"Was ancient man a vegetarian?" page

[2ndChance]

Your thoughts on this article?

Was ancient man a vegetarian? - Salon.com

I'm about to read it, and I'll want to compare my insights with everyone's here..

[bloodorchid]

ancient man ate whatever he could find

ancient man was an herbavore, a vegetarian, a pescatarian, a carnivore and a cannibal

[jojohaligo]

I know it's against the religion, but I don't care what ancient man was, I know what's working right now.

[Omni]

Your thoughts on this article?

Was ancient man a vegetarian? - Salon.com

I'm about to read it, and I'll want to compare my insights with everyone's here..

Rob Dunn is a vegetarian who hasn't done or maybe just hasn't reported all his research accurately.

Try this document:
The Critical Role Played by Animal Source Foods in Human (Homo) Evolution
It shows there is a clear distinction between humans and all the "Great Apes" in both the small & large intestine.
Our small intestine is longer - our carnivore part - for digestion of high density foods - protein primarily.
Our large intestine is shorter - our herbivore part - for digestion of low density foods - plants.
Our digestive system is considerably smaller in relation to body size indicating a likely tendancy to higher energy density foods.

There is lots more, but that's enough from me.
I did read/scan through to the end, just a big write up of bla, bla, bla, to finally say I am a vegetarian and this is how I am trying to justify it.

[Omni]

Rob Dunn is a vegetarian who hasn't done or maybe just hasn't reported all his research accurately.

Try this document:
The Critical Role Played by Animal Source Foods in Human (Homo) Evolution
It shows there is a clear distinction between humans and all the "Great Apes" in both the small & large intestine.
Our small intestine is longer - our carnivore part - for digestion of high density foods - protein primarily.
Our large intestine is shorter - our herbivore part - for digestion of low density foods - plants.
Our digestive system is considerably smaller in relation to body size indicating a likely tendancy to higher energy density foods.

There is lots more, but that's enough from me.
I did read/scan through to the end, just a big write up of bla, bla, bla, to finally say I am a vegetarian and this is how I am trying to justify it.

Couldn't resist, he hasn't addressed all the other evolutionary differences between Humans and Apes.
Bipedalism, whole body sweating & hair loss - More efficient movement & endurance hunting of herbivores became possible and this did not require a pack mentality, even one individual alone can do this.
Brain size increase - allowing more ingenious sourcing of high density foods.
Extended childhood - requires more food gathering for a longer period and high density foods would be prefered.
Socialising and cultural traditions increased with brain size - Culture is about passing down knowledge, this allowed the developement of complex language and also experiences in food sourcing, preparation, hunting etc. Chimpanzees are quite capable of learning many skills, but they have no inclination to teach others not even their offspring, so newly acquired knowledge is lost with every individual, humans on the other hand instinctivly teach their young and others in the group, so as they say two(many) heads are better than one.

Rob Dunn is an Idiot, not because of his diet choice, but because of the way he has tried to disguise a propoganda piece as bona fide science.

Mind you I am being very reserved when I say he's an Idiot.

[Moochy]

Rob Dunn is a vegetarian so right out of the gate he is off the road. Ya think he might have an agenda?

I consider articles like this one the same as "eggs are going to kill us all" articles or "Red meat is death". This guys opinion on the last 2.4 million years of human evolution goes against his peers research. Instead of reading an internet article why don't you mosey on down to a really good library for the next several weekends and educate yourself on real research?

[Omni]

Just searched out some of the documents sourced from the same conference as the first link I posted,
Think about this:
The Journal of Nutrition Supplement : Animal Source Foods to Improve Micronutrient Nutrition and Human Function in Developing Countries

AIARD - Publications of Interest - The Journal of Nutrition

This was a conference to look at how to improve dietary nutrition quality in the developing world,

If you are interested in looking at why they decided a focus on animal source foods rather than plant foods to improve nutrition in the developing world - then some of the links may be of interest for you.

Here's another one from same source discussing how we evolved to eat more meat:
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/11/3893S.full.pdf

[Alex Good]

Rob Dunn is an Idiot, not because of his diet choice, but because of the way he has tried to disguise a propoganda piece as bona fide science.

Mind you I am being very reserved when I say he's an Idiot.

If he knows that he needs to lie to make his diet look legitimate then he knows that diet has no evidence for it. Therefore his alimentary choices give us cause to mock him as well.

[Coconut]

ancient man ate whatever he could find

ancient man was an herbavore, a vegetarian, a pescatarian, a carnivore and a cannibal

I totally agree. Man still eats anything, especially if really really truly hungry.

If there are any doubts about mans omnivorous nature... think of it this way. ( I actually only thought of this today as I was asking myself this same question).

When a human is seriously hungry.. eg, famine, lost in the woods, plane crashed in the middle of no-where - humans look to eat ANYTHING.. plant, animal, other people.

Now, when a true herbivore eg..a Horse was in the same situation.. say, lost in a no-plant area..but there were other dead animals, caterpillars, insects, rodents etc... would that horse try to eat them?
I have no proof of course, and there probably has never been an experiment on herbivores like this.. but would that horse eat flesh?
Does anyone know the answer to this?
Besides, scientist have found those isatopes (wrong spelling I think) in ancient man and can trace them to animal consumption.
I seriously doubt ancient man was a vegetarian.

[Lily Marie]

In a book I once read, by Gabriel Cousens - he talks about how bad meat is for us because it spikes blood sugar and is highly addictive. He gives an example of meat addiction with sheep that were on a ship and were fed meat when the natural food ran out. When they got on land and back in the grass, they still ate the meat.

Gabriel Cousens is somewhat of a kook and always gave me a really bad vibe, but you asking about the horses eating meat reminded me of the above information that I found interesting.