I am assuming this is some sort of vegan talking point that since some human teeth are mostly flat, ignoring canines and some particularly sharp front incisors, humans are supposed to eat only plants? Aren't humans omnivores though?
You are interpreting that backwards. I wouldnt say it’s a vegan talking point so much as a non vegan talking point in reverse. It’s commonly argued that because humans have canines were meant to eat meat. Whereas vegans fully acknowledge the capacity to digest meat and evolutionary history that evolved omnivorous diets (but argue the majority of (not all) people have a want rather than a need) . The vegans are just memeing back.
Humans have teeth suitable for both meat and plant foods. So I would say humans are omnivores.
I may be wrong, but a 100% vegan only diet I think requires supplements to be taken for certain things like proteins that humans need in order to live. Of course, those certain proteins are found in meats.
However, I think saying humans are carnovires would also be incorrect, and a 100% meat only diet would be I think equally as unhealthy as a 100% plant only diet.
People have a real hard time separating Omnivores from Carnivores and Carnivores from Herbivores.
I suggest reading "The Nature of Predators"
Great learning tool for such things imo. The backbone of the story is those distinctions and their societal impacts. Vegans will hate it tho. As the BBEGs of the story use corruption, exploitation, coercion, genetic engineering, social engineering, and war to force omnivores and obligate carnivores to be obligate herbivores.
Yeah one thing you notice about the ocean is the teeth are designed so if you catch something it can't get away. Look at anglerfish and baleen. White sharks have hundreds of teeth. Most omnivorous land mammals have teeth just like ours.
Funny thing is, have You ever seen any human having this kind of teeth naturally? No? Good coz nobody has, maybe (just maybe) as replacements but that would be the really cheap ones.
That depends on which humans and where. There are still plenty of tribes that live in areas where vegetation simply does not support their population. Luckily, humans evolved to be feed on more things than most things on the planet. We can eat plants, fungi, bugs, fish, etc.
So you're right. Humans don't need to kill animals. We can survive by killing just about any living thing on this planet. We can even eat things that would otherwise be super toxic to us by learning how to cook it, peel it, or skin it.
You'll find outspoken people on both sides, but despite their words the world is not black and white. Do what you can, do what you feel is best. Any harm reduction is harm reduction and an all or nothing mentality isn't helping anyone anywhere.
I find vegan cooking to be easier, but I'm not a vegan and will eat meat at restaurants or if someone else cooks, or at least cuts the meat which is a total pain in the ass and leaves packaging that makes the garbage stink like nothing else.
The bitching is universal though. I used to take my dad's home cooked food to school and one that got the most questions was the spicy tofu and pork. I could call it literally 'tofu and pork' and people would ask if im vegan and if that's why I'm not muscular at all etc.
Veganism isn't a religion. It's a simple moral framework, a practical moral baseline, and a social movement like any other. Would you call a social justice, anti-genocide, or lgbtq+ rights advocate a religious zealot?
And not all social justice advocates treat it like a religion. But some do.
Also, trying to compare veganism, a system of belief, to genocide resistance and human rights is absurd to the point that it exactly makes my point.
There is no world in which fighting genocide is the same thing as avoiding animal products. None, no way, no how. The arrogance of your statement is so far beyond the usual responses my little troll statement gets that I'm outright flummoxed. I can't believe anyone would be that stupid, that arrogant, that ridiculous.
And that goes just as much for lgbt+ rights. You are outright absurd making that comparison.
And that absurdity is exactly why veganism is a religion to way too many vegans. Like, I'm not anti vegan, I know and love many, I just like getting online vegans riled up for entertainment. But you jumped the damn shark big time homie. That kind of thinking, that's why people that hate vegans hate them.
Man, I find it hard to not just start calling you names because damn, son.
You are completely ignoring the fact, that for many it is too time consuming and involved to go vegan. And then you are imposing your belief that others should invest the same amount of resources, be it time or money, or they are worse human beings not caring about animals. In other words, being able to switch your diet is usually a sign of at least slight financial privilege.
I just had some tofu so you don't have to preach to me. But let others be and do not compare veganism to anti-genocide. It is absolutely ridiculous.
If they act like a zealot, then yes. Most, like most vegans, are not zealots and we can have a great conversation. Your name gives me the feeling that a productive conversation might be difficult. But, I'll try my best. 😁
This is your take, from someone who defines themselves as militant? Lol.
It's absolutely a religion. One of the definitions of religion is "a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance." The examples you mention are much less narrowly defined. And if they started persecuting people who don't join their specific method, then yes, they would be, too.
I mean, here you are proselytizing with poorly thought out memes. What's more religious than that?
Humans are omnivorous, capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material. Human groups have adopted a range of diets from purely vegan to primarily carnivorous.
Human teeth also have sharp peaks and deeper valleys within them which is the case for the overwhelming majority of omnivorous creatures.
Most obligate herbivores have flatter teeth or will regrow them unless they have teeth explicitly for a particular use case.
Source: You can check out scads of scientific resources on herbivores versus omnivore versus carnivore teeth. I assume you know how a search engine works, but here's a solid article on differences.
Also my sister has been one of the veterinary bigwigs at several zoos through her lifetime and we've had multiple discussions on it.
We aren’t carnivores, we are omnivores. An advantage that surely allowed the growth of our brains and allowed us to become the dominant species in the planet.
Our teeth our designed in a way to both rip/tear meat and also grind up plants.
It is great that some sector of the population can be vegetarian or vegan, but it isn’t a realistic option if everyone did so. Farming is destroying hundred of thousands of acres of land every year. Keeping up with a plant-based only diet for 8 billion people isn’t feasible with the current technology and farming practices of today.
While in general you're right, you're neglecting the fact that theres plenty of land that is suitable for raising animals which isn't suitable for farming. Specifically: The Norwegian population would have been incapable of surviving historically without a bunch livestock living in the un-farmable mountains most of the year.
Farm animals are generally not anymore fed by grazing, but rather from crops that have been grown on farm land. The animals use up energy to sustain their own life, so eating the plants directly is actually more efficient.
On a cow-calf operation, which is where most beef production starts, a typical cow will graze and/or eat hay for about 12 years while breeding, then get slaughtered pretty much the day they're shipped because they aren't worth fattening at that age, they're just going to ground beef.
The culls (mid-life cows, failed to get pregnant) might see a couple months of their at least 36 month existence on grain before slaughter. Older ones might just go straight to slaughter.
Steers and cull heifers (which is most of what gets used for choice cuts like steak) typically see about 14 months typically on pasture and silage/grain being backgrounded on farm, then about 3 months being intensively fed in a feedlot at up to 80% ration before slaughter.
So, by far, the largest proportion of feeding of most cattle is by grazing or stored forage as part of the backgrounding process. It's only when they enter the feedlot that it becomes a grain-intense operation, and that part of the production is very short because feedlots don't make money feeding cows from calf-age to slaughter.
Also, many larger cow-calfs will also hold on to steers and push them, selling them as "fats", which sees much less intense feedlot experience. This isn't a huge proportion of the final months of most steers, but is still an appreciable proportion of the market.
The stockyards of Kansas aren't the typical beef production scenario. They're just very visible.
It uses the graphic medium to convey information that requires graphics (the ratios of land space and how the categories relate down the list) (lots of infographics could just be a bullet list or a paragraph without any information lost; this one actually utilizes the graphical medium
None of what I said was misinformation. Turning everyone vegan doesn’t resolve factory farming crops. Chemicals to ensure we can actually grow food, monocultures that are terrible for the environment, limitations of where things can grow.
I’m all for reducing meat consumption, but the utopian world where everyone is vegan has many hurdles to overcome that aren’t just magically resolved. Sure, right now we might be able to reduce land usage for farming, but that is one small aspect of commercial farming under capitalism.
How do people afford food when they don’t live in a place that can grow it? How do we ensure we can continue to grow food when we are so dependent on chemicals to do so? How does a developing country support agriculture without the huge subsidies currently required in developed nations? How do you educate 8 billion people on how to properly get the nutrients they need from new sources of food? How do convince society that GMOs aren’t bad?
These are rhetorical, but moving to veganism requires us to think about these types of things before claiming “but less farm land”
Veganism requires vastly less land and water resources
This too can cause misinformation.
Supporting a vegetarian diet requires less land and water resources.
Veganism requires the overuse of pesticides to the point that it makes the soil become unusable faster and hence needs higher treatment upkeep, essentially causing faster consumption of the limited energy resources we have.
You are spreading misinformation.
You were correct until here, but the land use food calculator will actually only be giving information pertaining to a normal (non-vegan) crop.
what a stupid meme. it's almost like sharks don't have arms and hands so they rely on their jaws more than we do. wow look we don't have compartments in our stomach, we must not be fit to eat plants.
Is this an argument that humans did not evolve to eat meat? Because those teeth... Well let's just say the teeth shown aren't what you expect from an herbivore now, is it? Put those on a cow and they would look just as strange.
Nah, it's just mocking the people who claim humans have to eat meat, because evolution/god/whatever gave us teeth to chew meat.
It is correct that our teeth do allow chewing meat (since we are omnivores), but yeah, taking the teeth as basis for any argumentation, that's just ridiculous.
The prevalence of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune disorders in western society indicates that we are really shitty at being omnivores at best.
Yes. Because people like you lean ridiculously hard into one way or the other. We need a variety of food sources to sustainability receive all the nutrients we need to live. Eating a majority let alone an only meat or plant based diet is the complete wrong direction, and this is scientific fact. At least with plants it's possible to find substitutes, however some substitute's aren't nearly as sustainable as the vegan agenda tries to lead you to believe, Cough coughalmondscough cough. May, Spirulina save us all.
Most things are omnivores. Some predators like cats are obligate carnivores (must eat meat to survive) but most creatures get nutrients wherever they can.
There's a video of a deer straight up eating a baby chicken. It's not built to be a predator, but when the opportunity presents itself...
Nah, don't you understand? I'm literally designed to hunt and kill animals, just like other predators.
This gun? Well how else am i supposed to kill them? I don't have any sort of claws or sharp teeth or anything designed to kill animals for sustinence
What do you mean why am i cooking the meat? I'll get sick if i don't, just like every other predator on the planet. Plus, i couldn't even chew it if it were raw.
And all that is assuming natural = moral, which, if your moral code is equivilant to a lions, is not compatible with society. But it's convenient to not change most people's behavior, so they're cool ignoring the logical conclusion of that argument.
Just because we evolved a relatively recent ability to do something, doesn't mean that thing is necessarily in our best interest. As I said elsewhere in this post, we have some capacity for omnivory at a high health cost, but that doesn't change that our deeper roots have structured us for more plant-dominant lifestyles.
The reason we cook most meats is because capitalism dictates it should be produced the cheapest possible way, leading to contaminations and other nasty stuff in the meat that require cooking it. Even salmonella isn't present in raw chicken if the chicken grew in a clean environment eating clean food.
So why did you waste two paraphs arguing it's not natural if you consider that irrelevant?
I am sympathetic with veganism and I am working on reducing my meat consumption. Of all the arguments for veganism, "eating meat is not natural" is not one of them.