The human body is designed to eat MOSTLY leaves, fruits, seeds and vegetable matter etc. The small canine teeth, the long and slightly rough digestive tract, relatively acidic stomach acid and the fact that we chew food rather than swallow it in big chunks indicate this. Vegetarians are also generally healthier with lower rates of cancer/heart disease.
However, the human body is ALSO designed to digest meat, although not over a long period of time. Digesting meat (already a protein rather than plants which are amino acids to make our own proteins) is hard work. If we eat a lot of meat over a long period of time we put our bodies under too much pressure. The small canines and the slightly rough intestines means we can cope with a bit of meat.
If we compare other animals' eating habits/digestion to our own, we are closer to pure herbivores than pure carnivores. We practically match the chimpanzee's digestion habits (no surprise there). They eat mostly vegetable matter and when they can, meat.
It is widely acknowleged that we should really be living on savannahs/the edge of jungles ('cavemen'). When we lived like this, the women harvested plant material and the men went to hunt. However, the men did not catch something every time, it is purported that in fact a kill was quite rare. When the men did make a kill, they ate the meat over a few days. This did not upset the intestines with a mixture of differently absorbed matters. Because meat was so rare, it was valued. This is why you always eat the meaty bits in preference to the other parts of your meal.
Aside from the biology/anthropology, the economic factors of a massive meat consuming population cannot be sustained by the ecosystem we live in (the Earth). This unsustainability is why we have battery farming and BSE, bird flu et al.
So people who have strong views either way are ill-informed. It should be mainly plant material with some meat every now and then.
However, the human body is ALSO designed to digest meat, although not over a long period of time. Digesting meat (already a protein rather than plants which are amino acids to make our own proteins) is hard work. If we eat a lot of meat over a long period of time we put our bodies under too much pressure. The small canines and the slightly rough intestines means we can cope with a bit of meat.
If we compare other animals' eating habits/digestion to our own, we are closer to pure herbivores than pure carnivores. We practically match the chimpanzee's digestion habits (no surprise there). They eat mostly vegetable matter and when they can, meat.
It is widely acknowleged that we should really be living on savannahs/the edge of jungles ('cavemen'). When we lived like this, the women harvested plant material and the men went to hunt. However, the men did not catch something every time, it is purported that in fact a kill was quite rare. When the men did make a kill, they ate the meat over a few days. This did not upset the intestines with a mixture of differently absorbed matters. Because meat was so rare, it was valued. This is why you always eat the meaty bits in preference to the other parts of your meal.
Aside from the biology/anthropology, the economic factors of a massive meat consuming population cannot be sustained by the ecosystem we live in (the Earth). This unsustainability is why we have battery farming and BSE, bird flu et al.
So people who have strong views either way are ill-informed. It should be mainly plant material with some meat every now and then.
