my favorite: "widespread use of personal vehicles much heavier than what they carry can be a sustainable arrangement with the right mix of fuels and other not-quite-here technologies. until then, we can keep driving and offset the damage by choosing LEDs, lots of hemp and bamboo products, and free-range bison"

How about, "Biodiesel is gonna fix all our oil problems"?
That's been my favorite uneasy chuckle as of late.

Speaking as a doctor, it is slightly more difficult to have a nutritionally complete vegetarian diet than a well-balanced omnivorous one. Hardly impossible, though.


Once you get into things like strict-vegan-no-lacto-no-ovo diets, though, you're definitely treading into more murky territory, and it does become problematic to have a nutritionally complete diet.

Just sayin'.

Since when has the current administration even made an attempt to seem like they care about the environment? All they've done is try to drill in the arctic and repeal a bunch of EPA protections. I'd have voted for this one except that I've never even heard it as a myth -- everyone I know (conservatives and liberals alike) readily admit that being environmentally friendly is one of the lowest things on the administration's agenda.

Murky territory with the diets huh?

I this is a funny phrase, "well-balanced" or that some item is used "in the manner they are designed" then you have no problems. But hey, I can say it is slightly more difficult to have a nutritionally complete omnivorous diet than a well-balanced vegetarian one.

If being an omnivore was so well-balanced and better than a vegetarian diet, why have there been so many cases throughout the millennia of deficiencies associated with diet, as well as why are all the foods (regardless of diet) enriched so much?

Any diet can be "well-balanced." One just needs to take some care in doing so. Eating what people say is food doesn't make it food.

But hey maybe it's just me...

That may be most misleading, skewed poll I'v ever seen. I think it presumes that each of the items is a myth, but they aren't all myths.

I'm going to bring up a point made by one of my favourite lecturers and environmental advocate, David Suzuki. If human beings were to die off, we would talk about 6 other species with us. Mostly parasites that live on and in our bodies. However, if ants were to be come extinct, half of all life forms on the planet would go with them. Earth will survive- the question is "Will we?" So, next time you see an ant crawling across your floor, just ignore it!

re: diet

Are Humans Carnivores or Herbivores.

Top myth: the environment as something out there and not in our day to day lives

Which one isnt a myth Speedmaster?!

Man, that is was one hard choice to make ... so many silly myths, only one vote. I'm gonna have to second Carl's suggestion of adding the 'Biodiesel is going to solve all our energy problems' myth to the list!

The idea that there is any single answer to oil is the biggest myth. After some serious development biodiesel, just like hydrogen, will be become part of the answer to our dependence on oil. Don’t be dismissive of new technology just because it is not fully developed.

1) Most nutritional defeciencies we see in the United States have nothing to do with having an omnivorous diet, but rather poor choices in eating over-processed foods (the so-called "empty calories), and not mixing and matching foods. In spite of that, I *have* seen severe nutritional deficiencies from people attempting to "cut out" meat/milk/eggs from their diets, without properly finding replacements for the nutrients these foodstuffs provide. If you want to decieve yourself and say that it is easier to have a well-balanced diet without meat/eggs/milk than with, go ahead -- but you're out and out wrong.

2) The link to the "are humans carnivores or herbivores" is full of fallacies and half-truths. First of all, the correct answer is "neither" -- humans are pretty clearly omnivorous.

The www site also ignores significant details in humans such as: binocular vision/forward-set eyes, incisors/"canine" teeth, the presence of an appendix and a prominent biliary tract, the predominance of omnivorous behaviour amongst primates in general... That's not to say that humans (Western civilizations, esp.) don't eat far more meat-product than they probably should. Just pointing out that there's a lot more to the herbivore vs carnivore argument than that trite litte website has.

I was originally refering to nutritional defeciences throughout human history, not necessarily the US.

In response to "1)" from "d," I think most deficiencies are cause by a general lack of food balancing, regardless of the diet (omnivorous or vegetarian).

It is not fair to compare a "well-balanced" omnivorous diet to the average or typical vegetarian. It's the "well-balanced" part that I think is overused (as I was stating in my first response). I think by definition, "well-balanced" can't have deficiencies, wouldn't you agree? So I was using the reverse, only comparing "well-balanced" vegetarians to typical omnivores to show you how ridiculous that arguement is.

Multi-vitamins are recommended for omnivores just as much as for vegetarians. I really don't see what nutrients are so vital in meat/eggs/milk. About the only decent discussion would be maybe (and a big maybe) vitamin B-12. But there is too much controversy to know at this point.

Tell me, what nutrients are so vital in cows milk? Don't give the calcium arguement either, cause that has been overused and is in itself a fallacy. If it was so important why wouldn't we still be drinking human milk? Why should we ever be weened from our mothers?

I do agree with you to some extent about the article. I think it has many half-truths. I would really like to see what "herbivores", "carnivores", and "omnivores" it is using as reference. If it was only a select few (which I fear it probably is) then I think it is biased. That is not to say it doesn't have some truth in it. I have also seen the reverse, an omnivore argueing that we don't have multiple stomachs, so we can't be vegetarians. That's a silly arguement too. I could say I don't have hoofed feet, so I guess I can't be a vegetarian.

That is also true of the binocular vision test. This is a fallacy as well. It seems binocular vision is useful for locating the distance to something that is ahead of oneself. It is true that this is useful in hunting prey, but it is also useful in locating something that is in front of you, especially if your life depends on it, like a branch. If I used your reasoning, snakes, most reptiles, fish, a variety of birds, couldn't be omnivorous or meating eating!

That canine teeth is another over-used argument. The name doesn't imply ripping meat from an animal carcass. Just compare the human incisors/"canine" teeth to that of carnivores. There's a pretty big difference.

I do agree there's more to the debate about whether a human is an omnivore or herbivore, than the website discusses.

However I think you're spreading fallacies and half-truths as well.