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| What about Physiology? |
The digestive system of a human being is a marvel. You name it: we can eat it. The stomach
produces hydrochloric acid which is necessary to digest animal proteins like meat, fish and eggs.
The mouth produces saliva which breaks down the starch in potatoes and flour.
So we are omnivorous, but with important restrictions. Most of the crops that we consume,
grains, beans and roots, are indigestible unless they are cooked. We are the first and only species
to routinely use fire to process our food. It’s common for a grain like wheat to be threshed,
winnowed, milled, leavened and baked before it becomes a source of nutrition for ourselves and
our children.
Meat and fish go down raw (sashimi, steak tartare), but most of us find it tastier when it is
boiled, broiled, roasted, baked, barbecued or fried.
It is possible to live on a diet of raw food. Some folks make a point of it, and I have tried it
myself. Nuts, fruit and green vegetables are tasty and nutritious, but almost everyone wants more
choices than that.
Vitamin B-12, which is essential for normal functioning of the human nervous system, is almost
exclusively found in foods of animal origin. It is involved in the metabolism of all of our cells,
and is important to the production of DNA, as well as the functions of fatty acid and energy. We
can’t get along without it, and it comes from animals.
My conclusion is that physiologically there is no reason to classify the human race as a
vegetarian species.
Certainly we have distant ancestors who lived on fruits nuts and greens. Among the our modern
non-human relatives, we find all kinds. "The primate order includes a handful of species that live
entirely on meat (carnivores) and also a few that are strict vegetarians (herbivores), but it is
composed chiefly of animals that have varied diets (omnivores)."
Like it or not, the demands of evolution have brought us to our complex diet. We would not
have survived without changing. Or, to put it another way, those of us who stuck with our
vegetarian habits have survived, but as monkeys or gorillas. And even monkeys and gorillas eat
insects, eggs and larva to meet their nutritional requirements.
produces hydrochloric acid which is necessary to digest animal proteins like meat, fish and eggs.
The mouth produces saliva which breaks down the starch in potatoes and flour.
So we are omnivorous, but with important restrictions. Most of the crops that we consume,
grains, beans and roots, are indigestible unless they are cooked. We are the first and only species
to routinely use fire to process our food. It’s common for a grain like wheat to be threshed,
winnowed, milled, leavened and baked before it becomes a source of nutrition for ourselves and
our children.
Meat and fish go down raw (sashimi, steak tartare), but most of us find it tastier when it is
boiled, broiled, roasted, baked, barbecued or fried.
It is possible to live on a diet of raw food. Some folks make a point of it, and I have tried it
myself. Nuts, fruit and green vegetables are tasty and nutritious, but almost everyone wants more
choices than that.
Vitamin B-12, which is essential for normal functioning of the human nervous system, is almost
exclusively found in foods of animal origin. It is involved in the metabolism of all of our cells,
and is important to the production of DNA, as well as the functions of fatty acid and energy. We
can’t get along without it, and it comes from animals.
My conclusion is that physiologically there is no reason to classify the human race as a
vegetarian species.
Certainly we have distant ancestors who lived on fruits nuts and greens. Among the our modern
non-human relatives, we find all kinds. "The primate order includes a handful of species that live
entirely on meat (carnivores) and also a few that are strict vegetarians (herbivores), but it is
composed chiefly of animals that have varied diets (omnivores)."
Like it or not, the demands of evolution have brought us to our complex diet. We would not
have survived without changing. Or, to put it another way, those of us who stuck with our
vegetarian habits have survived, but as monkeys or gorillas. And even monkeys and gorillas eat
insects, eggs and larva to meet their nutritional requirements.
| Yoga for Carnivores by Jay Dyck |