Mugsy! I admire teachers so much! Mucho props! Many have been instrumental in important changes in my life and I’m sure you are valuable in those same ways to your students! However, I can’t drop this topic. I really can’t. So let me just respond to the responses. But please please understand I mean no disrespect, I just enjoy a little friendly and educational banter!

I am currently in college and enrolled in a Geology class. (yay for University of Wisconsin-Madison!) I feel that paleontology is a fairly new science and a constantly changing one. Evolution is partially based on the fossil record and we all know it is incredibly incomplete and just a random sampling of earth’s story (I prefer the word story to HIStory.) I also feel that classification of species and our interpretation of their evolution is quite subjective in nature. It is based on paleontology!

The points I’d like reemphasize are:
A) Humans do not need meat to survive; they can survive & thrive without it.
B) Compared to carnivores and (true) omnivores we are poorly equipped for taking down prey! Upright, hairless, belly exposed --- we are physically helpless in comparison! But I suppose someone would argue that we have an advantage over other creatures because of our capacity for learning and intelligence. I don’t know if I buy that though..…..
C) As Peta put it “Humans have flat, flexible nails, and our so-called "canine" teeth are minuscule compared to carnivores’. Human teeth are better suited to biting into vegetables, fruits, and grains than tearing through tough hides.”

And for those who don’t buy my revised classification system idea:
I don’t doubt we can digest and utilize nutrients from vegetables as well as meat. Obviously we’ve got some evidence proving we can. But human society does not just accept following ones biological impulses. We have rules in place that make us “civilized” and these rules often directly contradict biology impulses – an example being the concept of monogamy. (I do understand & respect that monogamy isn’t “the law” everywhere and in every belief system, it is just one example and no one example I could choose will apply to absolutely everyone.)
Why else do we differ from other creatures that more quickly obey their biological impulses? Well, we unlike our close primate relatives and other creatures live fairly sedentary lifestyles. I can understand how a more primitive human, living before society grew food and set up permanent housing needed dense and high energy food to keep him going. But now we have extensive knowledge of health as well as the resources to provide a vegan diet to our world’s population, even as the world population continues to increase. When will we recognize that cutting out the animal product “cholesterol-laden diet linked to heart disease, stroke, and many cancers” is a step we should all take towards better health? We claim that meat is good in moderation. I don’t know many people who eat meat/cheese/eggs in moderation! Take a look at this: http://www.kde.state.ky.us/odss/nutr...id/actpyra.gif
Sorry that this is pretty blurry, maybe someone could help me find a better copy of it? And yeah, it’s true that this only applies to the US, I don’t have too much exposure to other countries eating habits. But I do know that since China has gotten more control on feeding its population they have moved towards a diet more similar to the West with more and more meat in their everyday food. (I’m very very interested in East Asian studies, BTW, if anyone speaks Mandarin! I do too!)
But I mean it’s like we have diet information but no one has the will power to eat healthy? Or very few people? Vegan diets can be just as tasty and in my opinion better! I just wish more people would give it a chance!

So I just don’t see what animal products offer that we can’t get from a vegan diet minus the cholesterol!

In reponse to....
If you've joined PETA, I want you to answer something: Do you believe that animals have equal rights to human beings?
I look forward to the day when society recognizes animals’ rights fully just as over time we’ve recognized that rights transcend ethnic/racial backgrounds as well as the genders/sexual orientations. Because I cannot help but believe “Animals are living, breathing, feeling beings who want to lead their own lives just as people do.” It almost haunts me. But someday people will finally understand what Gandhi meant what he meant when he said, “The morality of a nation can be judged by the way society treats its animals.”

Peta may be on the extreme end but I don’t think that means their scientific information is to be disregarded. They do use the information that benefits them. But that’s how scientists form hypothesis (the evidence first and the hypothesis made to fit that evidence) and how people get jobs and its just so common I don’t see what you could have against it. And it’s your job as an individual to try and hear all sides of something and then form an opinion. In my case it’s not like I’m sitting here brainwashed by what Peta says, I take it with a grain of salt. I know Peta has a bad reputation with many many people and frankly I think people are just scared of it. Who wants to hear what they don’t want to hear?

And yes obviously this thread has digressed from where it started but that is how conversation and debate unfold…….No?

But Mugsy I haven’t even heard about your nephew’s veggie crackers? What’s the story behind that?

Hmm, I tire myself when I think too hard. I think I’ll give my brain a rest before my next class.