Comparative Anatomy and Physiology Brought Up to Date

---

T A B L E   O F   C O N T E N T S   F O R

---

PART 9
Conclusions: The End, or The Beginning
of a New Approach to Your Diet?

• Contrary facts vs. vegan dogma: facing the honesty problem
  
  • Synopsis of the primary evidence (conclusions): Humans can be regarded as natural omnivores, and we are not natural vegetarians
    
  • Veg*n diets are not the natural diet of humans

• Failure to thrive (FTT)
  
  • Your health is more important than raw/veg*n dietary dogma
    
  • Feelings of superiority and recitation of mantras result in blocking of contrary information
    
  • Excuses and rationalizations the "party line" reaction to FTT
    
  • How often are diet gurus honest and humble?
    
  • For some diet gurus, dietary dogma is more important than the health of their followers, and victims may be blamed if the diet does not work
    
  • Difficulty of resolving the question with nutritional calculations done "on paper," opinions from nutritionists, or with clinical studies done to date

• Rationalizations about the evidence for omnivorous diets from the fossil record and comparative anatomy
  
  • Diet gurus excel at spinning rationalizations.
    
  • Rationalization: The fossil record is irrelevant because we were created, rather than evolved--evolution is nonsense!
    
  • Rationalization: Our prehistoric ancestors were acting "against their nature" by eating meat for 2.5 million years!
    
  • Rationalization: The evidence of modern ape diets is irrelevant because we are a unique species, and we evolved in a different environment (the African savanna) than the forest-dwelling great apes.
    
  • Rationalization: The human gut is far too elastic for comparative anatomy to tell us anything about our natural diet.
    
  • Rationalization: The evidence of comparative physiology is irrelevant because: we can get B-12 from unwashed produce; low bioavailability of some nutrients from plants is good because they are toxic except in tiny quantities; physiological measurements made on meat-eaters are invalid!

• Rationalizations in response to the evolutionary and hunter-gatherer evidence for omnivorous diets
  
  • Rationalization: What happened back in the Paleolithic age doesn't really matter. We are different people today.
    
  • Rationalization: Evolution is concerned with reproductive success, not longevity. By the latter measure, vegetarian diets are an improvement on evolution.
    
  • Rationalization: Hunter-gatherers may eat some meat but they are not that far from being vegetarians. Plant foods predominate, and animal food is sporadic because hunting is usually unsuccessful/inefficient compared to gathering of plant food.
    
  • Rationalization: There are no vegan gatherer tribes because they have not been exposed to the "enlightened" philosophy of veg*nism.
    
  • Rationalization: The hunter-gatherer diet is not feasible for people living in modern times.

• Evolution and vegetarian choice: continued dogma or a new honesty?
  
  • Diversionary tactics: personal attacks and nitpicking--attacking the messenger while ignoring the message
    
  • Nitpicking inconsequential issues while ignoring the relevant ones
    
  • How will you react?
  • Dishonest raw/veg*n diet gurus

• Should you eat meat?

• A new beginning?
  
  • Newer knowledge can help in self-assessment
    
  • The pervasive nature of the false claim that "humans are natural veg*ns" has had its own, long-term, impact on the veg*n movement
    
  • Myths and crank science: a good basis for the raw/veg*n movements?
    
  • Personal choice: myths and crank science, or reality and honesty?

• EPILOGUE: A personal note to the reader

• APPENDIX 1: The carnivorous/faunivorous vegan

• APPENDIX 2: Encephalization quotients, Kleiber's Law, and statistical methods

• APPENDIX 3: Methodology of Chivers' and Hladik's index of gut specialization

• APPENDIX 4: Statistical methods for determining gastrointestinal (GI) quotients in Martin et al. [1985]

• APPENDIX 5: Technical notes regarding construction of B-12 table based on Mozafar [1994] data

SEE REFERENCE LIST

SEE TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR:
PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 PART 6 PART 7 PART 8 PART 9

---

GO TO PART 1 - Brief Overview: What is the Relevance of Comparative Anatomical and Physiological "Proofs"?

GO TO PART 2 - Looking at Ape Diets: Myths, Realities, and Rationalizations

GO TO PART 3 - The Fossil-Record Evidence about Human Diet

GO TO PART 4 - Intelligence, Evolution of the Human Brain, and Diet

GO TO PART 5 - Limitations on Comparative Dietary Proofs

GO TO PART 6 - What Comparative Anatomy Does and Doesn't Tell Us about Human Diet

GO TO PART 7 - Insights about Human Nutrition & Digestion from Comparative Physiology

GO TO PART 8 - Further Issues in the Debate over Omnivorous vs. Vegetarian Diets

GO TO PART 9 - Conclusions: The End, or The Beginning of a New Approach to Your Diet?

Back to Research-Based Appraisals of Alternative Diet Lore