'But we're meant to eat meat Lee! We're carnivores!'

HI LEE
Hello.

'BUT WE'RE MEANT TO EAT MEAT LEE! WE'RE CARNIVORES!'
Nope.

WHAT? WE ARE!
Nope.

WELL, WE'RE OMNIVORES THEN!
Nope.

WE ARE!
Nope.

WHAT ARE WE THEN?
We're HERBIVORES.

HERBS?!
And FRUGIVORES.

FRUGS?!
What do you think early man's first ever meal was?

MEAT!!!
How could it have been meat? We've been evolving as primates for around 57-85/90 million years 
and the incorporation of meat and marrow from large animals, only occurred at least 
2.6 million years ago.
Early humans had no idea they could eat animals at first, let alone know how to hunt and catch one (remember, this was pre-tools and pre-fire!)

SO WHAT DID THEY EAT THEN, SMART ARSE?
Early humans (hominins) ate whatever they could find to survive and therefore evolved from a
daily plant-based diet which included plants, fruit, berries, tubas, bark, flowers, nuts, grains,
legumes, seeds and some insects.

We have come a long way from how our ancestors once lived.

One thing's for certain, human beings were not born with a natural instinct to kill and eat animals​ - that has never existed and it doesn't exist today.
If it did, we'd be leaping on every dog that walked past us with a knife and fork in our hands!

Most of us, even as adults, could think of nothing worse than abusing or slaughtering a defenceless animal,
let alone having an innate drive to do so.
​We have no carnivorous or omnivorous instincts whatsoever.

We were ALL BORN VEGAN.

WHAT?
Think about it. We loved and respected animals when we were young. We certainly never wanted to harm them or eat them ourselves, we only acquired a taste for meat, dairy and eggs after being fed them 
continuously during childhood.

Even today, if a child sees an animal, particularly a baby animal, they want to stroke them, play with them and to love and take care of them. Under no circumstances do they ever want to bite the animal's throat to cut off their oxygen, to tear them open and feast on their insides to obtain the nutrients from them.

“If someone out there truly believes humans are meat eaters, find a 2-year-old child, place the child in a crib, and in the crib put two things: a live bunny rabbit and an apple.
If the child plays with the apple and eats the bunny rabbit, would you let me know, because I’m going to come back and buy everyone in this room a brand new car if that happens.” - Gary Yourofsky

BUT WE'RE APEX PREDATORS LEE!
Tell that to the sharks, bears, wolves, crocodiles, tigers, leopards and lions! Or the killer whale (Orcinus orca) - the world's largest apex predator – and one of the world's largest carnivores!

At the top of the food chain are animals that don't have any predators themselves, with polar bears and orca whales occupying the highest position, so that already rules us out.
In fact, that puts us right in the middle of the food chain. ​We sit somewhere between pigs and anchovies.

We're not 'top of the food chain', nor are we 'apex predators'. How can we be 'apex' when there were, and still are, genuine meat-eating predators that are bigger than us, stronger than us and could easily kill us?

​​The only thing we're 'top of' is the 'Species Who Are Good At Wiping Themselves Out' list!

A lot of non-vegans like to (regularly) liken humans to 'lions in the jungle' although 'consuming meat' is the only similarity to lions they can find. After all, lions also rape, sniff each other's arses, and kill their own children so I'm not sure 'we're like lions' is a justifiable excuse for eating animals.

OK BUT WE HAVE SHARP CANINES?
Pah, those little things? They struggle tearing the sellotape, let alone biting through the thick skin or the raw flesh of a pig, a cow or a sheep.

Our ancestors' canine teeth were actually used in battle, when fighting for mating rights against rivals,
rather than for tearing into animal flesh.
Our close relatives, gorillas they use their fangs for warding off competitors in the fight for female companionship and the male with the longest canines often wins the troop of female gorillas.

​Besides, not everyone has 'sharp' canines, but we do all have incisors and molars.
Canines are designed for tearing flesh and crushing bones but our teeth are short, flat and blunt for grinding up and chewing fruit and vegetables and for biting into hard, crunchy things like apples, which incidentally, is why our lower jaw can not only move up and down but also from side to side, as all natural herbivores' jaws can.
​Carnivores and omnivores' jaws only go up and down for ripping and swallowing.

And our POO!

EXCUSE ME?
There is new evidence to suggest there was 100g of fibre in early hominoid poo - which suggests
​they ate A LOT of plants!

Also, our SALIVA! We have carbohydrate digestive enzymes in our saliva! Something ONLY herbivores possess. Which means we're supposed to be eating tons of carbohydrates like fruit and vegetables.

Carnivores and omnivores also have strong claws and paws. Where's ours? I even broke a nail typing this!

We're not colour blind either! Most carnivores have only two pigments so are colour blind. Whereas we see in colour and can see all the bright colouration of flowers, fruits and vegetables.

We even sweat through our pores to cool ourselves down - carnivores and omnivores have to pant to do so! We don't pant! Do you pant?

ONLY WHEN I WALK UP THE STAIRS...
Most carnivores hunt their prey at night while they're sleeping and most vulnerable.
We only eat during the day (unless there's something good on Netflix!)

We're 100%, anatomically and physiologically, HERBIVOROUS!

BUT... OUR TEETH?
You're obsessed! Who cares who has the biggest teeth? As if the size of my teeth makes it acceptable for me to pay someone to murder an animal on my behalf!

BUT...
If you still want to use the 'canine argument', then hippos have the largest canines of any land animal and guess what they eat...

ERM... PLANTS?
Yippo. PLANTS! They're herbivores. In fact, 75% of animals on this planet are herbivorous.

And did you also know the world's strongest animals are all plant eaters?
​
REALLY?
Yep. Gorillas, buffaloes, camels, elephants and rhinos (who all have considerably large canines) all eat plants.

WHAT'S YOUR POINT?
We're rubbish! We're speciesist. We're animals who see ourselves as morally superior to any other animal species. We see them as inferior, and we think 'might means right' just because we have more intelligence. 

YOU DON'T THOUGH?
I don't what?

YOU DON'T SEE THINGS LIKE THAT?
Oh, I thought you meant I don't have intelligence...
No. I don't see things like that at all. ​Intelligence doesn't make us more important than anyone else
​nor does it morally justify our actions.

I might be more intelligent than you...

THAN ME?
Yes. However it doesn't make my life more important than yours does it?

NO.
Nor should it mean I can abuse or exploit you because of it.

I SHOULD HOPE NOT!
​Pigs are treated horrendously in the animal agriculture industry yet are considerably
​more intelligent than dogs and 3-year old children. So the 'intelligence argument' doesn't work.

SO EARLY HUMANS?
As the Earth got significantly hotter and drier and as the temperature rose, the forests shrank and green plants became scarcer. This forced early humans to find new sources of energy and they eventually worked out that they could eat and consume the marrow from inside the bones of animal corpses that had already been killed by predators.

Imagine being that guy? "Kevin, we're all having lunch in the... what on earth are you doing?!?"

They also discovered that they would need to kill animals for food themselves, just like the other non-human animals had been doing and that it was now necessary for their survival.
However, getting lucky in catching and then eating these animals was new to them and so it was a once a month (if lucky), whenever they could, type of experience.
Eating animal flesh was not an every day, with every single meal, all-the-time kind of thing.
That would have been impossible. 

These hunter-gatherers soon discovered they couldn't physically do this with their soft fingernails, flat molars and, compared to most other animals, their ridiculously slow speed.

So early humans had to make tools to help them. And when they discovered fire (roughly 800,000 years ago) - it changed everything.

​You see, we can't kill animals with our hands alone, with what we have been given - we're not designed to.
We need to make guns, knives and traps​ in order to do so. How is any of that a 'part of nature'?

If we ARE natural 'omnivores', we are the only 'omnivores' that have to cook our meals thoroughly and
prepare our food properly before we eat it!
Hmm so natural!

I mean, lions and wolves are always carving their own weapons and cooking their deer thoroughly on a stove before devouring them aren't they? *rolls eyes*

If we were MEANT to be catching and killing animals, we would be able to do it naturally would we not?
We would be able to jump on an animal using our animal instinct
​and rip it open using our fingernails and our teeth.
Not only that but we should WANT to.

The animal agriculture industry want us to think that the animals they exploit, abuse and kill, all live happy, carefree lives when it's anything but that. So they feed us lies and fakeries to help convince us to purchase these victims and to fund this cruel industry - no matter how unethical, immoral and unhealthy it all is
- all so that they can make money from it.
​
They do whatever they can to stop people seeing slaughterhouse footage however, if it was 'natural' and we were MEANT to eat animals and if we 'enjoyed' killing and eating them, as is our 'nature' (apparently),
then slaughterhouse footage should be readily available and shouldn't upset or traumatise anyone, should it?

If we were MEANT to eat flesh, the very idea of tearing open an animal's stomach and letting their insides pour out should make us salivate and feel hungry, rather than feel sick (to the stomach).

If we attempted to attack a pig in this way, without 'man-made' weapons, they wouldn't fear us, instead they would most probably roll over at our feet and expect us to rub their belly while they have a kip.
​Pigs love doing that!

And our stomachs too. 

OUR STOMACHS?
Yes. Carnivores need extremely acidic stomach juices in order to lyse the protein and to break down animal flesh. They also have strong enzymes in their stomach which break it down and kill bacteria.
​Whereas we have weak hydrochloric acid and a less acidic stomach PH to digest prechewed fruits and vegetables. This is also why we get sick if we don't cook our animal flesh properly or long enough.

Our bodies are designed to function on plant-based foods that are full of fibre, unsaturated fat, phytochemicals, and cholesterol-free protein.

​Our digestive system is mostly likened to a cow's - another legendary herbivore!
The length of our intestines are between 7 - 13 times the length of our torso - the same length as all herbivore intestines, allowing us to slowly break down the fibre and absorb nutrients from plant-based food, while the length of the intestines on 'real' meat eaters is only 3 - 6 times the length of their torso. This allows the digestion of decaying and rotting animal flesh to take place easily and faster.

True carnivores and omnivores don't waste their food either. As well as the flesh, they consume the organs, brains, intestines, blood, tendons, cartilage, fur, anus, toes, tail and the ligaments. We wouldn't dream of putting any of that stuff in our bodies would we? Would you?

 Hello?

I'lL bE bAcK iN a MiNuTe...
Ok...

If we were meant to naturally eat animals, raw and quite literally, 'in the flesh', we wouldn't be choosy about which bits we swallowed. If we were hungry, we'd be fine eating the brain, the digestive system, the lot.

Remember how freaked out people were when Gabrielle found a southern fried chicken head in her KFC hot wing meal? There was outrage!

'How dare KFC make me confront the reality that what I'm eating was once a living, breathing being with eyes,
a face and a personality!'

But why was there outrage, if we're MEANT to eat chickens?
​How does that make sense?

It's the same reason these 'true carnivores' can't watch slaughterhouse footage because seeing animals being killed is too upsetting. That and it's so gory and gruesome that it puts them off their food
​(which is killed animals).

OH MAN, YOU'VE GOT A POINT THERE...
Thanks.​
​
OK LISTEN... even if we WERE opportunistic omnivores (we're not), who thrive on plants but have the ability to consume and digest flesh too... the whole carnivore/omnivore/herbivore/frugivore debate is irrelevant.

IRRELEVANT?!
Yes.
Regardless of what we think we are, the reality is that
none of it provides a moral justification for us to abuse, exploit, kill and eat another living being when we no longer need to.

Just because we CAN do something, does not mean that it is ethical for us to do it.
​We CAN eat animal flesh, just like we CAN eat human flesh - we could even eat our pets if we wanted to but it doesn't mean we're MEANT to, nor that we should.

Imagine if someone wanted to hurt, slaughter and consume your dog or your cat?
Would they be allowed to, just because they CAN?
​It would be unnecessary, unethical and cruel wouldn't it?

​We're no longer cavemen, living in the wild, hunting for food and trying to survive.
​We have mortgages, smart phones, pot noodles and ASDA!

​Consuming 'meat and dairy' doesn't just harm the animals, it can also harm us.
Would something that's classed as a 'Group 1 carcinogen - the same category as tobacco smoking and asbestos' be something we are MEANT to consume?

Would something that can cause... 
Heart disease
Type-2 Diabetes
Colon cancer
Prostate cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Breast cancer
​Stomach cancer
Ovarian cancer
Rectal cancer
Esophagus, liver, and lung cancer
Lymphoma
High blood pressure
Strokes
Chronic Kidney disease
Osteoporosis
Asthma
Obesity
and Atherosclerosis
...be something we're MEANT to eat?

ARE ALL THESE THINGS CAUSED BY EATING ANIMALS LEE?
Other things can cause these illnesses to occur such as smoking, drinking and stress but the 4 main things that cause the above illnesses are...

* cholesterol *
* saturated fat *
* trans fatty acids *
* animal protein *

...and they are ALL found in milk, cheese, meat and eggs.
​

CHRIST!
Animal flesh, unless cooked properly, also gives us...
Salmonella
Clostridium perfringens
E. coli
Yersinia
Shigella
Staphylococcus aureus
Listeria monocytogenes
Campylobacter

Giving us symptoms such as...
nausea
vomiting
diarrhoea
abdominal cramping
fever
headaches

Not to mention all the...
Zoonotic diseases and deadly viruses
Deforestation and forest fires
Species extinction
Climate change
Abuse of human rights
World hunger
…and all caused by our unnecessary farming, slaughtering, purchasing and consuming of animals and their by-products.

Does any of that sound like something we should be contributing to?

And if we shouldn't be eating/drinking this stuff,
(note: how we only ever eat or drink the flesh/milk from HERBIVORES, not carnivores or omnivores!)
then should we be feeding it to our children?
(more on this soon...)

I might add that 'REAL' meat eaters (hyenas, bears, tigers, lions etc.) have NEVER suffered from any of these illnesses or diseases.
They NEVER experience clogged arteries or heart disease. What does that tell you?

CHRIST. YOU'RE SAYING ALL THIS TO SCARE ME RIGHT?
Nope. Why on earth would I want to scare you?

TO MAKE ME GO VEGAN LIKE YOU
I don't want to make you go vegan like me.
I would like you to go vegan for the animals. And for you. I want you to stay alive and well.
Besides, ​I can't MAKE anyone go vegan. Going vegan lies with the individual. Only YOU can choose to remove animal cruelty from your life. All I can do is present you with the things I've learnt.
It doesn't need to be me though. Click the words above - look online, read the peer-reviewed studies, watch the non-biased documentaries (more on these soon...)
It's all there if you look.

IS THERE ANY GOOD NEWS LEE?
Yes!
A VEGAN diet causes NONE of the things above - not one of them!
No one has ever become ill from eating too many plants! They cannot harm you, they cannot cause a disease (or a pandemic!) and more importantly, no one else is harmed when you eat them.

In fact, a wholefood plant-based vegan diet helps you to stay fitter, healthier and it has even been proved to
help you live longer!
(not to mention help save the planet and all of the animals living on it with us who
simply don't deserve what we do to them)

We know, categorically, that we're able to obtain energy and nutrients from plants (like the animals we eat are) and that we can survive happily without killing animals - plenty of us do it and have been doing it for a long time. Some cultures live their entire lives eating only plants, so we know, without question, that there's no necessity to eat animals anymore and because it's not necessary, it cannot be morally justified.

We have to base our actions on what is right or wrong. Necessary or unnecessary. Moral or immoral.

Killing animals would be justified if we HAD to. It would be forgiven and accepted, as we all need to eat something in order to survive but as luck would have it, plants exist. And thank fuck they do!

I would much rather 'slaughter' a carrot (which has no brain, isn't sentient, has no central nervous system (so cannot feel pain) and has no family - it's a carrot!), than slaughter an animal that has all of these things and that simply wants to live their life. Wouldn't you?

YES. I HATE CARROTS...

​