Humans are Herbivores

Human beings are natural herbivores.  There is nothing about our anatomy that says we were designed to eat flesh.  The most obvious illustration of this is our outer physical attributes.  We do not have teeth like a real carnivore, such as a tiger, or a shark, or a wolf.  A true carnivore’s teeth are designed for tearing flesh off bone and crushing bones.  Our teeth are not even remotely capable of that.  We have teeth, including flat molars, designed to grind grains and plants; teeth like cows or horses.  Carnivores do not have any flat molars.  Further, our puny weak nails could never fatally wound another creature.

Another striking example of our herbivorous nature is the length of our intestinal tract.  An herbivore’s intestinal tract is up to 12 times the length of its body length!  The average intestinal tract length for a human is twenty-five feet.  On the contrary, a carnivore’s intestinal tract is about five feet.

There is a very specific reason for this, that being that meat is rancid.  A natural carnivore’s short intestinal tract allows the meat to expel from the body rather quickly.  Plants, on the other hand, do not turn rancid so quickly, so they can stay in an intestinal tract for much longer without causing any damage, but instead give the body ample time to extract nutrition from the plant product.  (This explains the extreme number of colon cancer cases there are in countries that consume a lot of meat products.)  More along these lines, carnivores do not have digestive enzymes in their saliva; that is because their food spends little time in their mouth and goes directly to the stomach. Herbivores, on the other hand, chew their plant based foods for much longer with their flat grinding molars, and the digestive process begins first in the mouth.

A carnivore’s stomach secretes powerful digestive enzymes designed to digest the raw meat and flesh they swallow nearly whole.  Herbivores, on the other hand, do not have these enzymes, and are incapable of consuming this flesh, at least without thoroughly cooking it and changing its composition at high temperatures.  Bacteria such as E. Coli and salmonella, as well as parasites and other pathogens do not survive in the stomach of a carnivore, but they will live happily ever after in the stomach of an herbivore, which is lacking the same enzymes.

A carnivore’s jaw only moves up and down, designed for grabbing and tearing flesh, then swallowing.  An herbivore’s jaw moves up and down and side to side, designed for chewing and grinding food products in the mouth, before swallowing.

These are but a few of the multitude of examples evidencing that humans are herbivores. Omnivores, animals designed to eat both plant and animal products, possess more of the qualities of carnivores than they do herbivores. Bear, possums, raccoons, and dogs are examples of omnivores.  They are all equipped with far more of the carnivorous attributes, such as teeth, claws, hunting abilities, and enzymes.  Humans do not possess the attributes of carnivores at all.

For more information, watch this:

Are we omnivores, herbivores or carnivores?

Or visit the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine website.

www.pcrm.org

 

 

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