Are most humans vegetarians

Answer 1

well if your a carnivore you ONLY eat meat.

if your a herbivore you ONLY eat "plants" like vegetarians

if your an omnivore you eat both meat and "plants" so if say you like a nice juicy steak and a side salad you would be an omnivore.
Humans are often called omnivores, because even if someone is a vegan, they still need nutrients from animals so they take pills.

Human organism however is mostly herbivorous. Length and shape of our intestines, stomach acidity, saliva composition, fibre in our digestive tracks, teeth with molars, the fact that cholesterol is a problem for us - it all makes us more similar to herbivorous than to carnivorous or even omnivores.

All monkeys, our cousins, are herbivorous. Meat is (in evolutionary scale) quite recent part of our diet and we are not fully adjusted to it (note the problems we have digesting raw one or how easily fat spoils our health).

Answer 2

Humans are omnivores because they are more adapt to eat meat and animal products. Humans are monogastrics, just like other omnivores like pigs, bears, and raccoons are. Humans cannot be classified as "herbivorous" because we cannot properly digest fibre, cellulose, hemi-cellulose like the TRUE herbivores can. True herbivores, being pseudo-ruminants and ruminants, have larger and additional organs in their digestive tract that humans lack. A human's digestive organs are more closely related to the pig (which is an omnivore) than a horse, a rabbit or a cow.

Horses and rabbits are hind-gut fermentors, which means they have a large cecum at the joint where the small intestine merges into the large intestine. In the cecum, bacteria and protozoa are housed and used as fermentors to further digest the grass and hay that could not be digested by the horse's simple stomach. Even then, when the horse and rabbit defecate, not all the forage components has been completely digested.

Cattle (among other ruminants like sheep, goats, antelope, and deer) have a four-chambered stomach which is more efficient than both a monogastric's and a psuedo-ruminant's GI tracts and is naturally and physiologically made to digest roughage that would literally starve a human and a pig or any other true omnivore to death. The rumen, the largest chamber of the four chambers, houses microflora and bacteria that form an environment that enables the digested feed to undergo fermentation. The reticulum also helps in this process, and also is a storage/holding unit for foreign objects that could otherwise harm the rest of the GI tract if let through. The bovine, like all herbivores, are prey animals, and tend to take a bite, chew a couple times before swallowing the feed whole. This is an adaption that herbivores have developed over millions of years so that they won't be caught by predators if they simply sit and chew and can get their fill as fast as they can. Humans do not do this. When the ruminant is full, it stands around or lays down, regurgitates the partly-digested forage and rechews it to further break it down. This process can take a couple hours, depending on the size of the ruminant.

Once the rechewed feed is reswallowed, it undergoes further digestion, then goes through the omasum (third chamber) to have all the liquid absorbed out of the digesta. Then it moves into the abomasum (the true stomach) to undergo further digestion, the same digestion processes that digest proteins, amino acids and starches. Some protein is digested in the rumen, but most of it is digested in the abomasum.

Humans are not true herbivores because they do not have a multi-chambered stomach nor a large cecum. Our "cecum" is really a useless little piece of flesh connected to the large intestine called the appendix that gives us more problems when it gets infected than it does just staying there and doing nothing. For that reason we cannot eat the same kinds of foods in the same manner a true herbivore would. We cannot eat grass, whole grain, leaves and twigs off trees, etc., because all that simply passes through without much nutrient being obtained from them. Grains have to be processed, milled, crushed and mixed in with other ingredients or cooked to be deemed edible. But with meat, that's a different story. You don't hear of people that are trying to survive and are near starving to death eating plants and fruits and nuts, they're hunting animals to eat the meat because meat has the nutrients that enables survival, like fat, protein, iron, Vitamin B12, zinc, etc. You watch an episode of Man vs. Wild on Discovery Channel (or Les Stroud in Survivorman) and you will see what I mean. Bear Grylls may be a vegetarian in his civilized everyday life, but when he's out to survive, he's eating animal protein from bugs, snakes, fish, and any other animal (including the one episode where he caught and killed a caribou) he can catch and kill for food. This is because he knows that meat is the sustaining factor in keeping a person alive longer out in the wilderness or in a time when vegetation is not in season or growing at all (i.e., winter). You even hear of stories of people that in slums starving to death and catching rats, snakes, mice, bugs, etc., to cook and eat. Rats and bugs may be disgusting, but they're food, meat and animal protein that is good enough to survive a bit longer than what some plants could do for a starving human.

The stomach capacity of a ruminant is very large, much larger than a carnivore or a monogastric. It can take up over a third of the abdominal cavity. For instance, a cow's rumen can take up to (and sometimes over) 50 gallons of digesta matter. A carnivore doesn't have that capacity, nor does a human.

Humans also have evolved over time to cook their meat, which means that they had no use for claws or canines. They were able to make up for this lack of natural weaponry by making weapons like spears/lances, bows and arrows, knives, and (later) guns to kill animals to eat. Fire also helped as well, as is depicted in the caveman drawings in caves and rock faces all over the world. Over thousands of years of human evolution, all of the human's ancient cousins ate some form of meat in addition to their vegetative diet of berries and roots that they could scavenge or catch.

Herbivores see humans as predators, not as another grass-eating animal. Humans have the eye sight and position of a predator: we are able to judge distance and pick out an animal in the bush (though not as well as a fox or an eagle) to hunt. We also only have a 150 to 180 degree peripheral vision, typical of any omnivore and carnivore. Herbivores have their eyes on the sides of their faces, enabling them to see all the way around to the back of their heads. They lack the kind of depth perception like a predator or a human would have.

It can be said that a diet high in meat for a long period of time can have its detrimental effects, but that's more because people are far less active than they were around 200 years ago, plus the meat we eat is not naturally-fed nor raised like they were 200 years ago. No wonder the meat we eat (and I'm referring to the corn-fed crap) nowadays is "harder to digest" or the blame for health problems like obesity, Heart disease, etc. It's a bit different though when you have a balanced diet of meat and vegetables when that meat in that balanced diet is NOT corn-fed, but home-grown naturally-fed and raised.

But the sole discussion here is whether or not humans are "vegetarian by nature." The answer from a survival and an omnivore's point of view is No. There may be a lot of parts of our anatomy and physiology that match up to a true herbivore as depicted in the chart above, but when we dig deeper and look back on history and human evolution and survival, we can see that we are not true herbivores, but omnivores.

There are many such (and quite lively) discussions as this found all over the internet and on this very website. You can find such discussions and answers to this debate in the related questions below.

Answer 3

You probably know that fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and nuts are good for you. But you may also think that eating nothing but plants would be difficult, boring, or even unhealthy. If so, you’re in for a great surprise.

When you choose a whole-foods, plant-based diet, you are likely to lower your cholesterol, lose weight, reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, and Type 2 Diabetes, increase your energy levels, and never need a laxative or antacid.

The production of meat requires far more water, land, and fossil fuels than the production of the same amount of plant-based food. Up to 16 pounds of grain are needed to produce one pound of beef. Out of the huge amount of pesticide used on these grains, a percentage ends up on the food is destined for animals that are used to produce meat, milk, and eggs. The pesticide concentrates in the bodies of the animals. This pesticide is then eaten by people, and fed to their companion animals. The meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and many scientists now believe that in the wake of a changing climate, the switch to a largely plant-based diet is necessary to avoid famine.

Besides costing in terms of water and fuel that much of the world cannot afford, a pound of ground beef will cost $2.88 this year in the United States, where its production is highly subsidized. It provides 1,152 calories, nearly 91 grams of fat, 78 grams of protein, and no fiber. A half pound of lentils mixed with a half pound of brown rice costs about $1.38 in the United States. They provide 1,587 calories, 8 grams of fat, 88 grams of protein, and 77 grams of fiber.

Spending less on groceries is great, but the biggest savings are long-term. By avoiding chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, you could save on such procedures as a $57,439 heart bypass operation, take far fewer sick days, and substantially lower your life insurance premiums.

Animals on factory farms lead lives of unimaginable suffering and die cruel deaths. Dairy cows spend years in a concrete stall or filthy feed lot before they are slaughtered. Calves and are quickly separated from their mothers, confined in tiny pens, and the males are killed for veal after only a few months of life. Baby pigs are castrated without anesthesia, taken from their mothers who are confined in tiny crates, and killed at just 7 months. Chickens raised for eggs are crammed in tiny cages and have their beaks clipped to prevent them from hurting each other due to stress from confinement. These animals are killed with a bolt to the head or a knife. Male chicks are thrown into trash bags to suffocate or ground up alive.

Eating plants is healthier, cheaper, and better for the environment than eating animals.

Answer 4

Better original vegan food because of our predecessors meat eaters are less than 1 %

Answer 5

No, the majority of humans are omnivores.