On Human Teeth and Diet. page

[Kochin]

People seem to like saying that human teeth are close to a herbivore's, meaning we were made to eat plants. I agree there, we WERE made to eat plants. They also like saying that our teeth are nothing like a carnivore's, so we weren't made to eat meat. Ahem...

Well, let's look at the evidence.
Looking at only the incisors and canines, it's easy to see how a dog and a human's teeth differ. It is obvious that a dog has sharper incisors and larger canines than a human. But these teeth are only used for dragging food INTO the mouth, not processing it. Pre-molars and molars process it. So let's compare four images of pre-molars and molars, more or less side on:
The standard image of human teeth:
teeth.jpg
My teeth (which, based on observation, are not an uncommon shape at all):
IMG0548A.jpg
A giraffe's teeth (true herbivore):
5831942344_32027832da.jpg
And a dog's teeth (mostly carnivorous):
223dogTeethClean.jpg

Looking at the incisors and canines, no human teeth aren't ANYTHING like a dog's front teeth. But, let's look at the chewing teeth, the molars.
The standard image of human teeth seems to match nicely with the giraffe's: rounded, a bit untidy, but mostly flat and not hugely sharp.
teeth.jpg5831942344_32027832da.jpg
Yet, when comparing a REAL human's teeth, the dog's molars are more similar:
5831942344_32027832da.jpgIMG0548A.jpg223dogTeethClean.jpg

My teeth aren't abnormal. They aren't unhealthy. They're clean, strong, they've never had a problem. They seem to run in the family. It isn't age either, I'm 19, the model is for 21-25 year olds. Yet my teeth are VERY different to what is presented as "normal". Go to a mirror, pull the corner of your mouth back. Chances are you'll see something more like my teeth than like that image of a "standard human"'s teeth.

Of course, our teeth are closer to chimpanzees',
Corbis-YA005448.jpg
pigs' and other omnivores than they are to dogs'. I wasn't saying we are carnivores. I was just making a point about how ridiculously we view our own teeth, to a point where a vegetarian arguing against meat-eating will say "humans have flat molars" (based on graphs, drawings, but NOT real teeth) yet nobody will bat an eyelid.

And, as a side-note, why do we not have huge canines? Well, even largely herbivorous simians have larger canines. The reason we don't isn't that we "aren't made to eat meat", or else those monkeys would have lost them too. The reason is simpler: humans have less prognathism (less of a "stickey-outey jaw") than other animals. This would make huge canines inconvenient. As they don't serve much of a purpose, they just got smaller to allow for a flatter face, which had several evolutionary benefits (it made growing larger skulls for brains easier, for example).

[magicmerl]

Maybe look at a Gorilla's teeth, who is almost exclusively a herbivore. It's pretty easy to see that big canines aren't synonymous with meat eating.

I think that a more accurate model to look at is gut length. Herbivores require longer intestines, omnivores are somewhere in the middle, and carnivores only require a short intestinal tract (shorter is better because there's a lower energy cost).

Eating meat is what allowed us to have a smaller gut, which meant that we could 'afford' to develop the large brains we have today.

[Kochin]

Maybe look at a Gorilla's teeth, who is almost exclusively a herbivore. It's pretty easy to see that big canines aren't synonymous with meat eating.

I think that a more accurate model to look at is gut length. Herbivores require longer intestines, omnivores are somewhere in the middle, and carnivores only require a short intestinal tract (shorter is better because there's a lower energy cost).

Eating meat is what allowed us to have a smaller gut, which meant that we could 'afford' to develop the large brains we have today.

Ah, and eating meat also provided us with a primary fuel source of huge lumps of fat. Provided you have enough water, hunting once feeds you for several days and only burns a lot of kcals when you're chasing something (which usually leads to a successful hunt), not when you're stalking. This is far more efficient than grazing or gathering, which can provided very few kcals, especially in seasons when most veg is leafy. Hunting both encouraged us to get smarter (the smarter individuals developed better hunting tactics, which got them more meat and made them more desirable AND more likely to survive) and also gave us the leisure of free time in which to toy with our increasing intelligence.

[paleo-bunny]

Yes, a reduced gut length is a more reliable indicator than our teeth of rapid evolutionary adapation to eating more animal protein.

However, there is plenty of evidence that the rapid increase in human brain size is associated with increased consumption of fish and seafood, not of land flesh. Hey - guess what - this came with no pressure for evolution of sharper, more carnivorous teeth, because seafood is not sinuous and is very soft when eaten either cooked or raw.

[Tribal Rob]

Also;
Tigers - Pointy teethy pegs and scratchy claws nom nom raw meat
Peoples - Pointy sticks and stabby rocks fire nom nom cooked meat

Or for a more detailed version look up 'Did cooking make us human' on that youtube.

[AlanC]

Our closest living relative is the chimpanzee, which frequently hunts and eats meat.

We share something like 98% of our DNA with that, so it's pretty obvious we're meat-eaters.




AC

[Louisa655]

Just brush and floss after every meal and you'll be fine.

[paleo-bunny]

Our closest living relative is the chimpanzee, which frequently hunts and eats meat.

We share something like 98% of our DNA with that, so it's pretty obvious we're meat-eaters.

AC

Chimps mostly eat fruit:

Common chimpanzee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[sbhikes]

You do not need any teeth to eat meat because meat actually does not need to be chewed to be eaten. You need sharp teeth to tear flesh from a carcass. But we have hands and tools so we don't need sharp teeth for that. Dog's don't have hands or tools so they do.

Furthermore, you don't even need a stomach to digest meat. You can surgically remove the stomach from a dog and it will live. If you surgically remove the stomach from say a sheep, it will die. If you remove the stomach from a human, the human lives just like the dog. That is why stomach bypass surgery is a possibility.

[magicmerl]

Yeah, the chimp arguement above is false. <5% of a chimps diet is meat. The human adaption to lots of meat (relatively speaking) is since we diverged from them. Otherwise we'd be seeing chimps cooking their food over a fire