- Health Reasons for Switching to a Vegetarian Diet
- You are What You Eat
- What Did Our Ancestors Eat?
- Why Did Humans Start Eating Meat?
As a vegetarian, I have been thinking about why humans started eating meat in the first place. This question is interesting, because originally, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and not omnivores.
It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention, and prehistoric humans who lived in frozen areas ate anything that they could to survive. What I am saying is that, the prehistoric man had to eat meat in order to survive. This would be the first time that they had ever eaten meat. And because of this, it changed the way people would eat forever.
The first meat that was eaten would have been cooked by fire that was natural started by natural forest fires. Without fire, they could have possibly eaten raw meat as well. The digestive system most likely rebelled to eating the raw meat, but as they became adjusted meat became a part of their regular diets.
You may have heard of people who have lived vegetarian lives for a long period of time and then became violently ill after eating meat. This is similar to what prehistoric men would have gone through.
We are not really designed to digest meat, but we have adapted to it over time.
Tags: diet, history, meat, vegetarian
I have to disagree, humans are definately designed to eat animal tissues as the amino acids of their proteins are easily absorbed into our system, more so than amino acids from plants. It is possible for humans to digest raw meat, although this leaves us open to diseases and parasites, most likely the reason for the short lifespan of ancient humans. It is very difficult to survive on a vegetarian diet, especially if you are an athlete or active in your life. You have to admit, most vegetarians do not have a balanced diet and look very malnourished.
The Directors last blog post..The Circadian Rhythm of the Digestive System
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jens reply on June 23rd, 2009 5:48 am:
Sorry for the late reply. Close to every discussion I’ve seen states that we were not originally designed to eat meat. We’ve adjusted, that’s a different story.
For instance, read this interesting discussion at Yahoo! Answers:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071028153001AARoCmi
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I am a 64-year-old white male, physically active, working 38-43 hours a week, plus gardening, and taking care of 3 cats, 3 dogs, and 4 birds. I weigh 148 lbs., and had a stress-related heart attack 10 years ago, at which time I had two stints implanted.
I have always been a “red meat” eater, but never to excess. I vary my meat diet daily, from beef, to pork, to ham, to steak, to bacon, to chicken, and so forth. I mix in pizza, soups, very few fruits, and I don’t expect to live to be 85 years old, because at that age I will not be a productive member of society.
Further, my digestive system is cleared daily by 3-4 oz. of cranberry juice, which sends me to the toilet within 20 minutes of rising in the morning.
And there’s something to be said about vegetarians looking malnourished, in an “appearance-contious” society.
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jens reply on June 23rd, 2009 5:52 am:
Hi Dennis.
You can have a great meat diet when it comes to proteins, vitamins and so on. I have no doubt about that at all. There are vegetarians looking malnourished, no doubt about that either
It’s important to be careful of what we’re eating. I’m a vegetarian, and most of the time, I have to be thinking about what sort of food I’ll be eating to get all the “right” stuff that my body needs. If I didn’t have to think, I would be eating pizza every single day
- jens -
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screw vegetarians
meat is the shit
wouldnt be ALIVE WITHOUT IT!!!!
all vegs i know are dicks
and for every animal they dont eat i eat 3
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We clearly are designed to eat meat, hence our incisor and canine teeth! Also, most, if not all other primates have these teeth and eat meat, so it is probable that our common ancestor ate meat.
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I have some questions. In your post, you write “our ancestors were hunter-gatherers, not omnivores.” Doesn’t hunter-gatherer naturally imply being an omnivore? If they were vegetarians and not omnivores, what did they hunt? The ancient wild-roaming apple, or the flighty nut tree, whose fruit sprouted wings and buzzed annoyingly like large, edible mosquitoes? I don’t think so. Hunter-gatherer means, but definition, that they hunted animals, and gathered plants. If ancient human beings were in fact vegetarians, and I don’t doubt that in some cultures or climates that might have been true, then they were just gatherers. With your Freudian slip in using the term hunter-gatherer, you subconsciously admit that you don’t even believe your own argument. Q.E.D.
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Ermm..
“This question is interesting, because originally, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and not omnivores.”
You are aware what the hunter part of hunter-gatherers is about, right?
We are omnivores, look at similar animals like chimpanzees who are omnivores as well. Look at our teeth, look at the fact that without meat and access to multivitamins and a grocery store with a produce aisle people would be starving to death constantly. Vegetarianism is possible because of technology, not in spite of.
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jens reply on September 1st, 2009 7:41 am:
Hi Robert, you are right. I see that what I wrote was not entirely what I was going to write (therefore, it was not the truth)
Hunter-gatherers were omnivores, in the beginning they ate animals, but “only” dead animals. According to Wikipedia, “The first hunter-gatherers may have lived in mixed habitats which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits and scavenge the occasional dead animal and in this sense were more meat scavengers than actual hunters.”
They got most from gathering rather than hunting; up to 80% of the food from gathering (according to wikipedia).
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get a life reply on December 4th, 2009 7:38 pm:
your smart! taking advice from wikipedia, a non credible poop site. Smoke another one douchebag.
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STFU EAT MEAT !!!
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I have to disagree with the premise of this article. Numerous studies have shown that humans can live and be in excellent health surving on a 100% Carnivorous diet. After reading this I just wanted to add to point others to an idea of nutrition I tend to agree with. Look up Weston A. Price. The problem with our diet is because we do not eat at all like hunter-gatherers. Eskimos eat over 90 percent meat and have extremely good health. They often eat seals raw. They eat whale blubber. They are by far healthier than any group of modern industrialized or even traditional agrarian peoples. As I see it we eat way too many sugars and complex carbs. We eat way too much cheese and dairy products in general. Too much fried food. Not enough of the animal is eaten. You eat beef? Eat the heart and the kidneys too! Consume blood. I’m telling you beef heart tastes great and has nutrition that you need. Did you know that certain animal organs do contain Vitamin C? The big mystery of the West for hundreds of years as to why they suffered Scurvy but Indians didn’t lied in the fact that Westerners often neglected to eat the whole animal or couldn’t afford to. As a descendent of the Lakota I can tell you that we became extremely un-healthy when we adopted the Whiteman’s diet. Ever since I started eatiing heart and kidneys 3 to 4 times a month, drinking whole milk as often, and limiting my carbs to split peas, lentils, oat bran, and fresh fruit I have improved my health immensely. I feel better than I did when I was in my early 20’s, seriously! My wife, who is very picky and was raised on home cooking, refuses to come over to my new diet but is amazed at how happy and healthy I’ve become. You would be amazed at how good you feel after eating a few slices of beef heart! It’s like an injection of youthful vitality.
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The Comparative Anatomy of Carnivores, Herbivores and Omnivores.
http://www.whale.to/a/comp.html
The evidence speaks for itself.
Choosing to eat meat is not the same as evolving to eat meat.
We have not adapted to eat meat either, hence cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer and any other autoimmune and lifestyle disease.
Refer to The China Study by Colin T. Campbell http://www.thechinastudy.com
THE most comprehensive study ever done on nutrition.
That also goes for processed foods, dairy and non-organic fruit & vegetables.
If you eat meat for pleasure, fine but don’t think it’s healthful AT ALL.
Think about where you get your nutrition information from, advertising? I thought so.
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Hi,
Some of the comments are ludicrous about vegetarians being malnourished.
In India, a huge population has lived on 100% vegetarian diet for ages and ages. There are healthy choices to protein like lentils, nuts and like.. Millions in India have lived and are living very healthy lives!
I always wonder how/what do meat-eaters tell their kids about what they eat, especially when they go to a petting zoo and pet a chicken, lamb, pig, calf and admire it with the kid say how cute it is..
I have heard this from many of the meat-eaters that they would rather NOT THINK OF THE WAY THE ANIMAL HAS BEEN KILLED while they eat it. Double standards people!
By the way I have read that when an animal is killed, the body produces a large number of hormones (due to fear) these are toxic in that quantity when ingested.. maybe thats the reason for the incidence of alarming rates of of diseases in people..
I thinks its high time people thought about their dietary choices and not just when beef gets recalled..
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I’m a vegetarian and I hardly look malnourished. If anything, I’ve gained weight. I eat healthier now because I consume fewer chemicals and hormones from meat. I also am more conscious of what I eat and make smarter, more informed food choices. Less processed food and more fresh food. I never eat out anymore because there are so few vegetarian options available at most restaurants and fast food places. Even the salads have meat in them!
I was wondering if the emphasis on meat-eating in America started as a result of cattle being raised for leather goods. 100-200 years ago, was cattle primarily raised to use the leather for clothes, saddles, and wagons, etc? Did Americans start eating beef because they were using cattle for other purposes anyway? Now that cattle isn’t raised so much for leather, in order for the cattle industry to continue making huge profits from the slaughter of cows, do they have to convince Americans that we need to eat meat? Not only that, since the last century, the idea seems to have been instilled in us that eating meat -”having a big steak”- was a sign of success and prosperity. It all seems to me like a lot of PR on the part of the Beef Industry.
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For those who believe in the biblical take on the whole thing – meat eating was given to man in Genesis, after the flood. It was probably due to the fact that after the flood, the climate of the world changed from the lush land it was to the diverse climate planet that it is now and it was not feasible to only eat plants.
And if God told us that it is okay to eat meat, then our bodies have always been prepared to eat meat and to digest it and to break it down properly.
Just because meat today causes all the health problems that it does, does not mean that the health problems are not due to the fact that nothing is pure and clean and almost everything contains something synthetic to preserve it. Perhaps it is not the meat that is the problem, perhaps it is the chemicals that are being used to pollute our bodies through the meat.
Thanks for reading!
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