Well, what I have heard from a science program on TV, the explanation to why humans are this intelligent as we are today, depends on that we was/are meat-eaters. Meat contain substances wich our brains are edify by.
So, if we had been vegetarians, we would have been stupid as animals I suppose.
As some wag or other remarked long ago, “It doesn’t take much intelligence to sneak up on a blade of grass.”
There is a reason, too, that the only pets we do not keep in cages, etc., are carnivores.
But there are plenty of intelligent animals that are obligate herbivores. After primates and cetaceans, proboscideans are the most intelligent mammals on the planet.
You know, I’ll stipulate that a person would be healthier if they ate more like a typical wild chimpanzee and less like a guy who only eats food he can buy at a 7-11.
Here’s the thing. There are still hunter-gatherer tribes out there. And 100 years ago there were even more. And there has never been discovered a hunter-gatherer tribe that was vegetarian/fruitarian. Never happened.
It’s kind of a funny idea, that there is only one correct method of eating, and it turns out that 99.9% of humanity eats the wrong way. Especially since eating the wrong way is suicidal. Well, if eating the wrong way were suicidal, then how is it that the 99.9% of us that eat the wrong way haven’t dropped dead yet?
Look, it’s pretty clear when you compare human anatomy to chimpanzee anatomy that chimps are more adapted to eating plant materials than humans. Take a look at chimp incisors, which they use to prepare plant materials for eating, by stripping off inedible parts. Humans tend to use their hands and tools to do the same tasks. We’ve got smaller wimpier teeth than chimps, and smaller wimpier jaw muscles. But even chimps eat a lot more animal protein that we used to believe. The notion that chimps eat mostly fruit isn’t true. Sure, fruit is a huge portion of their diet. But they also eat seeds, nuts, leaves, stems, insects, birds, eggs, lizards, monkeys, and pretty much any other source of meat that can’t run away. And although animal foods aren’t a large fraction of their diet, the animal portion contributes nutrients that they just don’t get from fruit and other plant foods.
Well I don’t know, I just heard it from a science program 
Young cow: “Let’s run down there and eat a blade of grass”.
Old cow: “Let’s walk down there and eat it all”.
Most cats will eat some grass once in a while, if they go outside, or go after houseplants if they don’t. I read somewhere it’s a natural emetic. In the case of indoor cats, also, I think anything that comes from outside the house with new smells is fascinating and attractive to them.
From what I’ve seen my cats do after chomping down on a nice bit of babies-breath, I tend to agree.
This ‘fruititarian’ hypothesis is only slightly less gallingly obtuse than the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, and just as utterly specious and ill-founded, as even a superficial survey of human physiology and nutrition will indicate. But it may be good for selling diarrhea remadies.
The Matrix quotes are also about as good of and arguement technique as relying on analogy as proof. The ignorance here is thick enough to spread on toast; I’m pretty sure that that’s not considered meat, so is it lard, or rotten fruit, or Miracle Whip[sup]tm[/sup], or what?
Stranger
Nutella!
Mmmmmm . . . now I wants me some Nutella.
Looks like great apes are in fact susceptible to human diseases:
1, 2, 3, 4.
No indication of whether these gorillas all had access to Hibachis.
As humans live in greater numbers at greater proximity, and are much more closely watched than most apes, it’s not a fair comparison anyway.
I’ve never heard a convincing argument from a raw-food person on the evils of cooking food. For every vitamin that’s destroyed I can think of 10 fods that can;t be eaten without being cooked. My take: People love imposing weird restrictions on themselves and then proselytizing about them. If you personally feel better, that’s great, but I think I’m doing OK. It would have to be pretty convincing evidence for me to believe that billions of humans are needlessly poisoning themselves and not realizing it.
The other day I met a woman who claimed to eat only raw foods and was a chain smoker. I should have told her to sign up and start a thread.
I’ve read that even among populations that were totally vegetarian for religious reasons, they usually get enough insect residue in their grains and vegetables to supply their B[sub]12[/sub] requirements.
I could give up red meat, but it’d be hard to give up chicken.
I’m going to miss telecommunications.
See the sign over there? Guess what it says?
[anecdote]I’ve known a lot of faddist vegetarians & vegans who also did drugs. Not like occasionally, at a party, when it was offered, but daily ‘wake & bake’, stay high all day stoners. Most of the people I knew back then were stoners.[/anecdote]
I suspect that if it were possible, my girlfriend would cheerfully become a full-time nutellatarian.
Judging from the brief glimpse we’ve had of his philosophy, I expect he’s heading out to that bus in the Alaskan outback.
I, for one am sick and tired of hearing those who failed to survive medical treatment for cancer complaining. They just go on an on.
Not trying to defend the guy here, but I did want to point out that I think people are misinterpreting this sentence a bit.
When he says “someone’s cancer” he’s referring to the person’s cancer, not the person. So he’s talking about the cancer boasting about having survived medical treatment, not the person surviving and bragging about surviving.
So he’s comparing people who eat cooked meat to cancer. He’s saying that if a person eats cooked meat and survives, it’s just as bad as cancer surviving a medical treatment. If you eat cooked meat and survive and brag about it, it’s similar to the cancer surviving medical treatment and bragging about it.
At least, that’s what I think he meant.
Now, feel free to attack him for having that meaning. You can mock people all you like for the meaning they actually meant, but taking their sentence out of context (intentionally or not) and mocking them for that just detracts from the thread’s purpose.
I guess Elvis has left the building, but I’m going ahead and posting the observation I came in to make. To me, the simplest refutation of the notion that we’re natural vegetarians is to observe toddlers around birds. What do they do? Chase them! Enthusiastically and with great glee. Apparently, this is a deeply seated impulse. By contrast, put some bunnies around birds and what do they do? Nothing.
Toddlers would chase the bunnies, too. Hell, they’d chase grass, if it moved. 
I’m always ready to admit that I might be wrong, in any argument. (It happens often enough that I can’t rule it out.) When someone comes in to refute one of Cecil’s columns I generally try to keep an open mind.
In this case, I can’t see how telecommunications successfully made a single point. Perhaps this is because scientific journals do not typically rely on Keanu Reaves movies for their factual components, but just in case telecommunications returns, I would suggest Bill and Ted next time.