I had an argument with someone who took the position that our teeth were not sufficient proof that we were meat eaters, or omnivores, and our extreme intestine length was more indicative of a vegetarian species.
Basically their arrgument runs like this:
Carnivores all have acidic blood, urine and bodily fluids
Herbivores all have alkaline blood, urine and bodily fluids
(Human blood, urine and bodily fluids are the most alkaline of any creature)
Carnivores all have intestinal tracts 3-4 times their body length
Herbivores all have intestinal tracts 6-8 times their body length
(Humans have intestinal tracts 10-12 times their body length: the longest of any creature)
This of course ignores the omnivores like bears and some reptiles.
A strong argument for eating meat or drinking milk is the following:
Until recently, vegetarian and vegan literature claimed that certain plant foods could provide B12—seaweeds, fermented soybeans, spirulina, even unwashed vegetables that have been fertilized with manure. Proponents of vegetarianism pointed to inhabitants of India, who did not seem to exhibit signs of B12 deficiency in spite of very low levels of animal foods in the diet. Yet as early as 1974, an American study found that 92 percent of vegans, 64 percent of lactovegetarians, 47 percent of lacto-ovovegetarians and 20 percent of semi-vegetarians have blood levels below normal, that is, below the low range that marks the onset of pernicious anemia.1
This argument is not that statistically significant but should be thought about.
In a recent study, researchers assayed cognitive development in 72 young people raised on diets free of all animal products until at least the age of six and then on a diet containing milk and eggs. When compared with children who had eaten normal mixed diets (including meat) all their lives, they scored substantially lower on tests measuring spatial ability, short-term memory and “fluid intelligence,” that is, the capacity to solve complex problems, abstract thinking ability and the ability to learn. |
