Grazing animals – horses, cows, camels, deer, manatees, elephants, and many others – can be used as living examples of the benefits of vegan nutrition. But if you study what horses and other so-called herbivores actually eat, you will find that it is closer to “salad with some meat on top”!

In nature there are very few true vegans, and very few pure carnivores.

In a field of healthy grasses, a single horse or cow might consume several cups of animal protein daily. From insects to spiders and their eggs, to slugs and microbes, many herbivores consume a wide range of animal proteins in a single day.

Typically grazing in groups, herbivores also ingest portions of dried or fresh dung, which provides further animal protein, as well as digestible bacteria, enzymes, and microbes. None of those animals are, therefore, pure vegans, and if they eat a diet thoroughly cleansed of all animal matter, they will steadily become malnourished!

Chimpanzees were once considered to be vegans, until we noticed that they ate birds and eggs, and hunted monkeys and other animals. Gorillas are also often considered to be vegans, but they readily consume sizeable amounts of slugs, snails, insects, and eggs that are attached to the vegetation they ingest. They also forage for termites and ants, and likely sample bird eggs and lizards on occasion.

The giant tortoises of the Seychelles and Galapagos Islands are often made out to be pure vegans, but they readily eat birds and their eggs, rodents, and other small creatures. My own giant tortoises enjoyed eating squirrels.

Desert camels happily gnaw on animal carcasses, and would certainly eat bird eggs, and lizards. I also knew three adult bull camels who happily suckled fresh milk from nursing herd mothers.

And most plants are not strict vegans, either, as animal lifeforms supply nutrients to plants after dying and decomposing.

Today’s vegan proponents promote veganism as the perfect diet for humans, as well as a method for countering climate change and protecting the environment – enthusiastic claims that are unproven.

Some human groups – in the arctic and at high altitudes – are biologically unsuited to veganism, and most other humans are simply unable to access and maintain the range of fresh foods necessary to sustain bodily health on a vegan diet. In almost all cases, only tropical and subtropical regions offer reasonable opportunities for managing a healthy and sustainable fresh vegan diet.

Affordable and abundant fresh produce is essential to the success of a vegan diet. Electricity is needed for refrigeration. Global transportation is required for getting produce to people. Modern packaging is necessary in many cases to preserve nutritional freshness. And food processors and juicing machines are almost essential tools of the diet.

Outside tropical and sub-tropical regions, veganism is within the reach of only the affluent and privileged, which is likely unsustainable over the long term.

A healthy vegan diet can be useful for short periods of cleansing and healing, but it is not usually a complete method of lifelong eating, and certainly not for everyone.

People are confused about food – what to eat. Recent diet fads have proliferated. And nutritional science facts seem to change from year to year, and are clearly influenced by economic interests and controls.

But if we look back towards our hunter-gatherer ancestors – where and how they lived – and what they ate, we might become more clarified about what is a human’s proper diet.

Based upon strong evidence, our survival through millennia suggests that humans did not evolve through eating a plant-based diet, but by being opportunistic omnivores, eating animals and plants, hunting and gathering in the spirit of contemplation and gratitude.