Humans: Carnivore, Herbivore, or Omnivore?

[sho220]

I'm vegetarian, but not a strict vegetarian. I still eat chicken and pork. And beef. Sometimes fish. Venison is good too. And bison...

[Raptor]

Omnivore for the win.

[mainbutter]

I have a vegetable, fruit, herb, and flower garden.

I regularly kill and eat the growing things in my garden. I also regularly leave them alive and amputate parts of them to eat.

I regularly kill and eat animals, but I never amputate them and leave them alive, and I certainly never eat them while they are still alive.

Good post WingedWolfPsion

[dc4teg]

So because you don't like the few vegans that try to force their eating habits on you, you're trying to judge all of them because they don't eat what YOU eat. Brilliant. I'm also loving that you think what goes into most regular hamburgers is natural. Please keep posting, I love it all so far.


To the actual question, I agree with you once again, WingedWolfPsion. For all reasons stated.

Im a red blooded conservative, what can I say

[Tikall]

im a red blooded conservative, what can i say

[Alexandra V]

I don't think the whole vegetarian thing had the right outcome. I didn't mean it as a "well-we-should-be-vegetarian" kind of thing. I just meant to say that even though we may be built to be omnivores, we are also capable of choice, so we can't really categorize all human beings as omnivores or herbivores or carnivores.

[Tikall]

I don't think the whole vegetarian thing had the right outcome. I didn't mean it as a "well-we-should-be-vegetarian" kind of thing. I just meant to say that even though we may be built to be omnivores, we are also capable of choice, so we can't really categorize all human beings as omnivores or herbivores or carnivores.

Oh I totally got that from your post! I only meant that we were -built- for an omnivore diet. In this day though, it's entirely possible to be very healthy with a vegan or vegetarian diet provided it is done correctly.

[WingedWolfPsion]

I think it's important distinguish between being an herbivore, and being a vegetarian.
Humans are omnivores regardless of what they choose to eat--the Inuit aren't carnivorous people simply because they eat animals almost exclusively. They are simply eating what is locally available. The ability to eat things on either extreme is a part of what makes humans adaptable. It's just easier for humans to eat only meat than it is for them to eat only vegetables. That's why the Inuit stay healthy, but you find 0 vegetarian primitive cultures. Vegetarianism is only associated with more advanced cultures...and usually with religion, up until VERY recently, making it a cultural construct.
It is fascinating that some humans actually choose to avoid certain readily available and accepted foods, however. You don't see THAT sort of behavior too often in other species.

[SlitherinSisters]

We are Omnivore... I mean just look how our teeth are set up, they are not like horse teeth....

Just had to point out that our teeth are vaguely similar to horses They have two "wolf teeth" that grown in front of their molars but behind the front teeth, just like our k9s They are removed because they cause issues and aren't good for riding horses in a bit.

That said, I'm not sure how anyone can mistake the human as anything but an omnivore. We have all seen vegetarians/vegans, they are malnourished, there's no two ways about it. Same thing with people who eat WAY too much protein (who were not raised this way), they have all sorts of issues eventually.

[wolfy-hound]

Vegans CAN have healthy diets to live on. But it usually involves a lot of work, supplements are common. I personally feel that a human is a natural omnivore. All the scientific issues point towards our being such.

There are people who eat a full meat diet, and they survive quite well. The Inuit are one such people, and they used to eat a extremely heavy meat diet. The ancient Mogolians also ate(the modern day Mongols also)a very heavy diet of animal products, mainly milk, cheese and side products from such in addition to lots of meat. They did eat some grains and herbs, but mostly meat and milk products. Both cultures survive quite well. Now, both are living in extreme cold as well, but they do survive without dying from not being vegetarians.

Most of the vegans I meet/see do not look healthy. I know that healthy vegans DO exist, but so do healthy carnivore people. I'm quite happy for anyone who wishes to be a vegan or vegetarian to eat however they like.. just don't try to force me to eat that way. I'll have a dead critter on my plate.

And people teeth are only superficially similiar to horse teeth. With that, you could say people teeth are alike to any creature's teeth. Since chimpanzees(which many AR people are fond of touting as "nearly human" in genetics) hunt and eat meat in the wild as a matter of course, that's just more evidence that humans are indeed on the correct track as omnivores. Are we more advanced? Sure we are. Should being more advanced mean we stop eating meat? No, not any more than being advanced means we should sit in the sun and absorb all our vitamins from strictly sunshine.