By Doug Meier*
It seems like half of all Americans are on a diet. And the other half just gave up on their diets. The Paleolithic diet was Google’s most searched-for weight loss method in 2013. This weight loss plan is based on modern foods that mimic the foods consumed by our ancestors during the Paleolitic era. This was a period of about 2.5 million years duration that ended around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture. This Paleo diet is popularly referred to as the caveman diet or the Stone Age diet.
It seems like half of all Americans are on a diet. And the other half just gave up on their diets. The Paleolithic diet was Google’s most searched-for weight loss method in 2013. This weight loss plan is based on modern foods that mimic the foods consumed by our ancestors during the Paleolitic era. This was a period of about 2.5 million years duration that ended around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture. This Paleo diet is popularly referred to as the caveman diet or the Stone Age diet.
Meat and other animal products represent the staple
foods of modern-day Paleo diets. In other words, if meat was good for
our ancestors, the cavemen, then it must be good for us. The Paleo diet
begs the question, are humans physiologically designed to eat meat?
DR. LEAKEY
Famed paleontologist and anthropologist, Dr. Richard
Leakey, does not think that humans are physiologically designed to eat
meat. He states that humans “can't tear flesh by hand.” Instead, our
hands are designed for grabbing and picking fruits and vegetables.
Dr. Leakey also states that we don’t have the large
canine teeth that carnivorous animals possess that allow them to kill
animals and devour raw carcasses. Instead, our blunted teeth are better
suited for eating fruits and vegetables.
DR. ROBERTS
Cardiologist William Roberts is the editor in chief of
The American Journal of Cardiology and medical director of the Baylor
Heart and Vascular Institute at Baylor University Medical Center in
Dallas. Dr. Roberts hails from the cattle state of Texas. Yet he
states that humans are not physiologically designed to eat meat. He
notes that the “evidence is pretty clear” that if you look at the
characteristics of carnivores versus herbivores that “it doesn’t take a
genius” to see that humans have the characteristics of herbivores.
Dr. Roberts cites numerous similarities between human
beings and herbivores. For example, humans and herbivores get vitamin C
from their diets while carnivores make it internally. Humans and
herbivores sip water while carnivores lap water with their tongues.
Humans and herbivores cool their bodies by perspiring while carnivores
pant.
If Dr. Leakey and Dr. Roberts are not persuasive
enough to convince you that humans are not physiologically designed to
eat meat, then please read on.
AVERAGE “TRANSIT TIME”
“Transit time” is the period of time from when food
enters the mouth until it exits as the other end. The average transit
time for humans is 41 hours. In contrast, the average transit time for a
pure carnivore is just 2.4 hours. This means that when people eat meat
it will putrefy before it exits the body.
INTESTINES
The intestinal tract of a carnivore is short. It is
straight and tubular and only about three times its body length. In
contrast, the human intestinal tract is long and coiled and closer to an
herbivore’s intestines which is approximately 12 times its body
length. The long intestinal tract of humans makes digestion slow.
Accordingly, while a carnivore can digest flesh rapidly and excrete the
remnants quickly before they putrefy, humans cannot. The long
intestinal tract of humans allows the time necessary to break down and
absorb the nutrients from plant foods.
JAW AND THROAT
Our jaw and throat is too narrow for anything but
small pieces of food. We cannot swallow food whole and must chew it
finely and mix it with saliva before food will slide down the
esophagus. In contrast, carnivores tear off whole chunks and swallow
them whole.
CHOLESTEROL
Animals that eat meat have an unlimited capacity to
process and excrete cholesterol. For example, a cat could eat egg yolk
all day long and would excrete all of it. It would never suffer from a
build up of cholesterol. However, our livers are like plant eating
animals and we have a very limited capacity for cholesterol removal.
Humans were made to consume plant foods which don’t contain
cholesterol. Therefore, we didn’t need a cholesterol-eliminating
system.
CONCLUSION
Our ancestors, the cavemen, also practiced slavery,
rape, and cannibalism. We can now add eating meat to the list of
caveman practices from which we have hopefully evolved.
What do Vegan Men Say? We say, don’t be a caveman.
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*Doug Meier is an attorney that practices in Lakewood, Colorado. He can be reached at dougmeier@att.net.
