Can you site some proof that we are physically meant to eat meat that doesn't use observation as the main reasoning? We are usually characterized as omnivores because of a vast amount of observation of people eating meat, however our bodies aren't exactly designed for it.

For starters, the small intestine of carnivores is much shorter than non-carnivores and has a higher level of acidity in the stomach. This is because the nutrients need to be extracted and the waste expelled before the meat rots inside the body(which it partially does in a human body since our intestine is much longer by comparison than other carnivores).

There's also the issue of short, dull, canines and much smaller temporalis muscle that powers the jaw. This is why we have to spend more time chewing and grinding meat down into smaller pieces instead of just tearing off chunks and swallowing it whole like most carnivores. We wouldn't be able very easily bite through hide and tear chunks of meat off nor would we be able to digest (most)raw meat without getting sick.

Most of our carnivorous traits are remnants from evolution that were never replaced. We more closely resemble a herbivore that has maintained some basic primal ability to process meat than we do a carnivore that has adapted to process vegetation.

We're omnivores, not carnivores. Hence the teeth and intestines. Cecil Adams had this to say in 1990, I'd be interested if others would provide an update:

"Like the hard-core carnivores, we have fairly simple digestive systems well suited to the consumption of animal protein, which breaks down quickly. Contrary to what your magazine article says, the human small intestine, at 23 feet, is a little under eight times body length (assuming a mouth-to-anus "body length" of three feet). This is about midway between cats (three times body length), dogs (3-1/2 times), and other well-known meat eaters on the one hand and plant eaters such as cattle (20 to 1) and horses (12 to 1) on the other. This tends to support the idea that we are omnivores.

Herbivores also have a variety of specialized digestive organs capable of breaking down cellulose, the main component of plant tissue. Humans find cellulose totally indigestible, and even plant eaters have to take their time with it. If you were a ruminant (cud eater), for instance, you might have a stomach with four compartments, enabling you to cough up last night's alfalfa and chew on it all over again.

Or you might have an enlarged cecum, a sac attached to the intestines, where rabbits and such store food until their intestinal bacteria have time to do their stuff. Digestion in such cases takes place by a process of fermentation — bacteria actually "eat" the cellulose and the host animal consumes what results, namely bacteria dung.

The story is roughly the same with teeth. We're equipped with an all-purpose set of ivories equally suited to liver and onions."

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/674/are-humans-meat...

What do you mean by "meant to"? I suppose humans are also "meant to" be eaten by bears or die from minor infections, but I'm not exactly eager to sign up for that, are you?

I think one (not being a prey for a bear) takes no biological re-adjustment (well, except provisions to live longer, I suppose). On the other hand, getting used to a radically different diet would take many generations to adjust to. For example, after a few thousand years, some people are not yet used to cow's milk, or used to wheat. Long term, yes, nature should take care of that.

Huh? I've been a vegetarian for 16 years, and a vegan for one year, and I'm quite adjusted. I don't remember any generations passing in that time, but I might not have been paying attention.

I meant adjusting naturally to the different source of nutrition. If you're a vegan, you would normally need to be very careful of your diet so that you do not introduce nutritional deficiencies into your system, or you would need to subsidize your nutrition with vitamins. Long term, the body could find a way to bypass the nutritional subsidies --it could take a very long time (cows had to develop additional stomachs to adjust to eating primarily grass, for example).

Ahhh... you have to be pretty careful with what you eat if you eat meat as well to. Just walk down the street for examples. Generally, the length of our digestive system is sited as one of the main reasons we are so poorly adapted at eating meat.

Our ancestors generally weren't eating massive portions of heavily processed, heavily spiced meat. Taco Bell gives you the shits because it's Taco Bell, not because it's meat.

In fact, many of our ancestors were often eating so little meat as to be nutritionally insignificant, which is the other major hole in the "eating meat is natural" argument.

But I really don't know why you added "heavily spiced" in there. Spices are usually more or less nutritionally neutral.

> Spices are usually more or less nutritionally neutral.

Nutritionally neutral, but not gastrointestinally, as folks sensitive to spicy food can attest.

It's not really any more difficult to keep your nutrition balanced as a vegan than as a carnivore. Either way, you have to pay a bit of attention to what you eat, not eat too much of this, and not eat too little of that.

And what's wrong with taking supplements? You keep invoking the concept of "natural", but there is nothing intrinsically superior about nature. Humans are in control now, and we're doing a lot better for ourselves than nature ever did.

I think he's referring to Vitamin B12.

Fortunately, modern technology makes it very easy to get adequate B12 without consuming any animal products.

We're meant to die at 40, too.

I'm not a vegetarian, because I love my meat, but if you can give me a meat replacement that's indistinguishable in nutrition, texture, and flavour, what's wrong with that?

It's not indistinguishable in nutrition.

It's not that hard to find a meat-free diet that supplies all the nutrition that you require. Meat-heavy diets come with their own problems, and there's no point in replicating those with something "indistinguishable".

Not yet, but I'd imagine there are plenty of folks working on that.

Then you should applaud this company, which is trying to bring meat to those who can't otherwise eat it for health or ethical reasons.