We Weren't Designed To Eat Meat, Here Is Proof

You can believe what you wish by providing your own set of justifiable proofs(facts?) however I will simply make one statement - " I am salivating now at the prospect of eating red meat as I read your post so it therefore brings to mind that you have a little bit of work to do to refine your theory". Interesting concept though.

reply to post by Danger Girl


carnivore herbivore human
eyes to the front eyes to the side eyes to the front
for targeting prey for panoramic view for targeting prey
so to spot predators


that is how you can spot a predator, eyes to the front
predators do not hunt carrots. we are omnivores and
it is most likely we were scavengers as we lack the physical
characteristics of the usual predator (IE: claws)

Originally posted by Danger Girl
reply to post by paul76

 

Our teeth are designes to eat grains and plants. Please review the image in the OP.

No they are not. Try eating leaves for 30 years and see how many teeth you have left.

Anyone else get a kick out of a banned troll creating a 30-page thread in the wrong forum?

People, if you want to eat what your specific body is meant to eat, look at your ancestors. Specifically around the time of and before the Ice Age. If you are of Western or Southern European ancestry like myself, you really need to eat meat. Your genome evolved in a cold climate dependant on meat to survive winter. Disregarding Gc sialic acid, you can even drink milk. You have evolved lactase. Likewise for many African and Asian peoples, excluding the Chinese. Southern Europeans and the Chinese largely lack this enzyme and are therefore lactose intolerant. They also are well suited to primarily sustain themselves from plant matter alone, however fish is still recommended to provide enough omega-3.

It is also worth mentioning that because grains are a relatively new addition to the human diet, many people's lineage have not adapted to gluten. I myself have breathing problems if I eat breads that are high in gluten.

Screw these rediculous arguments about ethics or morals. Don't try to confuse an issue of biology with one of industry or culture. Animals eat other animals. Period, exclamation point, carrot, asterisk, pound.

reply to post by lo111

Sorry, but the strict, 100% Vegan diet is actually detrimental to human health, unless supplements are taken. In other words, the strict vegan diet is a deviation from natural human diet.

Humans are incapable of producing cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12) - a compound that is not present in any plants AT ALL. Herbivorous animals have bacteria in their gut which produce B12, but these bacteria find the human gut inhospitable, and hence do not survive.

Therefore, humans and other non-herbivores must source all their B12 from other animals, creating a necessity to prey animals, eat their eggs or drink their milk. Since vegans do none of these things, a person on an unsupplemented vegan diet will exhibit symptoms of B12 Deficiency.

Meat, milk and eggs are by no means the major component of the human diet (contrary to many western habits). However, animal product consumption is necessary to sustain human life.

That said, IMO, people need to reduce their meat consumption. Displacing fruit and veggies with meat reduces a person's overall vitamin, mineral, antioxidant and fibre intake and causes energy wasteage by increasing the energy-intensive mass-raising of farm animals for slaughter.

For the average person, at least two thirds of your food consumption should be fruit, veg, and cereals/grains.

Even if vegans and vegetarians were wrong about the health benifits of not eating meat, the main reason humans should not eat meat is due to our ability not to do so. Wordy, but let my explain. We have the choice not to eat meat. To save a life or not take part in taking one. A dog has no sense of empathy towards a rat or bunny that it may kill. Most people would never shoot a cow in the head to obtain a steak.

Also, why are people who are not vegetarians so anti-vegetarianism? First off I am a vegan and i never go out and push my beliefs on others. I hate PETA, I feel like it undermines the commitment of veganism by subjecting it to pre-teens at warped tour who only partake in it to say they are a vegan. But anyways I never ever bring up my dietary habits to people because i am almost always chewed out (no pun intended) about not eating meat. "YOU'RE GAY" "YOU'RE DUMB" "MEAT IS SO GOOD!" are the responses I hear the most. I implore anyone who has ever said anything of those sorts to a vegan/vegetarian to go out, buy an edible animal, look in its eyes, and slit its throat. Tell me, is it still appetizing?

Humans have the choice.

Humans need fire to eat meat. Fire is not a natural part of any diet. Humans cannot go out and eat raw meat without risking some sort of bacteria (not to say you can't eat certain veggies today with out getting sick)

Anyone who has studied an ounce of anthropology knows that we started eating meat (probably scavenged at first) because it provided much needed calories to power our brains. Our brains are the most inefficient organs we have and the nutrition of nuts and berries just couldn't cut it.

Logical question: Why were our brains getting bigger? Because we had become bipedal and our hands were now free to do all kinds of interesting things so big brains were an advantage.

Next question: Why did we become bipedal? Because it was a more efficient way to get quickly from one tree to another. The environment was changing and where the tree cover used to be thick and we could stay up in the limbs all day jumping from tree to tree, we now had to hoof it on the ground where there are a lot more teeth and claws out to get us. So we needed to be quick.

That's how evolution works.

reply to post by youvegotbighands

It is true man has become largely dependent on cooking. We've been doing it for a hundred thousand years, give or take. But this also applies to plant matter. Cooking breaks down cell walls making more nutrients available for digestion. Our harnessing of fire to cook food significantly increased the available calories in our food allowing for rapid population growth. However most humans have no problem eating raw meat that has not been contaminated by things like fecal matter. Fish especially can be eaten straight out of the water. But again, cooking makes more nutrients available and makes digestion easier. However modern foods are often cooked at high heat soaked in rancid oils. Our ancestors cooked in low heat, on rocks stacked around a fire or in a primitive oven. High heat destroys the nutrient content in meat and plant alike.


[edit on 17-6-2008 by apc]

Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984
reply to post by Curio

 

Again the argument is NOT about whether you can sustain yourself on a vegan or vegetarian diet. It is about whether humans evolved (or were created) to eat an omnivorous diet.

Why do people keep bringing in the ethical question or the health question when this is a scientific debate? At least it should have been scientific as it's a science question. As listed above, there are many things to show humans are omnivorous by nature. Whether you want to choose to eat meat or not is nothing to do with your bodies evolution and simply about your concious morals.

Lets keep it on topic and about the human bodies design and function. Otherwise we'll just have to start a whole new thread about the ethics of being a corpse cruncher.

Did you actually read my post? I'm not sure what your rant has to do with anything...

I was illustrating the fact that this vegan (like most of them) is so caught up in being self righteous and morally superior that she's lost touch with reality and can't see she's being cruel to her dog. And the irony of the fact she's an animal activist.

Originally posted by sir_chancealot
While the OP is correct, he has come to a wrong conclusion.

We were not originally designed as meat eaters, this is true. However, after the flood, something changed and God said that we were to eat meat.

Yeah, right, and then santa came and gave us all a gift.
Dont you see that this STORY is just a futile attempt to justify eating meat?
Tho I am a vegan for twenty years now, I say let everyone do whatever they want but for the love of all thats real lets drop this silly bible thumping.
Yeh, because a non-existent deity said we could eat meat after the (non-existent) flood. Come off it; there have been so many stories.
The bible is the adaptation of a much older story; and why would that story be truer than the story it was borrowed from?

And ofcourse people are omnivores! At least the people who make such a mess of the world. This schizophrenic diet gives the warmongers anything they need; aggression, domination; disrespect, addiction to entertainment and drugs, alcoholism, etcetera. Let them eat crap and do crap, as long as the people who wish to be different dont get dissed and obstructed from doing their thing.
Its just a shame that many meateaters would gladly make vegetarianism illegal...It comes with the diet that they cant stand different opinions; it contradicts their belief that they HAVE TO be like they are.

Originally posted by youvegotbighands
Humans need fire to eat meat. Fire is not a natural part of any diet. Humans cannot go out and eat raw meat without risking some sort of bacteria (not to say you can't eat certain veggies today with out getting sick)

Sorry but I beg to differ - raw meats make up a large portion of Japanese cuisine. The Germans have their steak tartare, and jerky is dried raw meat.

Cooking meat is a culinary habit which has evolved over the countless generations of humans. Not that I disapprove of cooking meat, of course (though I do like to occasionally wander down to the local Japanese restaurant and have sashimi or tataki).

Furthermore, eating raw meat presents little bacterial risk - people who have eaten raw meat from an early age would probably develop some immunity to food-borne bacteria.

Originally posted by youvegotbighands
I implore anyone who has ever said anything of those sorts to a vegan/vegetarian to go out, buy an edible animal, look in its eyes, and slit its throat. Tell me, is it still appetizing?

- Waste not!

Sorry if it's a bit off-topic, but personally I have no disagreement with vegetarians who simply dislike the taste of meat or who have religious reasons. What gets to me is the people who have moral issues with eating meat. Sure, killing animals is cruel, but the world is cruel! Animals eat other animals to survive. That is a fact of life. IMO, moral vegetarianism is just the thin end of the wedge. How long before it is cruel to pluck an apple from a tree, or stand in the sun (and deprive a few weeds of sunlight)?

In the developed world of plastic-wrapped-meat, the thought of an animal dying to give us food is horrifying (to some). In the parts of the world where people eat what they can find, slaughtering animals is a fact of life.

The rise of 'moral' vegetarianism in the developed world corresponds to the increasing disparity between the connotations of the words 'animal' and 'food'. The fact that very few people outside of the developed world practice morally-motivated vegetarianism suggests that it is a deviation from the evolutionary norm.

I strongly suspect that it is culture that defines what we should or shouldn't eat. If a child was allowed to grow up in a wilderness environment, I suspect that he or she would develop an omnivorous diet based on locally available foodstuffs. In the absence of cultural influences, we'd all revert to an omnivorous eating pattern.

[edit on 17-6-2008 by thespazticator]

Originally posted by youvegotbighands
Even if vegans and vegetarians were wrong about the health benifits of not eating meat, the main reason humans should not eat meat is due to our ability not to do so. Wordy, but let my explain. We have the choice not to eat meat. To save a life or not take part in taking one. A dog has no sense of empathy towards a rat or bunny that it may kill. Most people would never shoot a cow in the head to obtain a steak.

Also, why are people who are not vegetarians so anti-vegetarianism? First off I am a vegan and i never go out and push my beliefs on others. I hate PETA, I feel like it undermines the commitment of veganism by subjecting it to pre-teens at warped tour who only partake in it to say they are a vegan. But anyways I never ever bring up my dietary habits to people because i am almost always chewed out (no pun intended) about not eating meat. "YOU'RE GAY" "YOU'RE DUMB" "MEAT IS SO GOOD!" are the responses I hear the most. I implore anyone who has ever said anything of those sorts to a vegan/vegetarian to go out, buy an edible animal, look in its eyes, and slit its throat. Tell me, is it still appetizing?

Humans have the choice.

We live our lives as part of a food chain. I try not to cry when I eat A Steak
.........and I sometimes wonder if that Carrot I ripped from its earthy home screams as I shred it, chew it, and devour it.....and I Agree WE Have That Choice......

Once again, the ignorant try to explain things in the most simplistic ways.

Humans are in fact omnivors, and out teeth reflect that fact. We have teeth for ripping and cutting, and teeth for grinding.

As to eating the entire animal, well in "more primitive" socities, that is exactly what is done. It is only in our "advanced" societies that we only eat the prime cuts. Too bad for us, because organ meats are very good for us.

The true test of whether or not an animal including the human animal) is designed to eat any food is whether or not that animal can efficiently digest that food. Cows and sheep can not digest meats as an example. Humans can not digest cellulose.

Keep on trying you PETA types. Die out, and let the rest of us enjoy a nice juicy steak!

Yeah... This sounds ALOT like every speech I've ever heard from animal lovers and people against eating meat. I'm almost positive that no matter what you say, post, or do, we as humans will never stop eating meat... even if " We aren't designed to eat meat ". You should go hand out flyers at a local store or mall about this subject and then watch as they place it in the trash can and walk over to the burger joint and get a mega meal just to spite you. I can't wait for my steak tonight... I'm going to eat it rare too.

reply to post by Gorman91

yes, we NEED to eat meat, just like we NEED to eat plants.

WRONG.
If it would be true, there will be NO healthy veg*n in the world, all will be sick, ill or dead.

I'm a vegetarian and enjoy great health because of it. I am 56 yrs old, and heart disease runs in my family. I have no heart disease and I take no medications. All of my family members have been on heart medication since their 40's. I look like I am in my early 40's.
It was not the eating of flesh that increased the intellegence of the human brain. It was the eating of the sacred mushroom that did that. If you eat enough sacred mushrooms, you will become a vegetarian because you will feel in your body that meat is killing you.
For more info on this, read the book "Food of the Gods" by Terrence Mckenna. 40,000 years ago, art and religious ritual appeared in with cave art and burial grounds. It was at that time that humans began to experiment with the mushrooms they found growing at the foot of fir trees and on cow piles. This is the reason that cows are worshipped by Hindus and trees are worshipped by Druids.
Go ahead and eat meat. I'll have the last laugh.

reply to post by Disney

Vegetarians can get all essential meat-borne vitamins by consuming dairy products and eggs.

Vegans, who eat neither meat, eggs, or dairy, WILL suffer vitamin B12 deficiency unless they take vitamin B12 as a pill.

BTW, vegetarians can eat eggs, as long as they don't contain an embryo. In nature, unfertilized eggs are discarded or eaten by the mother.

reply to post by traderonwallst

If they weren't supposed to be eaten....then why in the hell do they taste so good????????????????????????????????

Well that is IMO a pretty damn stupid argument. It is sad to see that all what most people care is TASTE. No care about all the negative things it brings to the world.

reply to post by Disney


Perhaps not as stupid as you think. Taste, as a rule of thumb, does indicate the edibility of a foodstuff.
Ever tried eating grass? It tastes like crap! We humans can't digest grass.
Ever eaten raw potato? It tastes like crap! Raw potato is poisonous.
Ever eaten a banana? They taste great! Bananas contain many essential vitamins and minerals.

Meat tastes good because we are meant to eat it.
You'll find that most things that are bad taste worse.