Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Much more endnoting is needed! -Cindy Hoffman, one of my high school English teachers It's a shame that vegan activist Dr. Neal Barnard didn't learn English composition from Mrs. Hoffman: maybe we could see where he got the numerous pro-vegetarian quotes from paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey--enough to fill half a chapter in The Power of Your Plate . Leakey, according to Barnard, says that hunting in modern times isn't very important except as a macho male thing (page 175), that meat accounted for a small part of the diet on the African savannah (page 174), that the "excess of meat" from domesticated livestock is unusual (page 174), and that we wouldn't have had the teeth to deal with tearing flesh and hide (page 171). These statements are attributed to the same Richard Leakey who said, just two years before The Power of Your Plate came out in 1995, The expansion [of diet] involved making meat an important food source, not just an occasional items

Richard Leakey with skull of Australopithecus (left) and Homo habilis (right). Photo from fotosimagenes.org Let me start with this: if you're a vegetarian, and enjoy good health on your diet, that's fine with me. Everybody should have a diet that works for them, and if you've found it, I won't discourage you from following it.  That said, evolution doesn't support human vegetarianism--unless you go back to Australopithecus (see photo). While doing a bit of research, I came across an odd quote attributed to paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey: "[y]ou can’t tear flesh by hand, you can’t tear hide by hand … We wouldn’t have been able to deal with food source that required those large canines” (although we have teeth that are called “canines,” they bear little resemblance to the canines of carnivores). It shows up on several vegan and vegetarian websites and articles, but with no source cited. I call it an odd quote because from what I'

Dear Trolls, I can't thank you enough for trying to set me and my poor, misguided low-carb and paleo friends on the right path. It must be painful for you to read blogs and articles about eating things like bacon-wrapped shrimp , coconut chocolate tart , juicy barbecued ribs, and full-fat lemon ice cream . Nevertheless, you soldiered on to show us the way to vegan/low-fat/CICO/food reward/MMEL enlightenment. Your kindness and time and effort you've shown are appreciated. But I do have two things to say. First, you're wrong. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there it is. Nearly all of us have already tried eating less and moving more, or reducing calories and fat, and the community is full of former vegetarians. In fact, hunger and fat accumulation are driven by hormones. This isn't the gospel according to Gary Taubes, it's in endocrinology textbooks (see this and this ). High-carb diets aren't the answer to diabetes, a disease of carbohydrate intoler