The human animal and diet

Sorry Op, we are omnivores pure and simple.And making a faulty one way comparisons with carnivores dosen't change that fact. Of course we are different from carnivores, because we are not carnivores. But, if you also compare us to herbivores, surprise surprise we are different from them too, because we are not herbivores. We simply are omnivores. And funny thing about comparing strength of us to animals isn't really fair either, I mean we have way less muscle mass and bone density even then all the other primates, does that mean we are not a primate? Of course not just means we are different.

The truth is we eat vegetables, fruit and meat and always have. And it's a good thing we are omnivores or we may not have survived until now. There wasn't a lot of plants growing in the last ice age, we probably wouldn't have made it if we couldn't also eat meat. All those crazy brainwashed early men hunting and eating those mastodons and aurochs are why we are here today. And that is the funny thing about your brainwashing comment. Who brainwashed us?....Oh yeah must have been the ancient hunters and atlat association to bolster weapon sells. lol. No the reason men think they are hunters is because they and their tribe got hungry, so a couple of men went out and killed an animal, everyone ate it and survived.They had to hunt or starve. After all one thing you are over looking is the fact that agriculture and food storage are like fire; something people had to discover and learn, meaning before that if humans didn't eat meat they would never have migrated out of tropical regions and would never have survived the harsh winters. In fact archaeology and anthropology have discovered evidence of eating meat going far back into the past much father into the past then evidence of agriculture. And without agriculture and food storage you don't get that wide array of fruits, vegetables and vegetarian fare you enjoy getting from your local supermarket.

And that is thing that bothers me about vegetarians. First, many make faulty one sided comparisons with carnivores, overlook the fact that we are not really like herbivores either, and refuse to see we are omnivores. Second, they look at the gift of civilization wide spread agriculture and they think it has always been that way and that humanity was just really stupid. I mean do you think they didn't have to hunt and eat animals they just wanted to?

And that is the thing if you want to be a vegetarian cool. If you want to advocate vegetarianism as even being more healthy fine. But if you want to lie and say humans are not omnivores or try to suggest that hunting and eating meat was not necessary for humanity to make it were it is today, well not so cool.

Just my opinion though.

reply to post by LUXUS


We are predators. Our physical design is for stalking prey. Our eys face foward and focus on a single object in order to track its movements. Our ears are designed to detect sound directly in front of us. Non predatory animals have eyes that are farher apart and move independently as well as ears that are the same. They are designed to hear and see the approach of a predator. This is in large part because they have to eat almost constantly in order to maintain their bodies and so they have to detect dangers while grazing. This is also why they are usually found in large herds. There are predators that travel in groups as well, they are called packs, or in our case tribes. They move in accordance with the migrations of the herds and hunt together in order to have a greater success rate. I don't think it makes me any more "manly to hunt" nor do I believe that it makes me less "manly" to enjoy salad or rice. It is a fact of nature. We are hunter gatherers. If you chose to be vegetarian, good for you. That is not my choice.

reply to post by LUXUS


Before weopons? there have always been rocks, always. I have killed many a rabbit with just a rock and a good arm. Maybe we haven't always hunted large game, but rabbits and squirrels are plentiful so are lizards, snakes, prarie dogs... after a time we developed tools and weopons. That came much before plows and rakes.

Originally posted by borracho
reply to post by LUXUS

 

This is in large part because they have to eat almost constantly in order to maintain their bodies and so they have to detect dangers while grazing.

This

There's a lot of weight in this statement.

The following basically backup what I have been saying and it is truly a physiological thing when it comes to humans (and particularly men) wanting to believe they are predators

Were Cro-Magnons the heavy meat eaters D'Adamo portrays? Not according to paleontologist Richard Leakey, who is widely acknowledged as one of the world's foremost experts on the evolution of the human diet. Leakey points out, "You can't tear flesh by hand, you can't tear hide by hand. Our anterior teeth are not suited for tearing flesh or hide. We don't (and Cro-Magnons didn't) have large canine teeth, and we wouldn't have been able to deal with food sources that required those large canines."[81] In fact, says Leakey, even if Cro-Magnons had large canine teeth, they still almost certainly would only rarely have eaten meat. Their diet would have been similar to that of the chimpanzee, our closest genetic relative. Molecular biologists and geneticists, Leakey says, have compared proteins, DNA, and the whole spectrum of biological features and have established very convincingly that humans are closer to chimpanzees than horses are to donkeys. This is remarkable, because horses and donkeys can mate and reproduce, although their offspring, mules, are sterile. A significant difference between humans and chimpanzees, though, is that chimpanzees have large canine teeth that can tear apart their prey, and have more strength and speed than humans. Still, even with these traits, which would be advantages for a meat-eater, chimpanzees, like other primates, eat a mainly vegetarian diet. Dr Jane Goodall, whose work with chimpanzees represents the longest continuous field study of any living creature in science history, says chimpanzees often go months without eating any meat whatsoever. Indeed, she says, "The total amount of meat consumed by a chimpanzee during a given year will represent only a very small percentage of the overall diet."[82]

The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World

reply to post by LUXUS


But we're not chimpanzees.

Humans have large "intestines" and and chimps have large colons.

Chimps are hindgut fermenters. In their colons, microbial fermentation occurs to digest carbohydrate that is indigestible to humans. The end product, by the way, is fat. Which means chimps and apes eat high fat diets in the end. Humans, on the other hand, have evolved to eat a that retrieves fat exogenously, rather than fermenting carbohydrates endogenously.

Originally posted by blackmetalmist

Interesting theory you have posted. I do agree that meat eating is something thought of as a masculine trait. My boyfriend being a prime example. He loves eating meat. He loves his steak and if it were up to him, he would have one with every meal. He's the type of macho guy that wouldnt be caught eating a sandwich and he hates vegetables and fruits. However, he has to take all these vitamins to replace what he is missing out on and he takes about 20 at night. Ill never understand his behavior but I have a feeling he's going to be encountering some major health problems down the road. He's already suffered two heart attacks at a young age but he continues eating this "Atkins" diet thing. I really wish I could help him but I cant. Ive tried to the point that he got mad at me for even trying to get him to change.

I do think that consuming meat should be at a minimum and definitely not in excess.

You say he wouldn’t be caught dead eating a sandwich! this means that for him this is all physiological. Basically he sees eating meat as something macho men do whilst eating veg is something feminine men do. You trying to make him eat veg he sees as you trying to feminise him which makes him angry. Its sad though that his health has and is going to suffer for this peculiar way of thinking! He would be an extreme case of what Im talking about

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


I really cant understand how the following statement has not clinched it for you:

"You can't tear flesh by hand, you can't tear hide by hand. Our anterior teeth are not suited for tearing flesh or hide. We don't (and Cro-Magnons didn't) have large canine teeth, and we wouldn't have been able to deal with food sources that required those large canines

Basically you cant eat the damn thing without fire and tools therefore you never evolved eating meat. Humans may have had a opportunist type attitude that lead them down the road of increased meat eating but the true and natural diet of a human is largely vegetable matter. As for this idea that during the ice age humans could not have eating vegetable matter my question would be what was the animals feeding on then, how did they survive?

Perhaps it was during this time that meat consumption increased however even if this is so humans were fully evolved by this time.

Hmm so if we are supposed to be herbivore why can't we eat grass or munch on leaves from a tree?

I would be willing to bet as a species we have always been omnivours. How much plant vs meat would probably depend on what was available at the time.

Originally posted by LUXUS
reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd

 

I really cant understand how the following statement has not clinched it for you:

"You can't tear flesh by hand, you can't tear hide by hand. Our anterior teeth are not suited for tearing flesh or hide. We don't (and Cro-Magnons didn't) have large canine teeth, and we wouldn't have been able to deal with food sources that required those large canines

Basically you cant eat the damn thing without fire and tools therefore you never evolved eating meat. Humans may have had a opportunist type attitude that lead them down the road of increased meat eating but the true and natural diet of a human is largely vegetable matter. As for this idea that during the ice age humans could not have eating vegetable matter my question would be what was the animals feeding on then, how did they survive?

Perhaps it was during this time that meat consumption increased however even if this is so humans were fully evolved by this time.

Well I can't understand how you overlook the fact that both neanderthal and cro magnon people had stone and bone hunting tools. I don't understand how you overlook the great deal of archeological evidence found across the world of neanderthal and cro magnon peoples butchering and eating meat. There are many archeological sites that have been found, caves littered with bone with scraps and cuts on the bone showing butchering and even broken points embedded in bone showing hunting.

Here is just one link showing cro magnon hunting and eating cave bears 29,000 years ago. Though there are many more sites ranging from Africa to Asia to Europe showing early man making primitive hunting tools, hunting and butchering animal for meat.

In 2000, University of Tübingen paleobiologist Susanne Münzel unearthed a bear vertebra with a tiny triangular piece of flint embedded in it. The stone was likely a broken spear point, hard evidence of a successful bear hunt 29,000 years ago.

Münzel also found bear bones that had clearly been scratched and scraped by stone tools. Cut marks on skulls and leg bones showed that the bears had been skinned and their flesh cut away. "There must have been cave bear hunting, otherwise you wouldn't find meat cut off the bone," she says. Many of the bones were from baby bears, perhaps caught while hibernating.

source

And another showing the evolution of tools and relation to diet with actual evidence of a butchered zebra and other animals. Guess the Smithsonian is making it all up to brainwash men into being hunters. lol

Smithsonian Institute

I guess we should all ignore the archaeological evidence because you point out one paleontologist with an opinion. An opinion I might add that after reading it isn't based on fossils or evidence but comparing the structure of humans to a chimp.

You can believe what you want but the fact is there is plenty of fossil evidence for humans hunting and eating meat going far back in time all the way to the neanderthal.

Originally posted by LUXUS
Basically you cant eat the damn thing without fire and tools therefore you never evolved eating meat. Humans may have had a opportunist type attitude that lead them down the road of increased meat eating but the true and natural diet of a human is largely vegetable matter. As for this idea that during the ice age humans could not have eating vegetable matter my question would be what was the animals feeding on then, how did they survive?

Perhaps it was during this time that meat consumption increased however even if this is so humans were fully evolved by this time.

Humans are NEVER fully evolved. I think that's where you're muddying the water. We're in a constant state of change... but it happens over generations.

Just to clarify even more: Let's just say, for a minute, that we evolved from chimps (which we didn't) just for their similar physiology and DNA. Chimps are not completely herbivorous. If at some point they began consuming more meat, they would demand less energy from plant sources and would have more time to devote to culture and, eventually, technology for the simple fact that they wouldn't be eating all the time. At some point, the need for sharp teeth and claws wasn't needed because of tools. As we ate more meat and less plant food, our bodies adapted to the change in diet by evolving over the course of generations.

Why this idea is so hard for you to comprehend is beyond me.

Hell, there's even a substantial body of evidence suggesting that we evolved into humans (with larger brains and smaller guts than primates) because we began to shift from a plant based diet to an animal based diet.

Originally posted by Azdraik
Hmm so if we are supposed to be herbivore why can't we eat grass or munch on leaves from a tree?

I would be willing to bet as a species we have always been omnivours. How much plant vs meat would probably depend on what was available at the time.

I already explained this if you read the thread and my OP, I said that when humans changed their diet and began eating meat that they damaged their digestive system, their appendix shrank due to less use etc and we are now as we are.

Originally posted by prisoneronashipoffools


Well I can't understand how you overlook the fact that both neanderthal and cro magnon people had stone and bone hunting tools. I don't understand how you overlook the great deal of archeological evidence found across the world of neanderthal and cro magnon peoples butchering and eating meat. There are many archeological sites that have been found, caves littered with bone with scraps and cuts on the bone showing butchering and even broken points embedded in bone showing hunting.

Here is just one link showing cro magnon hunting and eating cave bears 29,000 years ago. Though there are many more sites ranging from Africa to Asia to Europe showing early man making primitive hunting tools, hunting and butchering animal for meat.

In 2000, University of Tübingen paleobiologist Susanne Münzel unearthed a bear vertebra with a tiny triangular piece of flint embedded in it. The stone was likely a broken spear point, hard evidence of a successful bear hunt 29,000 years ago.

Münzel also found bear bones that had clearly been scratched and scraped by stone tools. Cut marks on skulls and leg bones showed that the bears had been skinned and their flesh cut away. "There must have been cave bear hunting, otherwise you wouldn't find meat cut off the bone," she says. Many of the bones were from baby bears, perhaps caught while hibernating.

source

And another showing the evolution of tools and relation to diet with actual evidence of a butchered zebra and other animals. Guess the Smithsonian is making it all up to brainwash men into being hunters. lol

Smithsonian Institute

I guess we should all ignore the archaeological evidence because you point out one paleontologist with an opinion. An opinion I might add that after reading it isn't based on fossils or evidence but comparing the structure of humans to a chimp.

You can believe what you want but the fact is there is plenty of fossil evidence for humans hunting and eating meat going far back in time all the way to the neanderthal.

It is your assumption that I have overlooked this but you are incorrect. Do you really believe that the moment humans were created from the very beginning that they could use tools and make fire????

Obviously as I have said there was a time when humans had not yet started to use tools. I said that I believe that before humans discovered to make fire/tools that they would not have eating meat...they could not catch it! I will make an exception for things like shell fish, frogs, snails...these things can be caught by hand without tools but not bigger, faster, stronger animals ie red meat! There vast bulk of their diet would have therefore been vegetation.

Its not that I'm not seeing something its that you are not seeing something...it would seam that you believe that from the very creation of the human that they could make tools and fire,I totally disagree.

Judging on the current physical makeup of the human body I would say that physically our evolution slowed down dramatically once we started using tools. The result of this is that we see humans now almost as they were when they started using tools ie they evolved UP TO THAT POINT as animals that had a diet of mainly vegetation...yes like a chimp and that is why our body are the way they are.

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


I am aware that we did not evolve from chimps, if we did there would be no chimps left in the forests because they would have became all human.

The fact that we currently cannot eat like a chimp is directly because of us eating greater amounts of meat. We damaged our digestive system and now we cant cope with fibrous plant matter or extract protein efficiently from plant matter.

You however do not have the body of a predator and the reason for that is you did not biologically evolve from one. You evolved from an animal which had a diet much like a chimp.

Humans started using tools and the physical body has remained more or less as it was ie to resemble the body of a veg eating animal.

This is important to understand because it tells you what you should be eating. The correct diet for a human is largely veg/fruit/nuts with a smaller amount of meat and not the other way around. You do it the other way around and you are going against your nature because you did not evolve from a carnivore. Therefore Atkins diet and ANY diet that tries to reverse this will result in ill health and disease, simply you would be eating in a way your body was never designed for and long term cant cope with.

Every animal on this planet has a natural diet and to change it drastically results in illness, no different for a human. This is why it is important to understand what we evolved from so we can avoid the mistake of thinking an Atkins type diet could be considered in any way healthy.

Men however don't like the idea that they are more like chimps and less like tigers it would seam with this stupid obsession that eating large quantity of meat is a masculine thing to do. You never here woman boasting about the amount of meat they consume but you do from men. Actually that would be an interesting study to see if in general males eat meat more frequently then females. Then we would have to ask ourselves why that should be ie is the woman in the house cooking meat because her partner wants it.

So, what you are saying if I am reading correctly, is that any evidence that contradicts your view is not acceptable and will be ignored.

Originally posted by borracho
So, what you are saying if I am reading correctly, is that any evidence that contradicts your view is not acceptable and will be ignored.

What evidence do you have which states that humans were using tools and fire since the first day of their creation?

Originally posted by LUXUS
reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd

 

I am aware that we did not evolve from chimps, if we did there would be no chimps left in the forests because they would have became all human.

I know that. I was making a point through a hypothetical.

The fact that we currently cannot eat like a chimp is directly because of us eating greater amounts of meat.

You got that part right!

We damaged our digestive system and now we cant cope with fibrous plant matter or extract protein efficiently from plant matter.

Damaged our digestive system? Well, no. It just changed over time. That's called evolution.

This is important to understand because it tells you what you should be eating. The correct diet for a human is largely veg/fruit/nuts with a smaller amount of meat and not the other way around. You do it the other way around and you are going against your nature because you did not evolve from a carnivore.

But we did evolve into MORE of a carnivore. What we evolved FROM doesn't matter. What matters is what happened as we did evolve and what is happening now. And right now, our digestive system is pretty telling. You have it backwards, my friend.

Men however don't like the idea that they are more like chimps and less like tigers it would seam with this stupid obsession that eating large quantity of meat is a masculine thing to do. You never here woman boasting about the amount of meat they consume but you do from men. Actually that would be an interesting study to see if in general males eat meat more frequently then females. Then we would have to ask ourselves why that should be ie is the woman in the house cooking meat because her partner wants it.

Men eat more. Period. That's all there is to that.

When you start talking about "what we were created to eat" I tend to realize why this isn't getting through to you.

reply to post by LUXUS


They did not need fire to eat meat. As I already stated in an earlier post, I enjoy raw meat as many do. What tools would they need other that a rock or stick? Why so you assume that these are needed to eat meat? There are many ways to catch and kill an animal. Herding them off a small cliff, stealing a kill from another predator, ect. Would eating small game and insects be considered eating meat? Catching fish can be done by hand in many places, no tools required. What evidence do you have that they knew which plants to eat from the first day?

im glad i read this thread, im starving and am now gunna go have steak n chips. mmmmm steak, medium rare.... oooo and a beer mmmm

Originally posted by Azdraik
Hmm so if we are supposed to be herbivore why can't we eat grass or munch on leaves from a tree?

I would be willing to bet as a species we have always been omnivours. How much plant vs meat would probably depend on what was available at the time.

We aren't meant to eat grass or leaves, we are supposed to eat things that bear a seed. Basically your fruits and veggies and of course nuts etc. We are NOT supposed to be eating meat though, plain and simple.