Why can vegetarians not stick to the real reasons why people should be vegetarian. I mean, there are plenty of them; they can feel good about not sending animals to slaughter, it’s easier to maintain a low-fat diet (but not guaranteed), and you are doing something good for the world’s resources and the environment. I have actually removed the majority of pork and beef from my own diet because I know that they are not resource friendly.
But no, for some reason we have to pack on lies to get our points across. Take this article for example. It compares the traits of “meat-eaters” (apparently they lacked spelling knowledge of carnivore), herbivores, and humans, and finds that humans have a lot of similarities to herbivores. The problem however is that we share characteristics with both carnivores and herbivores because we have developed to sustain a omnivorous diet.
Here are some of the tidbits of fantastic information.
Meat-eaters: have claws
Herbivores: no claws
Humans: no claws
To be quite honest, it hurts. First off, this is a horrible generalization. If you think about this for about two seconds you can come up with plenty of exceptions. First off would be the entire aquatic ecosystem, of which almost none have claws except for crustaceans and many of which eat lifeforms other than plants. Of course there are land exceptions as well. Kangaroos, have claws to “box” with fellow kangaroos; porcupines use their claws to dig and climb trees and beavers use their claws to help them build their dams; all are herbivores. Of course the biggest problem can be quickly highlighted by some of our closest relatives, the common chimpanzee, who, although lacking claws, and equipped with digits very similar to that of a human being, have no problem hunting down smaller monkeys in groups for food sources. At this point I’ll just ignore the fact that instead of developing claws humans developed tools for hunting.
Meat-eaters: have sharp front teeth for tearing, with no flat molar teeth for grinding
Herbivores: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding
Humans: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding
This one is just flat out lying. Humans do in fact have “sharp front teeth”, or teeth designed for tearing. Apparently the author has completely missed out on their own canine teeth. They also have grinding molars. Human teeth are definitely not strictly designed for carnivores but it’s not strictly for a herbivore either. Just check out this horse’s teeth.
Those are some serious molars. In fact if you look closely you can see that there are actually six rows of molars, putting twenty four molars in a horse’s skull. Generally humans adults however only have eight true molars. Also note the severely underdeveloped canines, in this particular specimen they have become nothing but small “bumps” on the lower jaw behind the incisors. Another sign of a herbivore is continually growing molars. Domesticated horses frequently have to have their teeth “floated” or filed as they often do not graze enough and therefore need their teeth artificially worn down accordingly.
Not surprisingly our teeth hold much in common with both chimpanzees, bears, and other omnivores, possessing both sharp slicing teeth and grinding molars.
See more on specialized teeth.
The rest of the articles “points” are also either wrong, circumstantial, or easily explained by an omnivore diet. It’s really just sad.
I think this would be the perfect time just to remind people that you can’t simply grab information from a published source and assume it’s true. This particular list was grabbed from a 1970’s chart presented by the American Hygiene Society and was dismantled by about ten minutes of critical thinking. Even if you do believe that you are arguing from the “right” side you do have to do your research to make sure you are not making false claims.
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