Evolution - Are humans carnivores or omnivores?

‎Austin‎ to Principia Carnivora

7 hrs · Ann Arbor, MI, United States · 

Wandering the internet, Google-ing various questions I always have...

Came upon this. And usually I wouldn't entertain something as opinionated as Quara, but I finished reading her explanation and thought, "that makes sense".

Thoughts?

"Humans are not carnivores, but omnivores. We do not have the gut structure that a carnivore, such as cat has. Our digestive juices are not the same as carnivores'. Carnivores can actually digest bones up to a certain extent. We did not evolve from carnivores, but from apes. So it's not like we had the capacity to eat raw meat and then we "devolved" it. No ape is a strict carnivore. Most apes are frugivores or herbivores. Even for chimps, who eat meat fairly regularly, meat is a very small portion of their diet, and when they eat meat, they eat it fresh. We can digest raw meat (think steak tartare), but we get less nutrients from raw than cooked meats. Cooking food in general, not only meats, make them more digestible and more calories can be extracted from cooked food.

Raw meat can make people ill if the meat is contaminated with bacteria. If we were to kill an animal and immediately consume its flesh without storing it, we would not get sick. But in modern meat processing plants, the meat can become contaminated with fecal matter from the hapless animal; the same goes with eggs from factory farms. So it is best to cook meat and eggs, rather than eating them raw, not just for digestibility but also to kill the bacteria. Carnivores tolerate eating more bacteria than us because of the amounts of acid their stomachs contain, about 10 times higher than those of a non-carnivore. Their shorter guts also make for quick passage of the food so there is no time for rotting.

In other words, we did not evolve the capacity to eat cooked foods. We evolved as omnivores, not carnivores. And once we hit on the fact that cooking foods makes us able to extract more calories and kill bacteria, we stuck with it."

Are human stomachs better able to digest cooked meat than raw meat? If yes, why did we evolve this way?

Answer (1 of 22): Humans are not carnivores, but omnivores. We do not have the gut structure that a carnivore, such as cat has. Our digestive juices are not the…

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Andrew Pridmore You only have to try raw vs cooked to know raw digests better and makes you feel better. As for raw meat making you sick if it's contaminated with bacteria, ALL foods contaminated with bacteria will make you sick. Mostly it's plants that have this contamination. Personally I've never had any problems with standard store bought raw beef mince. Beef and lamb are difficult to factory farm so the quality tends to be better. Chicken and pork I wouldn't eat raw, the care standards are generally very poor.

Like · Reply · 4 hrs

Russell Bentley Wonder what the 'bear' would say about this...

Like · Reply · 3 hrs

Eira Ylva OK, debunked this before, but will do it again. 

Yes, humans have evolved from apes... But we did not consume bone often. Want to know why? 

Human diet in evolutionary terms: started eating plantation (strange miniaturised David Cameron looking creature), then began eating insects.... Then scavenging eggs & meat from other animals... Then the real hunting & fishing began, but we just never evolved to eat huge quantities of bone. We can eat bone, I have done, but of course it's not very comfortable to pass out. Like dogs, it has a constipating effect. Bones do contain nutrition, but we cannot access it in larger bones. We are not canids or felines who's teeth are HUGE & even they have problems eating large amounts of bone.
Humans do however have a pretty impressive bite force. 
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/.../who-are-you.../...

We can eat bones just fine. Don't believe me? Go and try & eat a raw lamb bone. It's hard work, not easy & it's not supposed to be easy either. Bones are the back end of a carcass. Also it will make your stools hard due to the calcium just like dairy does. The question is, why would you want to with unlimited access to actual meat? 

Instead our ancestors came up with cooking methods to extract nutrients from carcasses. I say carcass because we eat the entire animal naturally, not just the muscle meat & fat. 

Another imposter on human evolution was the domestic dog that improved our hunting capabilities & which was specialised to eat the bones so humans didn't have to. 

Our ancestors had large teeth though & large jaws... I easily believe that they just ate whatever they could chew or crush into pieces. 

The bacteria... Humans have a lot in the mouth which actually leads to a high chance of infection from a human bite. The gut is another matter. I cannot think of a fellow ZCarber who ate a 100% animal diet who has been sick with a serious stomach virus. Not one. 
I do however, know a lot of SUK dieters who are sick almost weekly. 

I'm sure Gregg or someone will bring the major science in to you. :) 

I'm on my mobile & a response is too much to type!