William Clifford Roberts, MD and former Editor in Chief of The American Journal of Cardiology argued in a Letter from the Editor that humans are anatomically and physiologically herbivores. Herbivores, he says, have hands or hoofs, flat teeth, long intestines, sweat to cool the body, sip water (cheeks and lips facilitate the creation of a vacuum in the mouth), and get our vitamin C from our diet. Carnivores have claws, sharp teeth, short intestines, pant to cool themselves, lap up water (because they lack cheeks and lips), and make their own vitamin C.
He leaves out a third very important grouping: omnivores. We….much like swine..occupy that category.
We lack the efficient and complex digestive apparatus of true herbivores. We lack the teeth and jaw structure necessary for masticating tough fiberous plants and the GI system to process them efficiently, just as we lack the teeth and jaw structure to crack bones.
Unlike herbivores we have trouble getting certain nutrients, such as iron from plants. How we sweat and drink water has nothing to with what we eat. For example, hippos and rhinos, both herbivores, do not sweat. Rabbits, herbivores, lap water, they do not sip.
Plants have tough cell walls made of fiber, sugar molecules bonded together, that provides protection and rigidity without using cholesterol. No mammal produces an enzyme that can digest fiber. Instead, herbivores developed a mobile jaw and flat teeth that slide past each other horizontally to chew their food and crush the cell wall, plus a long digestive tract to provide time to extract nutrients.
We humans lack that. Our jaws and teeth are weak, and unlike herbivores like cattle, rabbits, horses, deer, sheep, goats etc. we lack key adaptations that allow us to efficiently extract nutrients not normally bioavailable: we do not chew. Cud’s, have multiple stomachs or specialized sections of intestine t hat act as fermentation systems to break down cellulose.
Carnivore’s food, animal cells, have a flexible, fat-based cell membrane embedded with cholesterol to give it some rigidity. Animal cells are easily digestible but the bones in animals are not, so carnivores have strong stomach acid and a short digestive tract. No chewing is necessary beyond reducing the size of the chunks enough to swallow because there’s no cell wall. As a result, carnivores like cats and omnivorous carnivores like the bear and dog can only move their jaw up and down; their molars slide past each other vertically like a pair of scissors.
That is correct.
Animals like rabbits, cows, and humans can easily move their lower jaw side to side, and most experts agree that humans have generalized herbivorous dentition that, if anything, is best suited for eating seeds.
Seeds, meat, fruit, some greens….(look at chimps)….when Raven/Coyote brought man fire…I.e. humanity learned to cook….many more plants and meats became bioavailable.
We are omnivore.
Here’s the issue I have with your argument….we are obviously not designed to be herbivores…so WHY use that as a rationale for becoming vegan?
If you you wanted to argue it as an ethical choice, I get it.
If you want to argue we (Americans) should eat LESS meat, I get it.
But don’t try to to claim we are really herbivores when our biology screams “omnivore!”.