Editor's Blog July 02nd 2012
I am a carnivore
I am well equipped to deal with flesh. I take great pleasure in eating meat, but are we really Carnivores, Herbivores or Omnivores?
The design of the human mouth and teeth, coupled with the single chamber digestive system all point to Omnivore. However, our Omnivorous ways are more due to our ability to cope with a vast selection of food items, rather than specialising in one particular food group that would have hindered us as a species.
Studies have concluded that humans have a gastrointestinal tract of a well and truly devoted Herbivore. If I had had socks on, they would have been blown off at the news that we are really all a bunch of vegetarians?
In years gone by, the hunting of meals on legs would give us the protein we required to build strong muscles and bone structure to hunt for bigger animals, and ultimately to wage war on your neighbouring cave dwellers.
Today, almost all our meat comes from farmed sources. The beef industry is alive and well, and in one year in the UK alone, 21 million cattle and 14 million sheep are slaughtered for human consumption, giving us some 1.1 million tonnes of meat.
The cost to the planet though is quite evident if we listen to the scientists, who are saying that the green house effect is partiality caused by all the farting cows do.
Simply put, the methane in the flatulence is making the world warmer. Like one giant Dutch oven, where your head is held under the duvet and forcibly made to appreciate the efflux of your trumpeting bed partner.
In environmental terms, the Dutch oven effect will not be a laughing matter. A warmer earth, although good for the likes of the UK and other places that suffer cold winters and summers, not so good for the polar ice caps, polar bears and penguins.
The rising seas will put many cities close to the sea in peril, and all because of a fart; I do find this amusing as I still think a fart is the funniest thing ever.
I contributed to global warming myself this weekend, when I had what can only be described as a heavenly piece of beef at La Vaca Loca. So good and delicious it was that the chances of me complying to my evolutionary makeup as a herbivore are slim to nil.
Ed.
