Dr. Doug Graham (80-10-10 raw vegan)

[Aractus]

"We are omnivores" and "we evolved from hunter/gatherers" are not very useful claims in my opinion. That we can eat meat does not mean we need it or that it's actually healthy. When we ate meat it was probably corpses left by more proficient predators that actually had claws or sharp teeth or high speed to kill things. Fossils of human teeth show we ate mostly plants anyway.

That's just completely incorrect and you're either not aware of the science, the fossils and ancient remains left behind, and anatomy regarding this, or you're just misusing it intentionally. Humans have lived on this Earth for at least 200,000 years, and there has not been one single ancient tribe identified yet that did not consume meat.

And do we need meat for nutrients? YES. We need it for:

1. Vitamin B12 which we cannot get from any plant in its natural form. A number of vegans have found that they cannot absorb B12 orally from supplements and have to have injections.
2. Protein. Some long-term vegans have found that no matter how they altered their diets they couldn't gain any muscle. This may have to do with plant lectins inhibiting protein absorption from plants.
3. Cholesterol. On a normal healthy diet our body makes 85% of the cholesterol we need, and we get 15% from the diet. Plants do not have any cholesterol. Cholesterol deficiency can only be corrected by stimulating the body to produce more cholesterol and it's believed that this is done by eating more of a specific type of saturated fat. Plants are very low in saturated fats, it is near impossible to correct a cholesterol deficiency from plant-based foods alone. You can try drinking olive oil in large quantities, but just to get the amount of saturated fat you need, you have to get an extra 80% unsaturated fat that you may not need. Let me put this in perspective - most plants are 80% or so unsaturated fat, and only 20% saturated. Meats are up to 40% saturated fat and 60% unsaturated. Getting the balance right is the key to healthy cholesterol levels. Veganisim is double-edged with its problem here - 1. the dietary cholesterol is completely missing, 2. they eat lower levels of saturated fat and therefore their bodies don't want to produce as much cholesterol as they should. And I really, really doubt there were any ancient people living a vegan lifestyle drinking olive oil to maintain their cholesterol levels, this is one of the clearest examples of why we need meat.
4. Vitamin D. Vitamin D is not found in any plants - it is found in Mushroom, I believe, which is a vegan friendly food, or Eggs, or oily Fish. Like cholesterol our body does produce it, however we cannot produce enough on our own we rely on having some dietary vitamin D (I don't have the exact percentage on hand). Vitamin D deficiency is very common, even among non-vegetarians.
5. Calcium. Calcium deficiency which leads to osteoporosis is very common among vegans. It leads to osteoporosis, very common among long-term vegans.
6. Iron. Again iron deficiency is very common in veterinarians.