Where on earth do vegetarians get the idea that we didn't evolve to eat meat?!
The shape of our digestive tract has nothing to do with it. Pigs have a digestive system that is remarkably similar to our own, and I have personally seen pigs eating meat. I spent quite a few years on a farm as a kid and the grossest memory I have is a lamb wandering into the pig pen and getting eaten to death by the pigs.
Our problem in America is we live off of fast food and high carb diets. Its not he meat in the Big Mac, its the saturated fat it sits in all day. Exercise also has a lot to do with health. Diet can only take you so far if you are laying around on the couch all day. If we would stop eating junk food, eat a balanced diet with moderate carbs, large portions of veggies, small portions of meat, and get out and actually burn off the calories we take in we would be slimmer and longer living.
And dude with the hulk avatar...fangs are not used by carnivores for tearing flesh. They are killing tools used to hold and kill the prey animal.
Answers: Our closest biological relative, the chimpanzee, eats quite a bit of red meat. The don't look like they were meant to be predators, but they regularly kill and eat deer, other monkeys, piglets, and occasionally human children.
The shape of our digestive tract has nothing to do with it. Pigs have a digestive system that is remarkably similar to our own, and I have personally seen pigs eating meat. I spent quite a few years on a farm as a kid and the grossest memory I have is a lamb wandering into the pig pen and getting eaten to death by the pigs.
Our problem in America is we live off of fast food and high carb diets. Its not he meat in the Big Mac, its the saturated fat it sits in all day. Exercise also has a lot to do with health. Diet can only take you so far if you are laying around on the couch all day. If we would stop eating junk food, eat a balanced diet with moderate carbs, large portions of veggies, small portions of meat, and get out and actually burn off the calories we take in we would be slimmer and longer living.
And dude with the hulk avatar...fangs are not used by carnivores for tearing flesh. They are killing tools used to hold and kill the prey animal.
their fellow veggies?
I don't think that is really the angel they take on the matter....There are plenty of reasons people become vegetarian, and it does go way beyond not wanting to eat a living creature....
The same reason why Christians think God created Earth
They are crackpots
we have teeth like other vegetarian animals. but i eat meat anyways.
we dont have fangs to tear flesh
I've no idea. Its a very one sided view. I mean, meat eaters don't go around forcing their views on veggies, so I don't see why veggies should ram their views on meat eaters.
Well u wouldnt like to be eaten so neither do the animals why should we have the upper hand to slaughter and eat them!!!!!!
I really do not know the answer to this, as men has been omnivores for as long as.....geesh I dunno?!?!
On the other hand, I could very easily be a vegetarian as I just don't really LIKE meat. I like vegetarian Italian food. It's great you should try it sometime. However my family seems to go the other way and they all could forgo veggies for meat and starches. It is alot about personal preference and convictions, and none of us should diss the other just because they are different.
All the vegetarians I know see it as a lifestyle choice and don't try to influence anyone or come up with these far fetched theories. I hope you are not basing your question on the rantings of one particular troll in this section!
dont know, dont care, i would love to live with a vegiterian though...
so they dont touch my expensive bacon and steaks and duck and chicken and mmmm omg i need MEAT! australian sausages, german beef mmmm
anyway, yeah, theyre weird, leave them alone though, theyre happy, i'm happy, everyones happy
lol
From the Historic Human Diet Book(Vegetarian Edition.)
Mathilda - I find it hard to believe you still eat with stone tools.
I think the point is stated better that we do not have digestive systems to support eating larger quantities of meat. Study the difference of humans and say a cats digestive systems. Length, chemicals, mandibles, as well as, speed of function. We are omnivores capable of eating all food groups, animal, plant, fungi, and mineral. But we are not meat eaters. Like a lion is. Or even a dog. Incidentally a dog can be given a vegetarian diet and be healthy, but a cat can not. the cat won't get all of it essential nutrients. Does that mean the dog has evolved to be vegetarian? I think not.
Taking evolution into account - perhaps we're evolving beyond the stage where we need to eat animals to fulfil our dietary requirements.
Since a vegetarian can intake all of the necessary nutrition to thrive - without meat - then perhaps people who eat meat could learn a lesson from that.
We no longer really NEED to breed animals for food - we can now humanely treat them as fellow inhabitants of our planet.
Having said that - I'm a hypocrite because I'm not a vegetarian, but I do eat very little meat and could easily cut it out all together. I'm just supporting their side of the argument because it does actually make sense - even in an evolutionary sense.
We are omnivorous - we eat meat and veg. We do not have ruminating stomachs like deer or cows, so don't eat meat only. We don't have carnassials, like lions (which are like molars, but sharper and designed for eating meat), so we are not solely carnivorous. In fact, eating meat allowed us to evolve large brains - so we SHOULD EAT MEAT. We are hunters, like any meat eating animals, but can eat vegetables too. We should eat a mixture, not just one or the other.
There is no where on earth that I got the idea that we didn't evolve to eat meat, my ideas came from my own brain and heart.
I do find it funny that people who eat meat, wouldn't be able to kill it for themselves, nor catch it, or trap it, so I find it a bit hypocritical, or many, just really really unaware, a product of their environment, say!
I do know that we don't need meat, I am vegan, have been for a year...and I am proof. What I find unearthly, is that our meat is raised on suffering, unnatural means, wreaking havoc on our environment, abuse....this is what we evolved into my anthropology friend, and I decided long ago that I will not take part in it.
It is a matter of principal.
Good day!
Common sense!
After using their sharp claws and teeth to capture and kill their prey, carnivores swallow their food whole, relying on their extremely acidic stomach juices to do most of the digestive work. The stomach acid of carnivores actually plays a dual role-besides breaking down flesh, the acid also kills the dangerous bacteria that would otherwise sicken or kill the meat-eater.
Our stomach acids are much weaker in comparison because strong acids aren't needed to digest pre-chewed fruits and vegetables. In comparing the stomach acidity of carnivores and herbivores, it is obvious that humans fall into the latter category. We can cook meat to kill some of the bacteria and make it easier to chew, but it's clear that humans, unlike all natural carnivores, are not designed to easily digest meat.
Intestinal Length
Evidence of our herbivorous nature is also found in the length of our intestines. Carnivores have short intestinal tracts and colons that allow meat to pass through it relatively quickly, before it has a chance to rot and cause illness. Humans, on the other hand, have intestinal tracts that are much longer than carnivores of comparable size. Like other herbivores, longer intestines allow the body more time to break down fiber and absorb the nutrients from a plant-based diet.
The long human intestinal tract actually makes it dangerous for people to eat meat. The bacteria in meat have extra time to multiply during the long trip through the digestive system, and meat actually begins to rot while it makes its way through the intestines. Many studies have also shown that meat can cause colon cancer in humans.
Comparing our anatomies clearly illustrates the fact that the human body is built to run on a vegetarian diet. Humans have absolutely none of the distinguishing anatomical characteristics that either carnivores or even natural omnivores have. Read author John Robbins' discussion of the anatomical differences between humans and carnivores.
Of course humans were designed to eat meat. I'm a vegetarian and I know that.
BUT we don't have the natural weaponry of a higher predator. All the anthropological evidence is that humans evolved to eat fish and to scavenge remains from carcasses. In effect humans were an opportunist carnivore not a predator.
We have hands to allow us to pick up rocks to smash open skulls and bones so we can eat brains and bone marrow. Many predators can not easily get to these parts on an animal and most scavengers do not have the ability to break these bones.
Because we are a taller than many animals and can climb and see pretty well we are also good thief predators. We can easily find bird nests, and baby mammals to kill and eat while they are unguarded.
As well as the archaeological evidence of the diets of our ancestors the single biggest clue as to what we are designed to eat is how our digestive systems work. Humans can digest fish, fruit, grains, nuts, eggs, insects, and bone marrow very well.
Humans were not designed to hunt and kill large animals like a stag or a cow. We lack the musculature, the size and the natural weapons (teeth and claws) to kill prey of this size and also red meat from adult animals is not easy for humans to digest. That's why lamb and veal taste better than mutton and beef - humans are designed to eat baby animals and the remains of the kills of other species and not the flesh of larger creatires.
I didn't know we did !
This is about the 10th generalisation about vegetarians today.
We are not one mass of people, we all have our own views.
All vegetarians have that idea do they? Where on earth do you get that idea?
I'm vegan, I know we evolved eating meat; thing is, we no longer actually NEED to, and therefore we have a choice. I chose one way, you chose another. No big deal, eh?
But it is very irritating to keep seeing these sweeping generalisations - why do veg*ns think this, do that, act thus? It makes as much sense as assuming that all meat-eaters have the same ideas, interests, beliefs, way of behaving.
"Meat-eating was essential for human evolution, says UC Berkeley anthropologist specializing in diet
BERKELEY-- Human ancestors who roamed the dry and open savannas of Africa about 2 million years ago routinely began to include meat in their diets to compensate for a serious decline in the quality of plant foods, according to a physical anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
It was this new meat diet, full of densely-packed nutrients, that provided the catalyst for human evolution, particularly the growth of the brain, said Katharine Milton, an authority on primate diet.
Without meat, said Milton, it's unlikely that proto humans could have secured enough energy and nutrition from the plants available in their African environment at that time to evolve into the active, sociable, intelligent creatures they became. Receding forests would have deprived them of the more nutritious leaves and fruits that forest-dwelling primates survive on, said Milton.
Her thesis complements the discovery last month by UC Berkeley professor Tim White and others that early human species were butchering and eating animal meat as long ago as 2.5 million years. Milton's article integrates dietary strategy with the evolution of human physiology to argue that meat eating was routine. It is published this month in the journal "Evolutionary Anthropology" (Vol.8, #1).
Milton said that her theories do not reflect on today's vegetarian diets, which can be completely adequate, given modern knowledge of nutrition.
"We know a lot about nutrition now and can design a very satisfactory vegetarian diet," said Milton, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management.
But she added that the adequacy of a vegetarian diet depends either on modern scientific knowledge or on traditional food habits, developed over many generations, in which people have worked out a complete diet by putting different foods together."
Bones of early hominids showed they ate mostly meat. That guy with the list of reasons humans are evolved to eat meat is an idiot, and his 'facts' are lies.
Oh how wrong you are. I'd love to hear from a physiological standpoint or anatomical for that matter what it is that makes you thing that there is no harmful illness resulting from a flesh based diet. Even if you are judging from and anthropological angle you're making assumptions that I'm afraid may narrow your scope and offer little to back your opinion. I'm afraid that you seem to have quite the flaw in your thinking. Just as a provoking discount, you state that humans have been using tools for millions of years. First, you are, I guess, beginning your lineage with habilis which is almost laughable when comparing diets today and using that as a foundation. Back to the point. What you seem to be getting at is that the ability to use tools makes for evolutionary evidence of your proposal of humans meat based diet being a necessity, or rather, reason for you argument to begin with. I however, in this, see the paradox. Let me explain. Why would an animal need a tool and knowledge to use it to eat meat because it was not evolutionarily equipped to do so without it? Don't you think that this would be more suited as evidence of learning born out of necessity rather than conscious adaptation to diet requirements. What I mean is, wouldn't it be a much more reasonable hypothesis to formulate that we found a way to eat meat because we were hungry and there was little source of current diet? That we were the first to use tools to eat meat because our evolution made us unable to track and hunt without the use of tools as real omnivores do? As an avid anthropology buff, i would expect you to know that this is a much more reasonable theory than what you are falsely using as evidence. Please offer me more as antropology is not my forte. I have left out any reference to medicine/physiological/anatomical examples at this point. However, if you wish to pursue this further from a medical/physiological point of view, that would be great.
Hope it helps.
of course we've evolved to eat meat.
but i certainly don't want to eat meat that has been intensively farmed and is full of antibiotics and growth hormones. there is nothing natural or evolutionary about that.
I do not believe HUMANS evolved.
Right from the start in the Garden of Eden our natural diet was Plant Based.
Slainté (to your health)
With some people, Vegetarianism is a religion with a fundamentalist ideology. Being a fundamentalist religion, they don't believe in evolution. For them, it is always wrong (sinful, if they believe in the idea of 'sin') to kill a sentient being and eat it. For them, meat-eating is hubris - imagining that we are better than animals so that we kill them for food.
Here's an interesting quote from this month's "Vegetarian Times," (March 2008) pg 16:
"When you find yourself craving potato chips, consider this: A taste for starch may have played a role in human evolution. A study in 'Nature Genetics' found that we carry more copies of the salivary amylase gene -- amylase is an enzyme that digests starch -- than apes. This finding supports the theory that our earliest human ancestors gained a nutritional advantage not from meat, as had been proposed, but from starch. Figuring out that wild carrots, potatoes and onions could be dug up and eaten, the theory goes, provided early humans with a food supply untapped by other primates, and also sufficiently calorie-rich to feed a bigger brain."
ummm,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, they talk to carrots
Because they belive that we weren't meant to have fire to cook food and it was discovered by accident. And you can't eat raw meat so they think that we weren't meant to.
Well in a previous question I see somebody wrote something to the effect, Prove that we need meat to survive? Well yes you can survive without meat. But can you survive without supplements? Supplements which could contain things that are not written on the label. How do you know? Its just a pill or a powder. You could be eating anthrax for all you know. In conclusion...without supplements no. You would have a difficult time surviving without meat. But we do have canine teeth which lead me to believe they must be for tearing meat. At least thats what my college biology teacher taught me. I don't think they would be paying him over $85,000/year to give students incorrect information.
There is no reason people can't eat meat but they say that because it is true meat has protein and iron in it and we can get that from nuts and meat supplements which contain the same amount of nuitrientd as proper meat. Therefore we might not have been supposed to eat meat if we had then we probably would have had fangs lol...xxx
Don`t tell anyone but most fertilisers are made from animal by products, so who is a vegetarian ?