Carnism

[PaleoPhil]

I was awoken to a BBC program this morning that was yet another a diatribe against meat eating (public radio seems to broadcast one at least every couple of weeks). The latest claim of fanatical vegans/vegetarians who expressed frustration that societies haven't abandoned eating meat is that the reason people eat meat is an ideology they coined a term for: carnism. They claim that meat eating isn't natural for humans and has to be instilled in them through this artificial ideology. This ridiculous claim denies the animal nature of humans. It ignores the 2.5 million plus year history of meat eating among humans and the fact that chimps, tarsiers, monkeys and even gorillas also enjoy certain non-vegan foods. Are we supposed to believe that these fellow primates have also been conditioned by this ideology of carnism?

One of the leading proponents of this view is the author of a recently published book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism, Melanie Joy PhD. Notice that she has a greasy, shiny face you can see towards the end of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3CsceN26_E
I used to have the same thing when I ate significant amounts of plant foods and I have also seen this improve in someone else who switched to a more meat-heavy Paleo diet.

[TylerDurden]

Interesting. I've seen Christina Applegate with a shiny greasy face in recent years. I'd assumed it was some form of make-up, but maybe it was due to her long-term vegetarian(or is it vegan?) commitment

[PaleoPhil]

Hmm, not sure. She does look kind of greasy, freckled and/or blemished here:

In most of her other photos she looks like she has enough makeup that it would cover most grease, freckles, blemishes, etc., though parts of her face do shine in some of them.

[TylerDurden]

I should also mention that greasy skin can also be a feature of diets high in cooked animal food, like in my own case pre-rawpalaeodiet. I also had particularly greasy hair from those diets.

[PaleoPhil]

Yeah, and maybe that also helped in my case but was just too subtle to notice. I definitely wouldn't rule it out as an additional potential factor in my case. I've noticed that my hair has recently been becoming less greasy and matted too, so that I don't need to wash it as much--just like others have reported. I don't know whether it's due to carb avoidance or cooked meat avoidance, or both, but RPD overall is certainly helping with that.

Cooked meats wouldn't have been a factor for the above two ladies, though.

[RawZi]

... I've seen Christina Applegate with a shiny greasy face in recent years. I'd assumed it was some form of make-up, but maybe it was due to her long-term vegetarian(or is it vegan?) commitment

    I assume she is vegetarian, not vegan, from this from the vegetarian star:

Vegan Religion: Let Us All Worship Seitan

Christina Applegate Lee Jeans’ National Denim Day Kansas City
Written by Veg Star Staff on October 4th, 2009 in Actresses, Food & Drink, Health and Fitness.
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Christina Applegate visited Kansas City in the Power & Light district, in celebration of Lee Jeans’ National Denim Day, the company’s biggest all day fundraiser for breast cancer.

Applegate, a breast cancer survivor herself, helped unfurl a check with 10 other survivors she called her “sisters in boobs” for $4.5 million.

Kansas City is nicknamed “cowtown” and a reporter for kansascity.com asked the vegetarian Applegate if she could live in such a town that’s famous for barbecue and steaks.

    I had greasy skin for the last eight years I was vegan, maybe longer.  Getting proper hydration from RAF diet righted that in less than a month.  When I go off my diet my skin starts getting greasy and thinner again.

[TylerDurden]

Funny, Christina Applegate is such a notorious supporter of PETA the animal-rights group, that I was sure that she was a vegan. most such activists are.

[PaleoPhil]

The BBC played still more anti-meat eating diatribes this morning in part II of Victor Schonfeld's "Animals & Us" program on the BBC's One Planet (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005nhv5). Schonfeld advocated a more radical, "abolitionist" approach (http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/) for the animal rights campaign and from it I learned that Gary Francione (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_L._Francione) and other animal rights activists intend to get rights for animals so that owning them will be illegal "animal slavery" (ironically, Francione himself owns seven dogs, that he apparently got from shelters, which he rationalizes here: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/?s=pets&x=0&y=0) and eating them will be criminal murder under the law. For Francione, "the moral baseline of the abolitionist approach is veganism, the rejection of the use of all animal products."

While I actually agree with Francione that owning and domesticating animals should some day be illegal, I would think to make it so without devastating the environment would require getting pet and human populations down to a fraction of their current levels [doing so in a voluntary and relatively humane way would take many lifetimes so I won't be alive to see that if it ever happens]. Francione wouldn't like the fact that I would favor continued hunting and eating of animals beyond the end of domestication.

Francione also claims that "many cats can live healthy lives on a vegan diet." A rather cruel recommendation for obligate carnivores that reveals the extent of vegan fanaticism. This is what we're dealing with.

[William]

While I actually agree with Francione that owning and domesticating animals should some day be illegal

I wonder how farmers would feel about that.