This Is Your Body On Vegetables

anatomically speaking are humans supposed to eat a plant-based diet is the human digestive system capable of handling the plant defense chemicals that are created to deter animals from eating the plants is it appropriate to compare the human digestive system with other mammals or are we just too unique given the fact that we can cook and process our food in today's video the help of the cadavers here in the lab we're going to be looking at different aspects of the human digestive system to see if we can answer a simple yet highly controversial question did human beings evolve to eat a primarily plant-based diet the comment section is probably going to be something special let's do this speaking about nutrition online is Risky Business to say the least which is why I want to be very upfront right from the beginning I'm not here to tell you what you should or shouldn't eat instead what I'm going to do is focus on what I personally believe to be Essential Knowledge for anyone who actually wants to understand more about their body and the kind of fuel that they're choosing to put inside of it so the focus of today's video is going to be on plant-based diets but at a necessity we're also going to discuss some aspects of carnivore and omnivore-based diets so first up is canine teeth now their real name is cuspid and that's because they are essentially just one point and there are going to be four of them you have two of them located in the upper aspect of your jaw area called the maxilla and then you have two in the lower more mobile joint which is or bone I should say it called the mandible now it's important to also understand that teeth are not bones instead they are highly mineralized layers that are surrounding a pulp a central root consisting of blood vessels and nerves so these layers are called Dentin cementum and enamel and enamel is the hardest substance in the human body and it's on the surface of the teeth and that should make a ton of sense to you because your teeth are just mashing together right pulverizing material that you can then swallow back into your digestive system but canine teeth are interesting for a variety of reasons but the first one is that they're sexually dimorphic which means they're different in males than they are in females so for humans canine teeth and males are a little bit wider and a little bit longer and this can actually be helpful to forensic anthropologists if they're trying to determine like say they have some bones trying to determine sex the teeth can help them determine whether it's a male or female but I should also be clear that the differences between human males and females isn't nearly as big as you see in say like chimpanzees or gorillas or orangutans those are going to be much more significant and noticeable between males and females now a common argument you'll hear from proponents of a plant-based diet is that canine teeth are not exclusive to carnivores and that you'll see canine teeth in many different herbivores in the animal kingdom with the hippos being the most common example I've heard over the years and that is definitely true I mean hippos have enormous canine teeth but it's also important to understand that hippos have been known to consume a lot of meat in fact researchers have discovered that many herbivores if given the opportunity and chance will also consume meat and that the the reason why many of them don't is simply because they lack the physicality to properly hunt or compete or scavenge it has nothing to do with a lack of desire to consume that meat so you may be wondering then does the presence of canine teeth suggest that a creature is at least an omnivore if not an outright carnivore and that might possibly be the case but it's also important to understand that canine teeth aren't solely for puncturing and tearing into flesh and ripping it to pieces for consumption instead came and teeth can be very intimidating I mean think to the hippo if a hippo is just roaring at you that is about as scary as it possibly gets you see canine teeth can be useful for biting opponents or simply just showing them off to scare them away so you don't even have to fight them there is an evolutionary benefit for having canine teeth that has nothing to do with actually consuming meat and processing it in your digestive system interestingly researchers have discovered that the human ancestor artipithecus ramitus which lived around four and a half million years ago had canine teeth that are very similar to modern humans and so researchers have speculated that this could be due to sexually selected pressures meaning females actually preferred males that are less aggressive and this could be for a variety of different reasons but one of the primary reasons or at least what's thought to be a primary reason is because as human babies their maturation process started to be delayed right as our brains grew it took longer for them to fully mature and it takes if you're curious up until about age 25 to fully do that that means infants and children are more dependent upon their parents for longer periods so the thinking is that as that occurred it's better to have a less aggressive father and someone who's more capable of conversing right someone who's more capable of using their cognition to help tackle problems and issues as opposed to just using their fists to solve every problem so what I'm trying to say is the presence of canine teeth doesn't actually suggest that a creature is supposed to eat meat in fact it really doesn't suggest that they're supposed to eat anything at all however the presence of canine teeth does suggest in The evolutionary past of a creature there was some meat consumption and then just over millions of years that creature started to become more herbivore or maybe they started to become more carnivore or maybe they just stayed in the middle of the road and are an omnivore and the canine teeth are just along for the ride as long as that creature is able to have some utility for the canine teeth they will stay right that's just how Evolution or The evolutionary process works if there is a benefit to some kind of feature then it stays but as the utility starts to decrease then the incidence of that feature will also decrease until it's eventually gone or just so insignificant that it might as well not be there that's just how that evolutionary process works but okay so now you might be wondering well what do plants do to the human digestive system right does it make things better isn't there good for you or does it make things worse as in they're just bad for you or does it not really matter all that much those are all very good questions but real quick I want to thank the sponsor of today's video athletic greens athletic greens is a nutritional company that makes nutritional drink ag1 which has become a morning staple for me ag1 has 75 different ingredients which includes vitamins minerals 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vegetarian I mean if you're on the all lemon diet which sounds terrible obviously you're going to have more acidity in your diet than you would if you were eating more alkaline fruits and vegetables now with that said Studies have shown that vegetarians are likely to experience more tooth decay when compared to non-vegetarians Studies have also shown that raw vegans have no increased risk for tooth decay when you compare them to carnivores and omnivores and then on top of that when you look at human ancestors or the teeth of human ancestors you're still going to find some cavities you'll still find some tooth decay but nowhere near the levels that we see today even with all of our available Oral Care and some experts have even gone on the record stating that human ancestors had essentially Immaculate teeth but the thing that's lacking from all of these studies is context right it's like we don't know what type of vegetarian or vegan or omnivore or carnivore diet we don't know their type of Oral Care right how many are flossing but what's their technique with flossing because even if the study says oh yeah they were flossing but how was what was their flossing like were they using mouthwash were they um were they using an electric toothbrush right there's all these little nuanced matters and it always bugs me that when you look a lot at a lot of these studies that a lot of that Nuance is just pushed out and then we're supposed to draw some kind of conclusive conclusion but to me I think this is all pretty intuitive it's not really all that surprising if someone is eating a ton of fruit right and a lot of it and you're having a lot of citrus in there there's a lot of acid in their diet regardless if they're omnivore or vegetarian or vegan but they're not taking good care of their teeth of course they're likely to experience more tooth decay but if you're taking good care of your teeth and still eating that way more than likely you're not going to experience as much tooth decay context matters something else I've heard a ton about recently are plant defense chemicals and what I mean by this is plants don't want you to eat them unless it makes sense for you to do so so for instance if it's the optimal time to spread their seeds then sure you can eat wherever their seeds are at so you can spread them but plants have come up with some clever ways to ward off herbivores you know some plants will make you sick if you eat too much or even touch them at all capsaicin which is responsible for the sensation of spiciness is literally a trick on your nervous system making you think you're experiencing heat when you're really not there are some out there that claim that certain plant defense chemicals do far more harm than good when consumed by humans but based on the available literature that I've read I just don't see this being the case you see humans are extremely good at adapting we've adapted to nearly every environment on this entire planet and that also means we're good at adapting to eating and consuming different food sources now there are certain plants that we definitely don't want to touch we avoid them at all costs like poison ivy immediately comes to mind but condemning broccoli because when you chew it it activates sulforaphane and sulforaphane some believe has been shown to cause thyroid problems to me that just doesn't reflect reality nor does it reflect what's in the available literature plants come with fiber and that fiber can either be fermentable or non-fermentable if it's non-fermentable basically it'll go through your digestive system kind of like a broom helping to clean out leftover digested material and you know helps keep you regular but fermentable fiber can they be broken down by microbes and what that does is it causes those microbes to thrive and then when they Thrive they produce byproducts that can be good for you such as improving your immune system as well as maybe even creating like vitamin K for example so research has shown that a healthy and robust gut microbiota and microbiome helps protect you against potential pathogens and digestive agitators so the fiber you get from broccoli is actually going to be different than the fiber you get from a carrot and there are specific microbial species that prefer the broccoli fiber over the carrot fiber and they each give their own byproduct meaning each of them are beneficial to you in their own unique Way by cutting fermentable fiber out of your diet you are causing entire microbial species to starve and in some cases become extinct meaning you lose their beneficial byproducts look the available literature has suggested that a robust microbiome can even help protect you against carcinogens from meat products meaning consuming plants can actually make it healthier to consume meat a robust microbiome can help defend you against the plant defense chemicals in fact it can even make them inconsequential or possibly help you by stressing you in a way that you can adapt look your digestive system is able to take some abuse I mean obviously that abuse is going to be limited if you're eating nothing but broccoli that can create problems this is where diversity is going to be so important but it can take abuse and especially at the level that a piece of broccoli is going to give you the length and shape of the intestines are frequently discussed as being a reason why humans are supposedly more herbivore than carnivore now the the comparison I see all over the place is between cows and lions right cows are going to have a longer digestive tract than a lion would now the thing about that is cows are actually ruminants which means they're going to have four chambers to their stomach so it's no surprise they have a long digestive tract but actually herbivores do have longer digestive tracts than carnivores do now Jonathan did an entire video where he measured the intestinal length of the cadavers here in the lab so you'll want to be sure to check that out but intestinal length in humans is not nearly as straightforward as you think there is quite a bit of nuance to it but on average the human intestines tend to be about five to seven times the length of our torso size now when you look at Lions their intestines seem to be about less than five times the length of their torso size while Cal files are somewhere around 20 times as long as their torso size and if you're looking at herbivores that aren't ruminants that number is going to get closer to the human so you're going to seize that see that intestinal length decrease another interesting aspect of the human digestive system is our tiny cecum now the cecum is the first part of the large intestine but it really just means blind ended pouch now in herbivores the cecum can be huge and that's because it acts as a fermentation tank where you have tons of microbes breaking down plant fibers but for humans we don't do it like that right as we just discussed we ferment all throughout the colon so we don't need this large cecum but at the same time we're not getting near the degree of fermentation that you see in herbivores so what do all these observations mean well humans are omnivore and you didn't need me to tell you that right the simple fact that you can get nutrition from a carrot and chicken alike tells us that you're an omnivore but that's not the question we're really asking the question we're asking is are humans more herbivore than carnivore and truthfully human anatomy can't give us an answer but the thing is neither can our current understanding of physiology or nutrition they just aren't ready to give such a definitive call observationally speaking humans are more related to herbivores digestively speaking that is but simple observations can't always tell you where you stand in the ever-shifting landscape of The evolutionary process I mean are we shifting more towards carnivores or are we settling into the herbivore ways and what role does cooking our food play in the bioavailability of these nutrients I mean cows don't cook their food but it makes you wonder if they could what could that do to their digestive systems over a long enough period of time I mean humans and human ancestors have been harnessing fire for at least 300 000 years and evolution works at a very slow pace frequently but occasionally it can work very quickly so you know you have to ask yourself given our ability to speed up digestion through the cooking process is it even a meaningful question to ask what we were meant to eat I mean things have changed we have technology we have fire we have the ability to speed things up and change take more control over our nutrients honestly I don't think we're going to come up with a satisfactory answer for most people and that's because diet and nutrition are nuanced thinking of it in terms of this is always good or this is always bad runs counter to millions of years of evolution and the instincts that are a product of that we as humans eat what we can when we can to get us through this life at least historically speaking that's the case you are an opportunivore right if you're hungry enough you'll eat meat fruit vegetables even Twinkies right regardless of your philosophical beliefs So evolutionarily speaking we aren't meant to eat any specific diet we're meant to eat whatever we can to try and get as many macro and micronutrients to sustain us ourselves till our next meal your intestines harness the power of microbes to help you fight off plant defense chemicals in the byproducts of meat consumption look at the end of the day the only real indefinitive statement that we can make is that you want to limit as much as possible processed foods that is probably the only real definitive statement that can be made that is equally true across the board for every person everywhere I mean look diet is so variable too you have to think like people have evolved eating different types of diets whether you're down in Peru or maybe you're in Siberia right you're an Inuit right you there's so much variety out there that when we get too definitive and they're saying it's this or that you have to eat this you have to eat that it just starts ignoring huge populations of people so again the only real definitive statement that we can make as far as I'm concerned is cut out the processed foods and eat as much Whole Foods as you possibly can if you choose to eat only plants or only meat for that matter just understand there are going to be consequences because we did evolve eating both but look it's 2022 and supplementation is possible and I completely understand plant-based diets especially from a philosophical and ethical standpoint I'm I'm not going to tell you what you can or can't eat but personally I believe that we just need to stop pretending that we're built for anything other than survival and reproduction if you prefer to eat something or if it makes you feel better all the power to you but you just have to realize that it doesn't work for everybody nor should it work for everybody and that's okay thanks for watching everybody I hope you enjoyed today's video be sure to click the link in the description below and start your athletic greens Journey today as always be sure to like and comment especially on today's video we definitely want to hear what you're thinking you know did you agree with me do you not agree with me uh have you grabbed your Pitchfork I mean my last video I said we're going to grab rage do rageful science the Pitchfork are you ready to do your rageful nutrition and come after me I I would love to hear it in the comments section but also if you haven't already and you feel so inclined be sure to subscribe but I'll see you in the next video [Music] foreign

Channel: Institute of Human Anatomy

Views: 1,171,884

Keywords: vegan diet, vegetarian diet, plant based diet, carnivore diet, carnivore based diet, should humans eat meat, should humans eat vegetables, should we eat fruit, should we eat plants, should we eat vegetables, are vegetables bad, is fruit bad, is meat bad, is meat bad for you, is fruit bad for you, are vegetables bad for you, omnivore, carnivore, are plant based diets good for you, are plant based diets bad for you, microbiome, microbiota, tooth decay, vegans have bad teeth, vegan

Id: vlIO-7Rpi7c

Length: 20min 23sec (1223 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 29 2022