# Are we "meant" to be herbivores **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 8, 2015, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539 "2015-05-08T09:07:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/41 "2015-05-08T22:22:55Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > In the Bible people originally didn’t have tools. The bible was first written in the early iron age, in a place that was on the periphery of several major empires. The writers of the bible certainly had tools, were familiar with animal husbandry, advanced agriculture, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2015, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/42 "2015-05-08T22:43:50Z")
> [@grude](#): > > JohnClay’s bodybuilder diet thread followed the exact same pattern. He will start a discussion with absurdly biased cites that go against all accepted facts, and then when people point this out he will then find some outlier example online which he thinks negates overwhelming evidence in some weird form of GOTCHA!. It is almost like he wants others to argue with him. > > He also doesn’t seem to be able to critically evaluate sources of info, like pointing out pictures of buff dudes on the website of a company selling a fad diet book as proof it works. > > I’m not trying to attack him here, just giving a heads up. I think he often has an interesting discussion, but goes about it wrong. > [@JohnClay](#): > > BTW a guy I knew from school wrote this blog: > [http://119hours.blogspot.com.au/](http://119hours.blogspot.com.au/) > “Thoughts from a married, 30 something, Vegan, father of four, airline pilot and full time fitness fanatic.” > He competes in Ironman contests and the blog talks about his blood tests. How’s his belly fat? ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/43 "2015-05-09T00:18:44Z")
**Hi I basically just wanted to see if what I mentioned in the OP was accurate. I was going to put it in General Questions but thought it might be better suited to Great Debates.** ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/44 "2015-05-09T00:19:55Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > The bible was first written in the early iron age, in a place that was on the periphery of several major empires. The writers of the bible certainly had tools, were familiar with animal husbandry, advanced agriculture, and so on. I said “In the Bible people originally didn’t have tools.” I meant that Adam and Eve didn’t have tools. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/45 "2015-05-09T00:22:49Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > If you haven’t bothered to read your own link, why should anyone else? I’ve skim read it so I thought other people could skim read it too. > [@](#): > > You’ve been given plenty of evidence that humans are not meant to be herbivores, and to continue saying that the evidence given does not address the arguments in the link you haven’t read is, umm . . . disingenuous. Other pro-herbivore arguments were ignored though. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/46 "2015-05-09T00:27:11Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > As a biologist, I’ve seen this argument going around the internet for a while, and I can tell you that it inevitably relies on a bizarre twisting and misinterpretation of biological facts, if not outright lies. The biology is absolutely clear - we’re adapted for an omnivorous lifestyle. These people are like creationists, with cherry-picking and lies standard practice. Thanks for actually addressing what I was linking to. > [@](#): > > Which is weird to me, because who cares? I found it interesting. > [@](#): > > You want to be vegan? Go ahead. No one’s stopping you. I definitely don’t want to be a vegan but I’m interested in what biology might say. > [@](#): > > Why this insistence on “proving” that it’s “natural”? Which is a completely meaningless term anyway. Well some people say we’re omnivores - that is a similar claim about what is natural. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/47 "2015-05-09T00:35:35Z")
> [@grude](#): > > JohnClay’s bodybuilder diet thread followed the exact same pattern. He will start a discussion with absurdly biased cites that go against all accepted facts, and then when people point this out he will then find some outlier example online which he thinks negates overwhelming evidence in some weird form of GOTCHA!. It is almost like he wants others to argue with him. Basically I find something that I’m not sure whether it is true or not, then I’m looking for the answer. The link seemed to involve a quite intelligent person. I know we are omnivores but I was wondering if our biology is more similar to a herbivore (frugivore). > [@](#): > > He also doesn’t seem to be able to critically evaluate sources of info, like pointing out pictures of buff dudes on the website of a company selling a fad diet book as proof it works. The guy behind the diet is a bodybuilder so it seems possible that those who follow his lifestyle might also have a buff body. I’m not 100% certain though. > [@](#): > > I’m not trying to attack him here, just giving a heads up. I think he often has an interesting discussion, but goes about it wrong. Well I gave up trying to defend the topic after about 2 hours… BTW the reason why I was initially defending it was to get the debate going. It isn’t a very good debate if only one person is debating. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/48 "2015-05-09T00:44:13Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > You weren’t around for a thread he had on a magician’s act, where he could not accept that the only plant needed was the one who was “randomly” chosen to perform the actual trick. Yes it was possible he did that but it seemed too lazy. > [@](#): > > He seems fundamentally incapable of understanding that people will often lie or exaggerate in entertainment or advertising, or that the parsimonious solution is sometimes that the person making an unusual claim is, in fact, honestly mistaken. Here is an example I was talking about… Say a member of the audience had to draw a random animal and they showed the audience and the magician asked if they’ve never met before and the person said yes. And then the magician said “are you sure? You’re not lying are you?” And the person said yes. Then the magician drew the picture and it was exactly the same… In that case a plant could have been used but since the trick is possible without a plant (e.g. the magician has an earpiece) then it shouldn’t use a plant. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/49 "2015-05-09T00:51:21Z")
BTW the thread’s title was meant to have a question mark at the end: **Are we “meant” to be herbivores?** Along with the OP it should be clear that I didn’t have a definite position on it. So this thread involves a question. For some reason I didn’t think it should be in General Questions. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/50 "2015-05-09T01:35:29Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I’ve skim read it so I thought other people could skim read it too. if I wanted to read random links on the internet right now, i wouldn’t be here. > [@JohnClay](#): > > Other pro-herbivore arguments were ignored though. can you name one? Because I thought they were all addressed. Well, all the ones you cited, anyway. Btw, as someone who doesn’t believe the bible, I find the biblical take on eating animals interesting. Not because I think it speaks to our biology, but because i think it is evidence that people have had moral qualms about eating meat for thousands years. Personally, I think this is because we are intelligent, social animals with highly developed empathy, so much that we feel empathy for the animals we kill to eat. But the ability to eat milk as adults is relatively recent (though it predates the writing of the bible). And without that trait, we pretty much need to kill something to survive, because can’t make our own vitamin b12. Well, maybe we could get it from sewage (that’s basically what rabbits do) but raw dead animals are much safer for us to eat than sewage. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/51 "2015-05-09T01:37:18Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > I said “In the Bible people originally didn’t have tools.” > > I meant that Adam and Eve didn’t have tools. Right, but the whole Adam and Eve story and the Genesis story is the story of how people, generally, and the tribes of Israel came to be. At the beginning of Genesis, Adam doesn’t have anything, and then he and his descendants get sex, knowledge, agriculture, childbirth pain, animal husbandry, murder, tools, metal working, etc…it’s basically the summary of the first couple of turns of civilization. But Genesis is just the bible’s description of “How did we get to where we are now” ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/52 "2015-05-09T03:00:06Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > 1. (wiki) _Some animals, particularly ruminants and termites, can digest cellulose with the help of symbiotic micro-organisms that live in their guts, such as Trichonympha._…All in all, a excellent post. Even though Blake made a false assertion (“Humans can’t digest cellulose, but neither can any other animal on the planet”) his post is still said to be excellent. Like I said his statement “crows are perfectly kosher” is also incorrect yet he ignored me when I brought it up… even though I wrote “what do you think? Were you wrong?” So people don’t seem to mind him making incorrect assertions… I’m not sure if I have in this thread made any false assertions… note that the people are quoted are making assertions but I didn’t say that I thought they were the truth. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/53 "2015-05-09T03:08:18Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > if I wanted to read random links on the internet right now, i wouldn’t be here. It was meant to be the focus of the OP but since it all seemed relevant I didn’t quote any of it since it was far too long. “Other pro-herbivore arguments were ignored though.” > [@](#): > > can you name one? Because I thought they were all addressed. Well, all the ones you cited, anyway. Yes people addressed the ones I quoted but hardly addressed the ones in the article link. > **[The Comparative Anatomy of Eating](http://www.ecologos.org/anatomy.htm)** > > Comparative anatomy of carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores I’ll name one argument: > [@](#): > > Stomach Acidity > > CARNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach > HERBIVORE: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach > OMNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach > HUMAN: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach BTW even if it is an invalid argument it is still a kind of argument. > [@](#): > > …Well, maybe we could get it from sewage (that’s basically what rabbits do) but raw dead animals are much safer for us to eat than sewage. Yeah I said something like that. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/54 "2015-05-09T03:20:17Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > BTW the thread’s title was meant to have a question mark at the end: > > **Are we “meant” to be herbivores?** Believe me, that particular issue is not a source of confusion. Your premise that we were “meant” to be anything in particular is what everyone is laughing at. It’s a meaningless question and so has no answer. Humans were not “meant” to be anything. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/55 "2015-05-09T03:24:06Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Believe me, that particular issue is not a source of confusion. Your premise that we were “meant” to be anything in particular is what everyone is laughing at. It’s a meaningless question and so has no answer. Humans were not “meant” to be anything. By putting it in quotes meant it was not my premise. What about when people say humans “are” omnivores? Is that ok? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/56 "2015-05-09T03:24:22Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > Even though Blake made a false assertion (“Humans can’t digest cellulose, but neither can any other animal on the planet”) his post is still said to be excellent. > > Like I said his statement “crows are perfectly kosher” is also incorrect yet he ignored me when I brought it up… even though I wrote “what do you think? Were you wrong?” > > So people don’t seem to mind him making incorrect assertions… I’m not sure if I have in this thread made any false assertions… note that the people are quoted are making assertions but I didn’t say that I thought they were the truth. No animal can digest cellulose. That’s true. Termites and some ruminants have a special symbiosis with a micro-organism that can digest cellulose and leaves behind something termites can digest. So it’s pedantically true that no animal digests cellulose. At worst, it’s a quibble with his post which I also thought was excellent. Crows are not kosher, and I knew that. But chickens are kosher, and they like to eat animal products. (In practice, mostly insects.) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/57 "2015-05-09T03:27:16Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > It was meant to be the focus of the OP but since it all seemed relevant I didn’t quote any of it since it was far too long. > … I don’t understand why you are surprised no one bothered to argue against claims you didn’t bother to make, in that case. Just seems weird to point to some random article and say, “is this wrong?” ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/58 "2015-05-09T03:29:15Z")
> [@JohnClay](#): > > By putting it in quotes meant it was not my premise. > > What about when people say humans “are” omnivores? Is that ok? Yes. There are technical descriptions of carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. We are omnivores. We happily eat and digest most anything except some especially hard-to-eat plant parts that only some very specialized creatures can get food out of. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/59 "2015-05-09T03:37:41Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > …Crows are not kosher, and I knew that. But chickens are kosher, and they like to eat animal products. (In practice, mostly insects.) He said “crows are **perfectly** kosher” and you said that they aren’t kosher… do you see the problem I have with that? BTW I did say “And incidentally the Bible says not to eat carnivores.” so I did make an incorrect assertion but it was roughly correct IHMO. (clean animals are mostly non-carnivores and unclean animals are often carnivores) ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539/60 "2015-05-09T03:41:46Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Yes. There are technical descriptions of carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. We are omnivores. We happily eat and digest most anything except some especially hard-to-eat plant parts that only some very specialized creatures can get food out of. Well in a similar way that article was saying that according to technical descriptions of herbivores we are herbivores. (though it seems to be incorrect) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-meant-to-be-herbivores/719539.md?page=4)