Disadvantages of eating meat.
There is no longer any doubt about the fact that eating meat is bad for your health.
The list of diseases known to be associated with meat, which are commoner among meat eaters, looks like the index of a medical textbook.
Anaemia, appendicitis, arthritis, breast cancer, cancer of the colon, cancer of the prostate, constipation, diabetes, gall stones, gout, high blood pressure, indigestion, obesity, piles, strokes and varicose veins are just some of the well known disorders which are more likely to affect meat eaters than vegetarians.
Avoiding meat is one of the best and simplest ways to cut down your fat consumption.
Those who still eat beef are, in my view, foolishly exposing themselves to the risk of contracting the horrifying human version of Mad Cow Disease.
Add to those hazards the fact that if you eat meat you may be consuming hormones, drugs and other chemicals that have been fed to the animals before they were killed and you can see the extent of the danger. No one knows precisely what effect eating the hormones in meat is likely to have on your health. But the risk is there and I think it's a big one. Some farmers use tranquillisers to keep animals calm. Others routinely use antibiotics so that their animals do not develop infections. When you eat meat you are, inevitably, eating those drugs. In America, over half of all antibiotics are fed to animals and I don't think it is any coincidence that the percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin went up from 13% in 1960 to 91% in 1988.
The healthiness of a vegetarian diet is perhaps shown most dramatically by the fact that lifelong vegetarians visit hospitals 22% less often than meat eaters - and for shorter stays! Vegetarians tend to be fitter than meat eaters - as well as healthier - and many of the world's most successful athletes (particularly those who specialise in endurance events) follow a strictly vegetarian diet.
It is the fat in meat that does most harm - and which makes meat eating an even bigger health hazard than smoking - but don't think you can avoid the dangers simply by avoiding red meat because you cannot. If you want to eat a truly healthy diet then you must give up eating meat completely.
There are, of course, all sorts of old-fashioned myths about eating meat.
It used to be claimed that people who didn't eat meat would be short of protein.
But that is now known to be absolute nonsense.
And it is equally untrue that if you don't eat meat your diet will be deficient in essential vitamins or minerals.
Meat contains absolutely nothing - no protein, vitamins or minerals - that your body cannot obtain perfectly happily from a vegetarian diet.
Becoming healthier isn't the only reason for turning green.
Many of those who stop eating meat do so for moral and ethical reasons as much as for personal gain.
Every minute of every working day thousands of animals are killed in slaughterhouses. Many animals are bled to death. Pain and misery are commonplace - for animals suffer from pain and fear just as much as you do.
In an average lifetime the average meat eater will consume 36 pigs, 36 sheep and 750 chickens and turkeys. More and more people are deciding that they just don't want that much carnage on their consciences. It is never too late to stop eating meat.
In addition, more and more people are becoming aware of the fact that hunger around the world could be eradicated if rich westerners stopped eating meat.
Every year over 400 million tons of grain are fed to livestock - so that the world's rich can eat meat.
At the same time, 500 million people in poor countries are starving to death.
Many of those who toy with the idea of turning vegetarian (because they want to be healthier, because they want to stop world starvation or because they can no longer bear the thought of encouraging such a barbaric trade as the breeding and killing of animals for food) worry about what they are going to eat.
Such worries are quite unnecessary.
There are not only many different fruits and vegetables available these days but, if you miss the texture of meat, you can buy vegetarian sausages, hamburgers and pies. Stews and curries can be made with soya and you can buy tofu cheese too.
To keep healthy eat raw foods whenever you can (because vitamins are easily destroyed by cooking) and use as little water as possible when boiling vegetables in order to avoid losing water soluble vitamins B and C. Steam or stir fry vegetables if you can instead of boiling them.
Remember that keeping food hot - or reheating it - can destroy vitamins, try to eat fruit and vegetables in their skins (because vitamins are often stored just below the skin) and be imaginative when shopping! You can get the iron, calcium, zinc and other essential minerals that your body needs by eating dark green, leafy vegetables, nuts, pulses, sunflower seeds and dried fruits.
History of eating meat.???
The list of diseases known to be associated with meat, which are commoner among meat eaters, looks like the index of a medical textbook.
Anaemia, appendicitis, arthritis, breast cancer, cancer of the colon, cancer of the prostate, constipation, diabetes, gall stones, gout, high blood pressure, indigestion, obesity, piles, strokes and varicose veins are just some of the well known disorders which are more likely to affect meat eaters than vegetarians.
Avoiding meat is one of the best and simplest ways to cut down your fat consumption.
Those who still eat beef are, in my view, foolishly exposing themselves to the risk of contracting the horrifying human version of Mad Cow Disease.
Add to those hazards the fact that if you eat meat you may be consuming hormones, drugs and other chemicals that have been fed to the animals before they were killed and you can see the extent of the danger. No one knows precisely what effect eating the hormones in meat is likely to have on your health. But the risk is there and I think it's a big one. Some farmers use tranquillisers to keep animals calm. Others routinely use antibiotics so that their animals do not develop infections. When you eat meat you are, inevitably, eating those drugs. In America, over half of all antibiotics are fed to animals and I don't think it is any coincidence that the percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin went up from 13% in 1960 to 91% in 1988.
The healthiness of a vegetarian diet is perhaps shown most dramatically by the fact that lifelong vegetarians visit hospitals 22% less often than meat eaters - and for shorter stays! Vegetarians tend to be fitter than meat eaters - as well as healthier - and many of the world's most successful athletes (particularly those who specialise in endurance events) follow a strictly vegetarian diet.
It is the fat in meat that does most harm - and which makes meat eating an even bigger health hazard than smoking - but don't think you can avoid the dangers simply by avoiding red meat because you cannot. If you want to eat a truly healthy diet then you must give up eating meat completely.
There are, of course, all sorts of old-fashioned myths about eating meat.
It used to be claimed that people who didn't eat meat would be short of protein.
But that is now known to be absolute nonsense.
And it is equally untrue that if you don't eat meat your diet will be deficient in essential vitamins or minerals.
Meat contains absolutely nothing - no protein, vitamins or minerals - that your body cannot obtain perfectly happily from a vegetarian diet.
Becoming healthier isn't the only reason for turning green.
Many of those who stop eating meat do so for moral and ethical reasons as much as for personal gain.
Every minute of every working day thousands of animals are killed in slaughterhouses. Many animals are bled to death. Pain and misery are commonplace - for animals suffer from pain and fear just as much as you do.
In an average lifetime the average meat eater will consume 36 pigs, 36 sheep and 750 chickens and turkeys. More and more people are deciding that they just don't want that much carnage on their consciences. It is never too late to stop eating meat.
In addition, more and more people are becoming aware of the fact that hunger around the world could be eradicated if rich westerners stopped eating meat.
Every year over 400 million tons of grain are fed to livestock - so that the world's rich can eat meat.
At the same time, 500 million people in poor countries are starving to death.
Many of those who toy with the idea of turning vegetarian (because they want to be healthier, because they want to stop world starvation or because they can no longer bear the thought of encouraging such a barbaric trade as the breeding and killing of animals for food) worry about what they are going to eat.
Such worries are quite unnecessary.
There are not only many different fruits and vegetables available these days but, if you miss the texture of meat, you can buy vegetarian sausages, hamburgers and pies. Stews and curries can be made with soya and you can buy tofu cheese too.
To keep healthy eat raw foods whenever you can (because vitamins are easily destroyed by cooking) and use as little water as possible when boiling vegetables in order to avoid losing water soluble vitamins B and C. Steam or stir fry vegetables if you can instead of boiling them.
Remember that keeping food hot - or reheating it - can destroy vitamins, try to eat fruit and vegetables in their skins (because vitamins are often stored just below the skin) and be imaginative when shopping! You can get the iron, calcium, zinc and other essential minerals that your body needs by eating dark green, leafy vegetables, nuts, pulses, sunflower seeds and dried fruits.
It must have felt unnatural at first, to eat animal flesh. After all, we're not so far removed from animals ourselves. Perhaps it even felt cannibalistic. There might not have been that much intellectual distinction between humans and other animals. When humans were pure vegetarians, they were living in harmony with the earth and with the other creatures co-habiting the planet with them. Their closest animal relatives, apes, were vegetarians. Eating the products of the earth, like plants, grains and fruits that they could gather and eat would have seemed the natural order of things.
But necessity is the mother of invention. Prehistoric men who lived in frozen geographies, or who lived in an area that became devastated by fire, would have eaten anything to survive. Just like the soccer players whose plane crashed in the mountains of Chile, and were forced to eat the flesh of other players who died in the crash, earliest man at some point had to make the choice for survival, and that could have consuming meat for the first time and changing human history - and health - forever.
We can imagine that men first ate meat that had been charred or cooked by virtue of being caught in a natural forest fire. They might have subsequently eaten raw meat, if necessary, but we can also imagine that our earliest digestive systems rebelled against eating raw meat.
Imagine having eaten raw foods and vegetables for eons, and all of a sudden, incorporating meat products into your system. You may have heard friends who were vegetarians tell stories of trying to eat meat and becoming violently ill afterwards.
Biologists will tell you we're really not designed to eat meat, but we adapted to it. However, in the time line of human history, eating meat is a relatively recent evolutionary development.
Why do we dream ? ? ? ? Top Dream theories.....
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters." - Henry David Thoreau
Dreams have fascinated philosophers for thousands of years, but only recently have dreams been subjected to empirical research and concentrated scientific study. Chances are that you’ve often found yourself puzzling over the mysterious content of a dream, or perhaps you’ve wondered why you dream at all.
Other parts??? of "Why do we dream??"
Two different schools of thought exist as to why we dream: the physiological school, and the psychological school.
Both, however, agree that we dream during the REM, or rapid eye movement, phase of sleep. During this phase of sleep, our closed eyes dart rapidly about, our brain activity peaks, and our muscles suffer temporary paralysis.
The physiological theory centers upon how our body, specifically our brains, function during the REM phase of sleep. Proponents of this theory believe that we dream to exercise the synapses, or pathways, between brain cells, and that dreaming takes over where the active and awake brain leaves off. When awake, our brains constantly transmit and receive messages, which course through our billions of brain cells to their appropriate destinations, and keep our bodies in perpetual motion. Dreams replace this function.
Two underpinning physiological facts go towards supporting this theory of dreams. The first lies in the fact that the first two or so years of ones life, the most formative ones for learning, are also the ones in which the most REM sleep occurs. It follows that during this time of the greatest REM sleep, we experience the greatest number of dreams. The second physiological fact that lends credence to this theory is that our brain waves during REM sleep, as recorded by machines measuring the brain's electrical activity, are almost identical in nature to the brain waves during the hours we spend awake. This is not the case during the other phases of sleep.
Psychological theorists of dreams focus upon our thoughts and emotions, and speculate that dreams deal with immediate concerns in our lives, such as unfinished business from the day, or concerns we are incapable of handling during the course of the day. Dreams can, in fact, teach us things about ourselves that we are unaware of.
Connections between dreams that the human psyche have been made by many people over thousands of years. The famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle wrote in his "Parva Naturalia," over 2,200 years ago, of a connection between dreams, waking experiences, and emotional needs.
Others have delved into more complicated explanations for dreams, such as the prophetic nature of dreams written of in the Bible, which was and is a belief held by many cultures. Sigmund Freud, one of the fathers of modern psychology, believed dreams to be symbolic of any number of things buried deep within our minds and our memories.
Until someone proves or disproves one of these theories, or poses an alternate one, we are left at square one. Our knowledge as to what causes us to dream is limited to the fact that we do dream, and that dreams occur during the REM phase of sleep. Sweet dreams!
Find more about Dream
Meaning of dreams
Meaning of dreams
Meaning of dreams
But necessity is the mother of invention. Prehistoric men who lived in frozen geographies, or who lived in an area that became devastated by fire, would have eaten anything to survive. Just like the soccer players whose plane crashed in the mountains of Chile, and were forced to eat the flesh of other players who died in the crash, earliest man at some point had to make the choice for survival, and that could have consuming meat for the first time and changing human history - and health - forever.
We can imagine that men first ate meat that had been charred or cooked by virtue of being caught in a natural forest fire. They might have subsequently eaten raw meat, if necessary, but we can also imagine that our earliest digestive systems rebelled against eating raw meat.
Imagine having eaten raw foods and vegetables for eons, and all of a sudden, incorporating meat products into your system. You may have heard friends who were vegetarians tell stories of trying to eat meat and becoming violently ill afterwards.
Biologists will tell you we're really not designed to eat meat, but we adapted to it. However, in the time line of human history, eating meat is a relatively recent evolutionary development.
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters." - Henry David Thoreau
Dreams have fascinated philosophers for thousands of years, but only recently have dreams been subjected to empirical research and concentrated scientific study. Chances are that you’ve often found yourself puzzling over the mysterious content of a dream, or perhaps you’ve wondered why you dream at all.
First, let’s start by answering a basic question – What is a dream? A dream can include any of the images, thoughts and emotions that are experienced during sleep. Dreams can be extraordinarily vivid or very vague; filled with joyful emotions or frightening imagery; focused and understandable or unclear and confusing.
Why do we dream? What purpose do dreams serve? While many theories have been proposed, no single consensus has emerged. Considering the enormous amount of time we spend in a dreaming state, the fact that researchers do not yet understand the purpose of dreams may seem baffling. However, it is important to consider that science is still unraveling the exact purpose and function of sleep itself.
Some researchers suggest that dreams serve no real purpose, while others believe that dreaming is essential to mental, emotional and physical well-being. Ernest Hoffman, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton Wellesley Hospital in Boston, Mass., suggests that "...a possible (though certainly not proven) function of a dream to be weaving new material into the memory system in a way that both reduces emotional arousal and is adaptive in helping us cope with further trauma or stressful events."8
Next, let’s learn more about some of the most prominent dream theories.
Next, let’s learn more about some of the most prominent dream theories.
Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams:
Consistent with the psychoanalytic perspective, Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams suggested that dreams were a representation of unconscious desires, thoughts and motivations. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic view of personality, people are driven by aggressive and sexual instincts that are repressed from conscious awareness. While these thoughts are not consciously expressed, Freud suggested that they find their way into our awareness via dreams.
In his famous book The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud wrote that dreams are "...disguised fulfillments of repressed wishes."1 He also described two different components of dreams: manifest content and latent content. Manifest content is made up of the actual images, thoughts and content contained within the dream, while the latent content represents the hidden psychological meaning of the dream.
Freud’s theory contributed to the popularity of dream interpretation, which remains popular today. However, research has failed to demonstrate that the manifest content disguises the real psychological significance of a dream.2
Activation- Synthesis Model of Dreaming:
The activation-synthesis model of dreaming was first proposed by J. Allan Hobson and Robert McClarley in 1977. According to this theory, circuits in the brain become activated during REM sleep, which causes areas of the limbic system involved in emotions, sensations and memories, including the amygdala and hippocampus, to become active. The brain synthesizes and interprets this internal activity and attempts to find meaning in these signals, which results in dreaming. This model suggests that dreams are a subjective interpretation of signals generated by the brain during sleep.3
While this theory suggests that dreams are the result of internally generated signals, Hobson does not believe that dreams are meaningless. Instead, he suggests that dreaming is "…our most creative conscious state, one in which the chaotic, spontaneous recombination of cognitive elements produces novel configurations of information: new ideas. While many or even most of these ideas may be nonsensical, if even a few of its fanciful products are truly useful, our dream time will not have been wasted."4
Other Theories of Dreams:
Many other theories have been suggested to account for the occurrence and meaning of dreams. The following are just of few of the proposed ideas:
- One theory suggests that dreams are the result of our brains trying to interpret external stimuli during sleep. For example, the sound of the radio may be incorporated into the content of a dream 5.
- Another theory uses a computer metaphor to account for dreams. According to this theory, dreams serve to 'clean up' clutter from the mind, much like clean-up operations in a computer, refreshing the mind to prepare for the next day 6.
- Yet another model proposes that dreams function as a form of psychotherapy. In this theory, the dreamer is able to make connections between different thoughts and emotions in a safe environment 7.
- A contemporary model of dreaming combines some elements of various theories. The activation of the brain creates loose connections between thoughts and ideas, which are then guided by the emotions of the dreamer 8.
Two different schools of thought exist as to why we dream: the physiological school, and the psychological school.Both, however, agree that we dream during the REM, or rapid eye movement, phase of sleep. During this phase of sleep, our closed eyes dart rapidly about, our brain activity peaks, and our muscles suffer temporary paralysis.
The physiological theory centers upon how our body, specifically our brains, function during the REM phase of sleep. Proponents of this theory believe that we dream to exercise the synapses, or pathways, between brain cells, and that dreaming takes over where the active and awake brain leaves off. When awake, our brains constantly transmit and receive messages, which course through our billions of brain cells to their appropriate destinations, and keep our bodies in perpetual motion. Dreams replace this function.
Two underpinning physiological facts go towards supporting this theory of dreams. The first lies in the fact that the first two or so years of ones life, the most formative ones for learning, are also the ones in which the most REM sleep occurs. It follows that during this time of the greatest REM sleep, we experience the greatest number of dreams. The second physiological fact that lends credence to this theory is that our brain waves during REM sleep, as recorded by machines measuring the brain's electrical activity, are almost identical in nature to the brain waves during the hours we spend awake. This is not the case during the other phases of sleep.
Psychological theorists of dreams focus upon our thoughts and emotions, and speculate that dreams deal with immediate concerns in our lives, such as unfinished business from the day, or concerns we are incapable of handling during the course of the day. Dreams can, in fact, teach us things about ourselves that we are unaware of.
Connections between dreams that the human psyche have been made by many people over thousands of years. The famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle wrote in his "Parva Naturalia," over 2,200 years ago, of a connection between dreams, waking experiences, and emotional needs.
Others have delved into more complicated explanations for dreams, such as the prophetic nature of dreams written of in the Bible, which was and is a belief held by many cultures. Sigmund Freud, one of the fathers of modern psychology, believed dreams to be symbolic of any number of things buried deep within our minds and our memories.
Until someone proves or disproves one of these theories, or poses an alternate one, we are left at square one. Our knowledge as to what causes us to dream is limited to the fact that we do dream, and that dreams occur during the REM phase of sleep. Sweet dreams!
Find more about Dream
Meaning of dreams
Meaning of dreams
Meaning of dreams
