Great reminders, Dr. Davis.  

"Say you woke up this morning and your cabinets and refrigerator were empty. The stores were far away or non-existent. You and your family would have to improvise, to forage or hunt your day's food. It would require hours. You wouldn't fuss about glycemic index, or saturated fat, or whether or not sugar or wheat was present. You would just eat whatever you could get your hands on. When caloric deprivation threatens, we take what is available."

There are local poor folks in pretty much in this situation, even in well-"nourished" nations, too.  Inner-city areas with poor populations often have no regular grocery stores, and the only place to buy food is in liquor stores that stock a very small food selection with little fresh food; convenience stores/gas stations (same pitiful selection as liquor stores); and fast food restaurants.  Charity food pantries are mostly stocked with boxed starchy, low-protein non-perishables.

Poor rural people in well-"nourished" countries also often have limited access to good food sources, if they don't have reliable transportation.  Vegetable patches, keeping some animals for milk, eggs, and meat, and hunting used to be common as a way to get by.  My great-grandmother's family was quite poor, but they seemed to eat well.  They raised nearly all their own food and sold off the excess.  My grandmother "dressed" the chickens her mother raised to sell to earn the money to buy her high school ring (she was the first in the family to graduate high school) but I think fewer poor people in the US  raise their own food now.

Grocery store chains often don't serve these folks well, even if they have some money or food stamps, because they don't often locate the stores in the poorer areas.  Poor people who want better food at affordable prices often must deal with substantial transportation obstacles and go greater distances, which greatly adds time, expense, and effort, and reduces the amounts of fresh food that can be purchases at one time (fresh food is usually heavier and more highly perishable, too).

Mel Bartholomew, author of the book Square Foot Gardening, has a foundation to help poor women around the world to keep small gardens with his very efficient and less laborious SFG method, to increase their family's access to fresh foods.  There are also a couple international charity groups that provide livestock (chickens, sheep, goats, cows) to rural poor families in a number of countries, so that they might have access to the milk, eggs, or meat, as well as spinning fiber and hides.  

In the last couple of years, I haven't been reading as much fiction, but I have been reading some history, and I'm seeing that the poor usually fared better, even in some dire circumstances, if they had the ability to keep an animal or animals.  Cold Mountain is a fictional account of a Southern small "gentleman's" farm, but the research that went into the description of living off a farm productively is fantastic! (the movie glossed over the details of the farm, but the book is a good read for anyone wanting to "eat what your great-grandparents ate".

  The Worst Hard Times, about the "dirty 30s" dust storms in the Great Plains states of the US, indicates that the folks who stayed put who had some livestock, often survived better and longer than those who didn't.

Jenny--

(I assume that was you.) Forgive me: Somehow I lost your wonderful comment. I must have inadvertently rejected it.

I believe we differ on a relatively small issue, but agree on the larger ones. I am unable to account for what appears to be a stark difference in experience. I will say that this wheat-free approach works extremely well for the person just starting out and hoping to rapidly reverse many lipid/lipoprotein patterns, as well as insulin resistance.

If you have your comment saved, please re-post. Sorry about that.

Very well said Dr. Davis.  Many of us in America are very fortunate to have easy access to food.    

Talking about angry, from time to time I'll have debates on the internet over the TYP diet principals.  There have been a few debaters that become quite bent out of shape with me over what I've said works at loosing weight.  As I like to joke, for being fat people, they sure are not jolly.

Dr. Davis, now is a good time to remind your generous readers to donate food to their local food pantries, to help their neighbors in need.

Our local food pantries are sounding the alarm to their donors that use of their food pantry by "food insecure" people is up at an alarming rate and the pantry is constantly on low supply.  I'm sure that is true at pantries around the nation, and the world.

Anyone who has even a little something to spare  can contact their local food pantry to see what they could use most.  They'll happily take most food donations, large and small, but it's good to check for guidelines first as they know their clients' needs.

Food pantries need refilling all year, not just at holiday time.  Keep your food purchase receipts and get a charitable receipt for your tax deduction records.  I like to make a separate shopping transaction so my receipt is all donated items.  I also take a quick digital photo of the shopping bags for my records, but that might be overkill.

One can often find  big collection cans near the grocery store exits, but keep in mind they need unbreakables in those cans, so no glass containers.  If you can't find collection cans, find out where your donations can be dropped off.  My local CRC has a convenient temporary parking spot out right front for quick drop-offs or maybe there is a can an another area grocery store near the door.

My experience volunteering at our local food drives is that the overwhelming proportion of donated foods are processed starchy carbs.  Canned corn, mac & cheese powder, white rice, pasta, crackers, saltines (for crying out loud!), etc.  I know everyone's heart is in the right place, but I sometimes wish there was a better way to get people to think nutritionally and balance the donations.

I tend to try to find non-perishable protein foods for my donations, because much less protein foods are donated and there are fewer non-perishable protein options.  Our CRC asks for both family sized containers as well as single serve, EZ-open containers for the elderly and homeless.  Tuna,  salmon and sardines, as well as chicken and beef in pouches and cans, stews, soups, beans, almond butter, PB, etc. are what I usually donate.   I've even donated "potted" meat & Spam, which isn't the best thing in the world, but it is protein and it's better than canned corn or saltines!  If I drop off my donations at the CRC, they'll take sturdy glass containers, so I sometimes get olive oil, too, plus some spices.  

I have found some great values when I  purchase food for donation at the local 99 cent store.  A dollar can go quite far at these stores, nutritionally, if one watches out for the sugar and starch minefields.  Non-starchy canned veggies are good, too.  I'll make a shopping trip there just for the pantry now and then and swing by the CRC to drop it off.  I don't bother claiming the mileage, but for those who itemize their taxes, it is possible to claim the miles driving to and from the donation point (or something like that - check - don't take my word for it), so that even helps with the gas!

Don't forget other necessities, too, that people may be scrimping on because their available resources are going for food and gas these days - toilet paper; diapers; toothpaste, dental floss, toothbrushes, shampoo, soap, deodorant, & other personal care items, as well as dish soap, & tissue packs, etc.

Hi, Anna--

Thanks for your helpful advice. I hope people, in particular, take advantage of your advice on donating non-perishable proteins.

Thanks so much for this. I'm a T2 diabetic controlling my blood sugar with a low carb diet. The only thing in my recent lab work that my GP is unhappy with is an elevated vitamin D level. A few years ago, a friend gave me a copy of The China Study (along with Fuhrman's Eat to Live, because they had "changed [her] life" and she hoped they would change my life as well. Based on my experience and reading about blood sugar regulation and insulin levels, what both had to say just felt wrong to me, over and beyond the simplification one might expect in a mass-audience book. So, I was skeptical about their broader health-related claims, though I wasn't concerned enough to investigate further (and have actually considered the ethics of regifting books that I think make dangerous recommendations). Because of this, it's quite gratifying to find my initial suspicions confirmed by detailed analysis.

When I looked up The China Study on Amazon, I found this statistical analysis of the China Study dataset under the comment section.  This is simply amazing and backs up pretty much everything you've said in your blog.  I hope someone can do an analysis to confirm this analysis.

http://www.amazon.com/Analyzing-the-China-Study-Dataset/forum/Fx1YJPR95OHW08P/TxY4S5EZD8Y2XE/1/ref=cm_cd_dp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&s=books&asin=1932100660&store=books

Very glad to see this analysis featured here, too.  I groan every time someone recommends The China Study to me as a great authoritative book, so Minger's detailed review was most welcome.

We must keep in mind however, Minger's review and different conclusions not withstanding, that The China Study is epidemiological data and it can only show association, not causation.   It still doesn't prove in any way that consuming wheat is harmful to health.  Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of wheat anymore and no longer consume it myself or serve it to my family.  But it *is* fuel for the argument that considerably more study is needed before the government and health agencies continue to push wheat consumption on the public as matter of policy.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this analysis is that is is done by an "amateur" without any axes to grind.  It is a telling comment on the dihonesty and/or stupidity of most government and industry funded research.

Campbell doesn't deny that processed refined wheat flour (which is what they eat in china) is unhealthy.  He advocates eating whole plant foods.

Whole wheat, brown rice, beans, and steel-cut oats all seem to raise my blood sugar about the same amount, which is quite a lot depending on how much I eat.  Are they equally problematic?

happy to see denise mingers study featured here.

    wheat asides, milk pasteurised or uht causes a pretty massive immune system flare up for me.

How do we explain the positive correlation between plant protein and cancer?  I'm not ready to give up my kale and chard just yet!

Denise's astute analysis gives rise to the importance "digging a little deeper". I have always thought the benefit of eggs was contrary to the "official" line of thought. Little did I know the controversial aspects of wheat until stumbling along Dr. Davis' musings.

Sorry to come off topic here but i dont have the program in my  computer to email you. Dr. what do you think of this http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/are-some-people-pushing-their-vitamin-d-levels-too-high.html

ramon25-

Very interesting study.  I would love to hear a reply as well.

Here is the T Colin Campbell's response to Denise's debunking of the China Study:

http://tynan.net/chinastudyresponse

Some commenters have wondered whether the wheat flour assessed in the study was refined wheat.  Chinese today eat mostly refined wheat products, but in the 70s, rural Chinese on collectives might have eaten differently, so I emailed a few Chinese professors of nutrition to ask.  It's morning now in China, and I got one response from Dr. Duo Li of Zhejiang University.  He told me in a brief reply that rural Chinese ate whole wheat products and the refined wheat was rare.

Denise's analysis of The China Study is heavily flawed and therefore invalid.  Debunked by a cancer epidemiologist...

Here it is...
http://www.30bananasaday.com/group/debunkingthechinastudycritics/forum/topics/a-cancer-epidemiologist

The proper testing procedure as stated by an expert on analysing stats...
http://www.30bananasaday.com/group/debunkingthechinastudycritics/forum/topics/my-response-to-denises

Campbells response to Denise..
http://www.30bananasaday.com/group/debunkingthechinastudycritics/forum/topics/campbells-response-to-denises

Campbell, in his response, thinks Minger is probably an undercover agent in a larger conspiracy.  The  debunking epidemiologist, in his, points out that correlation and association aren't the same, which will probably not come as news to Minger.  Could be Minger has kicked the hornets' nest.

What I'd like to know is how correlations > 1 and < -1 are being generated, since that's impossible.

Thanks for sharing the research point of view,yes with the obesity that is hitting America it is necessary to learn that the cause of obesity is eating more of high protein diets and fats over vegetables and fruits.

Gary Taubes says Campbell's co-worker on the original study, Oxford professor of epidemiology and statistics Richard Peto also thought the data did not support Campbell's hypotheses.

Dr. Davis

The way wheat is consumed  in the west is very different from the way it is consumed in the east(fermenting/sprouting/sourdough etc.).

This post might be helpful to 300 million americans but mislead 4 billion asians.

With due respect I'd suggest you consider the above before going all guns blazing against global wheat consumption.

But Pallav, how can the Chinese be mislead when it's the Chinese's own wheat consumption that is being looked at in The China Study?

In reality, that study can only generate ideas, it can't test them. So even if it generates the idea that wheat is bad for humans, we must test that idea before it becomes the truth. As far as I know, Dr Davis did test this idea and came with the conclusion that it was the type of wheat that made the difference. Maybe the Chinese ate the bad wheat and that's why it shows up that way?

Anonymous wrote: "What I'd like to know is how correlations > 1 and < -1 are being generated, since that's impossible."

Denise says right in the post that she gave the numbers in percentage rather than decimals to make it easier to read. I.E. +33 = 33% = .33

Martin,
The way Dr. Davis tested einkorn and wheat currently generally available in usa (http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-search-of-wheat-einkorn-and-blood.html) is probably is what brings real value to this blog.
The subhead Europe:Sourdough bread http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/06/fermented-grain-recipes-from-around.html is very close to how wheat is consumed in India. This process very likely breaksdown a large part of the offending ingredients such as gluten and phytic acid from a cursory search i did on google scholar.
I would trust a test on this process by Dr. Davis than on statistics, which as you rightly said generate ideas but need testing.
However, when Dr Davis goes on to implicate wheat in general for all sorts of diseases like in this blogpost, that applies to americans (the specific way of consuming wheat) and not necessarily to those who process grain differently like in asia.
That is the point where things get icky and can be misleading for those consuming wheat in asia and reading such posts.
Perhaps we can all come to a better way of processing grains than cutting them out from the diet altogether?

"a diet high in animal protein, especially casein"

Quickly, briefly, because my story is only tangentially related to this post by means of Dr Davis's almost stray remark I quote above...

I am ~5 weeks into my wheat free diet -- to zero success. I do not measure myself daily in any way, but the obvious one: do I lose weight? Yes, but only ~5lbs, which represents 2% of my total body weight. I should have lost that amount easily within 1 week, if I were proceeding on this diet correctly.

And then the other stray remarks began to pile up:
1) The 20 year old girl with celiac disease who dropped wheat AND 20lbs in 2 months. (What about me?!)
2) The dinner at PF Changs. I ordered the chicken lettuce wraps and skip the rice noodle thingees. Good job, I thought. Then I lingered over the menu, saw the restaurant offers an entire page of gluten free items, and the dish I just ordered was not one of them. I called for the waiter. He explained the sauce...
3) I drink protein shakes. A lot. As fate would have it, I migrated to casein protein because it broke down more slowly thus causing satiety to last longer. Until I read this post from Dr Davis with his stray remark, did my homework, and discovered to my chagrin that on a cellular level casein protein is so similar to gluten that it might as well be the same. (In essence.)

Okay, lesson learned. This gluten free, wheat free, grain free, carb free diet is not as easy as it looks at first glance. There is way more to it than skipping bread, and pasta, etc. But now I think I have it. So Sunday is Day 1. Shame I lost those first 4 or 5 weeks, but this time...

It may be true that wheat is a major cause of heart disease, but I'm not sure the high correspondence between wheat and cvd in this study makes that case.  Richard Peto, the Oxford professor of epidemiology who was part of the original study said what the data showed was that in places where people started adopting more of a western diet their health deteriorated.  I doubt the study spells out which parts of the western diet did the harm, wheat might be a marker for western diet.

People feel threatened when facts are released that go against the standard, cultural beliefs. We are raised as children to eat animals and animal secretions and so it is understandable why so many people feel threatened when they find out that the food mama gave them is helping to promote heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases, digestive disorders, etc. The China Study is the longest, most unbiased studies ever conducted and show statistically significant results, worldwide, that ingesting animal foods create chronic ill heath in humans. I have helped 400 people in the last 4 years to eat a healthy, low fat, plant based diet and they have all rid themselves of the diseases listed above. Now, I have also some Kaiser doctors who, instead of handing pills or surgery, are handing out this book and getting the same results. Thank you Dr. T. Colin Campbell for your 35 year long work. And, I know that you went into this study trying to prove the opposite results!
When people hear that their upbringing needs to be challenge, they lash out with untruths….just as yound, 23 yr old Mindy has done.

People feel threatened when facts are released that go against the standard, cultural beliefs. We are raised as children to eat animals and animal secretions and so it is understandable why so many people feel threatened when they find out that the food mama gave them is helping to promote heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases, digestive disorders, etc. The China Study is the longest, most unbiased studies ever conducted and show statistically significant results, worldwide, that ingesting animal foods create chronic ill heath in humans. I have helped 400 people in the last 4 years to eat a healthy, low fat, plant based diet and they have all rid themselves of the diseases listed above. Now, I have also some Kaiser doctors who, instead of handing pills or surgery, are handing out this book and getting the same results. Thank you Dr. T. Colin Campbell for your 35 year long work. And, I know that you went into this study trying to prove the opposite results!
When people hear that their upbringing needs to be challenge, they lash out with untruths….just as yound, 23 yr old Mindy has done.

To David M Gordon - how much of the lettuce wraps did you eat. PF Changs has nutritional info on the website and says this dish has 4 servings of 5oz. Each serving is 11 carbs so if you ate the whole thing yourself, that was 44 carbs.

It is very easy to underestimate carb counts. I have found a scale can be very useful. Mine measures carbs and other stuff.

That little dish is 4 servings?  C'mon! You bet, I bet I ate the whole thing, Anne.

What is in it that weighs so much? Some iceberg lettuce leaves, chicken, the rice noodle thingees I did without, and the sauce -- which is NOT gluten free, but I changed to a gluten free sauce. I bet that swap changes the calorie count etc. (Hey, I can hope!

Sure I want to lose weight -- okay, I must lose weight -- but my issue is visceral fat and its resulting potential problems: diabetes and heart issues (inflammation).

Thank you for your comments.

Instead of driving yourself with all these numbers why not just look for visable proof in REAL people.  I decided to try plant based eating and here is what happened:  (the numbers have actually gotten better since this was published last October)  Why I'm a believer in Dr. Campbell's advice:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/stars/mike_teehan.htm

Instead of driving yourself with all these numbers why not just look for visable proof in REAL people.  I decided to try plant based eating and here is what happened:  (the numbers have actually gotten better since this was published last October)  Why I'm a believer in Dr. Campbell's advice:
http://www.drmcdougall.com/stars/mike_teehan.htm

Mike, good for you. See this:
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/low-carb-gaining-a-foothold-with-the-mainstream/

If Campbell is right that a plant-based diet is best for most humans, why did the low carb group do better than the other two groups (Ornish and LEARN diets) in the intervention study above? Not only did the low carb group do better in weight loss, they did better in all things measured.

Denise Minger wrote:

"Here we have evidence that areas in China with the highest rates of Western-type diseases also eat the most processed starch and sugar. Maybe not in the grotesque amounts that Americans eat them, but then again, China’s “affluent disease” rates were also lower than America’s"

This could easily be the headline "Minger accuses Americans of grotesque eating habits"

Debate is good but be healthy, not paranoid
Trevor

How can anyone tell anyone else what to eat?  We all NEED plants to survive.  However, some do better with wheat in their diet and some do better with meat in their diet.  It all depends on the person.  I wouldn't go bashing The China Study until you try the whole foods plant-based diet.  Dr. Campbell also stresses that nutrition is NOT about a single nutrient or food group.  It's all about the synergy of everything working together.  I would love to see Denise's analysis of the aflatoxin rat studies.  Everyone needs to take control of their own health.  No one should rely solely on the china study as what they should do.  I personally believe in what the china study is saying, but it might not work for everyone - especially when people are raised to eat animal protein.  I know I have issues with animal protein, but others might be able to tolerate it.  Don't go bashing Dr. Campbell for trying to help people.

Dr. Bill Misner Ph.D. said:
The BMI body mass index of rural Chinese is 21.0 supported by a daily calorie intake of over 2600k/cal/day from largely plant foods.
Americans on the other hand consume largely animal sourced foods of 1989 calories per day resulting in an obese BMI of over 27.0! All one has to do is compare the source of total calories with resulting BMI.

Eating 2600 calories whole plant foods that contribute to a lean healthy BMI of 21.0 is preferred to eating 1989 calories from largely animal sources resulting in an obese 27.0 BMI.

Elevated Body Mass Index associated with food category choice are also associated with the typical disease patterns in obese persons.  The China Study shows these numerical correlations precisely.

I confirm the report that overweight exists more in cultures consuming largely animal source calories than in those whose diet is primarily whole plant foods.

Interestingly, I have observed all of the above in Americans who change their menu from animal source to whole plant source food protocols.

Warm regards,

Bill Misner Ph.D.

"I would love to see Denise's analysis of the aflatoxin rat studies."

You can read an excellent analysis HERE. In a nutshell, what those rat studies prove is that complete protein provides better nourishment than incomplete protein. Wheat is naturally deficient in lysine, and when lysine was added to the wheat protein diet, it behaved just like the casein.

Cancers are very fast growing cells, so of course they're going to grow a whole lot better if they're better nourished. I'd wager that if the rats had been fed a complete vegetable protein blend, e.g. rice and pea protein in the correct ratio, the tumor growth would have matched both the casein and wheat plus lysine.

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Friends,

  You don’t need to believe Dr. Campbell. Just read The China Study, slowly and completely, and figure out the truth for yourself. Facts speak for themselves.

  I, and a few of my acquaintances, tried a whole-foods plant-based diet (coupled with biweekly exposure to sunlight in noon and some physical activity) for a few months (strict compliance), and it is working wonders for us, so we continue to be on it. Some of my friends failed, because they were mostly eating junk (plant-based) foods.

  The China Study book is not just about Dr. Campbell’s work, but more than that it describes the work and results of numerous other research studies, independent and unbiased, that point to the undeniable benefits of a whole-foods plant-based diet.

  Denise has adopted a detailed but very narrow view that is insufficient to relate to the larger context. This approach will only add to confusion and misleading conclusions.

As a physician with the health of your patients at stake, Would you accept conclusions that were not peer reviewed?

Wonderful post... Very informational and educational as usual!

Acai Berry Optimum

Fascinating and funny. Thanks for the post. I'm glad I found your blog

Jeff Brailey
http://wordworks2001.blogspot.com

Check my blog and find out why I refused to have a quintuple coronary artery bypass in the spring of 2004 and am alive to tell about it almost three years later.

Dr. William Roberts, editor of the American Journal of Cardiology and cardiovascular pathologist, is a perennial source of clever ideas on heart disease.


He's also on the advisory board of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) - an organization with a very clear agenda.

(2) The intestinal tract of carnivores is short (about 3 times body length); that of herbivores, long (about 12 times body length). (Since I am 6 feet tall my intestinal tract should be about 60 feet long. As a consequence, if I eat bovine muscle [steak], it could take 5 days to course through those 20 yards.)

I can't believe a physician thinks the human intestine is "about 60 feet long". At most, it's about 25 feet long.

Provocative thoughts, yes....

By way of full disclosure, the leadership and advisory board of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) includes:

PCRM Board of Directors: Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President; Roger Galvin, Esq., Secretary; Andrew Nicholson, M.D., Director.

PCRM’s advisory board includes 11 health care professionals from a broad range of specialties:

T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. Cornell University
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D. The Cleveland Clinic
Suzanne Havala Hobbs, Dr.PH., M.S., R.D. The Vegetarian Resource Group
Henry J. Heimlich, M.D., Sc.D. The Heimlich Institute
Lawrence Kushi, Sc.D. Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente
Virginia Messina, M.P.H., R.D. Nutrition Matters, Inc.
John McDougall, M.D. McDougall Program, St. Helena Hospital
Milton Mills, M.D. Gilead Medical Group
Myriam Parham, R.D., L.D., C.D.E. East Pasco Medical Center
William Roberts, M.D. Baylor Cardiovascular Institute
Andrew Weil, M.D. University of Arizona

Clearly, as a comment mentioned, they have a viewpoint or agenda, however that doesn't mean they are wrong, anymore than carnivore-type programs may be right for everyone.

In my opinion, there's plenty of room for 'novel' thoughts in the field of preventive cardiology and I appreciate Dr. Davis bringing them forward.

And most clearly of all, there's plenty wrong with the conventional "standard American diet" no matter which end of the dietary spectrum one embraces.

Whatever WORKS to help with plaque reversal!

"However, modern livestock raising practices have substantially modified the composition of meats."

Is patient education difficult on such subject matter?  Curious; had to ask.

And how about the flesh of grass fed beef and wild game?  Is that good, better, more acceptable but still bad?  How about the folks who believe anthropologically we were meant to to eat a hunters and gatherers diet?

Polar bears have the longest intestine of all the bears. I'm like a polar bear.

Hi Dr. Davis,
Your favorite internet TYP promoter checking in. : )  Thought to mention a possible opportunity - a friend of mine mentioned that he printed out and passed on a copy of your latest blog posting, the Big Squeeze, to his friend, Congressman Jim Marshall.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Marshall_%28U.S._politician%29
Don't know if much will come of it, but being an opportunity thought to bring to your attention.  
You might want to delete my mentioning of this.

Just found your blog and am enjoying it.

On this topic, I read such a comparison by a veterinarian who had cared for sheep, dogs and cows for 30 years.  Unfortunately I can't find it at the moment

His take was the opposite.  

Some things I remember were that humans, like carnivores, can swallow very large chunks of food that would kill a herbivore.

Humans don't have 4 stomachs and don't chew cud.

Human stereo vision is much more like all types of predators (eagles, cats, dogs, hawks, predatory fish) than almost any herbivore (eyes almost on the sides of the head)

If you look at human hands, they look a lot like the Bonobo monkey's hands and NOT at all like a gorilla's hands.  Bonobos eat a lot of meat - insects, rodents, birds, and gorillas eat a lot of fruit and vegetables.

That's basically what I remember.

I'll post a link later to the fill thing if I can find it.

Sam in Toronto

Another thing I remember - the intestine length argument goes both ways - some carnivores do have long intestines.

Something that does not go both ways - human intestines have the enzyme systems needed to degest lots of chemicals that ONLY exist in MEAT.

As far as I know, you cannot get these from plants, or from only 1 or 2 plants in the world  

Heme iron (not a big deal these days, but this was huge in the past, where every human, even kings, had dozens of blood-extracting parasites on the skin, in the hair and intestines)

creatine (vegetarians can be synthesize this out of plant methionine)

EPA/DHA (from fish oil - in ancient times, in meat - none in vegetables - there's no plant source for EPA, and only seaweed for DHA)

B12

also, as an efficiency measure over and above the efficiency of digesting individual amino acids, human digestion can grab large chunks of protein, many of which occur only in meat ( very, very large peptices -  but I forget what these are called - globulins or antigens)  

Sam in Toronto (that's me, the author, not a chemical that humans can digest and that does not occur in vegetables)

Robert's comment is interesting, it's also grossly in error.  

We're not rabbits or dogs, we're humans, and we're omnivores.

The anthropological record is quite clear at this point.  We evolved large brains to hunt prey, and the fat of that prey allowed our brain to get larger, making us better hunters.  We sweat because we could outrun our herbivorous prey, using our naked skin as a superior cooing mechanism.  We have smaller teeth because we've been cooking our food for 1.5 million years, or so.

We do seem to need some vegetable matter in our diets.  Even the Eskimos eat some.  But we do fine on a primarily animal diet.  A cow would not.

It'd be nice if a physician was a little more familiar with the species he's treating.  A veterinarian couldn't get away with this degree of ignorance.