Why do humans consume meat if our digestive system is not built to digest it?
The human being is adapted to eat meat, and to a greater or lesser degree as well as vegetables, fruits, leaves, stems, tubers, etc. Any excess, exclusivity or omission could be fatal or degenerative.
At length and in response also to Lucas, below:
Cancer is more related to the industrialization of meat than to the meat itself (and something else…) just like the entire food industry. The industrialization of meat includes from the very feeding of the cattle to its processing (by the way, the qualification is exaggerated, putting it at levels as distant as tobacco, for example, which, in my opinion, responds to a more political objective).
Vegetables do contain proven carcinogenic compounds. The most famous of all is soy (isoflavones). There is a high incidence of its consumption with breast cancer and also hypothyroidism and thyroidism.
Except in the genuinely organic food industry, in general the entire food industry produces food with potential carcinogens, including vegetables, starting with the artificial improvement of the land itself, as well as the pesticides used, as well as the transgenic origin in many cases. Beyond the same components inherent as potential carcinogens and many other conditions as well. Although like everything, always because of excess.
Regarding whether human beings would not be prepared to eat meat:
On criticism for not having large jaws to tear meat. Although it is not a prerequisite, it has not been developed like carnivorous animals, although partially, due to two reasons:
First, because we are not a carnivorous species, nor are we a vegetarian species, we are an omnivorous species.
Second, because when hominids evolved into omnivores, having previously been vegetarians, they did so when man already had instruments to tear meat. In other words, the human being literally used his brain to add it to his diet. And he didn't need to develop a dental appliance for it. On the contrary, thanks to this he was able to develop a phonetic apparatus, added to the loss of olfactory capacity. To this was added the discovery of fire that allowed sewing and therefore making meat more digestible. Nothing can evolve or develop if it is not a need for survival. Therefore, carnivorous dentures never needed to develop evolutionarily speaking. But that does not mean that we have acquired carnivorous digestive skills.
Another clear sign that the human being is omnivorous and therefore digest meat is in the relation of his digestive system. Herbivorous animals have very extensive digestive systems, carnivores very short digestive systems. The human being is in an intermediate state of longitude.
But there is also a relationship between the colon of the human being with that of the vegetarian apes that does give us a clear idea that we are neither one nor the other. Humans have a shorter colon and a longer small intestine, for example: (O=Orangutan, G=Gorilla, Ch=Chimpanzee, H=Human):
In general, herbivorous animals consume a tenth of their weight to obtain enough nutrients to survive, including proteins, amino acids, vitamins and minerals. For example, a 500 kilo bull, around 50 kilos, a 200 kilo gorilla, around 20 kilos.
In other words, if a human being is a herbivore and weighs 70 kilos, he should consume around 7 kilos of vegetables daily to obtain complete nutrition, and of course have a digestive system prepared for it and that it takes almost all of the available daytime time to be able to digest it. . If you eat so many vegetables and without having a prepared digestive system like that of exclusively vegetarian animals, you will most likely go "riding a bicycle" or unleash the third world war at home. You will have to spend many hours on the toilet.
It is thanks to the addition of meat in the diet of the human evolutionary line that the human being reaches the size of the current brain. While our ancestors had plant protein as the only source of protein, their brains remained relatively small compared to modern man. As you may know, meat is not only the source with the highest quantity or concentration of protein, but also the one with the highest quality and absorption. Vegetable protein is poorly absorbable by humans. Except in industrial quantities for which we are not physically prepared. The addition of protein of animal origin in our ancestors allowed us to make the evolutionary leap to what we are today.
The lack of protein and so many other nutrients that are exclusive or almost exclusive to meat, such as B12 or EPA or DHA, leads to a dramatic reduction in brain size over the years. You won't notice it because it will still be functional for most of its life cycle, but a decrease in later life may be noticeably visible.
In general, what can be said is that any monovivorous diet, whether vegetarian or carnivorous, presents problems in the performance of the human being. Any kind of food exclusively or in excess can be deadly or degenerative. It is very clear then that the best way to feed is in the variety, product perhaps of the many adaptability of the human evolutionary line over time.
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