We lived upon glaciers last ice age (except for tropical people and probably those in the southern hemisphere) if we weren’t hyper carnivores then we couldn’t have lived in Europe, we couldn’t have crossed to the Americas. We ate animals that could eat the plants that could grow on the ice and the mountain tops poking through the glaciers, there was no fruit, no grain, no root vegetables, no beans, no cruciforms. There hasn’t been enough time since then for us to become herbivores, though we inherited much ability to eat many plants from the herbivorous apes we evolved from
It’s not just black and white, herbivores or carnivores. There’s a whole spectrum of omnivory and humans are superomnivorous. We can survive on many types of diet.
Try to feed an herbivore a nutritionally stable 100 percent meat diet and they’ll just die. Try the same with us and we’ll be relatively fine indefinitely. Definitely not herbivores
They did that with guinea pigs in testing for vitamin C content in food (if the rodents got scurvy, the food had no acerbic effect)
Unfortunately when they were fed beef they starved, so beef was recorded as “not tested” USDA still records beef as "not tested, presumed zero)
I have eaten only beef (every day), eggs (a dozen two weeks in 5), yoghurt (Greek style) (1kg monthly at most), fish (twice a year on holidays at the beach), wine (three occasions in four weeks) and occasionally beer (a couple of litres once a month) for 3 years - none of which are recognised as having vitamin C. Scurvy sets in in a month or so without vitamin C, and kills a few weeks after untreated symptoms, so were my foods actually devoid of the vitamin I would be years dead. I guess I’m a better guinea pig than a guinea pig is for acerbic testing.
In my home country, ground beef is typically made with an assortment of offal and has a relatively high vitamin/mineral content. And a chewy texture that I personally believe requires an acidic spice marinade and grilling to be palatable.
This really isn’t relevant, but your anecdote made me imagine feeding spicy kebabs to guinea pigs and I couldn’t help but feel a mix of horror and confusion at these poor imaginary creatures deriving more nutrition from a hot spice blend than from the kebab itself.
It seems to me that anyone whose ancestors were in Europe during the last ice age is well adapted to an entirely carnivorous diet because we’ve only had 10k years to have winter access to plant based food, which isn’t enough time to adapt to a plant based diet, let alone to lose the diet that we conquered the world with
Vegans do badly without supplements, most carnivore diet followers don’t take any supplements other than salt, and many don’t take salt.
How does your model of metabolism deal with living on a glacier?
Struggle, sure. It’s not an ideal diet by any means, but as compared to nearly certain death within a month, it’s far better. Certain cultures were nearly 100% carnivorous by necessity, and they could grow to be elderly, which demonstrates that we are unequivocally not herbivores, which was all I said. I’d never argue against us being omnivores.
Are we actually herbivores that are oportunistic carnivores?
We lived upon glaciers last ice age (except for tropical people and probably those in the southern hemisphere) if we weren’t hyper carnivores then we couldn’t have lived in Europe, we couldn’t have crossed to the Americas. We ate animals that could eat the plants that could grow on the ice and the mountain tops poking through the glaciers, there was no fruit, no grain, no root vegetables, no beans, no cruciforms. There hasn’t been enough time since then for us to become herbivores, though we inherited much ability to eat many plants from the herbivorous apes we evolved from
It’s not just black and white, herbivores or carnivores. There’s a whole spectrum of omnivory and humans are superomnivorous. We can survive on many types of diet.
Try to feed an herbivore a nutritionally stable 100 percent meat diet and they’ll just die. Try the same with us and we’ll be relatively fine indefinitely. Definitely not herbivores
They did that with guinea pigs in testing for vitamin C content in food (if the rodents got scurvy, the food had no acerbic effect)
Unfortunately when they were fed beef they starved, so beef was recorded as “not tested” USDA still records beef as "not tested, presumed zero)
I have eaten only beef (every day), eggs (a dozen two weeks in 5), yoghurt (Greek style) (1kg monthly at most), fish (twice a year on holidays at the beach), wine (three occasions in four weeks) and occasionally beer (a couple of litres once a month) for 3 years - none of which are recognised as having vitamin C. Scurvy sets in in a month or so without vitamin C, and kills a few weeks after untreated symptoms, so were my foods actually devoid of the vitamin I would be years dead. I guess I’m a better guinea pig than a guinea pig is for acerbic testing.
In my home country, ground beef is typically made with an assortment of offal and has a relatively high vitamin/mineral content. And a chewy texture that I personally believe requires an acidic spice marinade and grilling to be palatable.
This really isn’t relevant, but your anecdote made me imagine feeding spicy kebabs to guinea pigs and I couldn’t help but feel a mix of horror and confusion at these poor imaginary creatures deriving more nutrition from a hot spice blend than from the kebab itself.
Nah humans struggle with 100% meat. Even with modern supplementing.
Humans are omnivores.
There are millions of people who would disagree.
It seems to me that anyone whose ancestors were in Europe during the last ice age is well adapted to an entirely carnivorous diet because we’ve only had 10k years to have winter access to plant based food, which isn’t enough time to adapt to a plant based diet, let alone to lose the diet that we conquered the world with
Vegans do badly without supplements, most carnivore diet followers don’t take any supplements other than salt, and many don’t take salt.
How does your model of metabolism deal with living on a glacier?
Struggle, sure. It’s not an ideal diet by any means, but as compared to nearly certain death within a month, it’s far better. Certain cultures were nearly 100% carnivorous by necessity, and they could grow to be elderly, which demonstrates that we are unequivocally not herbivores, which was all I said. I’d never argue against us being omnivores.
Agreed
Man, we’re opportunistic everything.