Vegetarians: If we were not designed to eat meat, as many claim, why do we have canines?!

I am not debating weather humans have evolved (or not) to eat some meat in their diet, as that is another argument.

The argument that "canine" teeth in human beings proving that we are supposed to eat meat is flawed. There are animals which have canines yet are herbivores, thus the presence of canines is not indicative of ability to eat meat or not. Fruit bats, horses, hippos, gorillas, horses

Because we're not designed in the first place, it's just a series of accidents and circumstances that lead to people with canines surviving and having children with canines. But, to actually address your question, we could have canines to appear intimidating, to tear at meat-like vegetables, to have an additional weapon to possibly defend ourselves with, maybe to switch to meat as a backup if we don't have any vegetables or fruit or fungus/other source of food. Or, maybe humans have evolved past meat being their primary food source, but due to genetic leftovers have not completed the little steps like losing their canines. I think this is fairly plausible when you consider how much bigger and sharper a gorilla's canines are. As we are now, however, I would say humans are clearly omnivorous and accomodated to eat whatever's there.<*Edit* We weren't designed at all according to evolution, so if we weren't designed then we weren't designed to eat something specific, it's just what we can and do eat, and humans clearly eat both vegetables and meat, so we are clearly omnivores. *Edit*>The second link basically disproves the claims you speak of.

If you're really interested in this, you might want to read these:
http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/…
http://www.biology-online.org/articles/h…

Take a look in a gorilla's mouth sometime. They have huge canines, and are primarily herbivorous.

Think about how evolution occurs.

The species' ancestor needed the canine teeth, but the species evolved to rely on plants as food.

The species doe not automatically shed the canine teeth. If canine teeth are detrimental to the species, and if a genetic mutation occurs in which some of the species don't have canine teeth, then selection can occur for no canine teeth. But without that fortuitous genetic mutation, the species continues to live with big canine teeth; what choice does it have?

Many species deal with useless holdovers. Dandelions, for example, do not reproduce sexually, so why put all that effort into creating a flower? Why not go straight to seed? The answer is, the species never experienced a mutation that allowed them to do so. Even with all the wasted energy, however, they remain competitive with other species, so we continue to have dandelions. Otherwise, if the wasted energy caused them to be out-competed by other species, dandelions would become extinct.

Another possibility is that, even though the species no longer uses the teeth for catching and eating meat, they serve another purpose that is selected for; for example, threat displays between males competing for females. (I'm talking about gorillas again, not dandelions.)

By the way, chimpanzees eat meat, and sometimes engage in cannibalism; gorillas do not. Gorillas, bonobos, and orang utans, although primarily herbivorous, do eat grubs and termites.

It wasn't until about the late 1940s that Americans began to eat more meat. Why? Refrigerators. Before that eating meat was a status symbol for the rich who could get meat whenever they wanted it.
In the caveman days, humans did eat meat, but it was so rare and in between it didn't make much of an evolutionary impact - which is why we have more molars and grinding teeth than canines. It's also why our stomachs don't produce enough hydrochloric acid to digest and break down meat.
The only reason man ate meat to begin with was survival.

We weren't designed to be omnivores. We were only designed to be adaptable.

I have never seen anyone with canines sharp enough to rip raw flesh off an animal and I've never seen a person take an elk to the ground with their bare hands.

We are omnivores. The thing is, over time we have become greedy. A hundred years ago, humans didn't eat half the meat they eat now. The day of idyllic family farm is gone. They have been replaced by factory farms. Look up factory farms and you may begin to understand why ethical veggies think its unacceptable.

www.meat.org

This is my theory - we were originally designed to be omnivores, with the advent of agriculture 10000 years or so ago man began to evolve to rely less on meat as a food source. We retain the canine as an emergency tool as our bodies while not requiring meat are still able to digest it. It is a hallmark of our advanced civilisation and. We keep them in case we desend into hunter gathering again.
This is similar to the appendix which retain nut no longer need past 12 months of age

18 years veg

I want to say regardless of whether or not what people SHOULD eat meat or are designed to, why does it matter? That's not the point to a lot of ethical reasons for becoming vegetarian/vegan or even health reasons. Even if people are supposed to eat meat or it is naturally more suitable, people can make accommodations. Many people with diseases should be dead, but pills sustain their life. Certain things aren't necessary in this modern world.

The ready made answers are themselves from vegetarian websites and since many vegetarians go there, that's the common answer given.

Indeed human teeth are barely capable of ripping and tearing animal flesh especially larger animals. But one thing vegetarians always fail to realize is that they are describing modern human teeth and not the original "design". If you look at depictions of how early human must have looked (based on skulls etc), teeth are much larger and sharper than they are today. Over THOUSANDS of years, the utility of the canines for food AND defense has diminished since humans have increasingly relied on tools for eating and for fighting. Great apes, our closest "cousins" species wise are not vegetarians nor vegans as some suggest. Chimpanzees (which 98% DNA with humans) eat hunted, scavenged or as you said, cannibalized meat. Orangutans sometimes eat small fish from small ponds. Gorillas eat small insects ,often picking them off from each others bodies).

Vegetarians "activists and fanatics also always argue that humans are not strong enough to run down the common food animals that we eat today and even if we do catch them, we cannot eat them using our "flat teeth". Again that is narrow minded since eggs, fish, smaller mammals, birds etc can easily be handled by our "slow" bodies and our puny teeth. However, such obvious piece of information is not found in the vegetarian websites hence not known or recognized by the fanatics. Besides the strongest physical human strength is not brute force or speed, it's the capacity of the human brain to solve problems and thus intellectually dominate other species. We may not have been fast enough to catch a deer but we were smart enough to invent the speer to bring it down. We may not have been strong enough to bring down an ox, but humans were smart enough to trap it, domesticate it and use it for his own purposes. That's a strength no other animal possesses.

agree, even if most apes eat a "plant based diet" it is still not a vegetarian nor vegan diet that the fanatics insist we should be. Unless they will concede that 1% or 2 % or 5% etc meat still makes someone a vegetarian which makes eating fish or seafood or meat once a week acceptable. Of course they themselves have argued against that which in turn makes the whole argument about apes paradoxical and illogical.

omnivorism is a sign of adaptability. The ability to eat whatever food is available as the situation presents itself. Loot at one answer that states "we have canines, it is so puny".
Exactly the narrowmindedness that most vegans exhibit because their only source of information comes from one source. Ironically, that person claims he graduated from a University, is a Math major, a economics major a Phd in PSYCHOLOGY, I am American, I am not an American, even aged thricee being 26 then 27 then 26 again all in one week of posting on Yahoo!Answers.

Our so-called "canines" are also found in horses, chimps, and other herbivores.

They look NOTHING like the teeth of actual natural omnivores and carnivores.

EDIT: Chimps, our closest genetic relative, eat maybe 3% non-plant foods.
Wanna know what that would be?
Termites. Not chickens, cows, and pigs.

One shouldn't look to teeth to define what diet we are supposed to follow. Instead, take a gander at our digestive system.

The gut of a human is very small compared to that of our primate cousins, because when you think about it, an herbivore needs a great deal of time to break down and digest all of that plant matter whereas carnivores (and omnivores) do not. Gorillas have the largest guts of all, because out of all the great apes they consume the most plant matter (the occasional critter notwithstanding). Our small intestines comprise up to 60% of our total gut volume, compared to around 25% in orangs & chimps. The opposite is true where the colon is concerned: in humans it's around 20%, in orangs & chimps, 55%.

There's a lot more info on this site where the biology of our development and the ideal diet we should eat goes into more detail:
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp… morph

human canines arer not indicastive of carniverousness. Could you kill an animal by piercing it in the neck with your canines like a tiger csn? theyre way too small.

According to science, we are Omnivores. We can and do eat meat. We do NOT lack the enzymes to digest it. I'm not sure where you read this? The only time I have ever read it is here in this section. Our digestive tracts are not as long as herbivorous and not as short as carnivores. They are in-between. Thus our classification as Omnivores. Humans have been eating meat for Hundreds of Thousands of years. The only place there is a debate about this is here in this section. The rest of the world accepts the truth that we are Omnivores.

For bananas.

Did you expect anybody to know the answer?