While carnivores take pleasure in killing animals and eating their raw flesh, any human who killed an animal with his or her bare hands and dug into the raw corpse would be considered deranged.
Carnivorous animals are aroused by the scent of blood and the thrill of the chase. Most humans, on the other hand, are revolted by the sight of raw flesh and cannot tolerate hearing the screams of animals being ripped apart and killed. The bloody reality of eating animals is innately repulsive to us, more proof that we were not designed to eat meat.
Ask yourself: When you see dead animals on the side of the road, are you tempted to stop for a snack? Does the sight of a dead bird make you salivate? Do you daydream about killing cows with your bare hands and eating them raw? If you answered "no" to all of these questions, congratulations—you're a normal human herbivore—like it or not. Humans were simply not designed to eat meat. Humans lack both the physical characteristics of carnivores and the instinct that drives them to kill animals and devour their raw carcasses.
If we were meant to eat meat, why is it killing us?
Dr. William C. 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."
Studies have shown that even when fed 200 times the amount of animal fat and cholesterol that the average human consumes each day, carnivores do not develop the hardening of the arteries that leads to heart disease and strokes in humans.Indeed, researchers have found that it is impossible for carnivores to develop hardening of the arteries, no matter how much animal fat they consume.
Carnivores are capable of metabolizing all the fat and cholesterol in meat, but humans are a different story: Our bodies were not designed to process animal flesh, so all the excess fat and cholesterol from a meat-based diet makes us sick. Heart disease, for example, 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. In fact, meat-eaters have a 50 percent higher risk of developing heart disease than vegetarians, and a low-fat, completely vegetarian diet has been repeatedly used to unclog the arteries of heart disease patients—it not only prevents but also treats the disease!
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." 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. Every year in the United States alone, food poisoning sickens over 75 million people and kills more than 5,000. 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.
If it's so unhealthy and unnatural for humans to eat meat, why did our ancestors turn to animal flesh for sustenance?
During most of our evolutionary history, we were largely vegetarian. You could probably figure this out by noting that all the great apes, our closest living relatives, are also predominantly herbivorous. Like apes, our bodies evolved to eat fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham and his colleagues first explained that root vegetables—and the ability to cook them—prompted the evolution of large brains, smaller teeth, modern limb proportions, and even male-female bonding. Plant foods like potatoes made up the bulk of our ancestors' diet and spurred our advancement as a species.
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, the former senior science advisor to the American Institute for Cancer Research, is outspoken on the diet/disease connection. He says, 'The vast majority of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented simply by adopting a plant-based diet.'"
William Castelli, M.D. says: "A low-fat, plant-based diet would not only lower the heart attack rate about 85 percent, but would lower the cancer rate 60 percent."
Our anatomy reveals that we are herbivores, as does our natural aversion to meat and the fact that it is harmful to our health. Meat-eaters are out of step with our evolutionary past. Our closest living relatives—the great apes—and ancestral human populations are and have been predominately vegetarian. They may eat the occasional rodent and some raw bugs, but the vast majority of their caloric intake is herbivorous. The key to human health lies in adopting a diet that is consistent with their anatomy and evolutionary history.
Luckily for us, it has never been easier to eat a vegetarian diet. Modern society has been able to provide a healthy vegetarian alternative for all of our favorite meat-based dishes, and more and more restaurants and grocery stores are offering delicious meat-free options.