Bobby:

I've seen variants on that Steve Pavlina article in many different places, and all the versions contain a large number of trivially false statements. 

Stated less diplomatically, they're bunk.  To demonstrate this, I'll go through the first three items.

Quoth Steve Pavlina: "Carnivorous animals have intestinal tracts that are 3-6x their body length, while herbivores have intestinal tracts 10-12x their body length. Human beings have the same intestinal tract ratio as herbivores."

Trivially false.  The length of a human GI tract depends whether you remove it from the body and stretch it out (~30 feet), or whether you measure its length in the body (~20 feet).  That's between 3.5x and 5.2x average body length, not 10-12x -- the same as carnivores.

In contrast, the GI tract of an average horse is just shy of 100 feet long, which is indeed 10-12x body length.

Quoth Steve Pavlina: "Carnivores’ stomachs are 20x more acidic than the stomachs of herbivores. Human stomach acidity matches that of herbivores.'  Trivially false.  As I footnoted above:

Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2011 Dec;34(11-12):1269-81. Systematic review: the use of proton pump inhibitors and increased susceptibility to enteric infection. Bavishi C, Dupont HL.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21999643
“Parietal cells secrete hydrochloric acid at a concentration of pH 0.8 and maintain a median daily pH in human stomach around 1.4.”

Furthermore, as I noted above:

A dog has a stomach pH of 1-2, rising to 3 with digestion on a raw diet and 6 on a diet of dry dog food (source).  (Note that meat increases stomach acidity for both carnivores and omnivores.)

And unfortunately for the herbivore/carnivore theory, a cow's abomasum (stomach) has a pH of 2 (source).  It turns out that digestion works best at low pH no matter what you're digesting...so Pavlina's propaganda is wrong in all respects, and the comparison isn't even meaningful.

Quoth Steve Pavlina: "The saliva of carnivores is acidic. The saliva of herbivores is alkaline, which helps pre-digest plant foods. Human saliva is alkaline."

Trivially false.  As I noted above, human saliva has a pH between 6.0 and 7.4 (7.0 being neutral), so if anything, it's a very weak acid on average.  And guess what?  Dog saliva is slightly more basic than human saliva! (source)  Again, Pavlina's propaganda is wrong in all respects...and the comparison isn't even meaningful.

And I've only covered the first three items in his list!

I don't have time to cover the rest -- but they're bunk, just like the first three.

Imp:

Antelope don't sweat -- they pant.  Does that mean they're carnivores?

Everyone:

Even if some of these purported distinctions were true, they're not important -- because the difference between a carnivore and an herbivore is that the carnivore eats meat, while the herbivore eats plants.  To suggest that (for instance) whether an animal sweats or not is related to whether it eats meat or not is silly.  (Bonus factoid: horses are, AFAIK, the only herbivore that cools itself primarily by sweating...antelope can't get "lathered" like a horse can, which is why it's possible to hunt old male kudu by persistence.  So the distinction is prima facie invalid...yet another bunk veg*an myth I'll have to write an article about someday!)

Alex:

If you'll recall that veg*anism is religious in origin, it'll make a lot more sense.

JS

Robin:

Humans are indeed omnivorous...but the archaeological evidence is clear: hunter-foragers (whose diet, even today, is comprised on average of 2/3 animal products and only 1/3 plants) are always in better health than the agriculturalists who came after them and depended primarily on grains.

Also, keep in mind that the average veg*an diet is far healthier in many ways than the Standard American Diet -- in the short term.  In the long term, the vitamin, mineral, and protein deficiencies tend to catch up unless you supplement with great care, and you'll probably find that a paleo diet (which looks a lot like a raw vegan diet, plus eggs and meat) will allow you to succeed in the long term.

Anyway, as I've repeatedly stated, making the general case for omnivory vs. veg*anism is far beyond the scope of this article, which exists only to debunk the specific claim that "meat rots in your colon".

JS

Donna:

I'm glad you're seeing success!  It's always mystified me that the ADA's "solution" to a disease of uncontrolled blood sugar is to eat more sugar.  

Feel free to explore the rest of my articles at your leisure: I hope they're useful to you.

JS

AC:

The number is somewhat squishy, since it's based on estimates…and apparently the figure has been revised since I last looked it up.

Today's estimates: the figure as of 2009 (the comment you're referring to is three years old) was seven children, which has decreased to 6.4.  (Source: United Nations.)  The crude birth rate is apparently falling even faster, but improvements in life expectancy are counterbalancing that to some extent…so the good news is that things are improving — though they're a long way from sustainability.

JS

AC:

The estimate of TFR in Somalia indeed depends where you get it from: the UN, CIA, or the World Bank.  (Or Wikipedia, which claims to reprint the UN statistics, though their tables seem to be incorrect.) 

Here's the link to the World Bank statistics, which estimate the fertility rate at 7.0 per woman as of 2009 -- the last year that would have been available three years ago in early 2011, when I made the original comment.

In contrast, the CIA estimated it at 6.1 in 2009 (source), and the UN estimated it at either 7.1 (source) or 5.5 (source).

So yes, I feel justified in calling the number "squishy".

I will admit that I don't remember where I got the "nine children" figure from: the figure appears to be seven.  Mea culpa.  If you believe 9 vs 7 is "wildly exaggerated" relative to a replacement rate of 2.1 (and a worldwide TFR of ~2.8 in 2002), go right ahead.

Meanwhile, the inverse relationship between per-capita GDP and fertility, and the even stronger inverse relationship between the development index and fertility, are strongly established.  If you're going to imply that I don't know what I'm talking about, you'll have to swim against a very strong tide of evidence -- and you'll have to propose your own replacement theory.  

What do you suggest?

JS

Ana:

Our tastes are often a useful guide -- so long as we limit their choices to natural foods. 

It's well-known that people lose weight on any sufficiently monotonous diet, due to the effect of sensory-specific satiety (discussed here).  I believe this is because most individual foods only contain a subset of the myriad nutrients we need to live...and once we've got all we need, our desire for that particular food drops dramatically. 

In the case of raw fruit and veg, we can eat them for a while...but finally our tastes tell us "Better go eat some meat and fat.  We've got plenty of carotene and K1, and there's no protein, choline, A/D/E/K2, or essential fats in this stuff."

JS

David Green:

Do you have a source for that?  "Somewhere in the archives of the British Journal of Nutrition" doesn't get me there.

Also, yes, meat takes longer to digest -- because protein takes longer to digest, and meat is high in protein.  Acid and enzymes have to break down proteins into chains of three or less amino acids, at which point we can finally absorb them.  One reason fruit and veg digest more quickly is because they don't have significant protein, just sugar and fiber (which does indeed ferment, or rot, in the colon). 

The only high-protein vegetable is beans -- which we can't eat in their raw state, and must "pre-digest" by soaking them.  Even then, beans take much longer to digest than veggies, primarily because of the protein content -- and the raffinose and other indigestible sugars most definitely ferment, or rot, in the colon. 

Thank you for adding a pertinent comment! 

Chris O:

Apparently you didn't read the BOLD-FACED WARNING which I've repeated many times. I'll reprint it here:

1. The purpose of this article is to address one very specific topic: the claim that “meat rots in your colon”.  Making the general case for veg*anism vs. omnivory, or addressing other issues like inflammation, is not only a non sequitur, it's beyond the scope of one article — and most certainly beyond the scope of a comment.  Don't move the goalposts.

2. Please read, at the very least, my responses to comments before asking a question (or making a statement).  I have previously answered many of these questions: asking them again says, to me, that you're not interested in productive dialogue and are just spouting off.

Yes, there are a lot of comments!  Deal with it.

Moving on:

That "Why Meat Causes Inflammation" article is bunk: I challenge you to show any peer-reviewed science showing a mechanism by which meat causes leaky gut.  You won't find it.  In contrast, wheat protein is proven to cause leaky gut, because partially digested gliadin peptides mimick zonulin, opening intestinal TJs.  See Fasano 2011.

JS