So What Are We Supposed To Eat?
(Disclaimer - What you are about to read may annoy you or make you angry. These are my opinions and by no means a scientific doctrine.)
It seems now everyone uses evolution to preach their eating preferences. There are many arguments on both sides; whether we are an omnivore or an herbivore (vegan or vegetarian or raw).
Both sides will agree we are not meant to eat purely meat. The argument then stems from whether we should eat some meat, or no meat at all.
I think you should eat any way you please. If your reason for eating a certain way is evolutionary or based on what you think science claims and this is what you preach to others, and not because of any moral, religious, cultural, or preferential reason, then I have to clear the air.
Herbivore Argument
On that side people will argue that we were never designed to eat meat. The comparisons are drawn with carnivores to prove this point. This is already a weak comparison, comparing us to a group that only eats meat when even the most meat loving human will only meat less than a third of the time. So a group that only eats meat compared to a group that sometimes eats meat is like comparing apples to oranges.
Why don't we have fangs and claws? Why don't we have the stomach acid of carnivores? Because man evolved without needing those things. Man had the superior intellect, ability to use tools, and fire. All of which were needed for survival. Man originally only needed to eat, sleep, and procreate. We didn't initially need tools to build cars and write books. Tools had to somehow help us live, help us get food, help us hunt, keep us warm. Now tools are about convenience and entertainment but it wasn't always the case.
We may not have the stomachs of carnivores, but we also don't have the stomachs of herbivores either. If we did we would have multichambered stomachs or highly developed digestive sacs.
What about our jaws? We can move it side to side like other herbivores. Yes we were designed to eat lots of vegetable matter. But we also weren't designed to chew cud for hours, vomit it up and chew it again or be able to poop out highly nutritious pellets that we would eat again to absorb more nutrients.
We also didn't need to have jaws of lions because we became the apex predator due to our intellect.
Our small intestines are much longer than carnivores, and more like the herbivore. But if you measure us from mouth to anus, the length of it would put us somewhere between a lion and a cow. Right near the middle as far as length, like an omnivore should be.
What's also interesting is though we don't have the ability to break down meat like a lion, we can't break down cellulose either like a horse or a cow. If we could break it down like that, there would be no need for a juicing craze. We would be able to break down all that cellulose and extract the nutrients on our own.
But the whole point of why its so popular, and extremely popular in the vegan and vegetarian communities is because of that very fact, that the human body can't break down the nutrients so we need to juice it out instead. Juicing is natural they say, its what we were meant to do. Except we never evolved with juicers and we were evolved to eat the plant in whatever form and combination it came in. We evolved right along with the plants we ate. We go and study native diets to see how they fight off diseases, and the foods they eat in what combination. Then we use reductionist science to get the good stuff and put it into a drink. How is that anything like eating a native diet? We need a blender and a juicer and chemists to get back closer to how the natives ate? Its like reducing an orange to a vitamin C pill and telling you it's just as good as an orange. Certified nutritionists will actually use that logic with clients and sell them on cleanses and pills.
Its totally contrary. To say we can't break down cellulose so we need to juice, and then say we need to juice and eat vegan because we were only meant to eat plants and not meat. If we were designed to only eat plants, why do we need to juice to break down the cellulose? Why can't our stomachs break it down like every other herbivore can? Why do we need the juicer to extract all the nutrients when we were meant to only eat plants? Its completely contradictory. Their argument for why we should juice is the same argument why we aren't good herbivores. The evolutionary justification of this diet does a terrible job explaining why you should do it. They should just stick with it being good for your health. Or the best reason, it truly is the best way to lower toxicology. Not the best in macro-nutrients but good in cleaning your system. Use a holistic reasoning. Not a genetic one, because that reasoning that will prove you wrong. I don't understand why people who eat a certain way feel the need to explain it with evolution. Don't. It's totally the wrong talking point. There are much better ways to build your case. (I think personal training so many lawyers has been affecting my writing style.)
What about chimpanzees? They mostly eat plants. Mostly. Even they will go out of their way to get meat. That's not the counter argument though. The counter argument is, as close as chimps are to us, we are much closer genetically to the neanderthal. The neanderthal was the predecessor of man who mostly ate meat. Which also isn't efficient, because any food source can become scarce. There is about 6 million years of evolutionary difference between us and the chimpanzee as well. Things change.
Why do native tribes do so poorly now in the hunt when their tools are more advanced than the stone tools used in the past? Well why are there so many extinct animals? Modern versions of early tribes like Pygmies don't have the same abundance of animals to hunt because wild animals are now scarce to begin with.
Scarcity and Thrifty Genes
Actually we were designed specifically for scarcity. We were never meant to be able to eat a whole lot like some animals. We could eat a small amount and be able to do a great deal of activity off of that little amount of energy. It's why we gain weight so easily now, because humans were never designed for a world where food is unlimited. Those thrifty genes that kept us alive during famine, is what's killing us now with obesity. Your body needs less food than you think.
What about "The China Study?" A lot of criticism has been written about this book already so I won't recap it all. And yes more vegetables is good for you. My dad currently has cancer and one of the first things we did was get him off all the sugar and processed carbs and get him eating more fresh vegetables. Denise Minger at Raw Food: SOS does a much better job than I can breaking it down. She is by no means a hardcore meat lover. Quite the contrary, she is a raw foodist. One of the problems with "The China Study" is hand picking statistics and data.
Another good read on another site that is aligned with vegetarians is the International Vegetarian Union. They have a great article on What Did Our Ancestors Eat. The site promotes vegetarianism and veganism throughout the world. Here is the first line of the article:
"You sometimes hear the argument that humans are "naturally vegetarian" or that they evolved as vegetarians. This is somewhat dangerous to pursue as the scientific evidence all indicates that we are omnivores, i.e., we can survive on a wide variety of plant and animal foods"
It is completely fine to be a vegetarian or vegan like I said. The problem I have with it is the use of evolution to justify it. In the above article, though they outline how our ancestors ate meat and evolved to eat meat, we would all still probably be better off if we ate more plant matter or a completely plant matter diet.
To say we should eat this way, I can respect. So eat that way. Just don't justify it with science. Justify it with preference. Actually you shouldn't have to justify it at all. Your choice is your choice. But to say we always ate this way (just because that's how you choose to eat now), is just plain ill-informed and ill-conceived.
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