Are humans naturally vegetarians/ herbivorous?

I agree.
-MT

 

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The South Beach is a great diet that is just plain healthy eating, which combines all diets. After all it was not made to be a diet, but to be healthy.

The basic gist of the South Beach is that the more unprocessed the food, the better for you. All foods have some value, but we should eat the right foods in the right way. It is the only diet that has worked for me, but you have to like vegetables, and nuts...but no food is truly off limits.

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On the topic, we are naturally vegetarians. At least, that is where the essential vitamins and minerals come from.

 

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I think one of the problems with mankinds diet... is grains...

we normally cant eat it.. and.. so.. naturally. we arent meant to.

-MT

 

Yup. Carbohydrates in mass wreck havoc on the blood sugar. Blood sugar has a lot of relevance to your overall health, metabolism, and weight.

 

Soylent Green Is People!

 

but what about our inabillity to digest celulose?

 

We are natural omnivores. That is were the essential vitamins, minerals and proteins come from.

 

Think baboons. We were Africa's cleanup crew.
Plants, fruit, carrion, insects, bird eggs, whatever. We ate it.

Once we moved into Europe in the ice age, we turned almost pure carnivores though and that continued until the invention of agriculture.

 

Have you read it?

Understanding iron in body is very important as it is not catabolized much. Its excess can do much damages. Moreover excess gastric acid??

 

Understanding the effect of any food on digestive pH and on internal pH can be very important in understanding real effect of any food. I think, food type acidic/alk., acid/alk. forming food and acid/alk. ash producing foods are few aspects to be taken differently. Alk. foods may attract more acid in stomach leaving alkaline effect inside alike antacids/alkalinizers...and opposite in case of acidic food. Digestion so absorption of iron, calcium, magnessium, B12, folic acid, protiens may be related to gastric acid...lower the GA lower can be their digestion so lower absorption. I am not sure but I think low stomach acid may encourage more fat absorption in intestine due to better bile effect.
Btw what is the effect of taking meat on gastric acid secretion.

 

jaylee:

Wrong. As spurious keeps repeating to idiots here who are dense as doorknobs, we are OMNIVORES. Check any high school biology book.

Meat contains all the necessary vitamins and mineral. Look at the eskimoes, who survive solely on meat.

Vegetarians who claim that our digestive system is suited to only eating plants/greenery/vegetables/fruit are exactly like Creationists. Ignorant and highly selective in the data which they consider 'relevant'.

 

I have very little patience for idiots like you! But, for discussion's sake --- science keeps chaning its statments every other day. Nothing should become 'unquestionable' because science has said it. Obviously, there are questions to be answered.

I'm not saying that the statement 'humans are omnivorous' is definitely wrong, but then we have to address the questions that come up, even if they don't suit your f*d up mind!

And science is not the only consideration here! But that's for later.

Anyone can subside solely on meat. But even the eskimos can only eat processed meat. For that matter, any herbivorous animal can develop a taste/ liking for processed meat --- that doesn't make it natural or necessarily beneficial for it. (anything that is not natural to a living being will eventually harm in some way or the other way, even though science may not be able or willing to find it out!)

Vegetarians who claim that our digestive system is suited to only eating plants/greenery/vegetables/fruit are exactly like Creationists. Ignorant and highly selective in the data which they consider 'relevant'.[/QUOTE]
As if non-vegetarians are not guilty of being selective in data! If there is even one data that goes against the 'accepted' view, it should get prominence. Vegetarians are at least showing concerns to other life-forms --- something that scientists JUST don't have. Look at all the experiments that they conduct on poor, voiceless animals --- it is worse than third degree torture.

Why should humans have any kind of right at all, when they can't respect the right to live of other life forms? Even if we find out that man is indeed omnivorous, even then his 'superior' brain can only be considered of any use if it if used to control his behaviour that leads to a concern and respect for other life-forms, not by his capacity to destroy his own nature and the environment that he lives in.

 

This is not so much directed just at Kumar as it is several posters. Since this has shifted to a discussion of digestion (which is a relevant part of the topic) I think a quick refresher in human digestion is in order.

For starchy foods, digestion actually beings in the mouth as starches are partly hydrolyzed by the enzymes in saliva into simple sugars. Stomach acid performs four very important functions and only two are related to digestion. First off, it kills microorganisms that enter with food and it also prevents the natural bacteria present lower in the GI tract from moving higher up where they would cause serious problems. And E. coli is simply one of many.

As to digestion, the HCL begins the next phase of it, breaking down some of the more complex molecules - primarily proteins. The secondary action is that it triggers the production of enzymes (the most important one being pepsin) and the production/release of bile.

There's also a grand misconception here about meat(s) being more difficult to digest than vegetable matter. That simply is not true. Meat digests easier and quicker than most vegetable matter because the latter contains several high-order carbohydrates known more commonly as fiber. Fiber provides the structural strength for the material and has to "worked around" to get to the parts that will digest. The fiber itself is generally indigestible and often serves as a barrier. One good example of that that most everyone has experienced at one time or another is unbroken corn kernels. They can pass unaffected through the entire GI tract.

Ounce for ounce, meats and the fats associated with it provide the human body with more energy in a smaller package. It's also easier to carry around since the energy/weight ration is higher.

Final note: the human body is indeed, as has been pointed out already, designed to be an omnivore. In fact, as I pointed out near the beginning, our teeth are combinations of cutter/shredders and grinders. And many herbivores, like cows, oxen, and their like have molars (grinders) only. It's not surprising that many here wouldn't know that important clue since they've probably never seen the inside of a cow's mouth.

 

It is all part of evolution, but we descended from the descendants of chimpanzees and their diet today includes mostly fruits, bananas, pawpaws and wild figs. Chimps are vegetarians.

 

Wow.
That's more stupid than even your usually stupid things you say.
However. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant 'the ancestor of chimpanzees'.

Now. Chimps do eat a lot of fruits. But, they do not exist solely on fruits. They also hunt. They eat meat. Chimps are not vegetarians.

 

Most natural food, which nature invites and gives to us itself, may be fruits, nector etc...which do attracts us. Any food, by eating of which, we are not interfering in nature's progress can be thought as best/most- natural to us. Anyway to maintain us at current level and due to modernization/social effects, just these may not be sufficient or liked...so we may have to go for some other sub-natural, inferior or unnatural type of foods to us. Any veg or non-veg food can still be natural to us provided we support the nature in anyway by eating that.

Any food that gives us more nutient/energy can't be taken as always good or which give lesser may not always be bad (think about foods in diabetes). Best food is that which maintain our balance or homeostatis in general or bring homeostatic state to any individual. Meat, even if easier to digest(may be due to encourage more acid) or give more protien,heme iron etc. can still be thought as "excess(still umbalanced) energy/nutrient giver--so can be harmful in this consideration. Opposite can be true for veg foods...which may provide lesser or stable energy but more type of nutrients, fiber minerals and trace elements with effect on acid/base and water balance. I think, animals keep some gap in killing and after taking meat to metabolize it suitably, but human's may not.

About sin or killing, these may be applicable in both cases of killing plants and animals as both are livings...esp. when we interfere in nature's progress.

Btw, which type of food is of high and low GI(glycemic index)--veg or non-veg?

 

Buddha:

*yawns*

Your gross exaggeration is noted, and passed off as irrelevant drivel. The fact that we are omnivores is well supported and unquestioned by any serious scientist. But hey, forget it. If I want information on the digestive habits of humans, I won't ask a biologist, I'll ask a vegetarian with no prior qualifications or real knowledge in the field.

No, there are no questions to be answered.

What do you mean by 'processed'? Is meat that is cooked over an open fire 'processed'? And how exactly is that relevant to your argument? Do you even have an argument?

Then explain how you can determine whether meat eating is natural for an organism.

More bullshit. Vitamin B can harm humans if taken in high enough doses. I guess the consumption of Vitamin B isn't natural.

If you feel that the scientists today are being 'selective', demonstrate how. Oh wait, you can't. Just more baseless accusations from an anti-science bigot.

Poisoning the well fallacy, and downright defamation.

Geologists conduct experiments on animals?

Irrelevant to the argument at hand. I never challenged the moral arguments for vegetarianism, merely their bogus argument that 'meat eating' isn't natural for humans. Something which you have yet to support.

 

I have some interesting news for you. Plants, mushrooms, fungus etc are life forms too.

And I think you would like to read this particular philosophical essay:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=grill

and this one:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sponsor

 

Monkeys are vegetarians but they don't do all that...

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