Is Human Design Indeed A Vegetarian Design?

Sanjeev posted this in Positive Reasons to be a Vegetarian on April 28th, 2009

The previous post “God Made Us Vegetarians, We Made Ourselves Meat Eaters” evoked a fair amount of reaction from the people who read it. I had also submitted it to one of the groups that I am a member of on LinkedIn and the reaction was quite extreme. Unfortunately for me the number who seemed to agree with my point of view were far less than the ones that disagreed wholeheartedly with what I had to state.

Majority of the opposing comments received on this site and on LinkedIn, have been general in nature, such as:

God made us to eat both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food,
We need to eat both fruits & vegetables and Meat for a balanced diet,
Please don’t peddle vegetarian view point,
There is no God! (I wonder why people get stuck in semantics).

However, there has been one comment by Mr. Abhikendu Gupta, which in my humble opinion is extremely pertinent and specific, the kind that I would welcome any day for a value added discussion. I am reproducing it here verbatim:

“The article is really funny! The discussion or argument after each remark is even hilarious. Tell me one thing; the whole issue revolves around certain designing principles and restriction of using External factors to procure your food. So let’s see if god wished us to eat wheat or rice as one of our staple food. I have never seen a natural wheat or rice field. Man had to learn and use various external factors including tools to grow them. Are we designed to harvest the crop with bare hands???? I am certainly not so gifted. And are we designed in such a manner that after manually hushing the wheat or polishing the rice without using any external factors, we can eat them raw. Please if you try such stunt, doctor (again a creation from human intelligence) will have to use various EXTERNAL FACTORS to repair your stomach first and then the brain. Sanjeev I respect your personal choice, but stop this senseless propaganda. Vulture does not qualify in any of your designing principle but still eats meat. Be happy that nature has made us such complex yet intelligent creatures and respect others choice of how and what one should eat.”

On a lighter note, I would like to state that I am glad that the article was found to be really funny and that the arguments after each remark seemed hilarious. At least I have been able to make someone laugh even if it was unintentional.

And though I have some reservation against the choice of words such as “senseless propaganda”, I would like to admit that, so far, the arguments given above make the most sense. At least, they are not general in nature. They are specific and do carry weight.

I do agree with the following:

You do not find rice and wheat fields in nature.
You do not grow food in the fields with your bare hands, but require tools for agriculture.
You do need to crush or grind wheat and make flour out of it and then cook it to be able to eat it.
And this is true for “most” of the food that vegetarians eat.

Now what does this prove or disprove? Does it prove that nature did not make us vegetarian? Or does it prove that nature designed us to eat meat? Or does it prove that the very premise about the “design” argument itself is wrong? Before I get to the above questions, I would like to take Mr. Gupta’s points further and I wonder why he stopped short and did not take his arguments further:

1. Nature did not design human beings to fly. Yet we do fly using gliders, airplanes, rockets etc.

2. Nature did not create the homes that we live in. Yet, we make brick and mortar constructions and live in bungalows, apartments etc instead of trees.

3. Nature did not clothe us. Yet we make all kinds of fancy costumes and start new fashion trends every season.

The list can be endless. So does it mean that since the nature did not provide us with these, we should stop flying, living in fancy houses and stop wearing clothes?

The answers to these can vary depending on the belief of the person who is giving them. My only response to this would be that the above have been discoveries and inventions made by man on the path to become more advanced, “civilized”, and comfortable. It is altogether a different issue, whether, these have really made him happy or whether these are even required, and that discussion is not within the scope of this website.

Now coming back to the issue of vegetarian and meat eating design, while I agree that, it is true that man uses external tools to grow, harvest and cook vegetarian food, that still does not in any way negate the design principle for the following reasons:

Let us do a thought experiment. Assume that in this world all tools have vanished. No tools to grow wheat and rice, no tools to harvest and no tools to cook. Similarly, assume that there are no tools to catch animals, no tools to kill animals, no tools to cut and obviously no tools to cook. What will happen? Will man still be able to survive by eating fruits, vegetables and other naturally available and edible vegetarian stuff? I bet the answer is yes because “he can” eat raw vegetables, fruits, berries and the likes that are available naturally. But, will man be able to survive by eating animals? I am sure that it would not the case because the much reviled design principle that I spoke about will come into force! He will not be able to catch, kill and cook animals for food and therefore will not be able to eat meat.
It is true that the vegetables and fruits that are available naturally will not be enough in quantity to feed the entire human population. But that is not the fault of the nature’s design – that is the excess of the human race which will make him pay a price in the form of mass starvation.
The necessity to use the tools for agriculture is a result of the man’s progress from a hunter-gatherer to a farmer so that he could stay at one place. It is this which has led to the advancement in technology and civilization.
The tools of agriculture are a necessity for growing food for the masses – the rapid growth in human population made it imperative for him to be able to use fields to grow food in larger quantities than what he could gather naturally.
And so is the case with cooking the food that he grows. That is a result of the man’s technological advancement and the necessity to produce food for the masses which can be consumed quickly.
There is no such necessity for him to eat meat.

The design principle that I spoke about is not obvious today because we are so used to the comfort of knives and fire in our daily culinary affairs. Take them away and the vegetarian design will be as clear as the daylight.

And finally, a word about the Vultures. Vultures are scavengers and therefore by nature’s design they are not required to catch their food (the acquisition principle) nor are they required to kill (disarticulation principle) the food. They are however required to consume the food (the consumption principle) and they therefore fit into the meat eater design very well. They have all the necessary tools (claws and beak) to cut and eat the carcass of dead animals for food. They are like the special case of a three variable equation in mathematics, where two variables are zero!

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Abhikendu Gupta

May 1st, 2009 at 2:39 am

Dear Sanjeev,
I really liked your passion with which you argue about this myth about vegetarianism. You remind me of few of my relatives in kolkata who argue in the same spirits about the advantages of being a communist and as per them world would be a better place if all become communist. Jokes apart, the fact that you have put forward a very interesting hypothetical situation where by you have taken off all the external factors of human being, and left him on fruits and vegetables to survive. I do not argue that Human can survive, simply because Human or Homo sapiens in the process of evolution from Homo erectus has developed themselves as an opportunist feeder which allows our digestive system to digest both animal protein and vegetation. All available evidence indicate that the natural human diet is Omnivorous and would include meat. we are not however require to consume animal protein , we have a choice.
I am sure a learned man like you knows this scientifically proven fact that during the evolution of homo sapiens from homo erectus the brain volume increased from 850 cm2 to almost 1800 cm2 due to a theory called brain expansion. This was the “design” the nature actually did in case of human. some 2.5 million years back , Invention of tools( talking about oldowan stone tools) and ability to control fire, may have stimulated certain expansion of human brain . The brain of a modern human consumes about 20 watt ( 400 Kcal per day), which is one fifth of the energy consumption of human body. Increased tool use allowed hunting for energy rich meat product and enabled processing more energy rich plant product. Researchers have suggested that due to this evolutionary pressure on early Hominids, they started consuming meat along with vegetation. As per your response to my example of Vulture, you are right they are scavengers, If you see the evolution stages of homo sapiens, you will see they were always gatherer had then hunters. In the first stage they feed on what ever they laid their hands on- vegetation, fruits and even animals killed and abandoned by some other predicator. And that is who homo sapiens first got the taste of meat.

Knowing that you have a flair for asking supporting evidences, I would like to attach an article which was originally published in the May/June 1991 edition of the Vegetarian Journal, published by:

The Vegetarian Resource Group
P.O. Box 1463, Dept. IN
Baltimore, MD 21203
(410) 366-VEGE

Introduction

There are a number of popular myths about vegetarianism that have no scientific basis in fact. One of these myths is that man is naturally a vegetarian because our bodies resemble plant eaters, not carnivores. In fact we are omnivores, capable of either eating meat or plant foods. The following addresses the unscientific theory of man being only a plant eater.
Confusion between Taxonomy and Diet

Much of the misinformation on the issue of man’s being a natural vegetarian arises from confusion between taxonomic (in biology, the procedure of classifying organisms in established categories) and dietary characteristics.

Members of the mammalian Order Carnivora may or may not be exclusive meat eaters. Those which eat only meat are carnivores. Dietary adaptations are not limited by a simple dichotomy between herbivores (strict vegetarians) and carnivores (strict meat-eaters), but include frugivores (predominantly fruit), gramnivores (nuts, seeds, etc.), folivores (leaves), insectivores (carnivore-insects and small vertebrates), etc. Is is also important to remember that the relation between the form (anatomy/physiology) and function (behavior) is not always one to one. Individual anatomical structures can serve one or more functions and similar functions can be served by several forms.
Omnivorism

The key category in the discussion of human diet is omnivores, which are defined as generalized feeders, with neither carnivore nor herbivore specializations for acquiring or processing food, and who are capable of consuming and do consume both animal protein and vegetation. They are basically *opportunistic* feeders (survive by eating what is available) with more generalized anatomical and physiological traits, especially the dentition (teeth). All the available evidence indicates that the natural human diet is omnivorous and would include meat. We are not, however, required to consume animal protein. We have a choice.
The Great Apes

There are very few frugivores amongst the mammals in general, and primates in particular. The only apes that are predominantly fruit eaters (gibbons and siamangs) are atypical for apes in many behavioral and ecological respects and eat substantial amounts of vegetation. Orangutans are similar, with no observations in the wild of eating meat.

Gorillas are more typically vegetarian, with less emphasis on fruit. Several years ago a very elegant study was done on the relationship between body size and diet in primates (and some other mammal groups). The only primates on the list with pure diets were the very small species (which are entirely insectivorous) and the largest (which specialize in vegetarian diet). However, the spectrum of dietary preferences reflect the daily food intake needs of each body size and the relative availability of food resources in a tropical forest. Our closest relatives among the apes are the chimpanzees (i.e., anatomically, behaviorally, genetically, and evolutionarily), who frequently kill and eat other mammals (including other primates).
Evidence of Humans as Omnivores
Archeological Record

As far back as it can be traced, clearly the archeological record indicates an omnivorous diet for humans that included meat. Our ancestry is among the hunter/gatherers from the beginning. Once domestication of food sources began, it included both animals and plants.
Cell Types

Relative number and distribution of cell types, as well as structural specializations, are more important than overall length of the intestine to determining a typical diet. Dogs are typical carnivores, but their intestinal characteristics have more in common with omnivores. Wolves eat quite a lot of plant material.
Fermenting Vats

Nearly all plant eaters have fermenting vats (enlarged chambers where foods sits and microbes attack it). Ruminants like cattle and deer have forward sacs derived from remodeled esophagus and stomach. Horses, rhinos, and colobine monkeys have posterior, hindgut sacs. Humans have no such specializations.
Jaws

Although evidence on the structure and function of human hands and jaws, behavior, and evolutionary history also either support an omnivorous diet or fail to support strict vegetarianism, the best evidence comes from our teeth.

The short canines in humans are a functional consequence of the enlarged cranium and associated reduction of the size of the jaws. In primates, canines function as both defense weapons and visual threat devices. Interestingly, the primates with the largest canines (gorillas and gelada baboons) both have basically vegetarian diets. In archeological sites, broken human molars are most often confused with broken premolars and molars of pigs, a classic omnivore. On the other hand, some herbivores have well-developed incisors that are often mistaken for those of human teeth when found in archeological excavations.
Salivary Glands

These indicate we could be omnivores. Saliva and urine data vary, depending on diet, not taxonomic group.
Intestines

Intestinal absorption is a surface area, not linear problem. Dogs (which are carnivores) have intestinal specializations more characteristic of omnivores than carnivores such as cats. The relative number of crypts and cell types is a better indication of diet than simple length. We are intermediate between the two groups.
Conclusion

Humans are classic examples of omnivores in all relevant anatomical traits. There is no basis in anatomy or physiology for the assumption that humans are pre-adapted to the vegetarian diet. For that reason, the best arguments in support of a meat-free diet remain ecological, ethical, and health concerns.

[Dr. McArdle is a vegetarian and currently Scientific Advisor to The American Anti-Vivisection Society. He is an anatomist and a primatologist.]

I hope I have been able to put my thoughts across.

Sanjeev

May 1st, 2009 at 11:34 am

Thanks for your comments. I am travelling and will post my reply to this in a couple of days. Stay tuned.

Vin | NaturalBias.com

May 9th, 2009 at 6:31 pm

Hi Sanjeev,

Vegetarians are very noble in their respect for nature and life, but unfortunately, this doesn’t always correspond to good health. Not everyone can live well on a vegetarian diet. Just think of the Eskimos who spent millions of years evolving on a diet of 90% animal protein and fat.

You should also consider the work of Dr. Weston A. Price who studied many native cultures in the early 1930s before they were exposed to modern diets (mainly sugar and processed grains). He consistently found excellent health in these groups and many of them ate a significant amount of animal protein and fat. You can learn more about his work at the Weston A Price Foundation

You say that we learned to fly, build homes, and create clothing, but these arguments don’t correlate well with diet. We each have unique nutritional needs based on the environments that our ancestors spent millions of years evolving in. Some of us need a lot of meat, some of us can manage without any. It is what it is, and if we go against it, our health will deteriorate. As smart as we are, we’re not smart enough to outsmart nature and evolution.

I suggest you read “The Metabolic Typing Diet” by William Wolcott to get a better understanding of the different nutritional needs we each have. If you’d like, you can get started by reading the article I wrote on Metabolic Typing.

Even though I don’t agree with your take on humans being designed to be vegetarians, I can see that you’re motivated to make the world a better, more natural and healthier place. I think that’s great!

Martin

May 19th, 2009 at 2:00 am

Our success as a species on this planet is due to our adaptability. There is plenty of historical evidence of various diets: vegetarian; omnivourous; mainly carnivorous. Often the diet was determined by what was available in the environment at the time and varied according to the season.
So the appropriate diet for now and the future should be vegan or at least part vegan in view of the resource and climate change issues.

Vegetarian By Choice

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