Humans are omnivores, so why do people think we can live without animal protein in our diets?!

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Millions of people around the World are living without animal protein.

Humans live healthy lives without animal products in their diet. Meat causes heart disease, obesity, a number of cancers a long with other diseases. Meat consumption kills millions of people each year. Meat is not healthy, but the meat industries propaganda has brainwashed you into thinking it is.

A vegan diet gives you protection from many deadly diseases, and people who are vegan are more than likely to live longer than those that consume animal products.

We are indeed omnivores.

As omnivores we are able to survive and thrive on a plant based diet if we have to, or if we choose to.

Just as we no longer NEED (in the west anyway) to live in caves and kill animals in order to use their skins as clothing, so we no longer NEED to eat animals in order to survive. So some of us choose not to. Others make a different choice. Simple, really. I never can understand what makes people fret about what others have on their dinner plates.

Please provide links to any credible studies linking veganism and schizophrenia.

I eat meat, and I even think your question is ridiculous. There is nothing that says that the protein in our diet must come from animal sources. I choose to eat meat, but you can have a perfectly healthy diet getting your protein from plant sources such as soy or legumes.

There is no study that shows that veganism is linked to schizophrenia!

You don't need meat protein to live ! You need protein that are naturally found in nuts , beans and tofu . And your brain get better with vitamin B and antioxidants .

someone who checked the facts before saying crazy thing.... just saying !

Then why are vegans and vegetarians outliving omnivores, rather than DEAD?

You're really reciting the "protein combination" hypothesis? That's been refuted since the seventies.

ive been doing fine for 19 years,and plenty were doing fine before me, plenty are doing fine now

omnivore means just that, you can eat either meat or vegetables,not only both

1000's of people live without animal protein in their diet. so why do you think humans cannot? It has already been proven they can.


link to your ridiculous info please.

Look at your teeth. Look at a lion's teeth. Compare and contrast.

Hello troll. Hope you have fun making a fool of yourself. Bye! (:

our own teeth are like horses teeth- flat bottoms.

How would humankind have survived for thousands of years eating plant foods- and thrive off it??
Please explain that?

What wild animal eats COOKED meat?

When you cook animal protein it hardens, it forms tough globule structures and these cannot be broken down by digestion- put cooked meat into a water and vinegar solutioin- it stays hard rubbery, doesn't break up.
The protein in COOKEd meat is very little.
We do not leech the hardened protein out of those lumps and granules of meat.


All meat eating animals- lions, tiger, dogs etc, have:
1) FANGS, pointed sharp teeth. We do not. The two teeth at either side of our front teeth do not protrude beyond the line of the other flat teeth, they are not fangs, and useless as such.
2) A short, smooth -lined intestine, designed ONLY to absorb fats and salts from meat.
The meat eating animals do not absorb water from their food- it is meat- they can live entirely on meat alone, and gage all the nutrients they need from that.


Humans like other plant eaters are DESIGNED with longer, twisting intestines, full of pockets and nodules- the purpose f which is to absorb WATER and nutrients anf vitamins from the food we eat.
After all the food we eat has been used for it's energy and nutrition, all that's left is the roughage- the fibre, which in turn cleans and sweeps the intestine when it reaches the larger part, the large intestine also known as the colon.
It is a perfect design.

Animal dropping are small hard pellets. OUrs are not. Nor are any plant eating animals.

Humans have DNA to make their own cholesterol and b12, like all animals. No animal creates B12 on it's own, it is PURELY the result of eating foods which ferment, they create bacteria, and that forms the b12 inside.
Which is why, when cows eat vegetation and form bacterial b12 inside their intestine and it gets absorbed into the flesh, some people like yourself will say b12 is only available from meat.
We do the same thing. Eating Marmite, miso, beer, anything which ferments gives us b12 too.

We make out own cholesterol. Humans get sick and die from cholesterol from animal fats, this is undeniable. We are the only species that does this, we actually get sick from congestion bloodstream, full of cholesterol from animal fat, and we die.

Colon cancer too- the meat inside you has no use and no place to go. It has no fibre, so all those pockets and nodules are stuck on the intestine and give off harmful pathogens in the intestine of a plant eating mammal ( human).

How can an elephant produce healthy protein strands? A Horse? A gorilla? LEts' see....DNA.

Just look at the facts of the intestine alone.
We have a longer twisting plant eating intestine, just like all the other plant eating animals.

Meat-eaters: have claws
Herbivores: no claws
Humans: no claws

Meat-eaters: have no skin pores and perspire through the tongue
Herbivores: perspire through skin pores
Humans: perspire through skin pores

Meat-eaters: have intestinal tract that is only 3 times their body length so that rapidly decaying meat can pass through quickly
Herbivores: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length.
Humans: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length.

Meat-eaters: have strong hydrochloric acid in stomach to digest meat
Herbivores: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater
Humans: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater

Meat-eaters: salivary glands in mouth not needed to pre-digest grains and fruits.
Herbivores: well-developed salivary glands which are necessary to pre-digest grains and fruits
Humans: well-developed salivary glands, which are necessary to pre-digest, grains and fruits

Meat-eaters: have acid saliva with no enzyme ptyalin to pre-digest grains
Herbivores: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains
Humans: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains

If you look at true meat eaters, like lions and tigers, they kill their prey and tear directly into the stomach where the blood filled organs are. They need the nutrients from the stomach, liver, and intestines. When we cook raw meat, we are cooking out a lot of the necessary nutrients that true meat eaters need to survive, so if we were meant to eat meat, we would eat it raw and bloody. Even carnivores who run across prey that has been burned in a fire don't eat their meat cooked.

A vegan living without animal protein.

We can live with out animal protein and be healthy. It's been proven. Beans, nuts, seeds, tofu, tempeh, leafy Greens, whole grains and soy can provide you with protein. It's been proven that vegans and vegetarians are 50% less likly to get heart disease, 40% less likly to get cancer and 88% less likly to get diobeties and I have asked many vegetarians if they felt stronger and more energized when they cut out meat and they all agreed. Not eating meat is much healthier. Why do you think doctors are always telling people to cut out meat? They tell people to cut out meat much more than they tell people to increase their consumption of meat. We don't need to kill
animals to survive any more we have a choice and because I love animals I've chosen not to kill them. If you saw how animals are really treated on factory farms (look on YouTube) than you'd be vegetarian too.

It's funny, but I'm noticing an absence of references to back up your claims. Since your question is "why do people think we can live without animal protein" and you are confused about this, I'll explain.

Humans are omnivores, but we are not "obligate omnivores" which means we would need both animal and plant foods. Instead we have a very wide diet because we are highly adaptive, and we can survive without any animal foods or with a reasonable amount in good health.

As for the teeth, well you aren't the first person to make this mistake. In fact there is someone posting the same flawed argument here every other day. But we have teeth similar to herbivores and omnivores, since we share common ancestry. We do not have sufficient teeth to remove flesh from an animal, which is why our ancestors invented tools. And if you think the reduced canines indicate we "require" meat in our diet, let me introduce you to the gorilla- a vegetarian species with huge canines. Yes, canine size in primates relates ONLY to male-male competition for mates. http://images.acclaimimages.com/_gallery…

You have not provided a source for your claim that veganism is linked to schizophrenia. You need to, so I can refute it for you. Anyway, no scientific study has ever linked vegan diets to schizophrenia, rather low levels of DHA which is rare in a vegan diet is shown to correlate with schizophrenia, but correlation does not equal causation. Nowhere can I find any evidence of high levels of veganism among schizophrenics! Anyway it is easy for a vegan to get DHA as a supplement.

Here is what I can find:

"It is unlikely that schizophrenia patients make dietary choices different from those of people in the general population. Instead, schizophrenia patients seem to eat more of the same food." -Strassnig et al, (2003). Nutritional Assessment of Patients With Schizophrenia: A Preliminary Study. Schizophr Bull 29 (2): 393-397.

Also I'd LOVE to see the studies which you claim indicate that humans need animal proteins for "healthy cell growth and regeneration." As you know from your already extensive research, protein is not reused as protein, rather it is broken down to it's constiutents- the amino acids. It is these which are essential, but why have you not read how all the ones humans cannot make ourselves are found in vegetables? There is not a single amino acid you can get in meat, dairy or eggs that you can't get from plants, fungi, algae etc. Do I even need to provide a link? I mean, this is just common knowledge... well ok why take a chance. Here's a couple of references to show you that all the protein you will ever need can be obtained without animal foods. But they are from about 50 years ago because that is how long it has been known that there is no question of protein deficiency on a healthy vegan diet.

"Intake of essential amino acids by the vegans exceeded the recommendations. No clinical signs of nutritional deficiency were observed in the vegans. Serum protein levels of the vegans as well as their serum lipoproteins were near the lower range of the reference group. In addition, none of the vegans was overweight and their blood pressures were low for their age."- Abdulla et al, (1981) Nutrient intake and health status of vegans. Chemical analyses of diets using the duplicate portion sampling technique. Am J Clin Nutr vol. 34 no. 11 2464-2477.
http://www.ajcn.org/content/34/11/2464.a…

"An adequate percentage of useful protein is consumed by the vegans, and also, not unexpectedly, by the vegetarians." - Ellis (1967). Food habits and nutrition of minority groups in the UK- The nutritional status of vegans and vegetarians. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 26: 205-212
http://tinyurl.com/4pplpkw

Of course, if vegans were at increased risk of disease from a lack of animal proteins, this would show up in mortality studies as they died earlier.

"The standardized mortality ratio for all causes of death was 52% (95% CI: 50%, 54%) and was identical in vegetarians and in nonvegetarians." Key et al, (2009) Mortality in British vegetarians: results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Oxford). Am J Clin Nutr 89 (suppl):1613S–9S.

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/178_…
http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjourn…

Being human, I also have the ability to makes choices for myself that may differ from evolutionary trend. If I don't want to eat animal products and I can thrive without them, who are you to tell me I was "designed" to do otherwise? Designed by whom? Why did this same designer give me a tailbone, wisdom teeth and an appendix?

Regardless, I have yet to see any human who is capable of puncturing a cows raw hide with their "canines"...but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because thats not really up my alley.

"Studies have linked veganism to schizophrenia."
I would be thrilled to see legitimate scientific sources for this statement. Here are mine that prove the contrary:
http://www.everydayhealth.com/schizophre…
http://www.craigolson.bizhosting.com/

"Humans require animal protein to complete protein strands that are necessary for healthy cell growth and regeneration."
Soy is a complete protein containing all of the essential amino acids. Regardless, the idea of "combining proteins" was debunked decades ago. You can ingest protein from different sources throughout the day. Vegans can get all of their essential amino acids (the building blocks of protein) from things like nuts, beans and legumes, whole grains and green leafy vegetables.

It is true that all humans are omnivores. But that doesn't mean some humans can't survive on a vegetarian diet. Humans that have luxuries like money and fully stocked grocery stores can live a healthy life on a vegetarian diet.

For those that question mental illness and VEGANISM, there's enough evidence to actually study the link between B12 and schizophrenia. We know that vegans tend to have lower B12 stores than vegetarians, who have less than omnis. So some medical professionals think there may be a tie.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00…

This particular study ended in Dec 2010. You can bookmark it for the results later, if you're really interested.

And the EPIC-Oxford Health study of 2001 shows us that vegans are much more likely to have low B12 levels. So, yeah, I think the link between veganism and schizophrenia is pretty well established. It'll be interesting when the restults of this study are in.

From the link:

"Mean serum vitamin B12 was highest among omnivores (281, 95% CI: 270-292 pmol/l), intermediate among vegetarians (182, 95% CI: 175-189 pmol/l) and lowest among vegans (122, 95% CI: 117-127 pmol/l). In all, 52% of vegans, 7% of vegetarians and one omnivore were classified as vitamin B12 deficient (defined as serum vitamin B12 < 118 pmol/l). There was no significant association between age or duration of adherence to a vegetarian or a vegan diet and serum vitamin B12. In contrast, folate concentrations were highest among vegans, intermediate among vegetarians and lowest among omnivores, but only two men (both omnivores) were categorized as folate deficient (defined as serum folate < 6.3 nmol/l). Conclusion: Vegans have lower vitamin B12 concentrations, but higher folate concentrations, than vegetarians and omnivores. Half of the vegans were categorized as vitamin B12 deficient and would be expected to have a higher risk of developing clinical symptoms related to vitamin B12 deficiency."

http://www.epic-oxford.org/publications/…

Some doctors do tell us that they think low B12 levels in pregnant women can result in schizophrenia in their children as teenagers. That would certainly be a tragedy if a woman refused to eat meat, got B12 defecient, and her child paid for it for the rest of his life.

B12 is important and people who insist that vegans don't have to supplement for it are wrong. If they're wrong about something this important, why would anyone take advice from them about anything else?