What are we made to eat
We are Omnivores with the capacity to live without meat, not carnivores.
I just had to make a little post to clarify that veganism today is a choice anyone can make, we have no reasons to eat meat. That someone states that we have evolved to eat meat is something that I keep hearing from time to time, which could not be more wrong. We have simply gone from herbivore/ frugivores to omnivores and now with tools and intelligence, evolved into a vegan or meat eating race, depending on choices nothing else!
According to evolution we come from a long line of omnivores or frugivores but have evolved away from meat eating due to our tools and intelligence, i'd say. All that is left is a decision, eat meat or help the planet, animals and fellow humans by quitting, we have all the knowledge to do so successfully.
It is seemingly very hard for many to accept that we are not carnivores, we are not designed to consume meat 3 times a day along with side dishes that contains more fat and sugar. We are omnivores specialized on consuming fruits / vegetables and use tools to broaden our diet, nothing that makes up a homo sapiens is made for consuming raw meat, that is just a simple fact. We can eat a diet of only meat since we have tools, we can cook and cut the meat and we can digest it. Just as well we can live as vegans, I do, and in 2018 we have many sound reasons to quit eating meat.
Evolution took us from monkeys to apes than more human like creatures, some argue, but never did we start evolving into a carnivore. We actually have weaker and less sharp teeth compared to apes, proving that we are even less suited for meat consumption then the omnivorous apes are.
All that happened where that we used our growing intelligence to use tools in order to broaden our diets and secure survival. We hunted and ate meat and made sure to eat organs as well, to get minerals and vitamins. We have proteases like the ones we see in carnivores, so we can digest meat and live on good meat alone. We have decent livers but no where close to the size and capacity of a wolf liver, so it would not be optimal. Still it is the worst option, so the fact that we can survive on meat only for a long while, is not a reason to eat it. Add the state of the meat we can buy, and its directly lethal, nothing else.
Wolves are carnivores, we are not, that must be pretty obvious to anyone, they have a factor 4 times larger livers than humans and does not eat as often as we do. They have sharp pointy teeth, could bite your arm straight of. After a large meal, the wolf with the large liver can go 5 days without food to clear the system, in our society we eat to often and should not have meat in our diets. Doing it anyway, will build up fats and promote cancer growth. Many of the additions in meat causes cancers, so the combo is not smart.
We have been omnivores / frugivores for million of years, leaving no room for an suggested evolution towards meat eating. What has evolved on the other hand is our intelligence so we know today how to live as healthy vegans. We have all the tools, knowledge and evolution done already, today meat is a problem not a good nutritional source of energy.
We know that the meat industry and all the toxins they add makes us sick and we know that land and water a wasted away.
There really is 0 reasons to eat meat in 2018, apart from pure ignorance.
Why consume meat when we lose so much of the energy and water that is put into farm animals?
We lose out on much energy when breaking down proteins to amino acids as well as synthesizing other proteins to even make this possible. We lose 90% of the energy in plants when given to animals, since most of it goes to producing heat not meat. It the first step gives 80% lost efficiency and the second 90% we'd be left with 2% energy?
2% of what could be, is made to energy compared with planting crops and eating them which would eliminate both the steps mentioned above, how is this even possible to defend in a world where so many are hungry, I can't imagine a single reason in the wildest of my fantasy! It doesn't even matter if i estimate the first step to reduce energy uptake with 10% or 80% we still would lose 10% followed by 90% leaving 9% of the total energy in the plant, a plant that could have fed humans. The animals doesn't want to live like they do so it's a double edge sword, we torture both humans / animals along with the planet.
We are omnivores but on the frugivore side, as stated, we lack all of the carnivore traits and have bacteria designed to digest complex carbs and synthesizes all the amino acids we need directly in our gut. Eating meat for proteins is a bad idea, first we must express certain proteins to cut the proteins we eat down into smaller parts. We also need acidic conditions and more specialized proteins to cut it further into single amino acids. Once cut down to amino acids, the proteins will contain much much more of certain amino acids so we still have to make our own, but with no complex carbs we can't produce many of them.
Make multiple proteins to degrade a single protein?
It is pretty obvious that this is the most inefficient and dangerous way of obtaining amino acids, we can simply eat complex carbohydrates and let our E.coli produce the amino acids, as they would in any other omnivore / herbivore. We are made of more bacteria than cells, we are supposed to live in symbiosis with them not leave them with rotting flesh and no complex carbs, this is suicide for the Gastrointestinal tract.
A protein is a functional molecule and could do anything really the only common aspect of proteins is that they are all made of amino acids and must thus be broken down prior to becoming available amino acids. Now when proteins enter humans there is always a risk for build up of partially folded or partially digested proteins leading to amyloid diseases. We have an abundance of E.coli and other bacteria for that matter in our GIT, capable of producing all the amino acids we need from carbohydrates, so that is all we need. Eat some beans, tofu and other protein sources in your diet if you do not believe me, but it is a simple fact, E.Coli produces all 20 amino acids.
Meat, money and diseases
There are medicines that control your blood fats, diabetes medicines and of course the blood pressure medicines and they are making a few individuals extremely rich. The antibiotics and medicines for the animal farms is doing the same, a few companies is just raking in cash as a result of our diets, our poor health and low protection against toxins / bacteria.
It is not hard to guess that the medical industry likes the situation, just eat meat and our medicines and everyone is happy, or at least the owners of certain companies including Monsanto!
This is so clearly reflected in disease statistics, US, that is leading the meat consumption with around 100 kg / year and citizen. They have leading numbers in heart and artery problems, cancers, Alzheimer's, IBS / Crohn's disease and many other modern diseases that are pretty much exclusive to USA & Europe, .
There are also so,so,so many diseases now being linked to eating bad fats anything from Alzheimer's or prion diseases to heart diseases and cancer types. The biggest problem stems from animal fats and of course the added hormones, antibiotics, medicines, chemical wormers etc and as an active biochemist in the field, I can tell you I would never touch meat and neither would most of my colleges.