Are humans meat eaters or vegetarians by nature?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I Know this is a response to an old post, but I stumbled on it. Thought I’d see what sort of response this might stir up.

You Put A Baby In A Crib With An Apple And A Rabbit. If It Eats The Rabbit And Plays With The Apple, I’ll Buy You A New Car. -Harvey Diamond

Bottom line every human or sub culture is different, some areas people eat all veggies, some areas people eat all meat. As a culture (western) we rarely eat natural food, even our fruits and veggies are largely unnatural and would not survive long without tending, as they are products of our selective breeding. Mono-crops and high yield fruits are the constant targets of pests, and our live stock are burdened with infection.

Our food eating system is largely based on technology, and culture. We eat what our culture tells us. One cannot separate a human being from their culture, a child can only live by what it’s parent teaches/gives him/her.

Man with out any tools is pretty much a vegetarian, unless you count bugs.

With tools… another story… the questions is what is natural man? Well anthropology draws the line after tool use started, making meat eating part of us, but was it universal?

The question is, and it's impossible to answer, are there any built in behaviors?

All things being equal would a man in a pure veggie/crop society naturally make a spear and catch a rabbit.  Or, would a man in a hunter society naturally plant a seed.

  I disagree, I think ancient men with a natural abundance of veggie food would always choose them, I say that is our nature. We would be driven to hunt only by hunger, or a tradition derived from being driven to hunger.  Human beings are vegetarian by nature, scarcity makes us omnivores.  (I see the argument that, at the store today people choose meat, when veggies are there.  Still disagree, buying meat in the store is the same as picking berries, same effort gets the apple and the steak.)

It is a question of culture, abundance, and effort.

But I think also what mankind would choose to eat in a garden of plenty is a very old question.

2

Put a baby in a crib with a (cooked) hamburger and a (whole) pineapple. If he eats the pineapple and plays with the burger, I’ll buy you a steak dinner!

3

Good point, but I think your making the technology argument I was trying to steer away from. You see there is a lot of technology that goes into that hamburger, to make it ready to go. And for the pineapple you need technology to open it, much like you would the rabbit, or the cow(for the burger).

That quote was more a point on “natural” or “innocent” man. Which I elaborated on. Nature offers things we don’t need technology to get, an apple being one. However as I pointed out again an apple is a product of selective breeding.

And by classification man became man from a proto-species already using technology, which I think makes the question far more complex then it would seem on the surface. The question is our nature or inclination.

4

It wouldn’t have to be Cooked. put an apple and a handful of raw hamburger in a crib and the baby is probably going to eat both.

5

The definition of man as a “tool-using animal” was redundant in the 1960s, as soon as Jane Goodall observed chimps using tools to extract termites from mounds.

I would challenge any claim that there such thing as “natural man” - we are always defined in terms of our relationship with the external world, and it’s meaningless to think of it otherwise.

6

Humans are definitely omnivores, our digestive system has the structure of one. We can survive on plants or meat only, but it takes care to avoid deficiency diseases.

As for technology, we used tools and used fire before we were even human; asking “what would a human eat without tools” is as contrived as asking “what would a wolf eat without teeth”. We’ve evolved to use tools, not fangs or claws or strength.

7

I would wonder have chimps been observed modifying tools, I would use the word crafting. For example modifying a termite eating stick, then storing the stick somewhere for later use. It’s why I originally choose the word technology.

Above is beside the point.

I agree there is no “natural man” as the term might describe, but their might be a base nature. I think that our culture, and environment sorta defines us, where things are “scarce” then leaves us with dysfunctional traditions.

But hypothetically if we remove those dysfunctional traditions, then everything were abundant, then we would find our nature. If there is one. Is my point. With all tradition removed, and “abundance” I don’t think man at this point would ever turn to hunting for a food source, there would be no need, or tradition prompting it.

So there has never been a “natural” man, but from this hypothetical situation. I argue that would be how it goes. So I still contend Man is naturally a herbivore.

8

Or to put it another way, everything we do is natural. We are meat eaters, tool users, city builders and space explorers by nature.

9

So by that measure our nature is constantly redefining itself. I do see that. It does make sense.

I'm using the term "nature" in terms of "basic inclination",  without precedent.

Our farming methods have show for example that cows are biologically capable of digesting other cows when processed a given way. Does that mean that is their nature, or do they eat that because it’s the only thing their environment(the people who feed them), make available.

Now a cow conditioned to this unnatural feed, might (no study ever done) actually choose it, over grass.  It having no predisposition to eat grass.  Or would it know to eat grass?

By the same token would a human being see the apple, or the rabbit as food?

There are further problems. But I’m gonna hold off. This is amusing to me.

10

I would be inclined to view the message of our digestive tract and our particular range of vitamin requirements as pretty much defining the answer. Overall we are omnivores. We can survive on one or the other of meat or vegetables, but in either case we will become sickly or just plain sick. Possibly fatally so. Vegans have a hard time staying healthy, but not as hard a time as someone who eats purely meat. To maximise your health and longevity eat both meat and vegetables.

Vegetarians and vegans may object to the above, but they need to invoke technological aids to their cause. Fermentation, other biological processes, access to unusual farmed vegetables, and produce that relies upon modern technology and industry. Without that, it gets vastly harder to remain in good health with no meat. Since they now have such access, their preference works, but we were talking the intrinsic nature of the species’ construction.

11

Put ANYTHING in a crib with a baby, and the baby will put that item in its mouth – that’s the way babies play. If the baby has no teeth, it won’t be able to eat the apple OR the hamburger/rabbit. If the baby HAS teeth, then it’s already been culturally indoctrinated by receiving food rather than just breast milk. If you feed the baby only breast milk until it’s (say) two years old, and then give it meat and vegetable, it will certainly try to eat both.

In short, the situation was set up by someone with little or no experience with babies. :slight_smile:

12

Based on personal experience with my daughters, a baby will also eat dust bunnies, insects, and coins. They will play with these things before (and sometimes after) attempting to eat them.
I would not try to base any deep insights into human nature on a child’s ingesting habits.

13

I’ve looked at the biological argument and my first inclination is to agree, particularly in the case of vegan diets, where the diet needs B-12 supplementation. Best source for that is meat. So why would I continue to press this argument in the face of what seems to be very clear logic.

Because: The damage that seems to be caused to the human system by meat/animal flesh intake leads me to believe in terms of evolutionary biology there are pieces of the puzzle missing.

Simply put vegetable foods don’t seem to do the damage to us that meat foods do, that in my mind puts weight on the scales the other way.

To put it anther way, on one side we have a food that does not harm us, but is only available through complex technology(agriculture/trade). (plants)

On the other side again we have a food that does harm us, that is again available through complex technology(arrows/cleaning/cooking). (meats)

What then taking technology into account sounds more natural to us, and what unnatural?

Factor in what you have said we find with the all plant diet, and technology. Then considering meat seems to effect us negatively, and we find our natural diet seems to be a herbivore diet.

  There is some accuracy to the fact an omnivorous diet allows us enough time to reproduce.  However the health effects of meats seem contrary to our biology, if it were natural we would have a natural biological response to the health effects.
14

Yah, I think it’s a part of natural development for mammals figuring out what’s good to eat. I used to eat the dogs food. Which is why I was pressing the infant more as a metaphor.

Going down the human/cognitive development road leads down this twisting avenue to speculative development stage recognition of fundamental rights to life, and ones relationship to them.  Again that would come much much later in cognitive development, far after infancy. Which is all speculative and there isn't much factual evidence for, but may be a facet of human nature given the right conditions.  So avoiding that because it's essentially a quagmire, due to lack of good evidence.
15

The negative health effects of a modern diet tend to relate to chronic conditions (diabetes, heart disease) etc, most of which kick in after the age of 20 (i.e. after optimal reproductive time).

Our ancestors faced much more pressing acute threats to health, where having a high-energy diet would be an advantage.

Rather than change our diet to fit our lifestyle perhaps we should amend our lifestyle to fit our diet.

16

It’s not innately “damaging” any more than plants are; we just eat more of it than we evolved to, and live long enough these days for the effects of over-consumption to catch up with us. Meat’s easy to digest (after all, it’s made out of the same thing we are), most creatures can do so; even deer will eat meat if they can get it in pieces small enough to swallow without chewing. They’ve been known to suck down small stranded fish like strands of spaghetti.

17

What damage to the human system is this? To my knowledge the problem with the western meat heavy diet is related to combining overeating with a high intake of animal fat. How is evolution supposed to have predicted that?

18

I think one of the puzzle pieces you’re missing is that there is a HUGE difference between modern vegetables and the wild food our ancestors ate. Many wild plants are edible but also contain various toxins. Pokeweed and acorns both requiring hours of boiling to make them palatable. Wild almonds are much more bitter than the ones we are accustomed to. Wild fruits are much smaller. Many wild forms of common vegetables are more fibrous, in some cases requiring extended cooking to be eaten. Old skulls have teeth worn down by all the constant chewing chewing chewing required. Finding and digging up wild tubers could be as daunting a task as chasing rabbits - and possibly harder than snaring small game.

And keep in mind, our distant ancestors may not have always hunted for meat - humans are just as capable of scavenging the kills of large carnivores as many other animals. Some types of seafood can be gathered on the beach.

Wild plants aren’t as “user-friendly” as the modern domestic varieties. Not all meat is difficult to obtain. The problem isn’t eating meat, it’s that we eat too much meat these days. As omnivores, it’s “natural” for us to do well on more than one type of diet, adjusting to where meat is more easily or less easily obtained.

19

Well it wouldn’t predict anything. But you have it right there, intake of animal fat.
Increased intake of animal fat is linked to heart disease, it seems the human body cannot process it very well.

Overtime it would make sense that nature would select for people who could process animal fats.  But because we can reproduce faster then it kills us, nature has not yet had time to select.  Though on a long enough timeline it would. I really don't want to go into the math on that.  Maybe someone else will :-)

Something like someone who lives 10 years longer will have .1 children more then one who does not, add that over time, factor in the one human being who develops this trait.  It's a long time for it to spread across the whole population.

Point being, we don’t seem biologically able to do it very well.

20

And if the OP wishes to point to a certain Garden as a cite that we should be vegetarians, I’d like to remind him/her that after a certain Flood we were also given permission to eat meat (plus certain other restrictions later on) as long as there’s no blood in it.