Are Vegetarians Smarter? Post Your Opinion....

[intmun 0]

There are so many other variables though that I don;t think vegetarianism can be measured as the sole cause.

[Yratorm, LightMage 0]

Hmm, I'll go straight out and say that that study seems to me to be.. mistaken. Was it done by vegetarians?

 

I fully agree with the stated opinions of Saint-Micheal, midnightvamp, bk2070 and others, who have talked a lot of truly honest-to-goodness sense here.

 

I don't know about vegetarians being smarter, but I do know that a percentage of them are a lot more fanatic than meat eaters. Perhaps a study should be done about that as well.

 

Vegetarianism and intellect in India:

Now, to get to the point. I live on the border of tibet and india - I've travelled all over india, where people are famously vegetarian, as has been pointed out. And I tell you that indians are no smarter and no more stupid than anyone else. If you meet a lot of indians, you'll find a small percentage that are brilliant intellectuals, a medium percentage that are 'quite smart', a main population of 'normal intelligence' and then come the rest of the population that is below the norm in intelligence.

 

 

Does the source of what you take in really matter?

What I personally think is this..

 

Let us imagine (hypothetically) that you are a godly being (with the equivalent powers) - now, you take a stone, and break it into it's constituent sub-atomic particles, then put those sub-atomic particles together again to form complex protein molecules - to form, in essence a chunk of pure protein obtained from A MINERAL SOURCE. Now, you feed this protein to a test subject of yours. The next day you feed him the purest protein you can find from a vegetable source. The day after, you feed him protein obtained from meat.

 

Now, what I think you're going to find is that protein is just protein - WHATEVER it's source. Put emotions to one side and look at the matter coldly, clinically, logically, intelligently and you'll find that the SOURCE of your nourishment doesn't matter, what matters is exactly what's contained IN that nourishment.

 

People talk a lot about cholesterol. I've eaten lean meat all my life (AND vegetables, and rice and whatnot) and I have abnormally low levels of cholesterol - levels lower than most vegetarians. How is that possible, you ask? Why, I just lead an abnormally (for modern humans) healthy life, that's all.

 

I think debates about 'which is better' meat or vegetables, serve no purpose. I believe that the human body needs BOTH.

 

And I truly believe that saying that eating vegetables makes you smarter just proves the exact opposite.

Edited January 13, 2007 by Yratorm, LightMage (see edit history)

[husker 0]

I think that there is a correlation between eating vegetables and being smart, but it's not just because someone is a vegetarian. For example, I'm not just going to become a vegetarian because they generally are smarter. Someone cannot commit to becoming a vegetarian just because it makes them smarter. Real vegetarians have some kind of thought process in which they think out if they should be vegetarian or not. For example, my brother is in IB (international bachelorette) which is a program for the advanced. From what he's told me, there are quite a few vegetarians in IB (most are actually vegens). Becoming vegetarian required thought. You have to think about doing something differently than you have done before. An exception is if your mom or dad is a vegetarian and they make you become a vegetarian. Real vegetarians need to make a choice for themselves. But not all smart people are vegetarians. Sorry if I confused any of you

[Yratorm, LightMage 0]

Hmm, perhaps this study may be true in the west. It does not hold true in the east.You know, it also brings up the question - how do you define intelligence, or how do I define intelligence, or how did the researchers who did that study define intelligence? - or even what IS intelligence? Is intelligence REALLY the result of an IQ tests (I max those out in every area, by the way, and still consider them primitive, task-oriented devices).I think that the fact that the citizens of a vegetarian nation are no smarter and no more stupid than the citizens of any other nation is repudiation of this study.Indeed, as I've mentioned, I do eat meat. Stated in coldly logical terms, unaffected by emotions like 'mercy' or 'compassion' or 'kindness' for example, I consider meat to be an efficient source of several raw materials my body requires. I train my body to the limit and beyond - to then deny it one of it's efficient raw material sources would be to maltreat it.Kindness and compassion HAVE their place. But we have to recognize that these are the emotions that actually motivate some western vegetarians. And to confuse emotion with intelligence would be a serious error of logic.

Edited January 14, 2007 by Yratorm, LightMage (see edit history)

[Misanthrope 0]

Husker - you make a good point. I doubt most folks would actually go out of their way to adopt a vegetarian diet just on the chance it MIGHT raise their IQ. Now that I think on it a little harder, it would be difficult to adopt any major change in lifestyle choice unless you had a strong philosophical belief backing you up. I've known many people who claim to be vegetarian but when interogated, they admit to eating chicken and fish. I'm sorry, but since when are living, breathing, sentient creatures considered produce? I found that these folks had one thing in common, that is, they were motivated by purely selfish reasons. They weren't particularly concerned with the plight of animals who suffer horendous, tortured lives at the hands of factory farming. Nor were they concerend with the effect factory farming has on the planet. No, they were concerned with losing weight, having more energy, looking and feeling better, and so on. Not to say these are not perfectly valid reasons. We all want to feel better about ourselves, but vegetarianism, like all worthwhile endeavors, requires discipline. This can be hard to maintain for some people who don't have a strong belief system backing them up.That said, I would highly recommend that anyone considering this lifestyle look into the source of where their food comes from. Sometimes, just seeing a video of a cow being slaughtered is enough to stir one's compassion into action.

[Yratorm, LightMage 0]

Perfectly right, vbritton.

 

I believe that in the future, as our mastery of science progresses, we shall eventually (as I mentioned a little earlier in this thread), SYNTHESIZE all the raw materials our bodies need FROM MINERAL SOURCES. I also believe that instead of 'eating' these synthesized materials, we shall have them injected directly into our blood streams, to maximize absorption and use. A device worn on the body will monitor the levels of such materials in the blood stream to ensure that we don't take in 'too much' or 'too little'.

 

Simple synthetic 'bulk' materials with various 'tastes' added will be what is actually eaten, these materials will contain nothing that the body can absorb, but will serve merely to keep the bowels healthy.

 

This is the future.

 

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As for today:

All intelligent beings understand the price of taking another life. But if one considers the point intelligently, one understands that this 'food chain' is a system built up by evolution over millenia. AND it is a system that has survived so many millenia because it is a system that WORKS.

 

Ideally, I would choose to be like the trees, and gain my energy from sunlight, or from a mineral source. And one day that will be possible. But today, the training that gives me health and strength beyond that of others, that gives me a healthy mind and a body that can run miles without breathing hard - that training demands a portion of meat. It is not just selfishness, no - it is also an ACCEPTANCE of the LAWS by which this world works.

 

For Earth is a cruel world, a world where nature has created harsh laws. Wasn't it the poet who said 'Nature red in tooth and claw, where cruelty, not kindness, rules high as nature's law.'

 

That is the law of our world. I accept it - BUT while I accept it, I use my intelligence to find the science that will enable humans to rise ABOVE it. And that, after all, for better or worse, is what humans have ALWAYS done.

 

Indeed, this, I think, more than anything else, is what MAKES us human.

 

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Compassion is an emotion - it can be mistaken; Intelligence can be cold and harsh, and thus can also make mistakes - but logic - logic, applied wisely, helps us find a way between the two.

[Kubi 0]

I'm going to go out on a limb here when I say, maybe people are smarter, because they work harder in life, school, and at work, not because there a vegetarian. I think it's just a coiencedence that vegetarians are "smarter".You're not smarter then someone else because you know meat isn't essential to life. Humans are supposed to eat meat. Vegetarians eat peanut butter as a substitute for protien(among other things), doesn't this tell you that protien is essential to healthy living? What does meat provide? Protien!Finaly, I don't believe ANYONE is smarter then someone else because they eat vegetables. Studying is the factor to smartness in my opinion.

[Misanthrope 0]

Yratorm, LightMage! I?ve enjoyed reading your candid response to my post. The topic of vegetarianism always seems to stir up, dare I say, strong "emotions" whenever I raise the issue, but you?ve managed to get your point across in a very civil manner, even though you don?t agree with my premise.As bleak as it seems, I?m afraid your inclinations regarding the future of food and nutrition may come to pass. Probably not in our lifetime, but eventually. We are currently headed in that direction with the advent of ?franken-food? and genetically modified this and that. There is, however, a backlash against these non foods by an international organization called, ?Slow Food,? whose proponents promote a sort of back-to-the-land attitude where food production is concerned. A concern of chief import to them is the use of growth hormones in America?s meat supply, and the advent of dairy pasteurization. Hormones, of course, make the cow grow larger and in turn garner larger profit for the beef industry. There is growing concern that these hormones can be passed on to the consumer, contributing to weight gain and cancerous tumors. Indeed, the USDA does next to nothing to monitor the inclusion of diseased animal carcasses in the human or pet food supply. I personally know a guy who grew up on a ranch and became vegetarian after witnessing what?s allowed to be slaughtered for human consumption.As far as acceptance of laws by which the world works, I?m afraid that too could be the subject of a very long debate (sounds like a good post topic to me). Just as man?s understanding of cosmic law is in a state of constant evolution, I believe man himself should strive to evolve as well. We should strive to be gods in our right, and sometimes that means moving beyond paradigms of the past.

[Yratorm, LightMage 0]

I indeed agree with your main premise vbritton. And about humans striving for a distant perfection. However, I place my trust in science to come up with answers to these questions in time, and to be honest, I feel that the answers WILL come, that this question is a question of today, not of tomorrow, if you know what I mean.As for hormones and such injected into animals, I live on the slopes of the Himalayas, where such things are more than minimal, they are non-existent. I grant that it is not good if this is the way things are in the west, but here we are a 'primitive' culture untouched by such things.As far as striving for a distant perfection is concerned - I would love to travel to the future and see humans on the planets of distant stars, or travel back in time, and re-write history, but alas, the time-machine is really on the back burners (JUST kidding about the time machine). At the moment my latest project is cloning my cat (not kidding here), which died recently and is now in cryogenic stasis. Well, it's hardly a serious project, but we all need a respite from our labors. Another project of mine is to collect dna samples from various endangered species and maintain them in stabilized conditions - I've built up a small bank of these, and hope to add a great deal more to it if and when I have more money. The reason I'm creating this 'dna-bank' is obvious, of course - if these species die out they can then (hopefully) be 're-incarnated' (for want of a better word).I also have an idea for a 'different' kind of space-ship, but that will REALLY have to wait until I have more money, arrgghhh.Yup, completely of topic, vbritton but you started it when you talked of turning humans into gods In principle, I wholly agree - I only regret that I have just one life to give to providing them the tools to this end

[FLaKes 0]

I think you got to have a balance between both. Which I think would be the best. I do like vegetables and I do like meat, I think that If I was a vegetarian I would be really skinny.

[inky-blue-white 0]

That's quite interesting actually, I'm vegetarian but generally not any more intelligent than most people. However, I do have some suggestions as to why these results have come about.1.I think that to the average person, vegetarianism is an option that they don't always see at first and as is the case with people with a higher IQ they often take the less obvious route. I suppose it's a thinking-outside-the-box state of mind. 2.Of-course a long time ago, vegetables were foriegn [except potatos and carrots...] and only the very well-off people could afford to have food shipped and not have to survive on cows etc. These well-off people could also afford an education. Not that classes are that separated now, but it could always be a family tradition type thing.3.In today's society [or for young people anyway] vegetarianism is perhaps viewed as 'alternative'. Meaning that if you want to be a popular child then you've to eat mince pies for example. It's not quite as clear-cut as that but in general that is the case. And the other case is that it's also cool to fail at school. So the mainstream kids will eat meat and not be that bright whereas the alternative kids will be vegetarian and do well at school. That's just my experience on that one, and I know plenty of very clever meat-eaters and not so clever vegetarians but in general I find this to be true.Although I do not think that eating vegetables will make you smart. Unless the vitamins you recieve making up for the protein you lack will make much difference of-course.

[bhavesh 0]

I think diet has not got any relation with IQ. But the factor which is acting is determination, if you are determine to leave any thing you love most then your brain will improve, I guess and may be right too, as i have feel these with my experience.So if you are a meat eater earlier in your life and afterwards left it and became veggie then I think IQ will increase. This is my personal opinion and the proof is only my experience.

[Misanthrope 0]

I think you got to have a balance between both. Which I think would be the best. I do like vegetables and I do like meat, I think that If I was a vegetarian I would be really skinny.

FLaKes: There's nothing "unbalanced" about a vegetarian diet. And the simple fact that you enjoy the taste of flesh foods doesn't mean you need to continue devouring animals. I enjoyed throwing eggs at cars as a child, but I wouldn't do it now as an adult, since I know it's wrong.

You probably will, initially, throw off some pounds switching to a vegetarian diet. Indeed, that's one the factors that entices some people into the lifestyle to begine with. After your body adjusts to it's new-found state of health, it will regain equalibrium and you will feel a sense of "lightenss of being," as many others have experienced. I've been vegetarian since age 7, so I can't speak from personal experience. I was really too young at the time to remember any profound change. I do recall, though, suffering much less in the way of sickness as my classmated - who always seemed to be coming down with the flu. Others who've made the quantum leap to vegetarianism in adulthood describe feeling less earthbound.

I indeed agree with your main premise vbritton. And about humans striving for a distant perfection. However, I place my trust in science to come up with answers to these questions in time, and to be honest, I feel that the answers WILL come, that this question is a question of today, not of tomorrow, if you know what I mean.
As for hormones and such injected into animals, I live on the slopes of the Himalayas, where such things are more than minimal, they are non-existent. I grant that it is not good if this is the way things are in the west, but here we are a 'primitive' culture untouched by such things.
As far as striving for a distant perfection is concerned - I would love to travel to the future and see humans on the planets of distant stars, or travel back in time, and re-write history, but alas, the time-machine is really on the back burners (JUST kidding about the time machine).

At the moment my latest project is cloning my cat (not kidding here), which died recently and is now in cryogenic stasis. Well, it's hardly a serious project, but we all need a respite from our labors. Another project of mine is to collect dna samples from various endangered species and maintain them in stabilized conditions - I've built up a small bank of these, and hope to add a great deal more to it if and when I have more money. The reason I'm creating this 'dna-bank' is obvious, of course - if these species die out they can then (hopefully) be 're-incarnated' (for want of a better word).

I also have an idea for a 'different' kind of space-ship, but that will REALLY have to wait until I have more money, arrgghhh.

Yup, completely of topic, vbritton but you started it when you talked of turning humans into gods In principle, I wholly agree - I only regret that I have just one life to give to providing them the tools to this end

Yratorm! As always , a pleasure to hear from you.

The more I grapple with life's eternal questions the more I realize I don't know. I've spent a good portion of my life trying to know the unknowable, which has driven me to the point of throwing in the towel on more than one occasion. Now, I've come to accept that I will never know it all - at least in this lifetime. But tossing around my conjectures can be a whole lotta fun. And going in to research with this attitude is a lot less tedious.

I don't trust in Science to provide all the answers in it's current state. No, not unless Science starts catching up with metaphysical thought.

Interesting that you would mention your presence in the Himilayan region. I was going to bring up the topic of the long-lived Hunzas, who, I've read routinely live past the 100 mark. I'm also told their diet is almost exclusivley vegetarian. Whether or not this is an urban legend, I imagine you would have a better handle on.
I'd like to hear your insight on this when you have the time.

Another cat lover! My precious Merlin died two years ago. I would have loved to have him cloned. Please let me know when (not if) you perfect this procedure. I have two cats left, Vladimir, a regal Russian Blue, and Nigel, a homely little runt rescued from a barn cat's life.

On becoming gods, I believe it is something man should strive for at any point in life's cyclical process. Souls like yourself will inevitably reach this state sooner than the rest of us.
Edited January 14, 2007 by vbritton (see edit history)

[Jimmy 0]

Hmmm.. what can I say. Well, for one, i don't really agree completely with the statement. I agree with a few of the other people who have said that veggies would be lacking some essential nutrients from the meat. And to be honest 5 points on an IQ system is not really much of a conclusive result at all, considering the unspecified stuff that IQ tests, apart from really time consuming ones that would not have been used in a study like this, can contribute well more than 5 points to the entire correct "result"

And just to clarify a few other things:
The majority / basis of mathematics can be owed to those amazing greeks!
and trees (could) be considered meat eaters! - many of the minerals they need / aquire come not only from sunlight (hence photosynthesis) but others are vital, and some of these will come from the decomposed remains of animals / bugs etc.!

Another cat lover! My precious Merlin died two years ago. I would have loved to have him cloned. Please let me know when (not if) you perfect this procedure. I have two cats left, Vladimir, a regal Russian Blue, and Nigel, a homely little runt rescued from a barn cat's life.

and on a different note, i don't think it would be reasonable to clone them, because what makes "them" them would be lost - their personality - the way they rub themselves on you (or not!) and everything else. The only thing that would be SIMILAR is their appearance; not something peole have associated with the idea of cloning... Edited January 14, 2007 by Jimmy (see edit history)

[Yratorm, LightMage 0]

and on a different note, i don't think it would be reasonable to clone them, because what makes "them" them would be lost - their personality - the way they rub themselves on you (or not!) and everything else. The only thing that would be SIMILAR is their appearance; not something peole have associated with the idea of cloning...

 

Perhaps a mild problem with the way humans think is that we substitute faith, assumptions and belief for cold logic. For example, how do you KNOW for sure that the essence would be lost? Have you cloned any cats recently? So, logically, you don't know for sure, one way or another - you're writing what you assume to be the truth, or you're writing hearsay.

 

The real truth is that cats are easily cloned, and have already be cloned hundreds of times. The procedure is extremely successful and gives you a creature with the same basic brain patterns and instincts - in essence you get the cat back at the time it was a kitten.

 

You must remember that in animals, a good deal of their 'personality' is genetic/instinctive, unlike in humans.

 

Dogs, unlike cats, are not easily cloned, incidentally.

 

 

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vbritton, about people in the Himalyan regions living longer, well, I've noticed this myself. But I think it's more to do with a calmer, FAR more 'laid-back' lifestyle, and clean air/fresh food, etc. and also with living at great heights (causes a person to have far better oxygen-absorption processes - for example I have a FAR greater number of red blood corpuscles in my blood than a plains-dweller - this so my blood can carry more oxygen).

 

I don't think it's entirely vegetarianism, a lot of mountain folk eat meat, so long as SOMEONE ELSE does the killing - you might wonder why? Well, most of the mountain folk are Buddhist and forbidden to kill, so what they do (to get around that law) is to get someone from another religion to do the killing for them, and then eat the meat. Well, hypocrisy is what I call it, but they've evolved quite a system around it, hehe.

 

So it's more to do with the region, a peaceful life and a 'primitive' culture. Also a wonderful (from my point of view) climate - so nice and cold, hehehehhehehehehe - When I visited the UK a year ago I went everywhere in the snow in a t-shirt and didn't feel a thing - which gives you some idea of just how cold the high mountains are. A rather funny story - walking bare headed (in london) in a cold rain on Jan 1st last year, I met a man coming the other way, and I was so enjoying the rain that I just said 'it's a fine morning, isn't it' hehehehhehe - he was so irritated amazing how different cultures are different and can have a totally different viewpoint, isn't it? - and I wouldn't have it any other way. I like it that humans are so wonderfully diverse.

 

 

 

My teachers in the Ryu are conducting experiments on expanding both the life-span and (more importantly) the duration of youth and strength in a person (I told you about this in a PM). However, where diet is concerned, they tend to look rather at what NOURISHMENT/RAW MATERIALS the food contains, rather than the source of the food. They couldn't care less what the source of the food was, so long as it can be efficiently absorbed by the student's body.

Instead they concentrate on a extensive program of exercises that keeps the body EXTREMELY efficient, young and strong, and on providing it with the right kind of food at exactly the right time. For example, on days when there is massive energy burn, the subject must take in foods that can provide that energy, on days when the muscle fibres are used/stressed, the subject takes in protein. As some of these men are 70 and look like they're in their 30s, I tend to believe in their 'way'.

 

 

I personally, DO tend to care about the source of my food, but that is more emotion than logic. Nevertheless, I hope to find alternative sources of food, not just because it's more 'ethical' but also because it would help millions of starving people. This is a personal project, not to be confused with my teacher's experiments with youth and longevity - first rule, don't mix two experiments

Edited January 15, 2007 by Yratorm, LightMage (see edit history)