Dr. William Roberts isn’t a major vegan leader or anything, but he always gets quoted whenever a vegan insists that humans are natural herbivores. Here’s his most popular quote about that (quoted on Goveg.com):

[A]lthough we think we are one and we act as if we are one, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh — which contains cholesterol and saturated fat — was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.

[If you want to see Dr. Roberts try to justify this on Supreme Master TV, have at it.]

Since Dr. Roberts is a doctor and “editor of the authoritative American Journal of Cardiology,” some vegans think his stance that humans are herbivores actually means something. Which would be fine, I guess, if Roberts were a practicing herbivore. But he’s not.

As I mentioned in my entry “Are Humans Carnivores, Omnivores or Herbivores?”, I had heard rumors that Roberts was a fish and chicken eating “vegetarian.” Now I have it from a reliable source that these rumors were true. I couldn’t confirm the chicken for sure, but Roberts does eat fish and even uses saturated-fat-laden (and thus fatal) sour cream and butter on baked potatoes.

This isn’t a huge scandal, however. If I’d done more research before, I wouldn’t have needed a spy, because in an interview with “Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings,” Roberts cops to some fish eating. Also in the interview he says it was John Robbins’ Diet for a New America that set him on his path to believing that humans are herbivores. Damn it, John Robbins, why couldn’t you have just gone into the ice cream business like you were supposed to?

Roberts can ignore his own advice if he likes. I’m not going to chastise a man for eating animal products. If he somehow derives pleasure from munching on the tortured corpses and secretions of sentient beings, well, more power to him.

But most vegans aren’t reading Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, and they assume the doctor who tells them they are not properly designed for animal product consumption is just as strict about this as they are. Yet Dr. William Roberts regularly enjoys a nice fatty tuna steak while his authoritative words make some people too terrified to do the same.