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We have a cecum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecum And we can digest plants just fine without having to ferment them. A

We have a cecum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecum And we can digest plants just fine without having to ferment them. All those fantastical ideas about how the human body works, they keep cropping up in this kind of thread again and again. Where do they come from, I wonder? I am really curious. Who comes up with those things? The other day some guy was saying we can't digest plants. Like, at all. A vegetarian once told me that our teeth and stomach can't deal with meat. Have those people never eaten the things they say we can't eat? There's clearly a kind of madness in all those diets that starts to become dangerous when it becomes a fad. But I'm still curious: how do they start?

ravenstine 4y ago
Yes, we have a cecum by name, as do other hypercarnivores including cats, but its design in no way suggests that humans developed to primarily eat plants or even digest them in an efficient way. Even the article you cited states explicitly that the function of the human cecum is different than that of herbavores, and it's dubious whether it should even be referred to as a cecum. If you look at the digestive tract of herbavores, such as cows, deer, horses, and rabbits, their cecum is a distinctly large and is typically considered a separate digestive organ. Besides absorbing salts, the human "cecum" is a glorified dead end to the large intestine. A human could easily live without one if it were removed. It would have nearly no impact on our ability to swallow cellulose and excrete it undigested. Removing the cecum from an herbavore like a horse would be an entirely different story because they need it to process cellulose. > And we can digest plants just fine without having to ferment them. This is not correct. Humans are entirely ill-adapted to digesting plant material. You will find no credible source that suggests that our digestive tracts are good at digesting cellulose, which makes up the bulk of plant material because it composes their cell walls. Just because we can swallow plants and poop them out without necessarily getting sick or dying doesn't mean it's at all optimal. At best, we can ferment a small amount of cellulose given that it has been sufficiently broken down through cooking. Even if we were better at fermenting it, we are extremely poor at grinding it and are bad at harboring microbiota that produce cellulase enzyme. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8661373/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8661373/ Can we derive energy from plants? Of course. If those plants are abundant in sugars and proteins, then we can access those. That is possible in present day because agriculture and selective breeding made edible and energy dense plants available and ubiquitous. Such plants did not exist the way they do today, were usually scarce, only available seasonally, and were energy-expensive to obtain and prepare. > There's clearly a kind of madness in all those diets that starts to become dangerous when it becomes a fad. Depends on if those diets are actually dangerous. What's more dangerous than believing that humans are developed to primarily eat meat is to ignore all available scientific evidence and promote fanciful ideas around plants being good or even better for humans. I await the day that a child dies from being fed plenty of meat. Meanwhile... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/vegan-couple-murder-baby-starve-ryan-patrick-o-leary-sheila-florida-a9255046.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/vegan-coup... https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjqbem/judge-convicts-parents-after-baby-dies-from-vegan-diet https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjqbem/judge-convicts-parent... It's as if the human body is optimized to process animal material and is not so good at processing plants.
- cheese_goddess 4y ago
  Will you listen to yourself speak for a moment? What you are saying is completely mad! We are "entirely ill-adapted to digesting plant material"? The majority of the food eaten by every human culture throughout history consisted of plants! "Staples" they're called: cereals, roots and pulses, the three bloody sisters, wheat, rice, barley, potatoes, taro, cassava and yams. People have subsisted on diets that were for their vast majority only plants for thousands of years but we are entirely ill-adapted to digesting plant material? Why? Why is it that whenever the subject is food all the deranged nonsense of the internets comes out of the woodwork? One group of looney tune characters wants to eat nothing but plants. Another wants to eat nothing but meat. One insance clown posse says meat is bad for you. The other says plants are bad for you. You people are all stark raving mad! You're bananas! > Yes, we have a cecum by name, as do other hypercarnivores including cats,... Listen to yourself! We are like cats? Humans? Or are we talking about Thundrecats now? Because unlike Lion-O, humans are nothing like cats: A hypocarnivore is an animal that consumes less than 30% meat for its diet, the majority of which consists of fungi, fruits, and other plant material.[1] Examples of living hypocarnivores are the grizzly bear (Ursus horribilis), black bear (Ursus americanus), binturong (Arctictis binturong), kinkajou (Potos flavus), and humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocarnivore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocarnivore You want a "credible source", really? I mean you can't even spell "herbivore" correctly but can you tell me which "credible source" is it that told you all this nonsense, that we are "hypercarnivores", like cats, and that we are "entirely ill-adapted to digesting plant material"? Pay heed: your friend Napoleon Bonaparte doesn't count. He's not who you think he is.

ravenstine 4y ago

Yes, we have a cecum by name, as do other hypercarnivores including cats, but its design in no way suggests that humans developed to primarily eat plants or even digest them in an efficient way. Even the article you cited states explicitly that the function of the human cecum is different than that of herbavores, and it's dubious whether it should even be referred to as a cecum. If you look at the digestive tract of herbavores, such as cows, deer, horses, and rabbits, their cecum is a distinctly large and is typically considered a separate digestive organ. Besides absorbing salts, the human "cecum" is a glorified dead end to the large intestine. A human could easily live without one if it were removed. It would have nearly no impact on our ability to swallow cellulose and excrete it undigested. Removing the cecum from an herbavore like a horse would be an entirely different story because they need it to process cellulose. > And we can digest plants just fine without having to ferment them. This is not correct. Humans are entirely ill-adapted to digesting plant material. You will find no credible source that suggests that our digestive tracts are good at digesting cellulose, which makes up the bulk of plant material because it composes their cell walls. Just because we can swallow plants and poop them out without necessarily getting sick or dying doesn't mean it's at all optimal. At best, we can ferment a small amount of cellulose given that it has been sufficiently broken down through cooking. Even if we were better at fermenting it, we are extremely poor at grinding it and are bad at harboring microbiota that produce cellulase enzyme. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8661373/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8661373/ Can we derive energy from plants? Of course. If those plants are abundant in sugars and proteins, then we can access those. That is possible in present day because agriculture and selective breeding made edible and energy dense plants available and ubiquitous. Such plants did not exist the way they do today, were usually scarce, only available seasonally, and were energy-expensive to obtain and prepare. > There's clearly a kind of madness in all those diets that starts to become dangerous when it becomes a fad. Depends on if those diets are actually dangerous. What's more dangerous than believing that humans are developed to primarily eat meat is to ignore all available scientific evidence and promote fanciful ideas around plants being good or even better for humans. I await the day that a child dies from being fed plenty of meat. Meanwhile... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/vegan-couple-murder-baby-starve-ryan-patrick-o-leary-sheila-florida-a9255046.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/vegan-coup... https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjqbem/judge-convicts-parents-after-baby-dies-from-vegan-diet https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjqbem/judge-convicts-parent... It's as if the human body is optimized to process animal material and is not so good at processing plants.

cheese_goddess 4y ago
Will you listen to yourself speak for a moment? What you are saying is completely mad! We are "entirely ill-adapted to digesting plant material"? The majority of the food eaten by every human culture throughout history consisted of plants! "Staples" they're called: cereals, roots and pulses, the three bloody sisters, wheat, rice, barley, potatoes, taro, cassava and yams. People have subsisted on diets that were for their vast majority only plants for thousands of years but we are entirely ill-adapted to digesting plant material? Why? Why is it that whenever the subject is food all the deranged nonsense of the internets comes out of the woodwork? One group of looney tune characters wants to eat nothing but plants. Another wants to eat nothing but meat. One insance clown posse says meat is bad for you. The other says plants are bad for you. You people are all stark raving mad! You're bananas! > Yes, we have a cecum by name, as do other hypercarnivores including cats,... Listen to yourself! We are like cats? Humans? Or are we talking about Thundrecats now? Because unlike Lion-O, humans are nothing like cats: A hypocarnivore is an animal that consumes less than 30% meat for its diet, the majority of which consists of fungi, fruits, and other plant material.[1] Examples of living hypocarnivores are the grizzly bear (Ursus horribilis), black bear (Ursus americanus), binturong (Arctictis binturong), kinkajou (Potos flavus), and humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocarnivore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocarnivore You want a "credible source", really? I mean you can't even spell "herbivore" correctly but can you tell me which "credible source" is it that told you all this nonsense, that we are "hypercarnivores", like cats, and that we are "entirely ill-adapted to digesting plant material"? Pay heed: your friend Napoleon Bonaparte doesn't count. He's not who you think he is.