Natural Meat Eaters

As a vegetarian, I often find myself drawn into debates about whether humans are natural meat-eaters. I’d have to say “almost.”

Clearly meat is nutritious for humans, our teeth can handle the job, and most meat-eaters love a well-cooked steak. But to say we are natural meat-eaters, I would think two things would have to be true:

1. Eating lots of meat wouldn’t increase your health risks.
2. Seeing a cow would make you salivate if you were hungry.

For now, I will ignore the first point because experience tells me that meat-eaters will argue to the death (literally) that eating meat has no health risks.

The interesting point, to me, is why so-called natural meat eaters feel the need to disguise their food by cutting it into steaks, cooking it, and covering it with barbecue sauce. If eating meat is natural, you would expect it to make you hungry in its natural condition. Looking at a cow should make you salivate when you are hungry.

Am I wrong?

[Update: To answer your rhetorical questions, yes, I do salivate when seeing raw vegetables and fruit. An orange or banana would make most people salivate if they were hungry. But I also like raw peas in a pod, even raw potatoes.]

Comments

[Lauso]

Some vegetables are eatable right out of the earth and some are not. Have you ever eaten a corn plant or a still wrapped corn? Have you dug frenetically a cassava (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava)? After prepared, though, I am sure they would make you salivate.

The same is valid for meat. I won't salivate for a cow, but I will salivate for when I smell it being baked, the fat drops falling on the coal and telling the whole neighborhood that today is barbecue day.

Regarding being healthy or not, you should know by now (after discussing evolution so many times) that what does not kill you before you reproduce, won't be filtered by the evolution. Hence, there may be people who are better not eating meet yes, because these would not be filtered either, but you cannot generalize.

[azim]

If it was not meant for us to eat Meat, then I am sure our Body will not be able to take it, like Goat cannot eat meat as their body is not engineered to eat meat. and there is this another way to look at things is that, if eating meat was not enggineered or not for human body, i really wonder what people in desert or eskimos will have to eat. if we look at things at a larger picture - if we all stop eating chicken or meat for a week and keep the same production level for that week, imagine the ecological balance chaos that we might have.
let me know your thoughts on the same.
thanks
Azim

[Yo mamma]

-Not eating meat is bad for your health because it's very difficult to get all of the proper nutrients (especially for vegans)
-If we weren't natural meat eaters our teeth wouldn't be bult to handle meat (you already said this)
-Where I was born (in jordan) people aren't as afraid of where meat comes from as they are here. Parents take there kids to the farm to watch the goat get slaughtered before they take it home for dinner, the meat store has full animal bodies that are still shaped like the animal it came from, because they never bothered processing it as much.
Long story short: When I'm hungry and I see a cow, the first thing that pops into my head is lunch.

[tataold]

Honestly, I do salivate when I see a cow or a chicken, especially when I'm hungry. And I love all raw seafood.

[Fred]

Hey man, I love Vegs, but I don't usually salivate when I see them… Come to think of it, I don't think I salivate with anything I don't eat raw or unprocessed I guess… And you have to think of vegetables on a field, like a cow; not as you see them at a supermarket or whatever.
Anyway, does this mean I shouldn't eat at all? =p
But to draw a conclusion, you have to think that we humans have only 2 stomachs (meat-eater), not 4 like the vegetarian animals. And we cannot process some sorts of vegetable-nutrients (like celulose).
But that's just a thought! We are scientifically considered omnivorous.

[Leslie]

Scott, perhaps it's in between. I don't think we're natural born vegetarians, but that doesn't mean we're naturally meat eaters. Perhaps we're more like natural born scavengers - we just eat whatever we can get. I think of situations with feral children for example. My understanding is that in those situations, they just eat whatever they have to. And clearly our digestive systems can handle it within a reasonable degree. Plus, throughout human history as far as I can tell, we've hunted animals. I guess there's no way to find out for certain without doing some sort of forbidden experiment, but I think the evidence at least leans against us being natural vegetarians.

[Scott]

What Denis Leary didn't consider is that maybe eating meat is not actually an instinct but rather an encouraged activity as a result of our culture.

As a life long vegetarian I have never had the temptation to slam down a whopper or buy myself a hotdog. Maybe if I had been raised in a family with backyard bbq's and trips to mcdonald's I would be somewhat more inclined but as it is I'm not. What I think this really boils down to is nature vs. nuture... in a different sense.

Are we naturally born to eat meat or is it a learned habit?

[SlowMovingTarget]

The Genesis account suggests we were all intended to be vegetarians, but circumstances required us to supplement our diet with occasional meat after the flood.

The main point of interest is that a diet of _occasional_ meat can be healthy. This diet was followed for thousands of years by the Israelites and they often had lifespans comparable to our current averages (epigenetics? really high "good" cholesterol?).

Perhaps we know enough now to do without meat, but it's likely easier to maintain a vegetarian focussed diet with a nice lean steak every couple of weeks.

FWIW

[Leslie]

I'm actually a huge fan of seafood, as I've spent much of my life around major bodies of water in some form ... and I gotta say, seeing a nice freshly caught fish, or a big pile of fresh shrimp, could very easily make me salivate as I think of all the delicious meals I can make with it. Actually it's making me salivate right now.

[Too Complicated]

This argument adds unnecessary complexity.

Denis Leary said it best: "Being a vegetarian is a decision. Being a meat eater is an instinct."

[Razwell]

The low saturated fat diet does NOT lower myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) , CHD mortality OR total mortality

This is from the Oxford European Heart Journal where they did a review of the clinical dietary intervention trials on saturated fat . 6 of the 18 to date are discussed.

The most recent is the Women's Health Initiative 2006

http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/18/1/18.pdf

Remember all anti saturate dfat hyperbole is scientifically unfounded RPOPAGANDA from SECOND HAND sources like your doctor the media .

[Maura]

I once ate a low-fat veggie diet for a month, based on Dr. Dean Ornish's advice. It was ok - that was a busy month, so I didn't have time to get upset over what I might be missing.

At the end of that month, I saw a raw chicken in the grocery store, and I was immediately hit with the image of that chicken, fully roasted, with steam wafting up. I swear I could smell it. I felt like I was in a Warner Bros. cartoon. It was a full-on hallucinatory experience. I went back to meat.

[Razwell]

Please read the PRIMARY literature on this subject of saturated fat.

IGNORE second hand info from doctors, the media, vegetarian propaganda and "health" authorities"

When confronted with the FACTS that a low saturated fat diet is NOT supported by the available evidence from clinical trials to date and COMPLETELY FAILS to reduce myocardial infactions, CHD mortality OR total mortality people always rely on the "appeal to authority" the "ad hominem" or the "hasty generalization" logical FALLACIES.

Here is a review on the clinical dietary intervention tials on saturated fat from thhe Oxfoird European Heart Journal. Take the references and read the PRIMARY literature FULL TEXT and VERY CAREFULLY.

You will see the low saturated fat diet is not scientifically supported by randomized double blinded clinical dietary intervention trials

http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/18/1/18.pdf

Once again the low saturated fat diet COMPLETELY FAILS to reduce myocardial infactions, CHD mortality or total mortality in clinical dietary intervention trials .

Appeal to Authority" does NOT further knowledge in any field.

The low saturated fat diet is the greatest medical scam ever perpetrated on the public .

Razwell

[Canadian Cousin]

The natural state for a potato is covered with dirt. Do you wash your vegetables? Then it is no longer in its natural state.

[Murky]

Andrew: I agree with that sentiment, not for the fluffy bunny reasons of 'if people had to kill the cow then fewer cows would be killed', but simply because people should know where their food comes from.

In the UK we recently had a small series of programmes about the poultry industry. In one of the programmes a chap kept two sheds of chickens, one under intensive conditions, one under free range conditions - and then compared the results (in short, if you want your food sitting in it's own excrement and getting hock burns, go intensive). This was all by way of launching the 'Chicken Out' campaign to try and promote animal welfare in food choice.

In another show, we saw the whole process, from Mechanically Recovered Meat, to 'RSPCA Freedom food' to free range. The chef (a well known chef in the UK) cooked with the MRM to show how something reasonably appetising could be produced - and indeed, how things are produced for ready meals.

Near the end, a chicken was killed in the studio to show how it was done (swiftly and with style) and then chicken dinners were prepared.

Links:
http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/jamie-oliver/jamie-s-fowl-dinners-facts-08-01-08_p_1.html

http://www.chickenout.tv/

[Sam]

I think we would salivate upon seeing a cow *IF* we would still be used to hunt our food.

Salivating is a conditioned thing, not something from our genes - just think about Pavlows dog, which salivated when hearing a bell.

[RedneckInNY]

There was a study done that people with type-O blood required eating red meat in order to maintain good health, whereas people with type-A, type-B and type-AB can "survive" on fruits and vegetables with a minimal intake of red meat. It is estimated that 70% of the population is type-O. If forced to go to an all vegan diet, these people will essentially be condemned to a death sentence - and cruel and inhumane one at that.

So if those of you who are type-A, B or AB and wish to go on an all vegan diet, more power to you. That means more (red) meat for us :)

[Mauro Cicognini]

Maybe a bit on the side of the argument... but one shouldn't try to read through this on an empty stomach ;-)

[Jeff]

I just got done eating lunch and the thought a whole cow for my consumption alone made me salivate. It is just that we have been trained over the years that cows need to be butchered first however your suggestion of just eating a whole cow sounds pretty good.

[argenbert]

mmm i'm not sure if is a valid point.

the "disguising" of the meat is not as much a biological need but a cultural need. In Argentina meat is rarely eat with anything on the top. In other countries meat is served raw (of course also fish but it's not the issue)

it's almost the same thing with cooking it; It's conditionig the food. The same thing with washing vegetables (think about their natural condition).

about salivating with the view-of-da-cow , i'm not sure also. even when the hunting instincts still linger, i don't think we still have the impulse to try to outrun the cow and kill it.

[Daniela]

Will vegetarians and non-vegetarians ever get over their compulsion to argue which way of life holds the most benefits? Have people ever argued over the question whether blue shirts are preferable to green ones with quite as much passion? Why not?

Dear vegetarians, I love meat, but I never tried to coerce one of you to do likewise, so please just eat your leafy lunch and keep quiet about it.
Dear non-vegetarians, think about it: the more vegetarians there are, the more meat is left for us.

Besides, since I killed i pigeon for lunch at my grandparents' place many, many years ago, i think i am now licensed to eat just whatever pleases me. Ain't I lucky.

[Joy Forever]

I do salivate at the sight and smell of raw fish in a fish market, so...

[sean]

scott, you're salivation analogy is misleading.
1. a raw vegetable is a lot closer to the finished product than a cow is. does a bag of grain seed make you salivate (you need to imagine the end product, like w/ the cow)

2. asking if a cow makes us salivate is somewhat irrelevant. the question should be "does meat make you salivate"

3. why would my pavlovian response to seeing a cow (or a steak, or tomato) have anything to do w/ what is "natural"? i've been trained to salivate when i see a steak at a restaurant; if i had been trained to hunt, butcher, and cook a cow, then for sure i would salivate when i saw a cow.

4. i believe that we are truly natural omnivores --- when we are hungry enough, we salivate looking at almost anything.

[Caliban Darklock]

The reasoning here appears to rest on faulty premises. I salivate when I see attractive women. Does that mean I'm meant to be a cannibal?

[Peter]

Eating the wrong sort of vegetable definitely has health risks. There are lots and lots of poisonous plants out there, and many more (such as peanuts) that are poisonous to a non-trivial portion of the population.

Blowfish aside, most meat won't kill you right away. The health risks accumulate over many decades, but after many decades we were all designed to be dead anyway. Who says living past your prime reproductive years is natural?