SSA randip singh ji
> 
> I also think it is debatable.
> 
> ...


 
read this section above:

_Stone tools allowed early Homo to get at a food source that no other creature was able to obtain - bone marrow. Bone marrow contains long chain fatty acids that are vital for brain growth and development. This helped further fuel the increase in brain size, allowing our ancestors to make more complex tools.
_


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## Randip Singh (Oct 12, 2006)

learner said:


> randip singh ji
> can you please give me some reference of some sort from GGSJ or explain how eating meat or not eating meats not an issue for sikhs
> 
> Thank you in advance for your help


 
try this link:

http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/essays-on-sikhism/8828-fools-who-wrangle-over-flesh-7.html#post46515


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## learner (Oct 12, 2006)

> try this link:
> 
> http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/essays...html#post46515


 
Thank you Randip Singh ji

Did answer alot of my questions.


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## Mai Harinder Kaur (Oct 12, 2006)

I do not eat meat for a number of reasons, moral, ethical, religious, health. Not killing innocent animals for my sensual gratification is one reason.

However, this is a different situation in that regard. 

I would have to answer that I try to keep my body as natural as possible. This means, among lots of other things, that I try to avoid genetically modified foods. This seems as unnatural as the gm foods, and frankly, a bit Frankensteinish. Personally, I wouldn't touch the stuff.


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## Satyaban (Oct 19, 2006)

My friends

Ahimsa is the principal behind not eating meat, that is "doing no harm", not killing. Would it be okay to amputate a lamb's leg and eat it?,I don't think so.


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## Randip Singh (Oct 22, 2006)

Sikhs do not buy into the philosophy of Ahimsa, so I do not think that applies here.

As for amputatation, we readily amputate the leaves and branches of living breathing, reproducing plants so we can consume the plant flesh..........so lets not turm it into that sort of debate.

Thanks:whisling:


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## vijaydeep Singh (Oct 23, 2006)

Gurfateh

Brahman Dharma is also not based upon Ahimsa or non vilolance(which is more to do with shraman dharam like Budhists or Jains).

At Alter there are ways to carry out animal sacrifses and they are not wrong in that philosophy.Das has no objection to that.


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## Lionchild (Nov 1, 2006)

Mai said:


> I do not eat meat for a number of reasons, moral, ethical, religious, health. Not killing innocent animals for my sensual gratification is one reason.



interesting note, and when you eat veggies, do you think of it as a disgusting food you can't enjoy? Not all meat eaters eat for gratification, some places of the world, it is needed to survive,  i was raised in a place that was like that, northern Alberta.


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## Mai Harinder Kaur (Nov 1, 2006)

Lionchild said:



> Not all meat eaters eat for gratification, some places of the world, it is needed to survive, i was raised in a place that was like that, northern Alberta.


 
I totally agree. I was speaking only for myself at this time. If I were to eat meat now, it would not be for survival, it WOULD be for gratification.

But my main point stands. This not-from-dead-animal meat is not natural, and just as I avoid gm food, I would avoid this. Just for me personally.


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## gurus_princess (Jan 22, 2007)

Meat Is Still Meat,
No Matter What You Do With It.


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