It was just a random coincidence that I hopped on some videos that were debating whether humans should ditch meat or not. But it did spiral me onto this youtube binge watch of vegan vs... well any other omnivore really haha I just got annoyed enough at some of these arguments to make this blog.
Humans. Homosapiens. Something that scientists have categorized in this day and age to be us, is omnivorous. OK?... sigh... But vegans, in their argument, states that we're not. Watching all these videos reminds me of the protestors against the COVID lock down. They're a minority, but they're very loud and is a laughing stock of knowledge people elsewhere.
Now before I start my explanation on anything, I have nothing against vegans or vegetarians. As my title suggest, people should be vegetarians or vegans. But this is why I'm writing this blog. A lot of vegan activists promotes veganism by stating humans are meant to be vegans(or herbivores), as if it's some sort of a fact and they base it off some bad science.
Here's a concrete fact, most humans can live a healthy vegan diet for the rest of their lives due to our developed agriculture and science. Here's the big, However. However, we cannot live a herbivore diet without modern agriculture and this is because we are born omnivores. Just likes dogs. Dog ancestors, closely related to wolves, were carnivores. Now, dogs are more omnivore and can live off a vegan diet with the right type of food. Here's another concrete fact. Humans were only able to evolve to have this much intelligence due to our diet which included meat. Without us being able to and actively hunting meat, we would not have migrated so far, we would not have the culture we have so far and we wouldn't have the intelligence level we have so far. To argue otherwise and just forcefully compare us to apes and chimps, is equivalent to saying we should have the same level of intelligence as them. To suggest that we 'should' have the same diet as them, is a very poor argument because evolution due to natural selection changes the base DNA and we're simply not the same as apes and chimps.
So before I go into point by point, I just want to point out why I am arguing against this in the first place. Promoting false science hurts causes. Here's a extreme example. If you're allergic to peanuts and that's been tested, you've known that your whole life and you've had bad experiences with peanuts, and someone comes up to you and argues with you, "Humans are meant to eat peanuts all the time. You should eat these peanuts or else you're a bad person." What would you think? You'd think that person is nuts (no pun intended) and you'd ignore their point of view whether it has some base or not. Veganism and vegetarianism should be promoted with good science and good moral basis. This is the only way an argument that has so much backlash and science backing against it will win. Meat does taste good in most palates. A lot of people choose some sort of meat as their comfort food, not because they like murder, but because they like the taste of meat. A lot of people are addicted to fast food because they love the taste of meat as a part of our evolutionary trait and humans are meant to crave meat, even if it's bad in large quantities.
Let's start our point by point argument why we're omnivores, even though there're hundreds of biological or evolutionary study out there on what type of diet we're meant to have, which most of the time, suggest we're supposed to be omnivores. (one of the false arguments was that the longest living people were herbivores and it doesn't take long to see that they're 'mainly' vegetarians with meat as a a side dish... rarely are people living past 100 purely vegan)
So here are the arguments against 'human are herbivores'
1. Human are herbivores, because our ancestors (evolutionary-wise) are herbivores.
Just a huge note that I've put in 'evolutionary-wise'. All these vegan seem to sort of ignore human history... They go straight to either comparing humans with chimps, or mentioning our pre-homosapien origin...
Anyway, back to the point... If we just focus on our 'ancestors', "Humans should not live in houses, because our ancestors didn't live in houses." "Humans should often eat our young, since our ancestors often ate their young." "Humans should violently kill each other for territory and houses, since our ancestors were like that."
Now a lot of these, are behavioural, but our current appendix structure, lack of hair, our lower pH level compared to a lot of monkeys and apes, the ability to digest lactose in a population as much as 80% depending on where you live, are a good indicator that animals evolve and change, including their dietary requirements. Just a big note, pandas were, (and possible even still are) supposed to be carnivores. Some vegans go as far as to comparing us to some shrew like creature that exists some 200,000 years ago and state that we should be herbivores, because they were herbivores. This is not how evolution works. Humans were able to migrate into places where apes would not be able to live, due to thousands of years worth of evolution, survival of the fittest and those who are able to have somewhat flexible diet, allowing us to live in harsh environments. I mean, us having dogs as pets are a huge evidence that this transaction happened. A wolf would not have followed us if we only ate vegetables. Yes dogs are now omnivores, but their diet (just like us) still requires a lot of protein, vitamins, mineral and fat that are only present in meat, but we're now (in the last few decades) able to provide throughout the year in terms of vegetation using modern age agriculture and transportation.
2. Human teeth is a proof that we're herbivores.
This is sort of a sub-category of answer 1. Animals evolve for the better or worse depending on the situation. Change in feature, doesn't necessarily decrease other related functions. Whales have 'lost' their legs due to millions of years of evolution. If we go far back, chickens used to look more like reptiles. Pandas were carnivores but even if they're vegetarians now, they still have the teeth and some other structures of a carnivore. Change in physical factors are not necessarily "these animals are meant to be" situation. Yes we have a mouth structure and teeth structure that have evolved for the worse. Our canines are much more blunt (compared to our herbivorous cousins, the gorillas), our mouth is much smaller than of carnivores, our intestines are longer than of other common carnivores. But as much as these are facts, if also is a very concrete fact once more that all these changes were made due to our diet of cooked meat for thousands and thousands of years. Animals change due to evolution and that may mean losing a trait. There was literally no need for a large, sharp canine when humans have found a way to tear into softer meat for more than 100 thousand years ago. To add to the fact that a lot of studies show 'aggression' was not necessarily a favoured trait amongst humans leading to females choosing mates with less aggressive features. If you want comparison between chimps or apes to be a proof that we're herbivores... well the opposing party can do the same to argue against. Our teeth structure looks nothing like a LOT of other herbivores... Cows, deer, rabbits, squirrel etc whose main diet is vegetation...
3. Humans not drooling over other animals is a proof that we're herbivores.
Ok, well to defend that I also haven't seen anyone drool over broccoli or beans unless it was cooked and covered in sauce. haha
In any case, did you know that there are quite a few domesticated animals, not just including omnivores, but carnivores as well that actually struggle to hunt or go after live animals? It's a documented fact. Carnivores, will hunt for food if left in the wild. But domesticated carnivores and omnivores like dogs and cats will sometimes not hunt unless taught. I know a lot of vegans will argue about cats, and I don't want to get into how recent cat domestication and the reason for domestication was, but I'll just say that cats were mainly bred for hunting mice whereas quite a lot of breeds of dogs were bred for socialisation in recent decades, more than hunting. The thing is, children that have grown up in farmlands or amongst a hunting family, will not find the process disgusting, but adults who have never seen anything of it will be 'shocked'. Even if our close cousin, the chimps hunt, even if it's completely natural and normal, some people are horrified. However, time and time again, cultures prove that the benefits of hunting outweighed the 'horror'. People were able to migrate to locations where vegetations was unobtainable for almost half the year. Many studies showed that eating meat was crucial for human evolution. There are no human culture that solemnly eat a plant based diet except very recent ones.
4. Longest living humans are herbivores.
Ok. Blatant lie. There are a handful of people living a strictly vegan diet and have lived past 100. Most people who have lived past 100 live a mostly vegetarian diet with a small amount of meat. Some video mentioned Okinawa diet. With a simple search, I saw Japanese people from Okinawa, over the age of 100 explaining her diet which includes a small amount of fish and some braised pork. NOT a strict vegan diet. Mediterranean diet, well known for their health benefits and being the diet of healthy old Italians, have fish, poultry and egg mixed in them.
5. Humans use tools to hunt. This is not natural.
... At this stage I'm a bit sick of writing all these stupid arguments against stupid people. Lots of studies have shown that people on strict raw vegan diet are in fact unhealthy, but they simply ignore that because tools are unnatural and therefore, must be unhealthy. They also ignore the fact that most people INCLUDING vegans and vegetarians actually eat a good amount of COOKED food. Cooked implying that they have used fire... Fire doesn't naturally occur in the wild except after a thunderstorm or when a dry wildfire ravages... You don't walk around a field and say "oh hey! there's a normal and natural fire. Let's cook our vegetables on there so it becomes easier to eat and digest." And just so you know, it is easier to digest a lot of cooked vegetables, not to mention the other benefits, such as hygiene of it. But if we hunt animals using tools, suddenly it becomes a whole other story. As I've mentioned in my 2nd reasoning, our teeth are in fact an example of how evolution is not necessarily for the 'better'. Evolution is just a change. The fact that we see chimps hunt is a good indicator that our ancestors must have hunted. The fact that we even have canines, unlike cows, is a good indicator that our ancestors have used these for something. The fact that we crave meat is a good indicator that meat eating was a part of our diet. The fact that we came up with tools to hunt these, starting from a simple throwing of a rock or smacking with a stick, is a good indicator that eating meat didn't just come out of nowhere, but came out as a part of our evolution. I really hope people see where I'm going with this. Hunting with tool is not strange and is not a proof that we weren't supposed to eat meat. If that's a proof, that all these vegans are hypocrites for being online, since that's also not natural.
There's a few more points, but I'm getting tired so I'm going to stop here.
I'm just going to mention my title though and point things out.
Veganism is possible now. We have agricultural development and technology that allowed us to grow various type of vegetation throughout the whole year. We can also export and import food that are grown in various environments. Because of this, we can ignore eating meat and get all the necessary nutrients from plants.
Too many people eat way too much meat in the modern age. Farms mass produce meat and raise their animals in inhumane conditions to meet the quota and have cheap meat shipped to your local grocer. We can get away from this. We can even go back to purely hunting for meat and having most of our diet based on vegetables. Animals can live in nature and die in nature. Farms should definitely have stricter regulations to protect the welfare of their animals.
Anyway, other than that, peace out
