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IMHO - The primary reason humans eat veggies is the plants do not run as fast as animals. However, some have figured out how to be bitter (didn't work so well with cacao or coffee) or outright toxic so we avoid them unless they are weird acting drugs.
It's anecdotal, but I think it is very telling that long-term success with a strict vegetarian diet (not ovo-lacto) requires some education and study and special measures to satisfy your dietary requirements. If you tried to live with a troop of gorillas or orangutans and only eat what they eat you would eventually starve. You could probably survive with chimps, though (if you could keep up with them).
Another bit of actual evidence: great apes that can be categorized as true frugivores or folivores have a sacculated caecum for the fermentation of cellulosic dietary material. Humans do have a sac protruding from the caecum, but we refer to it as the veriform appendix.
Think about how much gas we would pass if we had a stomach set up like grassavores P-U
It's an interesting theory but I wouldn't call it anymore more than that. I could see if all of our teeth were flat at the bottoms like say for example, a horse. But, we have teeth designed for tearing and chewing meat as well as other foods.
I'm not against vegatarian but I'd be hard pressed to believe we were supposed to be that way.
Yup, if we were strict fruit and veg eaters, especially raw, we'd have big gaseous guts just like the great apes. Humans just seem to do better with most of their food lightly cooked at least -- and a lot of things in our diet are downright toxic for us if they're not cooked. Our single stomach and relatively short intestinal tract definitely indicate that we evolved to eat a balanced omnivorous diet. Our very far ancestors may have eaten a more cellulistic diet, but our appendix has long since become vestigial and non-functioning for the purposes of fermenting tough plant fibers to extract the nutrients.
The key to it all is "balance" -- the typical American diet is a little heavy on the meat, dairy and grains; when ideally you should have closer to equal parts animal product (meat, fish, eggs, dairy), fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and about equal parts protein, fat and carbs for balanced nutrition. But there isn't a one-size-fits-all diet... each individual's metabolism and activity/lifestyle may require a little more of one thing and a little less of another. In my case, I am healthier when I eat a little more protein and fat, and a lot less grains than the USDA recommends.
I briefly considered becoming a vegetarian because I can't stand the current conditions in the meat industry, or the dairy, egg and fishing industry for that matter. But, after discussing it with my doctors and nutritionist, I decided to source my animal products from local humane farms instead of opting out of animal products. Eventually I'll be raising all my own food animals on my own homestead so I can guarantee that these animals get to have happy healthy critter lives before they end up on my plate, for which I will be more grateful because I've seen their faces not just a cello-wrapped styrofoam package in a supermarket.
I'm not even going to read the link, as it's an absurd conjecture at best.
I bet it was written by a vegan global warmer CO2-sequ3sterer.
Meat supplies far more HP/LB than grazing feeds. Spend a couple of hours hunting, or 12 hours a day grazing and eating apples and pears. Hmmmmm...
I surmise if there was a vegetarian branch of homo saps way back when, they went extinct because the meat eaters developed superior musculature and endurance, superior problem-solving skills through tracking, finding, and hunting/fishing game animals, and a myriad of other qualities that contribute to our natural predator qualities.
Grazing fields and finding apples doesn't require vast skills. Ask any cow or sheep.
It's anecdotal, but I think it is very telling that long-term success with a strict vegetarian diet (not ovo-lacto) requires some education and study and special measures to satisfy your dietary requirements. If you tried to live with a troop of gorillas or orangutans and only eat what they eat you would eventually starve. You could probably survive with chimps, though (if you could keep up with them).
Until the chimps killed and ate you, everything would surely be peachy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marmac
I look at it this way--------I know many people who eat meat and lived into their 90's.
Do you " vegan folks" live to be 150 or 200 cuz your soooooo durn healthy?
No, they live to 50 but LOOK 150 or 200. It's just a natural thang...
Quote:
Originally Posted by texdav
All this is making me hungary;I am going for a cheese burger to as not to offend anyone.Id it vegetable with a meat garnish or meat with a vegetable garnish? Ponder while I eat it.
I am pondering.
Well, no, actually I'm heading down to the African Savanna Supermarket for some steaks.
o, wait, that's impossible, because mg420 says so. Now I need to go to my hometown and inform my family's neighbors that what they've eaten regularly for generations is undigestable. I bet they'll appreciate the news.
Mmmmm, Tiger meat! Me hungry!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by subsound
We should all eat like we did way back when then.
If it's slow enough to catch, it goes in the pot.
And if it's not as fast as a spear, arrow, rock, bolo, hatchet, or bullet, eat it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dusty Rhodes
Shattering The Meat Myth: Humans Are Natural Vegetarians
Well of course we are!!!! That's why we have canine teeth and incisors, and eyes in the front of our heads, just like the other omnivores.
While it is true that chimps do not eat meat very often, they consider it a great delicacy and they value it highly when they do get some in the wild. Jane Goodall has observed that when chimps are able to grab a baby baboon (which doesn't happen often because the adult baboons are too alert) there is a hell of a scramble for the meat and they're all begging for some from the chimp that has it and trying to get it away from him or her.
i think it's pretty likely that humans are natural omnivores. even if we're not, we're obviously perfectly capable of digesting cooked meat (and uncooked meat in some cultures).
i don't think concentrating on what we were "designed" to eat is worth it, for either side of the debate. but then again, i'm not vegan for my health.
Humans, as evidenced by their tooth structure, stomach structure, and makeup of digestive enzymes were designed to eat both meat and non-meat foods. It is fact, pure and simple.
"Luddites" want to question this because they think people are unimportant, while animals (non-human animal) are "worthy".
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P-U
Chimp diet
