[QUOTE=SnakeBabe]
I was trying to discuss are humans naturally carnivores (as in the topic title) and the evidences I see says we are not.
[/QUOTE]
But the topic in the OP is a strawman, since no one has said that humans are carnivores. And you have continued to defend the strawman, in the face of the fact that NO ONE HAS MADE THIS CLAIM.
Humans aren’t carnivores. Humans are herbivores either. The overwhelming evidence, both archeological and physiological is that humans are omnivores. Now, if you want to try and attack THAT position, then feel free. Straw is not on the menu, boyz…
Obvious examples of humans and pre-humans eating meat go back hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of years. It’s hardly a new trend in human behavior.
Again, no one is saying we are carnivores…no one. So, attacking that position is simply continuing the strawman from the OP.
Hopefully all of this was said tongue in cheek.
:rolleyes: Again, I’m hoping you are just kidding with all of this horseshit.
I agree with you that it does paint with a broad stroke of the brush but I pass that as just authors opinion. I dont even know what an animo wold taste like but with the exception of sushi I do not know of anyone that eats raw meat daily as a carnivore can. All in all, I didn’t see falsehoods that would make me throw this article in the trash but thanks for reading it. I appreciate your time
[QUOTE=SnakeBabe]
I dont even know what an animo wold taste like but with the exception of sushi I do not know of anyone that eats raw meat daily as a carnivore can.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that this is the case because you live in a modern, technological society and that you have the CHOICE as to what (and how much) you eat, and how it’s prepared…has it?
It’s a message board. Participate or don’t participate at your own pleasure. It’s not MY message board…I merely participate as the whim and leisure time take me. If you want to try and defend the position that humans aren’t meant to ‘naturally’ eat meat, then feel free. We’ve had plenty of debates on this, and the facts seem pretty overwhelmingly against the notion that humans don’t eat meat ‘naturally’, but feel free to knock yourself out.
But batting at the position that humans clearly aren’t ‘Carnivores’ is tilting at a strawman that, afaik, no either on this board or anywhere else has made (caveat…I’m sure some bonehead some time in the past has asserted this, but it’s hardly a common theme).
The topic of the OP came long before this discussion. A lot of people “out there”, especially men, proudly claim to be carnivores. And they each include others, but not ‘strawmans’, in their claim.
I agree that we are omnivores, and because few of us are hunter/gatherers, scavengers.
This page claims that digesting food rots (putrifies) in the intestines. This is misleading, if not an outright falsehood. Digestion is not the same as decaying. It is true that microbes play a role in both digestion and decay, but to equate the two is the same as equating rolling in a mud puddle with taking a bath, because the end result in both cases gets you wet.
Yes, there is a difference between a carnivore’s intestine and an herbivore’s intestine. That is because meat is easily broken down by the animal’s digestive tract, and the useful nutrients and amino acids extracted. Whereas herbivores are trying to digest cellulose, something that their intestinal tract cannot do by itself. Herbivores require the use of bacteria in their intestinal tracts to break down the cellulose.
Ruminants are like cows. They have a large digestive system before the stomach were fermentation takes place. The microbes in this area, the rumen, help break down the cellulose into fatty acids and nutrients that the ruminant can absorb. Then the food, including microbes, pass down the stomach and through the small intestine, and finally the large intestine. Ruminants actually digest the microbes and use those amino acids and fatty acids.
Non-ruminants also have a fermentation chamber where microbes break down cellulose, but in non-ruminants this occurs in the long large intestine, behind the small intestine where much of the nutrients get absorbed. Because of this, non-ruminants do not digest the microbes from their gut, and therefore actually have to eat more and excrete wastes that have more undigested materials in them.
Rabbits are non-ruminants that have devised an interesting system to make their digestion more efficient. They have two distinct types of bowel movements. Their digestive system makes use of an appendage called a cecum, that helps digest and break down the cellulose material. Because this cecum is located after the small intestine, the digested material will not be absorbed in the large intestine before the rabbit poops. Therefore, the rabbit has evolved a system that alerts it when it is going to poop out this kind of material, called a cecotrope. The rabbit then eats this cecotrope, which allows the partially digested material to reenter the digestive tract, go through the stomach, and then be absorbed in the small intestine.
So, what reality says is that the animals more likely to involve “decay” as their digestive system are herbivores. They require more time because they are trying to digest cellulose, which their bodies cannot do on their own, and they require microbes to do the work. Whereas meat is digested much more quickly, and thus the digestive system for carnivores does not need to be nearly as long.
A pig is a true omnivore. Look at pig teeth. They do have incisors, and they do have canines (tusks), but they also have grinding teeth.
Horses do not have canines. They have incisors up front and molars in back, and a gap between them.
Humans have incisors up front, molars in back, and humans have canines. They are small canines, but they are present. They do not resemble tusks, but they are a bit pointy.
So it is unfair to state that omnivore teeth are more similar to carnivore teeth. Of course the part you see is more similar, because the grinding parts are hidden toward the back of the jaw and the pointy bits are up front where they can do the tearing and such. This is at best misleading, if not a deliberate misrepresentation.
That page also shows pictures of “herbivores”, and shows an orangutan. Yet, while orangutans are largely frugiverous (fruit eaters), they are also known to eat meat.
Now I concede that 90% of their diet is from fruit, which makes them mostly vegetarian. And insects may not seem the most “meatlike” to you. But you must concede that lorises (small primates), gibbons (small primates), young birds, and tree rats do constitute meat. And vegans classify eggs as meat as well, so you must concede that this is simply either an exaggeration or a falsehood about orangutans. They eat meat. Maybe a small percent of their diet, but nevertheless, it is a part of their diet.
Is that enough stupidities for you?
I agree that humans are not naturally carnivores, and that the thread title is inaccurate and the OP misinformed. That does not dismiss the fact that humans do eat meat, and have for longer than we have been humans.
However “natural” it seems to you, anthropology is solid that “cave men and women” did develop tools like clubs and spears and learn to hunt and cook meat long before they developed such things as walking completely upright, language, or building shelters like huts and such. However much sense it makes to you, it is what happened.
The fact is, pre-humans used their physiological adaptation to be excellent hunters even if they didn’t have sharp claws and teeth, or the speed to chase down a gazelle. Instead, they used the technique called “persistance hunting”, which involves chasing a prey animal until the prey animal exhausts itself. You see, humans have an adaptation that animals like gazelles and such do not. Humans are able to sweat, and to have endurance. Now your modern first world person may be a bit of a softy used to sitting around all day, but our ancestors were survivalists that could run their prey animals into the ground. You see, the prey animals race off and get hot and panting, and then have to rest, but the humans can breathe and sweat and come along in their trail, and force the prey to run again, and again, and again, until the prey animal exhausts itself and cannot move. At which point the human walks up and conks it on the head, or breaks its neck, or cuts its throat. Because it is too tired to move.
There are human tribes that still do this kind of hunting.
There are folks in Africa that hunt down grasshoppers, not so they can go fishing, but because grasshoppers are tasty treats. There are groups in Africa that cut open the throat of a live cow and capture a cup/jug of blood, then patch up the cow. They then drink the blood from the cow, fresh. While the very thought of this disgusts me to no end, it is a common practice.
You are trying to make judgements about humanity based upon your limited personal experience, rather than awareness of the practices of humanity as a whole throughout history.
Not of necessity. I can be in favor of reforming abusive practices without forgoing meat.
But on the other hand, if you’re arguing that the meat industry is cruel and we should be vegetarians because of that, why bring in the nonsense about humans not being “supposed to” eat meat? It’s two separate issues. By all means, highlight cruelty and work to change it. But whether or not raising animals for food is cruel, it has nothing to do with whether humans are naturally omnivorous or not.
Yes, metaphorically. There’s a difference. All they mean is that they really like to eat meat.
Powers &8^]
I’ve heard that before, but I don’t see how it can be the case. To get your daily requirement of a nutrient, you generally have to eat something on the order of a serving. A light dusting of manure that you might not notice would be measured in milligrams
Human beings make terrible vegetarians. We usually only eat the seeds and fruits of plants and leave almost everything else behind. The vast array of grasses and leaves are completely inedible for us. The problem with seeds and fruits is that they’re terribly seasonal. They’re usually available during the late summer and fall, so they’re hard to find most of the year.
The vast majority of vegetable calories are tied un in inedible (for us) grasses and leaves. The solution is really quite simple. You have a bunch of wildebeests eat the inedible fibrous grasses for you. Let them turn it into nutritious body parts. Then you eat the wildebeests.
Chimpanzees, our closest genetic relative are also omnivorous. They chow down regularly on insects, especially calorie rich termites. They hunt and eat animals down with gusto. And use the meat to curry favor with other members of their troop. And, you can look at the archeological evidence. Plenty of Paleolithic butcher sites abound filled with splintered animal bones and broken stone tools. Those animals didn’t just butcher themselves.
You want to argue that you can be healthy on a vegetarian diet, I can’t argue with you. You want to say that you’re a vegetarian for moral reasons, more power to you.
However, eating meat is an activity that humans have been doing even before Homo Sapiens first appeared.
Hmmm. Is the twig a chimp uses to drag termites from a stump a weapon?
Probably, huh?
Speaking of chimps, ones who have been trained to box are required to license their hands as deadly weapons.
Okay, that’s silly. But my query about the twig is serious.
Having seen that video many, many times, some of the video is very disturbing, but in most cases farms well run, clean. Those that are not quickly go out of business. because after all it’s a business. Yes any farm suffers losses, but with each animal lost, that’s cash out of their pocket. So it’s in their best interest to keep each animal health.
They spread that over the crops they grow. How about a nice video of children eating a salad, with the words grown with sewage over it. Then some sinister music as a video of waste being spread over a crop, with the caption, “Do you want your child eating sewage?”
If you don’t want to eat meat, fine, but to paint farms with that wide of a brush is unfair.
First off,
All respect. Its a tricky topic, being that yes we can and probably will do anything we feel like as humans, cause we can get away(for a time)
There was a comment a while back saying we’ve been happily eating meat for 2 million yrs or something. We have eaten meat for a long time yes… But i would not say happily.
Also, to me growing up and enjoying cooked and seasoned meat thoroughly can relate to its addictive qualities. I see no reason to base ones decision to eat meat on this. I personally find it flat out disgusting and repulsive that we tear apart animals and consume them. Its pretty foul. I have a strong stomach… Its not about that. Its about why would this living walking creature be my food? More to come…
Yet you don’t mind eating the poor living plants. Once you start excluding food sources on the basis of being alive, it sounds pretty silly to say you will kill and eat living plants, but not living animals.
It’s a message board. Participate or don’t participate at your own pleasure. It’s not MY message board…I merely participate as the whim and leisure time take me. If you want to try and defend the position that humans aren’t meant to ‘naturally’ eat meat, then feel free. We’ve had plenty of debates on this, and the facts seem pretty overwhelmingly against the notion that humans don’t eat meat ‘naturally’, but feel free to knock yourself out.