Is man a meat-eater or a vegetarian by nature? According to the enclosed clipping from a vegetarian magazine, “The intestinal length of carnivores (meat-eating animals) is three times the body length to allow for quick removal of flesh wastes that putrefy in the intestines. Man’s intestine length, like other herbivores, is six times his body length and is designed for digesting vegetables, grains, and fruits.” I’m not a meat-eater but my girlfriend is and she is not convinced man is a natural vegetarian. We decided to leave it up to you. (Why I agreed to this I don’t know, it’s obvious from your aggressive tone that you like your steak rare.) Please, don’t embarrass yourself by quoting that garbage from the National Beef Council that meat is our best source of protein. Even high school kids know better than that. –L. Williams, Culver City, California

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The story is roughly the same with teeth. We’re equipped with an all-purpose set of ivories equally suited to liver and onions. Good thing, too. I won’t claim meat is the ideal source of protein, but on the whole it’s better than plants. Sure, soybeans and other products of modern agriculture are pretty nutritious. But in the wild, much of the plant menu consists of leaves and stems, which are low in food value. True herbivores have to spend much of the day scrounging for snacks just to keep their strength up.