Human: herbivore or carnivore or omnivore

When searching the internet for dietary advices, one is easily mislead with propaganda and lack of scientific knowledge. We usually come across debates on whether human beings are herbivores, carnivorous or omnivores. In schools we have always learned that human come under omnivore. But a lot of blogs and sites back the idea of human being herbivore. Let’s look at some of their usual claims and the scientific fact.
Most of the arguments are not even related to the species digestion. Like the argument of relation between the facial muscles in a species to the food it eats. It’s like saying I know to speak English and therefore I am an English man. Absolutely absurd and ridiculous.
Even the length of the canine teeth could be misleading. Have you seen the canines on a gorilla? Can you infer that it is the largest meat eater?

How about the Panda? Its diet is made of 99% bamboo shoots. Have you seen the canines on them?
 
Yes, there are carnivores with long canines and herbivores with flat canines. But you will have to look look at a more scientific way rather than measuring the length of canines.

A wolf eats a lot of meat but wolves will supplement their diet with fruit and vegetable matter; they willingly eat the berries of mountain ash, lily of the valley, bilberries, blueberries andcowberry. Other fruits include nightshade, apples and pears. They readily visit melon fields during the summer months
So looking at canine and saying something unscientific is another way of showing your ignorance.
Even more idiotic is looking at the nails. Comparing the manicured nails of human to that to wild animal is nothing short of being ludicrous in its highest form. And more outlandish is comparing that to hooves of cattle to determine the diet of human. Insane!!!
Let’s look at some of the main arguments.
1. The most common argument is the length of the intestines of human, herbivores and carnivores. I am posting below some of the images. I am sure many of you will recollect them from your school days.

The claim is actually a contradiction where the length is longer in carnivores and omnivorous but smaller in herbivorous.
2. Another famous misleading argument is the pH level of stomach.
The pH of gastric acid is 1.35 to 3.5 in the human stomach lumen, the acidity being maintained by the proton pump H+/K+ ATPase. The parietal cell releases bicarbonate into the blood stream in the process, which causes a temporary rise of pH in the blood, known as alkaline tide.The pH of your stomach is very acidic it ranges between 1.5-3pH, it is maintained by hydrochloric acid (HCL) and gastrin. A specific enzyme, pepsin, is activated and works best on digesting proteins in the acidic environment.
The stomach is acidic in order to kill any bacteria that enter the stomach. The acid does not break down food, but contains an enzyme called protease, a form of pepsin, which breaks down proteins into polypeptide chains. No further digestion takes place in the stomach, as this takes place in the ileum, small intestine. The stomach has to maintain its acidity for the enzyme protease to function. The stomach acid is very acidic, but is also quite dilute, and the acid (Hydrochloric Acid) is fairly harmless in this diluted state.
The pH of a cow's stomach is 6.5 to 7. Maintaining rumen pH levels between 5.9 to 6.2 can optimize microbial yield and VFA production. Cow has four stomachs: first two are weakly alkaline so bacteria can live in them, the fourth one=the real stomach=abomasum is acidic, like any stomach. the third one=omasum is somewhere in between, but probably much closer to the rumen and reticulum, as its function is mainly to absorb water, not acid hydrolysis.
The dog's stomach will produce some large amounts of strong acid, thus lowering the pH level down to somewhere between 1 and 2! Now, pH=1 corresponds to an acidity you would obtain with a 0.4% solution of Hydrochloric acid!
3. I like this argument a lot : When you see a dead animal on the road, do you feel to eat it? (A question in favour of vegetarians) In the same way, if you see a tomato in the gutter, do you grab it and devour it?
4. Now let’s look at the way a herbivore digests vegetation. A cow has 4 stomachs (actually 1 stomach but 4 compartments) which digest cellulose by fermentation. This is facilitated by the microbes (bacteria, protozoa, fungi, archaea, and viruses) in the rumen which digest the food. These microbes are the actually reason why herbivores digest the vegetation that it consumes. Humans on the other hand lack these cellulose breaking microbes and rumen. We cannot digest grass or leaves in its natural form.
5. Saliva indicate we could be omnivores. Saliva and urine data vary, depending on diet, not taxonomic group.
6.BAPN(beta-aminopropionitrile) is also a metabolic product of a compound present in sprouts of grasspea, pea and lentils. BAPN cause skeletal disorder because it affects the bones and connecting tissues.
Raw cashews contain urushiol, which is the same chemical that you’d find in poison ivy. It can cause the body to have a very similar reaction to one experienced from poison oak or ivy. If a high level of urushiol is ingested, it can be deadly.
If you’ve ever looked at a potato, you may have realized that some turn a greenish colour. This is due to levels of glycoalkaloid poison. In the past, there have been deaths due to potato poisoning. It is rare, but most happen due to someone drinking potato leaf tea, or eating green potatoes. Death doesn’t come suddenly. It usually results in weakness and then a coma. Don’t worry about having the occasional green potato chip, but do discard any potatoes that have green eyes, sprouts, or greenish skins, rather than prepare and serve them, especially to children.
Amonds without heating are poisonous, because it has cyanide. As well as Apple seeds have cyanide.
Eating too much of meat can lead to cancer and cholesterol.
Tomato leaves and parts contain glycoalkaloid which is actually very poisonous.
7. Only animal food have Vitamin B12 in human usable form. It’s easier to get protein from animal products than eating very substantial amount of protein rich vegetation. And minerals like iron, calcium and zinc come easy from meat.

Instead of me deriving the conclusion, accept the facts and eat healthy. The best diet is a balanced diet of green and meat. The answer at this point is certain, we are neither carnivore or herbivore, but a classic omnivore.
The best arguments in support of a meat-free diet remain ecological, ethical, and health concerns
NOTE: Milk is broken down by an enzyme called lactase in mammals. Humans being mammals have this ability in their infancy but as we grow old we produce less of this enzyme. By the child reaches 6-7 years, this ability is very diminished. So drinking milk is arguably not advantageous once you reach your adulthood compared to your childhood.
We get almost all our energy by burning oxygen in our body. That’s why we breathe. Let’s not breath in carbon di oxide which is actually our waste product. It’s like eating our shit. But better than inhaling carbon monoxide. Nicotine and tar. Stop smoking because its actually poisonous to you and the people around you.
I will be adding more of the arguments as I go along with the actual scientific facts behind them. Why because people believe whatever is written on the internet without verifying the facts.

The man who invented slow motion.

Have you ever seen a person move so slow that he appears stationary? This is the story of such a person. His name is Shashi (fake name). He has this ability to ride his bicycle so slow that even old people would walk past him.
But I am going to speak of his other ability, one that is so unique to him. He is a living magnet of the cricket ball. He could attract any cricket ball going in some other direction to divert and hit him on his chest. For a guy with such dangerous quality, his house is in the worst possible location, at the end of a cricket ground. Given his unique ability to attract balls, there are some pretty amazing stories of the ball finding its target in the most unusual ways.
Once he was reading newspaper inside the comfort of his house. The cricket ball went through the open window of his house to crash into his chest making a hole in the newspaper. Once he was playing cards under the shade of a tree at a corner of the ground. The cricket ball went straight to the tree hitting the branch and finding its target. This time it hit his head from behind. The force was so strong that he practically fell face down into the deck of cards and came up with a card in his mouth.
And many times, the ball would fly high only to land on his chest while he is on his bike with precision timing. Of all these stories, one story stands out as the best that I could remember.
It was a very close match between our cricket team and our rival team. It was the last over and our rival team needed 5 runs to win. The match was so interesting that there were many spectators gathered to watch of which one was our Shashi. When the last over was being bowled, our fielders were on their toes stopping every attempt for runs. In the 4^th delivery of the over, the batsman hit the ball and it was racing towards the boundary. Our youngest and strongest fielder stopped the ball before it could reach the boundary. While he was collecting the ball in his hands, he noticed that the batsman was looking to run again. The fielder did not think then, he aimed at the wicket keeper and threw the ball with all his might.
Only that the ball slipped from his hands and went straight towards Shashi’s chest who was smoking a cigar. The ball landed on his chest with a thundering sound and threw his cigar away in the force of the impact. The whole cricket ground went silent. We were expecting Shashi to yell at us for what we have done, instead he turned and walked. We thought that it is nothing serious since he is not complaining. But the truth was worse. He walked away for he was out of breath. He was not able to breathe in because of the impact to his chest. There was cigar smoke coming out of his nose like mist as he walked in circles.
After a couple of minutes, he could breathe again and the started shouting at us in all the possible ways. He used words that I haven’t heard of, in different ways I haven’t thought of. After half an hour of yelling, he sat down. People who were gathered around asked us to take him to the hospital and so we did.
In the hospital, the doctor asked us to take an X-ray of his chest. When the doctor examined the results, and analysed the extend of different injuries to his chest, the doctor asked, “Did you boys throw stones at the poor man?”

The task of a critic.

Every walk of life is filled with critics judging everything that they have seen or not. The task of a critic is easy in many ways. There is nothing to lose and they command a position over those who offer their dreams, their labour and sometimes their life to our judgement. It’s even more fun to tease and to hear someone tease. But the reality is that any average work or attempt is far beyond the value of our criticism.

When was the last time we presented ourselves to the judgement of others and risked it all? It’s hard for a new talent to come on the arena and present us with something different. We must have the patience to appreciate the attempt and understand the thought and work that has gone behind to present us and capture our attention. Not everyone is talented but we must appreciate when we see an attempt because talent can come from anyone.

Who am I ?

In the lonely dark night, I stare at the sky and see the spectacle unravel in front of me. I drift down to deep thoughts and ask the question that each and every man asks himself once in his lifetime, Who am I?
As I stare deep into the clear night sky with the absence of the moon making way to see the countless stars in the Milky Way, I try to comprehend the scale of things in space, their age, their beauty, the all-powerful gravity, the raw energy as I begin to inhale knowledge. Looking at our galaxy from the inside, trying to grasp what it is, how grand it is, how old it is, can we even begin to comprehend what it is, what are we compared to the awesome spectacle in front of us. But with the little science that we understand, we can say proudly, I am you.
The small light that I see from a star far far away, the photon that touches the nerves in my eyes, the burst of energy that turn into electrical signals that help me see the twinkle of the stars, came from stars that started their journey even before this earth came into existence. We may never live to touch it but something from that star has come to touch us, travelling through the void that lay between us. I feel that connection between the stars yet completely knowing that each and every element in my body was created in a star which has long lived, shined and died, leaving behind matter that has made me. I was born in a super nova explosion and so are you and everyone and everything around us. Even the latest new-born in my life is as old as the cosmos, which is 13.7 billion years old, only that he is in a new unique form. So what am I rather who am I?
I am nature.

Karale in Kerala

In almost all the languages that we know of, we refer our lover with one organ that we hold dear, the HEART.
In English: my sweet heart, my heartthrob.
In Hindi, मेरा दिलरुबा (meri dilruda)
In tamil: என் அன்பே (en anpe)
But in Malayalam: എന്റെ കരളേ (ente karale) which means "my liver" !!!
May be that’s the reason why Kerala has a love affair with alcohol

The sports champ.

Anyone who enters my house will be welcomed by a large trophy showcase. It is filled with trophies of various sports events over a long period of time. Since my father is abroad and my sister is a complete bookworm of medicine, it only natural that everyone assumes I am the proud owner of the trophies. But the truth is; all of them belong to my mother. My mother has been a sports champion all her life. She has even won the medals from former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for the outstanding performance in National Cadet Corps (NCC). Even when I was in college, she would go to competitions and sweep all the trophies in the competitions she could participate. Her specialty was shot put, javelin throw and discus throws.
Once in a competition, she was against the sponsor’s sister in shot put. When the competition started, the judges were seen training the girl. When the competition started, the girl threw the shot put and it slipped from her hands in the first try. The judges immediately said that it was a trial and asked her to retry the first attempt. She threw it again which landed at a fair distance. She looked proud of her achievement and looked straight to our sports club members. The judges went to her to encourage and appreciated her.
Next turn was my mother’s representing our sports club, who just went and picked the shot put and said to the judges that this is not a trial. She then threw the shot put ‘miles’ ahead of the other girl. I could see the judges and the other opponents open their mouth. My mother then said; if anyone crosses that, please inform me, I will do my second attempt. As she was allowed to participate in only 3 items, she won all three with gold medals and a bonus best athlete trophy.
Everyone assembled there would look at me saying, if the mother is that good, what all could her son do? I was around half an inch short of six feet and fairly athletic in appearance at that time. But the similarities end there. My friends would tease me asking me to learn from my mother. I was fed up with these jokes and thought of trying my skills; after all I have the same genes of my mother. The event with the least number of opponents was javelin throw and I selected that for a better chance for gold.
I put on my club jersey and began to warm up before the throw. All the people began to gather around to watch the son of the sports champ in action. This is going to be great. When the event started some of the opponents were hesitant to throw at first looking at my warm-up exercises. When my number was called, I picked up a javelin and started my run-up. I pointed a fair 45 degrees and threw it over my head. Everyone looked towards the horizon to see the javelin disappear, but what they saw was beyond their expectations.
When I threw the javelin over my head, the rear end of the javelin stick hit the back of my head. It was so hard that I landed nose first on the ground. The javelin was lying beside me. The judges picked me up and threw all the water I brought in the bottle on my face. I opened my eyes and could see everyone around me staring in disbelief.
The judge said; Never in his life has he come across such a performance.

Immortality

Everything that is born has an end. We are born with our shadow. We live, breathe, eat, drink and sleep with this shadow. And one day we will unite with in forever. Yes, death is the one thing that we are sure of, the full stop to our life making us all mere mortals.
Since time immemorial, man has been obsessed with his death. We have all our life woven around this single instance making it the ultimate destination. But over time, the ignorance of man couldn’t comprehend the thought of death as an end and culminated the belief of afterlife. This made death another pause in the stream of life and giving hope to a greater journey.
But man still fears death due to the uncertainty of the afterlife and hence started the ultimate goal of immortality, the holy grail of mankind, the pursuit for the fountain of youth.
If there was only a single truth, then that would be death. Then how do we live forever? If anything is born then it must have a death. Then how do we overcome that? All these while we were looking at mortal objects for an extension of our life, but what if we look at the immortal objects? The solution is as simple as ditching the mortal in exchange for immortal objects. That removes our dependency of the life span on other things. Immortal objects, how do we find them? Well look around, they are all around you. Yes I am talking about things that make us human.
Then what makes us, us? I am typing with my hand, I am reading with my eyes. It’s no different than I am reading from my laptop or eating with my spoon. These are just an extension of me. Then where am I? Yes my body is here, But it’s my body, where am I?
I believe, we are the sum of my actions, thoughts, character, personality and feelings. This is where we live and this is immortal. It is pure energy. It can only be transformed from one form to another. Currently it resides in our brain, which is another mortal extension. What if we could transfer this into an immortal space? Just like this blog, what if we could live inside endless memory? After all, our brain is just a network of neurons, passing electric signals. All we have to do is replicate this network and the grid of electric signals will pass though.
I am sure at least some of you might have thought this as science fiction, but todays concept is tomorrows reality.