Why do people argue using the fact that humans have been eating meat for a couple million years?

Question

Seriously, if that's the case then why do we have commercials left and right saying, "So easy a caveman could do it."

Answer 1

Because they are primitives, and they are lazy to find better facts.  

Answer 2

so?   (a couple million years?  oh really now?  didn't think we were here that long, amazing!)  heh.

and why do you folks keep  arguing when vegetarians have been roaming the earth for just as long.

heheh, prehistoric evidence, what a joke,  where'd you get this information from?  the 700 club?

no wonder folks can't take us vegetarians  seriously.

sighs,    stop it!    

get over it, no one cares.   move on in your life, find purpose.

Answer 3

Humans haven't even *existed* for a couple of million years.

As to why people mention our evolutionary heritage - it's because it has a direct bearing on our physiology.

EDIT: as to your 'further information' - it's almost all wrong. Sorry, but there you go.

If you look at our evolutionary past, we started as frugivores, not herbivores. When our distant forbears moved out of the forest, they hunted what they could (small things), gathered what they could from wild plants, and scavenged. Whilst we might no be capable of ripping apart and consuming an entire cow, our larger brains enabled us to bang rocks against the bones of other animal kills, and eat the marrow.

This is where the 'expensive tissue hypothesis' (aiello and wheeler) comes into play. We can't digest raw meat because, essentially, we traded gut length for brain matter; they are both very 'expensive', in terms of engery. The hominids with the larger brains were better able to co-operate, scavange, and (most importantly) master the fine art of cooking food - which essentially simulates the stages of digestion that our decreased digestive tract no longer permits.

And as our brains grew, we became more adept at cooking, hunting, and so forth. We came to rely on it, right up until the advent of agriculture in the neolithic. Which isn't to say that oportunistic gathering of vegetation didn't happen before - of course it did - but it was not sufficently reliable that it could support an increasingly large population.

Meat *is* part of our heritage. And yes, we are adapted to eat it; just look at your teeth. And stop for a moment to consider why we, uniquely of all the animals in the world, have the ability to ponder this question.

Healthy? That's for other people to decide. Natural? There's no question. Of course it is. It's plain for anyone to see, and you'd be a fool to deny it.

EDIT 2: just to be clear - our reliance upon meat (scavenged or not) started with the australopithecines - not the hominids. It's ancient. Far older than what you would regard as 'humanity'.

As for being unable to bring down large prey; there are many species which rely upon group co-operation to bring down prey far larger than themselves - wolves, lions (both paragons of hunting prowess) both rely, as a species, upon their fellows in order to survive as a species. Not all carnivores are one-man armies. And you cannot deny that a group of humans, armed with sharp sticks and a little reason, are more than able to take out the odd cow here and there.

Answer 4

Because it defends the fact that humans can eat meat and be healthy although it's not needed for a human to live.

Answer 5

it gives them a reason to keep eating meat. they're afraid to change their ways so they have to find some stupid way of defending themselves. i understand why early man did eat meat. they wasn't always enough non-meat food to keep everyone fed. they did what was necessary for them to survive. we can't use this excuse anymore though. we have ample amounts of food to feed vegetarians. our bodies aren't made to be carnivores, and it's about time people realize that. vegetarians and vegans are a lot healthier than meat eaters because we are feeding our bodies what they're supposed to be eating, not cramming them full of stuff that we where never meant to eat.

Answer 6

thank u!!! im going to copy and paste this and show my boyfriend he is a county boy and acts like he NEEDS meat!! hes  just so uneducated!

Answer 7

Um.. well because humans have been eating meat for ages.  Unless you're a Jesus lover who believes Adam and Eve ate grapes and figs in the garden of Eden.

Answer 8

Perhaps the best answer is "because we can"

Edit.  The argument you make about killing an animal and tearing it apart is laughable to me.  The chances are we started eating meat by eating insects, frogs and other small animals.  And the ocassional carcass left over by true carnivores because we were opportunistic omnivores.  Cooking meat probably occurred after a brush fire and we discovered how much better it tasted.  We probably had much stronger stomaches then and more or less had a built in immunity to meat borne pathogens.

Your last argument is ignorant but I did know a family that did exist to a large degree on road kill.  That days road kill was the next days gumbo.

Answer 9

Because it's a convenient excuse for their behaviour.

Answer 10

This potentially ligitimate question turned into a rant and has no valid place in the Vegetarian and Vegan section.

shame, you lost an opportunity to further education and understanding, but instead you appear to be trying to pick an arguement with people who choose to eat meat

That doesn't help anyone.

Answer 11

To address your points:

Regardless of whether we were able to properly digest meat, hunting did allow us to get enough calorific intake for the expenditure to afford other activities. These included inventing mathematics, a written language and ultimately, on the back of all that, Yahoo! Answers.

Regarding psychology, I'm afraid you speak (volumes) for yourself. I take no pleasure from killing something I am to eat, however it is not something I will not do.

I have eaten road kill - pheasants, although I did roast them. I ate raw beef at the weekend.

You may be quite correct in your stance towards the never ending arguement over whether we can eat meat. Without it however, there is every chance that we would have been wiped out by the larger, stronger neanderthals whilst leeching acorns or searching for water lillies.

Do you not value your life, humanity and it's achievements?

Answer 12

Well, because it's true. Why is that a bad reason? It shows that we are naturally predisposed to include meat in our diet, just like every other species whose early incarnations ate meat.

Incidentally, your facts are wrong. Humans are able to eat and digest raw meat, as long as it is fresh - which is also a prerequisite for many other carnivores. Have you never heard of steak tartare or sushi?

The reason we don't react in those ways to dead creatures is because of social conditioning, and the fact that humans have evolved beyond base instinct - which is what would drive us to view dead creatures in those ways in the first place.

Answer 13

It is proof that eating meat is neither harmful or foreign to man.

Answer 14

Natural Selection.

Apes eat meat ! We are the 5th Ape.

We eat meat because it makes us strong and in nature only the strong survive, it's evolution.

Answer 15

The first people did not eat meat - they existed on plants, using the fruits, leaves, stems and roots.

We are still around because of all the natural foods we eat. Not the unnatural ones like animals and fish.

Answer 16

We're omnivores so we were 'designed' to eat meat and/or veg to better our chances of survival when one or the other was scarce.

I'm a strict veggie but I can see that if we weren't meant to have the capacity to eat meat then it's harm people in some way and not give them stuff like protein.

On t'other hand I think I'm perfectly healthy not eating meat and fish etc but I don't deny that a person can be just as healthy as the next whether they eat meat and fish or not.