Is it in our nature (instinct) to eat meat or not?

When we think of the way people have eaten over thousands of years, we sometimes have a notion of cave-man type people doing nothing but hunting down mammoths.  The truth of course is people have throughout time (prior to our ability to mass produce foods of all types) been at first hunter/gatherers, with most of our food being gathered (berries, plants, roots, etc.), and then agricultural.  The truth is Americans eat way, way more meat products than any humans ever have in history.

If we look at our natural instinct, we can see some pretty interesting things. Consider that apples (for example) look good on the tree, look good when you slice them, and taste good when fresh. There's nothing off-putting about a piece of fruit or vegetable in it's natural state, or in how it is grown or prepared. The same is true for nuts, beans, all fruit, juices, lettuce, pasta, you name it. But think for a minute about meat products. You don't look at a cow and salivate like when you look at a strawberry on the vine. In fact a cow or sheep doesn't look (or smell) appetizing at all like it does to, for example, a wolf.  And think of all that happens to a cow before it ends up as a steak or a hamburger that tastes great. Much of it we don't want to see, and would be bad dinner conversation, even though we are putting it in our mouth. And if we cows or other animals raw, like tigers do, just ripping in with our teeth (which isn't even really possible), we could die from all kinds of bacteria.

So it's fair to conclude that meat products taste great when cooked at high temperatures for safety and seasoned with all the great stuff we all love, but you gotta admit, that's a lot of work to change it from it's natural state. Makes you wonder just how natural and instinct it is for us to eat it at all.

Can I still eat some meat products and be healthy?

Sure, but you can be more healthy and have better performance if you eat less or replace them entirely with great tasting "close to the source" foods". More and more, doctors and telling us to eat more vegetables and less meat products.  What's up with that?  Is meat good for you and necessary, or bad for you and not necessary?  Well here's he deal.  Meat, when cooked and seasoned well tastes good, and that's why people eat it.  But a lot of other stuff also tastes good, including pasta, noodles, breads, salads, deserts, you name it.  So the question is what should you be eating, that tastes great, but that also gives your body the best results?  There's only one way to find out.  Take the TEST.

Are we humans built to be carnivores, omnivores, or herbivores?

Should we eat like a tiger or eat like a raging bull?  Well this could be a long post, but I'll keep it as short as possible.

A carnivore exists by eating only meat, and that means raw meat of animals it catches and eats, chews apart or swallows whole.  My friends, we are not carnivores.  Herbivores graze grasses and plants and can digest vegetable products. Omnivores can do both, and so we are omnivores.

Now if you are asking this question, you are probably interested in what diet we are biologically best suited for, and what animals we are most similar to when it comes to food consumption.  So here's a quick comparison.

1.  A tiger or wolf's teeth are sharp and pointed.  They are used to bring down and rip apart prey.  An herbivore's teeth (like a horse's or bull's) are flat, and used for smashing and grinding up food (not ripping it off the carcass of a freshly caught pre)y. Despite vestigial (left over) canine teeth, our teeth are flat and suited for crushing and grinding just like a horse.

2.  A tiger or wolf's jaw cannot move left and right for grinding up food, and can only move up and down.  An herbivore's jaw (like a horse's or cow's) easily moves left and right, and so does ours.

3.  Carnivores drink water by lapping it up with their long tongue.  Herbivores drink water by sucking it in with their lips and cheeks.  If we drink water without our manufactured cups or cupping our hands, we too drink by sucking it in using our lips and cheeks.

4.  Carnivores have relatively short intestinal tracts, usually around three times the length of their body.  This moves meat through fast, as meat goes rancid at high temperatures.  Herbivores like horses have intestinal tracts about 10-12 times the length of their body, taking sometimes days to digest food.  The human intestinal tract is 10-12 times the length of our body.

5.  For what it's worth, carnivores don't have sweat glands on their skin and cool themselves off by sweating though their foot pads and by panting.  Herbivores like horses sweat through their skin.  Humans sweat through our skin.

6.  The most telling comparison though is instinct.  Carnivores are dawn to small animals, and want to chase them down and eat them.  They would find a carcass in the road worth sniffing and possibly eating.  Humans find fruits and other foods in the natural state appealing.  But we only salivate when meat has been prepared for us, cooked and seasoned.  We do not look at a cow or chicken in the road and naturally think how hungry we are.

7.  The animals we are actually closest to in physiology are great apes.  Great apes consumer almost entirely plant products and only rarely hunt and eat any kind of meat.  And like every other species on the planet other than humans, they only consumee dairy from their mothers when they are babies, and never consumer dairy as babies or as adults from a different species of animal altogether.

In the end, it is your decision of course how you eat, but if you are looking to biology for guidance, you'll probably decide to seriously cut down or eliminate meat (and dairy) products.