I evolved to eat fish and meat killed. So did all other carnivores. I'm happy to continue eating and shitting and sleeping and having sex, I don't want supplements to replace food and AI to replace intellect and IVF to replace sex. I want to be alive.

▲ Faelon 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Abstaining from killing animals is about the sober realization that we can have perfectly healthy and happy lives without killing animals, who have feelings and a sense of perspective and experience, just like us. Living with my values and actions as one give me a strong sense of life, and I love cooking every day. Plants taste great when cooked well!

▲ dotancohen 3 hours ago | parent [-]

  > Abstaining from killing animals is about the sober realization that we can have perfectly healthy and happy lives without killing animals,

Maybe, maybe not. If one is lacking a hobby and happy to spend much time learning and obsessing and fiddling with what they eat, while accepting that they may be missing some vital things that we don't yet know about, then sure.

But I have enough hobbies and I don't want to risk missing some things we don't yet know about. I just eat what I evolved to eat.

	▲	girvo 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I just eat what I evolved to eat So do I: plants!

▲ Insanity 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Our species started out predominantly eating fruits, vegetables, nuts,.. As hunter gatherers, meat eating came later and initially was still not a dominant source of nutrition.

So yes, you eventually evolved for this, but it wasn’t the dominant food source for a loooooong time.

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amanaplanacanal 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Homo sapiens? I don't think that's necessarily true. Older ancestors maybe. Home sapiens was probably mostly getting calories from fruit, tubers, and other animals, depending on season and what they could find.

	▲	Insanity 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah I left a response about that in another comment. Sapiens (sapiens) perhaps, but not true for the entire homo line.

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konart 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Our species started out predominantly eating whatever was available.

During different points of time the ration was very different. From "mostly nuts" to "mostly fish".

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Insanity 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, but more likely insects as first small “animals”. Hunting animals takes more effort than eating fruits etc.

I know it’s all vague delineation of where our species really started, and at which point you would no longer consider it the homo line, but for a significant part of history we were a small predator that would eat whatever was _easily_ available. Hunting animals is not easy and it’s a risky endeavour.

I’m not saying meat wasn’t part of our diet obviously, but it logically wouldn’t have been as dominant a part of our diet as it is today.

	▲	adrian_b 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The most likely hypothesis about how humans have become the most efficient hunters of the planet does not pass through catching insects and very small animals, but through eating the remains of the big prey killed by carnivores. There are various bits of evidence for this, like the higher stomach acidity of humans, which resembles that of carrion eaters, like hyenas. It is plausible that the ability to throw sticks and stones was used initially for scaring other predators and make them abandon their prey, and only later, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, it became accurate enough to be usable for hunting living animals. The ability to use stones to break the bones and eat the parts inaccessible for the carnivores who had killed the prey, i.e. marrow and brain, which are rich in hard to get nutrients, e.g. omega-3 fatty acids, is also presumed to have played an important role in the development of a bigger and bigger brain. It is likely that the gangs of humans acted in a very similar way with the packs of hyenas, which acquire much of their food by scaring away from their prey the other predators, e.g. cheetahs, wild dogs, leopards and even lions. Moreover, similarly to humans, the most important ability of hyenas is not speed, but endurance when pursuing a possible prey that is tired or weakened, e.g. by wounds. While hyenas rely on their big teeth to chase the other predators, humans have relied on their ability to throw things at a distance, for the same purpose. While humans are quite bad at running, jumping, climbing or swimming, in comparison with most mammals, their throwing ability is unmatched by any other animal.

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5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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wizzwizz4 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And different populations evolutionarily "fine-tuned" in environments with different availabilities of various foodstuffs. While many dietary requirements are common to all humans (e.g. we lost the ability to synthesise vitamin C, making us all susceptible to scurvy), some are specific to individuals and (genetically-related) families.

Diet is one of the very few places where your genetic ancestry actually matters – although your gut microbiome, which evolves faster (https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00587), may not share quite the same ancestry as your human cell tissue.

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throwaway198846 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Diet is one of the very few places where your genetic ancestry actually matters

Aside from lactose intolerance what else is different between humans?

	▲	adrian_b 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There are many other intolerances, e.g. coeliac disease and the many different kinds of food allergies. Besides these cases, which are obvious due to immediate harm, and which are the reason for laws about food labeling that mentions lactose, gluten and various allergens, there is a lot of variability between humans in the efficiency of digesting various foods and in the capacity of absorption for various nutrients. Some people are able to eat pretty much anything, while others are aware that they do not feel well after eating certain things, so they avoid them.

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throw_away_928 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They have found spears that are at least 400,000 years old, so we have hunted for food at least that long.

And if you look at our closest relatives chimpanzees, they also hunt without using tools. Humans and their ancestors probably ate whatever they had available, including meat.

	▲	blacksmith_tb 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not much meat, however[1] (unless we're counting insects, I suppose, but even then, still mostly fruit). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee#Diet

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Antipode 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Also likely insects.

▲ niek_pas 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You also evolved to nearly choke to death when you accidentally eat and breathe at the same time. Doesn’t mean it’s desirable.

	▲	mlekoszek 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		At least we can talk about it.
	▲	wang_li 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		“Evolution” is not a sound basis for most choices. We didn’t evolve to wear shoes, live in houses, to use powerful cleaning agents, indoor plumbing, decontaminated water, refrigeration, and pretty much all modern medicine, among about every other thing that is part of modern life.

▲ cluckindan 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reject modernity, embrace nomadic life in the forests.

	▲	Propelloni 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Preach it. I, for one, welcome my caveman dentist!

▲ CalRobert 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ok, but evolution didn’t get us somewhere over 8 billion people can share this planet.

▲ Braxton1980 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>, I don't want supplements to replace food and AI to replace intellect and IVF to replace sex. I want to be alive

No one is pushing for these changes you suggest and to take a stance suggests a social disorder or mental illness.

▲ staticassertion 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This feels like a series of completely disconnected statements. The underlying theme seems to be that "living" is something that can only be realized by isolating behaviors to those that developed under specific niche conditions that applied pressure to our ancestors, and that this is good, and that deviating is bad. The word "living" and "alive" seems to be a proxy word for something like "happy" or "fulfilled"?

So many hoops to jump through to understand what the hell you're talking about, just to land on what could charitably be called the dumbest thing I'll read today if I'm lucky.

▲ boston_clone 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You are not a carnivore, neither is any other human.

	▲	amanaplanacanal 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Plenty do, though. Just like there are plenty of vegans. And plenty that live on junk food.

▲ dymk 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You are not living in the body of a carnivore

Eat some berries and nuts

"Paleo" diet doesn't even include that much meat in it