Are Humans Natural Vegetarians?!
Are Humans Natural Vegetarians?
Answers:
Humans are omnivores by practice just like cattle! Supposedly herbivorous cattle have been meat eating omnivores for at least 30 years (closer to 50) and that can't be argued against by weston price trolls like andy or beebs. The simple *fact* is that you can feed animal products to herbivores if they're suitable processed (like meat based cattle feeds). Humans also fall into this category. Humans just don't do very well when fed unprocessed meat!
Source(s):
Vegetarians do not eat fish. A fish eater is a Piscivore. Spread the correct word!
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/piscivo...
No. We are omnivores. (Both plant and meat).
Meat used to not be a huge part of our diet because its easier to catch a potato then a deer. But we'd eat it when we got it.
No! We eat whatever we want!
Of course not. We are omnivorous naturally.
Then again, are naturally monogamous? Naturally lawful?
Nurture plays a stronger roll in these choices and others then nature does. Without our social structures, we would be very different indeed.
not technically but you are if your parents are and deciede your diet should be too from the moment you are born... lol but no.
No. People become vegetarians when they choose not to eat meat.
Nope. Sorry to all the vegetarians and vegans on the forum, but humans are naturally omnivores. We have sharp canines for ripping through flesh and muscle, and we have flat chompers up front for nipping off veggies.
Originally, because of limited mobility, pre-humans were restricted to stay close to the vegetarian growth for nourishment. At that time, we were quasi-vegetarians who supplemented our diet with insects for protein. When we began to walk upright, we were able to roam longer distances and expand our territory. As a result, we became scavengers, much like today's hyenas. You must understand that we humans, when compared to other predatory animals, are not fast, big, nor strong. Thus, if we wanted meat, we settled for the remnants of kills by other predators. It wasn't until we evolved to making weapons to hunt that we could really call ourselves omnivores.
To answer your question... If we go back in time far enough, I guess you would claim that we were vegetarians. However, as we evolved, our bodies needed protein and meat was the logical source. Hence, we are now classified as omnivores.
Have you ever watched a baby 'try' new foods? If the mum spoons in some mashed fruit the baby will smile and open its mouth for more. Given his first taste of cooked green beans he will often make a face, but usually swallow it. If she puts in some pureed meat, she will be wearing it!
Does this prove anything? Maybe not to you, but it seems pretty obvious to me. Who, in nature, would really want to hunt down and slaughter an animal, hack off bloody chunks and then either eat it raw or have to figure out how to cook it--- if instead they could pick some fruits or vegetables, wash them off, and eat them. Even including the labor of growing food, storing grains, etc. it is still so much more 'natural' to me than dealing with carnage and rotting flesh.
Some people think humans have evolved up from lower life forms--- others think we are descended from higher beings.
Animal slaughter is barbaric no matter how it is done-- If one's life depends upon it, perhaps it is justified. Otherwise it is just murder in order to satisfy ones taste for blood.
Here's a test:
Put a baby in a crib.Then put an apple and a rabbit in the crib.If eats the rabbit and plays with the apple I'll buy you a new car.
I think we r natural fruitarians, after all, fruit is what is given to us from the plant =D no killing at all involved
Yeah! Hate to break it to all of you who think otherwise but, the human body is not designed to digest meat. The body of a carnivore is made with sharper teeth and shorter intestines. When you as a human eat meat...it actually rots in your system before it is expelled. Your intestines are too long. Gross but, true!
True predators/ carnivores eat all their meat raw.
Humans don't have stomach acids that are ade-
quate for processing flesh the way nature intended
it to be eaten. Is it natural to cook most of the
nutrients out of meat in order to kill the bacteria
that our stomachs can't? I will let you be the judge
of that.
Andy B.
When you get a medical degree and obtain a
noble peace prize for proving that humans can
eat raw meat with no ill effects to health, than
I will believe you. Why can't I find a trained M.D.
to corroborate this idea of yours?
Whatever we can find.
Basic scavengers.
Well, according to biology101 we are capable of being omnivores. That would also mean eating raw, not cooked meat. Anyway, humans are not really capable of even catching meat with our own two hands. We cannot catch and kill animals without tools. People are also overlooking that fact that humans are pretty lazy. Who'd want to want to be some kind of idiot running around trying to hunt and kill some animals to eat, when there are lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, etc. growing all over the place... doesn't make sense. Digestively speaking, look at the chimpanses who have an almost identical digestive system.. what do they eat? Mostly fruit. Also vegetables... mostly leaves... they do live up in trees. They come down to eat clay every now and then, you know, micro-nutrients etc. Sure the occasional ant or bug or whatever... but they are not leaping out of the trees onto unsuspecting cows, deer, or even rabbits or mice. Why bother. They just go from place to place eating the fruit etc. Yeah yeah, there's some documentary on TV showing some group of a**holes that go around taking babies from their mothers and literally ripping them apart and eating them, and beating on and killing others in the same way... but what are they? They'd be killer cannibals, not hunters. Anyway, I've read Jane Goodal's books, and she's never seen chimps eating meat. All I know, is that if I lived in prehistoric tropics, I'd be relaxing and enjoying live and eating all the fruits I could find... Sure, there'd likely be a group of idiot guys going around creating all sorts of manly tests of one's manliness and equally idiotic rituals and rites, which would likely include painting themselves, beating on each other, and killing animals. Not me, while they're off doing their idiot thing in the jungle, I'm sipping my coconut and screwing their women.
No sensible vegans can contest that we were deigned to eat meat. Even most vegan scientists agree that human's are designed to eat meat, that is not in question.
That we do not have claws, talons, or incisors to hunt proves nothing. When early hominids ate meat they scavenged it, as vultures do, using their fingers to get the sinews and meat other animals couldn't. It was only after that that they began to hunt the meat themselves, and only much later they began to cook it. It is interesting that even now if someone was brought up eating raw meat he would have no problem with it.
The last few million years of human evolution have revolved completely around tools. We used advanced stone tools long before we began to hunt our own meat, and as such there was no need for evolution to bestow us with large claws or teeth to kill prey.
Simple research into human biology reveals how we are meant to eat meat. For one thing, our body produces hydrochloric acid and meat splitting enzymes that herbivores don't produce and are solely used for the digestion of meat. There are adaptations to our teeth (not incisors, rather the size of the jaw), stomach and intestines which have made a human being very adept at meat digestion. There is nothing wrong with the way our body digests meat, and we are so adept at eating it no scientists are of any doubt we've evolved to eat it.
In contrast, there are many reasons we aren't naturally herbivores. We cannot naturally get all the nutrients we need without animal products naturally. Vitamin B12 cannot be got, even now, without animal products or supplements, and a lack of it can cause anaemia and impending death. 60% of vegans even now have some level of B12 deficiency, as opposed to no meat eaters, which says something about how well adapted we are to a vegan diet.
All other nutrients can be got naturally. That owes to that vegetables can now be sold all year round, even out of season, and can be flown into the country from all over the world. In bygone times people could only eat the relatively small range of plants that grew in their ecosystem, and only when they were in season. Thus many more nutrients would have been unavailable and still more unavailable for most of he year. Until very recently it would have been impossible for a vegan human to live naturally without dying very quickly.
Now, meat makes up for all these lost nutrients very nicely, and it really shows how we aren't naturally vegans, as until very recently it was impossible to live like that.
@ Vegan and Proud
Here's a test. Get a toddler who's actually moved onto solid foods (because frankly I think you'd be hard pressed to get a baby in a crib to eat an apple) and give it either a plate of sprouts, or a plate of chicken. Very few would choose the former.
@ Rani
Oh I don't know, I think you'll find pureed meats are quite popular baby foods.
Plenty of people, in nature, would want to run off and hack chunks off an animal and eat it raw, or whatever you said. Hell, people still do that now. There's not a primitive tribe in the world that doesn't eat meat, but there are plenty who eat only meat. This proves something to me.
@ Ka yu yoon
I think you'll be hard pressed to find any animal in the wild which eats only fruit, certainly not those with digestive systems designed to digest meat (ie, us).
@ Bella
ALL food rots i your intestines, it's called digestion. Rotting is the breaking down of food by bacteria or enzymes, which is exactly what your body does to food.
To think that because it rots inside you it is bad or unhealthy is ridiculous.
Carnivores have shorter intestines, yes. Herbivores have long intestines, and often several stomachs, because breaking down plant matter is harder than breaking down meat. Carnivores don't need such a long intestine.
As omnivores, doesn't it stand to reason we have a longer intestine to break down that plant matter we eat? We're not carnivores.
@ Accille
As I said before, if brought up eating meat raw humans can eat it with no problems. Hell, even if you've been brought up eating cooked meat and you eat raw meat you'll be unlucky if you do have any problems (I can vouch for that).
@ Scocasso
There are primitive tribes in Africa who catch meat by, and this is true, chasing it until it dies of exhaustion, when they kill it. They do this to animals as large and fast as giraffes.
If properly trained a human could catch a rabbit, fish or bird with nothing but his own hands.
But as I said before, our evolution recently has revolved around tools, so that's irrelevant.
'Who'd want to want to be some kind of idiot running around trying to hunt and kill some animals to eat, when there are lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, etc. growing all over the place'
Erm, plenty of people. You're forgetting that most humans prefer the taste of meat, and that until recently without it people would have died without the necessary nutrients.
Also, I think you'll find chimpanzees form organised hunting parties and go and hunt monkeys up in the tree tops, and are quite natural meat eaters. It was Jane Goodal who first discovered this.
"ll I know, is that if I lived in prehistoric tropics, I'd be relaxing and enjoying live and eating all the fruits I could find."
You'd eat meat or die, like everyone else round then. It was no picnic, don't you think it it were that easy they'd all have done it?
Nobody knows. It's very likely that our early ancestors were herbivorous, and it's also very likely that later on, most of the meat our ancestors were able to procure was scavenged. It's certainly obvious that human beings are not predators. Our bodies much more highly resemble herbivores than carnivores or even omnivores - our nails are wide and flat, our incisors are so short they're practically vestigial, we have 'cud-chewing' jaws instead of the clamping jaws of predators, we're relatively weak, our intestines are long and more fit for digesting plant food than meat (carnivores usually have very short digestive tracts). (Compare us as omnivores to bears and raccoons ... They retain mostly carnivorous body-types) Human beings are physically inept for hunting - so likely we're meant for more of a vegetarian diet than an omnivorous diet. The consumption of meat by humans has been linked to many diseases and dietary problems. If we are naturally omnivores instead of herbivores, which is a little unlikely, we're not built to eat half as much meat as we do now.
(And don't buy into the 'we needed more protien as we evolved' argument. It's very loosely based on logic. We can get plenty of protien from a totally vegetarian diet even now, in our (relatively) highly evolved state. And tribes chasing gazelles until they die of exhaustion? Very highly unlikely. Tracking a gazelle and picking it off after a few days, perhaps.)
The bottom line is, the human body isn't designed to digest meat efficiently and we're physically unable to hunt without tools. We're built like more like herbivores, not matter how you look at it. If we are 'naturally' omnivores, we're at the very polar end of the line - close to the herbivore section!