Are humans naturally vegetarians/ herbivorous?

I once read somewhere that human beings are anatomically not suitable to eat meat, that they are primarily suited only to eat plants and vegetation.

The evidences cited seemed logical. That humans don't have teeth or paws/ nails etc. strong/ sharp enough to hunt naturally. Neither are their guts designed to digest raw meat. (even cooked meat bring problems!). Also humans find raw meat unpalatable.

It seems humans started consuming meat only once they developed technology (tools!) and found 'fire' and 'cooking'.

However, like everything 'unnatural' meat eating is still connected with several known and unknown health hazards.

Does all this make sense?

 

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yes.. it is true.... we are vegetarians naturally...

but we have due to evolution become meat tolerant...

and we must remember, that before mankind ate meat, the major killer of humans was an amino acid deficiency.. which eating animal protein prevents...


also.. i would not do it.. but i personnaly know people who eat raw meat...
they were of very poor health.. but for some reason raw meat makes them better.

i still cant do it... but ive seen them do it.. often.. even eating older turning green meat that smells aweful... they still eat it.. and say its good.

and the research i have done says its dangerous, only if the meat is dirty with ecoli, or if the meat has worms.. which is common for wild animals, but rare in farm raised animals...

personnaly i promote vegetarianism.. but i myself cant do it, so im not fanatical.

-MT

 

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That depends on what you understand by tolerance. Even cows can tolerate meat if force fed. Most living beings can. Meat cooked is really delicious. But it is also a fact --- which science is corroborating day by day --- that meat eating is not without its hazards --- even farm meat. I had seen a programme on discovery channel, where a boy had eaten half-cooked beef and was crippled for the rest of his life (and don't remember what disease it was, perhaps you guys have seen the programme too!).

Are there any evidences to support that --- clearly there are several animal species --- and they are amongst the strongest living beings (elephants) that do just fine on vegetation. There are several human societies/ individuals that do not eat meat but do just fine, even better than meat eaters. Meat does give much more proteins than most plants do (soyabean is an exception), but they also have several drawbacks for humans --- and a lot more care is needed to store and prepare it than what poor people can usually maintain without technology.

Can you tell us more about them? How can they be of poor health and be 'better' at the same time?

I don't think eating raw farm animals is all that safe. There would be no need for the mad cow disease in the first place.

We are not promoting or demoting. We are just discussing to find out the facts --- whichever way!

(although I see nothing wrong with promoting it IF it is healthier and a more 'humane' way to live --- there are far worse things being promoted with social sanction, as long as you're politically correct!). But first we must find out!

 

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mad cow desease comes from feeding dead cows to cows...

and these people had poor health... till they began eating raw flesh...

the evidense for amino acid defieciency.. is history and science...
that is the curse of being vegan... for if you are not careful, (by eating your beans and rice..) you will become amino acid defiecient and die. its old news.


also..

i know you dont like the bible..
but Genesis.. chapter one,, verse 29.. says.. "plants are for meat"

then in chapter 3 we eat something in the garden and God kicks us out, and when he does so.. we are wearing animal skins...
then we have the many generations before Noah..
and we will notice that only in chapter 9... after The boat lands..
that is the first time.. the bible says its ok to eat meat.. I.e.. we didnt have permission before that time...

i would suggest,, that in this way Genesis discusses mans change in diet..
and the generations before noah, was alittle evolution... leaving the survivors as slightly more meat tolerant than original humans were...


i do not promote meat... but i cannot deny it either.

also, we must all admit the fact that eating meat, especially cow is wastefull...
since the amount of food the cow eats could of feed alot more people than ever the cows flesh can do....

so while i may give up beef, and pork... i dont think i can give up on chicken.

-MT

 

Nevertheless, they are farm animals. They give all kinds of hormones and other stuff to farm animals all the time. And in any case, flesh is flesh. It gets contaminated easily. Carnivorous animals have stomachs that can digest any bacteria (o.k. most!) and other potentially harmful organisms that meat may contain.

Please elaborate. And also give more details of these people who ate raw meat. Amino acid deficiency is not directly a product of vegetarianism. It is a product of not eating a balanced/ complete diet (as you yourself say!) --- rather of malnutrition. Elephants get all the Amino Acids they need from grass and trees. Surely, humans need much less than that.

It's not the curse of being vegan.

Religion --- rather spirituality loses most of its value if it cannot show compassion towards the life and pain of others --- if it only considers the life of humans to be valuable and worthy of attention while considers those of others as dispensable --- its not worth much.

To promote vegetarianism is to promote higher human values. It may be against Western/ Christian values though. But really that is not the point here.

I have lately stopped eating eggs. Till now, I used to eat them, thinking that the chicken are not inflicted pain when securing their eggs which are in any case infertilised (what's the word for it!) and can't feel pain.

Till I considered how they raise chicken like they were products --- how they exploit them, deprive them of a natural life --- of things that they were naturally supposed to do, enjoy and experience in order to give us egg and meat.

 

And did I mention that I'm extremely fond of eggs. They make me go weak in the knees.

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Well, I would say that perhaps you've not given enough thought to dentistry.

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Compare the human teeth to those of meat-eating animals and then to those of herbivores.

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That too!

 

It's wrong news. You can quite easily get your proteïns without meat. I think lack of B12 is a more common problem for vegetarians.

 

Our teeth and digestive system say we are omnivores. Unfortunately they are not members of this forum so they asked me if I could post their views.

 

I happen to love eating salted slivers of raw beef...

I have very pronounced canine teeth; eye teeth...
Very long and sharp, I get comments about them regularly.
This leads me to believe that meat was an important part
of my ancestors diet. You will see the teeth of Asians
have shoveled incisors which has been used to cut and
work with bamboo into the distant past.
It is true that we don't have the claws of other predators,
but we do have very large brains which would have been
necessary and maybe even a result of having to
hunt cooperatively. A purely vegetarian foraging primate
would not have had the impetus to pull himself upright
and leave the abundant food of the jungle to venture onto
the dry plains where the deer and the antelope played.
You might want to take a look at chimpanzees, our little
cousins, as its not unknown for them to kill and eat meat;
even to the extent of cannibalism.
Speaking of mad cow disease, a large percentage of people alive
today have a genetic marker indicating that their ancestors at
some time in the past practiced cannibalism. The genetic marker
shows exposure to the human equivalent of mad cow disease.
While it is true that the industrialized meat industry leaves mucho much
to be desired; what with the hormones, the living condition of the animals
and of the actual quality of the end product, I remain sure in my own mind
that meat is a necessity.
One way around having to deal with industry standards, or lack of them
is raising your own meat animals. MT, it isn't very hard to raise chickens
for eggs, and might actually be a rewarding little hobby.

 

I also happen to LOVE eating
salted slivers of tender raw and bloody morsels of beef.
MMMMMM; yeah.
That was actually one of things my wife and I bonded
over nigh unto ten years ago when we first met.
Young love and raw meat.

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Can meat make us to absorb more iron? Can it mke gastric environment more acidic?

Gastric acid may also effect digestion so absorption of other substances.
So, can taking meat make us more irony?

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I haven't found a good general site yet, but here is for instance a site that shows what people have been eating in the distant past (20.000-3000BC) in one location.

http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/classics/history/bronze_age/lessons/les/1.html

it's quite interesting to see what people actually ate.

 

There are perfectly adequate sources of iron in vegetables and fruits, plus they don't carry with them the negative consequences of eating meat.

 

What are the negative consequences of eating meat?

 

Two weeks ago, I sat down with a gentleman at a Christmas party. We got to talking about diets, and I shared with him Dr. Agston's diet, The South Beach. I don't remember what the new book he was talking about is called, but in it, it talked about the negative effects of meat (because of the acid). The diet was centered around the acidity of foods, and how if you keep your blood ph at a certain level (alkaline) you are more healthy. He claimed that the book talked about how it is the acidity of the blood that is attributed to cancer. Apparently cancer thrives in an acidic environment, so the goal of the diet is to keep your blood alkaline. Here is an alkaline diet from the wolfe clinic:

http://www.thewolfeclinic.com/acidalkfoods.html

Here is a bit of info on the diet:

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/alkalinediet.htm

Note that there have not been any scientific studies to prove the diet's success, and the link above reports that conventional doctors do not agree with the alkaline diet. I also came across a Christian page supporting God's view of eating vegetables and avoiding meat. It is called the Vegan diet.

http://www.clsnet.org/mmPages/chaplain/cancer.php

Lemmings anyone? :bugeye:

I don't know about you, but where's the beef, baby!

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Your blood is naturally slightly alkaline- about 7.35 to 7.4. If it moves appreciably from that value, you will die. Or in other words, the diet is mince right from the start.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00356.htm
http://members.aol.com/Bio50/LecNotes/lecnot39.html

I can think of no way in which what you eat can seriously affect your blood pH, because the food is broken down into molecules for use, so your body regulates all that to keep your pH stable and you alive.

Reading the article on altmedicine, I see it is just another way of getting you to eat fruit and vegetables, which is what you should be doing anyway. It looks like just another diet based on the old magical principle of like attracts like, which just goes to show how wired that is into our brains.

 

neanderthal man ate raw meat... and they say he didnt disapear... just inter-breed with humans... and their genes were not dominant... so they disapeared...

-MT

 

We should all go on the Paleolithic diet