Why are people vegetarian?

Question

When nature has provided us with teeth and metabolism designed to eat meat?

Do they think they know better than nature or something?

Thanks for the Cat, Rabbit, Dog theory well you got the whole animal kingdom covered with that cross section i'm convinced statistically. Except.

a) Chimpanzee
b) Cow
c) Dog

Which has teeth most like ours. Oh its the omnivorous Chimp you missed that one nevermind good try though.

It needs to cook because we discovered fire. We experimented and learned not only did it taste better we could also eat older meat with less chance of becoming ill. Over the generations are immune system to weakened with respect to digestion of raw meat as it was no longer needed.

Wrong again but I like the way you can construct an argument.

Answer 1

More intriguing is why would someone with the name "Bodhisattva" ask such a question in such a snarky way.

No offense, but I find it kind of ironic.

Answer 2

Apparently you never heard of the naturalistic fallacy. You cannot derive "ought" from "is." What that means is just because something occurs (or something is "natural") you cannot conclude that it is ethically right. You use teeth and metabolism, but surely aggression and xenophobia are also evolutionary baggage. But that is no reason to conclude that we must be aggresive or tribally oriented, is it? You use the chimp example, and there are many similarities between humans and chimps. if you are going to use the example of the "naturalness" of diet, then why not the "naturalness" of war? Both humans and chimps go to war (unlike cows or dogs), does that therefore mean we have no grounds on which to criticize war? Of course not! There are moral standards independent of our biology on hich to judge our actions. If you disagree with this, then I'm afraid you are going to be left with no grounds on which to criticize a person who does something "natural" but wrong. If a person who criticizes meat-eating as "wrong" is claiming to know more than mother nature, then so is a person who criticizes aggression.

Once you allow that there is a standard on which we an judge "natural" or "evolved" behavior, you admit that whether or not an action is "natural" is less important than whether or not it is "moral." And so pointing out the evolutionary history of a behavior ceases to be a moral justification for it.

Answer 3

Just because the majority of humans eat meat, doesn't mean we were meant to. Humans were actually never meant to eat meat. Our teeth are more fitted to bite into hard vegetables then rip into flesh. If we were omnivorous, then why does meat need to be cooked? Also did you know that the main cause of death in the US is brought on by consumption of meat. 700,000 people die a year from heart attacks and strokes which is directly connected to high cholesterol which is directly related to meat. You can feed an omnivore as much meat as it can handle and it will never develop coronary heart disease, but if you feed a known herbivore a lot of meat, guess what happens? A heart attack. So the question that should really be asked is: Why do people eat meat? Do they think that they know better than nature? How could they, after all the evidence shown still believe that meat is necessary?

Answer 4

Actually humans are not that well designed to eating meat compared other meat-eating animals.

There are so many reasons why people choose to become vegetarian. Religious reason. Ethical reasons - either because of some animals rights issue or because of the inefficiency of animals as a food source in terms of the amount of food produce compared to the farming land needed to sustain them. Health issues . Or they just don't enjoy the taste of meat.

Answer 5

i was for health reasons. meat makes me get really bad migraines and throw up so i stopped eating it. I came to find out that it was actually the hormones put into the animals that was making me sick ,so now i eat only organic meats and I'm okay. But for a long time i didn't know that and i would just get really sick. I think mainly being a vegetarian is a choice factor . Either for health reasons or just preference.

Answer 6

Do you believe you know better than nature?

Let me ask you a few questions about nature.

Which animal has teeth that more closely match ours?
a. The carnivorous cat - meant to eat nothing but meat.
b. the canine - meant to eat both meat and vegetables
c. the rabbit - meant to eat vegetables only

The answer is c sharp front teeth to tear with and rounded back teeth to grind the vegetables down.

next question

Which animal has intestines that most closely match those of a human?

a. the carnivorous cat
b. the omnivorous dog
c. the herbivorous rabbit

tick, tick, tick, hmm

yes the rabbit, good choice, you learn fast.

The cat has a very short intestine which allows quick release of the meat which is known to rot in a human stomach. it also has gastointestinal acids that are about 10 times as strong as a humans.

The rabbit has a longer intestine, which allows it to pull the nutrients out of the vegetables that it eats.

Would you like me to continue? Or would you like to look further into this yourself?

**How much meat is actually in a chimpanzees diet? I think you will find the answer to be minimal.

"Chimpanzees have been known to hunt in carefully structured plans that vary depending on where they are. They are definately not vegetarian. They have been known to kill all kinds of small animals in order to obtain meat, not because they need it but because they enjoy eating it.--Camblunt100 16:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC) "

Answer 7

Our body doesn't have the mechanism to eat meat. it is not designed to be like this. We are designed to be a vegetarian. and also, now results have shown that eating veges are more healthier than eating meat. like tomatos can prevent cancer. brocolis are good for health, etc. there are lots of veges that can prevent most illness. but meat? nahz, it doesn't. but i can't say that all vegetarians are healthy. I can say most. it still has to depend on the person lifestyle.

Answer 8

No sensible vegans can contest that we were deigned to eat meat. Even most vegan scientists agree that human's are designed to eat meat, that is not in question.
That we do not have claws, talons, or incisors to hunt proves nothing. When early hominids ate meat they scavenged it, as vultures do, using their fingers to get the sinews and meat other animals couldn't. It was only after that that they began to hunt the meat themselves, and only much later they began to cook it. It is interesting that even now if someone was brought up eating raw meat he would have no problem with it.
The last few million years of human evolution have revolved completely around tools. We used advanced stone tools long before we began to hunt our own meat, and as such there was no need for evolution to bestow us with large claws or teeth to kill prey.

Simple research into human biology reveals how we are meant to eat meat. For one thing, our body produces hydrochloric acid and meat splitting enzymes that herbivores don't produce and are solely used for the digestion of meat. There are adaptations to our teeth (not incisors, rather the size of the jaw), stomach and intestines which have made a human being very adept at meat digestion. There is nothing wrong with the way our body digests meat, and we are so adept at eating it no scientists are of any doubt we've evolved to eat it.

In contrast, there are many reasons we aren't naturally herbivores. We cannot naturally get all the nutrients we need without animal products naturally. Vitamin B12 cannot be got, even now, without animal products or supplements, and a lack of it can cause anaemia and impending death. 60% of vegans even now have some level of B12 deficiency, as opposed to no meat eaters, which says something about how well adapted we are to a vegan diet.
All other nutriets can be got natually. That owes to that vegtables can now be sold all year round, even out of season, and can be flown into the country from all over the world. In bygone times people could only eat the relatively small range of plants that grew in their ecosytem, and only when they were in season. Thus many more nutrients would have been unavailable and still more unavaillable for most of he year. Until very recently it would have been impossible for a vegan human to live naturally without dying very quickly.

Now, meat makes up for all these lost nutrients very nicely, and it really shows how we aren't naturally vegans, as until very recently it was impossible to live like that.

Answer 9

Some people do it simply to lose weight and try and focus more on healthy foods eg vegetables and fruit, whereas other people do it as a form of protest against the inhumane killing of animals.
Last but not least some people claim they simply don't like the taste of meat. I could never be a vegetarian. Love meat too much.

Answer 10

some people just don't like how meat tastes, or how it looks. other people think that things that were born aren't mean to be eaten. everyone has their own opinion....

Answer 11

people are vegitarian because they care about animals and wouldn't ever think about eating them. some people are vegetarian because meat and animals aren't appetizing to them.