Issue #12

Is The Human Body Designed
For Meat Or For Plants?

When you look back into the historical record you will find a lot of hunter gatherer cultures that mainly ate a plant and starch based diet with occasional periods of meat consumption. The Africans or Asians are examples of cultures that almost exclusively ate plant and starch based diets. But when you look at other cultures, you'll find that some are almost entirely meat and fat based, like the Eskimos.

After a bit of searching, you begin to realize that the diet of an ancient culture was based around what food was available during that time in that climate. In the milder climates there was a lot more plant based food available.

Yet in the far northern and southern climates there were only animals such as fish, seals and whales. So basing your deduction on what is the best diet for a human being on what people used to eat in the "old days" simply leads to more confusion.

What you have to do is go beyond this and think a bit differently. What you have to do is take a look at the human being from a physical, nutrition processing stand point and say, "Ok, what kind of diet is a human body as a whole best designed to handle?" Once you do that, things become more clear.

How Are You And Man's Best Friend Designed?
A good illustration of exactly what I mean can be seen with one of man's best friends; the dog. If we are looking at what diet is best suited for any animal, whether it is a human being or a dog, it makes sense to start at where food goes in and follow it to where it goes out. So, using man's best friend as an example, let's start with where food begins its journey; in a dog's mouth.

A dog's mouth has a set of teeth that are clearly designed for tearing and shredding meat. Even the teeth way in the back are pointed and sharp. If you don't believe me, find the nearest dog and check.

I just opened the mouth of my dog Gabby and had a look for myself. Sure enough, even her teeth way in the back are sharp. Clearly designed for tearing and chopping up flesh… just like other meat eaters.

In contrast, a human's mouth is filled with teeth that are more rounded. Yes, our teeth in the front are sharper and we have two teeth that look like canines but the true difference can be seen in the back of our mouths where all the chewing happens. Like a dog, we chew up our food with our back teeth. But our teeth in the back are flat molars. These are perfectly designed to grind up plant material, not meat… just like gorillas, chimpanzees and other plant eaters.

Not only that but our mouths secrete an enzyme that is completely absent in a dog's mouth. We secrete an enzyme called amylase that is designed to break down the kind of complex carbohydrates you find in plants. A dog's mouth does not create this kind of digestive enzyme at all. That's because a dog is designed to eat and digest meat, not plants.

Moving further down the digestive path, let's look at the stomach. A dog's stomach has digestive enzymes that mostly consist of very strong acid. This acid is so strong it can even break down bone fragments! In contrast, our stomachs don't have nearly the concentration of acids that dogs have. That's because our stomachs are designed to break down plant matter and starches.

Another big difference can be found with the intestines. A dog needs to very quickly break down the flesh protein it eats, absorb the nutrition and expel what's left over from it's body. The reason is because the meat will rot unless it does! So a dog's intestinal tract is very short and straight.

A human's intestines by contrast are designed to digest food more slowly. Hence, our intestines are very long and coiled… just like other plant eaters. In fact, our intestines are more similar to a horse (another plant eater) than a dog.

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