Have you studied Cave Men? They died quite young from disease. They were not masters of gardening or preserving fruits and vegetables to carry them through the changing seasons. With no knowledge of how to preserve harvest eating animals is a way to survive. Have you studied Apes or Bears? While at the Natural History museum in New York I took a long hard look at the intestine and organ structure of these two animals, and they were very similar to humans. They do have fangs and we do not. Speaking of fangs… animals that eat live meat do have them along with a short intestinal tract to push meat through rapidly. Lions and tigers do sleep most of the day. One side effect of eating meat is that you tend to be more lethargic. It takes the body tremendous effort to digest. The largest animals on earth are all plant based. The animals that live the longest are plant based. The largest dinosaur ever was a plant eater.

Are Humans Carnivores or Herbivores?

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/09/are-humans-carnivores-or-herbivores-2/ September 9th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina            

Are human beings anatomically more similar to natural carnivores or to natural herbivores? Let’s find out….

• Intestinal tract length. Carnivorous animals have intestinal tracts that are 3-6x their body length, while herbivores have intestinal tracts 10-12x their body length. Human beings have the same intestinal tract ratio as herbivores.
• Stomach acidity. Carnivores’ stomachs are 20x more acidic than the stomachs of herbivores. Human stomach acidity matches that of herbivores.
• Saliva. The saliva of carnivores is acidic. The saliva of herbivores is alkaline, which helps pre-digest plant foods. Human saliva is alkaline.
• Shape of intestines. Carnivore bowels are smooth, shaped like a pipe, so meat passes through quickly — they don’t have bumps or pockets. Herbivore bowels are bumpy and pouch-like with lots of pockets, like a windy mountain road, so plant foods pass through slowly for optimal nutrient absorption. Human bowels have the same characteristics as those of herbivores.
• Fiber. Carnivores don’t require fiber to help move food through their short and smooth digestive tracts. Herbivores require dietary fiber to move food through their long and bumpy digestive tracts, to prevent the bowels from becoming clogged with rotting food. Humans have the same requirement as herbivores.
• Cholesterol. Cholesterol is not a problem for a carnivore’s digestive system. A carnivore such as a cat can handle a high-cholesterol diet without negative health consequences. A human cannot. Humans have zero dietary need for cholesterol because our bodies manufacture all we need. Cholesterol is only found in animal foods, never in plant foods. A plant-based diet is by definition cholesterol-free.
• Claws and teeth. Carnivores have claws, sharp front teeth capable of subduing prey, and no flat molars for chewing. Herbivores have no claws or sharp front teeth capable of subduing prey, but they have flat molars for chewing. Humans have the same characteristics as herbivores.

But aren’t humans anatomically suited to be omnivores?

Nope. We don’t anatomically match up with omnivorous animals anymore than we do with carnivorous ones. Omnivores are more similar to carnivores than they are to herbivores. For a more detailed summary table that compares the properties of carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores side by side, see this page: Comparative Anatomy & Taxonomy

The link above also debunks the opportunistic feeder theory, which states that because humans can eat like omnivores, that we must therefore be omnivores. And this is of course false because mere behavior doesn’t indicate suitability. There are plenty of things we can do as a species that would threaten our survival if we all considered them suitable default behavior, such as shooting each other, lobbing hand grenades, or sending spam.

We Were Meant to Eat Meat Right? -Why is it Killing us?

Animals who eat meat take pleasure in killing and eating raw flesh. If you killed an animal with your bare hands and ate the corpse raw you would be considered deranged. Most humans get queasy around raw blood and organs. Ask yourself if you salivate when you see a dead animal sitting on the side of the road? Do you daydream about killing animals with your bare hands and ripping them apart with your bare hands and teeth?

We are quite ill equipped to digest meat in the short-term. The long-term damage that a meat-based diet causes on the human body more than confirms that we were not meant to eat corpse flesh. Natural carnivores never suffer from heart disease, diabetes, strokes, or obesity, ailments that are caused in humans by the consumption of the saturated fat and cholesterol in meat.

Dr. WilliamC. Roberts, M.D., editor of the authoritative American Journal of Cardiology, sums it up this way: "Although we think we are one, and we act as if we are one, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores."

In studies where carnivores consume 200 times the amount of animal fat and cholesterol that the average human consumes each day, they do not develop the hardening of the arteries that leads to heart disease and strokes as in humans.⁴ Researchers have found that it is impossible for carnivores to develop hardening of the arteries, no matter how much animal fat they consume.⁵

Carnivores are capable of metabolizing all the cholesterol and fat in meat, but humans are far different. Our bodies were not designed to process animal flesh, and all the excess fat and cholesterol from a meat-based diet makes us sick. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in America according to the American Heart Association, and medical experts agree that this ailment is the result of the consumption of animal products.⁶ A plant based diet has been repeatedly used to unclog the arteries of heart disease patients. Plant based diet’s  not only prevent disease, but also treats diseases.

In addition to pointing out the damage done by saturated fat and cholesterol, scientists have also shown that eating animal protein can be harmful to human health. We consume twice as much protein as we need when we eat a meat-based diet, and this leads to osteoporosis and kidney stones.⁸ Animal protein raises the acid level in human blood, causing calcium to be excreted from the bones to restore the blood's natural pH balance. This calcium depletion leads to osteoporosis, and the excreted calcium ends up in the kidneys, where it can form kidney stones. The strain of processing all the excess animal protein from meat can also trigger kidney disease in meat-eaters.

The consumption of animal protein has also been linked to cancer of the colon, breast, prostate, and pancreas. In fact, according to Dr. T. Colin Campbell, the director of the Cornell-China-Oxford Project on Nutrition, Health, and the Environment, "In the next ten years, one of the things you're bound to hear is that animal protein … is one of the most toxic nutrients of all that can be considered."

Eating meat can also have negative consequences for stamina and sexual potency. One Danish study indicated that "Men peddling on a stationary bicycle until muscle failure lasted an average of 114 minutes on a mixed meat and vegetable diet, 57 minutes on a high-meat diet, and a whopping 167 minutes on a strict vegetarian diet."⁹ Besides having increased physical endurance, vegans are also less likely to suffer from impotence.

Since we don't have strong stomach acids like carnivores to kill all the bacteria in meat, dining on animal flesh can also give us food poisoning. In fact, according to the USDA, meat is the cause of 70 percent of foodborne illnesses in the United States because it's often contaminated with dangerous bacteria like E. coli, listeria, and campylobacter.¹⁰ Every year in the United States alone, food poisoning sickens over 75 million people and kills more than 5,000.¹¹ While carnivores can process all the saturated fat, protein, and bacteria in animal flesh, a meat-based diet can send humans to an early grave. Clearly, people were not intended to eat meat, and we are to blame for patterning our taste buds on it at a young age.

⁴ & ⁵ William C. Roberts, M.D., "Twenty Questions on Atherosclerosis," Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, Apr. 2000.
⁶ Reuters Health, "Heart Disease Still Number-One Killer in U.S.," Cardiovascular News Center, 1 Jan. 2002.
⁷ Elizabeth Somer, "Eating Meat: A Little Doesn't Hurt," WebMD, 1999.
⁸ University of Iowa Health Care Center, "Protein: How Much Is Enough?" 1999.
⁹ John Robbins, Diet for a New America, Walpole, New Hampshire: Stillpoint Publishing, 1987, pp. 156-58.
¹⁰ Amy Ellis Nutt, "In Soil, Water, Food, Air," The Star Ledger, 8 Dec. 2003.
¹¹ Reuters, "CSPI: Seafood, Eggs Biggest Causes of Food Poisoning in U.S.," CNN.com, 7 Aug. 2000.