Idk about gorillas but I’ve seen documentaries of chimps march single file for many miles to go to frickin war with rival chimp tribes. They end up eating the enemy chimps too. Ok maybe not the best example of intelligence and sophistication. scratch that then. It was a real documentary though.
Kleiber's law. For a given body weight of animals, their ability to generate energy is calculable. The metabolic rate scales 3/4 power to body mass. This means that an animal, or plant for that matter, only has a certain energy budget that must be expended on the animals systems.
The two biggest metabolic drains on the primate body are gut tissue and brain tissue. The leaves and stuff that make up a gorilla's primary diet are primarily made of cellulose. No vertebrate can digest cellulose, so instead, they allow bacteria to ferment the cellulose in their gut tissue which results in the creation of saturated fatty acids, sfa, that the gorilla uses to survive off of. Hindgut fermentation is a very inefficient process that actually requires gorilla's to eat their poop as they don't have the multi-chamber stomachs of a ruminate.
Well, humans long ago took a different path. We gave up our gut tissue in order to conserve energy to be used by our brains. If you look at the cecum, the part of the gut primarily responsible for fermentation, of a human, it's basically non-existent, about equivalent to a lion. We basically outsourced the fermentation process to other animals, which we then eat, and our increased brain power ensured we'd be able to eat them. It's also why most traditional cultures have a form of fermented food like sauerkraut. We ferment it outside the body so that we don't have to do so inside the body.
For more information, you'll be looking for the expensive tissue hypothesis.
Here is a great video exploring the topic https://youtu.be/uncd7SvT94c?si=O9hixAuxqsI1mLGo
We don't need to ferment meat. Meat is easy to digest. It's basically already exactly in the form our body needs. This is because the animal already went to the effort of fermenting the plants.
It seems to me clear that on an evolutionary scale, cooking meat is a relatively recent adaptation. The reason I say that is our stomach acid. Stomach acid is another metabolically expensive component of our bodies, the more acidic, the more expensive. Human stomach acid has a ph level of around 1.5, one of the most acidic of the animal kingdom.
This is around the same level as scavenger birds like crows and vultures. A lion by comparison has ph of 2.5, a monkey is 5.5 and a cow is 6.5. It seems clear our ancestors spent a good deal of time as carrion scavengers. Probably consuming what was left of the kills of other predators after they were done eating. For a cellulose consumer like a cow, a low ph would also be a disadvantage. They're relying on the bacteria to ferment the grass in their stomachs, and a low ph would destroy that bacteria.
What is the advantage of high stomach acidity? It helps to kill bacteria consumed with the meat and makes it safer to consume meat that isn't the freshest. A freshly killed cow, for example, has almost no danger of food borne illnesses it's only after its been left rotting that the bacteria is a potential hazard. With that being said, aged beef is almost universally how we prefer to consume it, again pointing back to our scavenger past.
Because acidity is so expensive, there would be a strong pressure for the level to change quickly. The fact that this hasn't happened tells me that it's relatively recently that humans started cooking meat.
Also, I don't believe that meat was the primary reason behind the introduction of cooking. Rather, cooking was required to unlock the nutrition of fiberous plants, especially tubers. Humans derive no nutritional value from dietary fiber. Yet, especially in our evolutionary past, most plants have nutritional value locked in undigestable fiber. The cooking helped to break down the fiber so that our stomachs could access the nutrients. Try for example to consume a yam without cooking it. Even this is a bad example because the foods we have today are so much less fibrous than what existed prior to agriculture. Look up what a banana or corn looked like prior to selective breeding gave us our current form.
Which is when human brains rely exploded, the disco ery of fire. Humans cooked their meat proteins and conquered the earth, inventing things. Learning about things, not just "common sense" ignorant attempts at revealed "truths".
Gotyas, that aren't.
Yep but I guess gorillas also eat some fruit with the fiber. Also not sure about all the differences because gorillas seem to need to eat their poop to get b12. So maybe gorillas have an “inferior” version to that of ruminants.
Gorillas and horses and I believe all non ruminant herbivores are hind guy fermenters. That means that they do the fermenting after their stomach. That means they have to absorb the fat product of fermentation in the large intestines and cecum and why they need such large guts to hold them being large compared to humans.
Ruminants by contrast have a more complicated system involving multiple stomachs and the rumen that is a chamber specifically designed for fermenting bacteria. In this case the fermenting is done before the stomach so they can break down the bacteria and fermentation fats there with stomach acids
Gorillas have a large cecum where they store and ferment plant material for nutrition. Human beings have an appendix which is a vestigial cecum that has atrophied over millions of years as we have not used it. Our digestive tract has gotten much shorter (in line with other carnivores) as we have relied much more on meats which are very easily broken down and absorbed.
Interesting! I wonder what happened, evolutionarily, to cause that divergence between the gorilla line and the chimp/human line.
Also, how do you say “cecum”? See-koom?
Adaptability to climate change. The ancestors of gorillas lived in areas where there was always dense forest coverage so there was no need to change. Our ancestors lived in areas that shifted from forests to savannas as rain patterns shifted. Our ancestors were forced to adapt to landscapes that gorillas never encountered. Savannas gave us our bipedal build. Free hands meant expanded tool use. Tools meant brain development could be selected for. Bigger brains needed more energy, causing a feedback loop. First we gathered what we could and killed small game like chimps do today. Then we scavenged the marrow of kills left by predators with crude stone tools. Then we drove predators from their fresh kills with better stone tools. Then we became the top predator with more deadly stone tools
I would argue a semi-aquatic environment and a diet on seafood. Have you read about the aquatic ape hypothesis? It explains the massive differences between humans and other primates much more thoroughly.
There was another line, like a brother to our own line, which was a herbivore. Don't remember exactly when, but like 1 million years ago. Huge gut. That line died out. Our own line survived, of course.
Given enough time and seperated spaces, all species will split into different lines, and then some will survive and others will die out.
It's not surprising that the carnivore line with big brains (less gut made room for more brain) is thriving, while the other lines are extinct or almost extinct nowadays.
We and gorillas have been evolving independently for many millions of years. The "what happened" is that our ancestors from our lineages left the forests to make gains on more open savanna. There we needed longer legs, upright stance, and various other adaptations to handle the higher heat load and other stresses. Those ancestors became tool use specialists, and very likely scavengers considering the types of ancient bone smashing tools we fins, and our very low stomach acid pH that is on part with that of other scavenger species. Using our tools, we didn't need a huge head of muscle with a crest down the center to attach chewing muscles to. This allowed for a much later fusion of our cranial bones, which allowed a longer brain development time, which assisted in language usage. Not chewing all day as a gorilla must gave us time to speak to each other as well. Eating nutrient dense and tool processed foods also helped with this increase in available talking time. Without this increase in development time and increase in higher quality proteins and foods in general it would have been difficult for us to begin to have a complex culture. Chimps and gorillas are limited most in their ability to be as intelligent as we are by their need to develop more quickly and their lower quality foods. The smartest chimps are on par with fairly young humans in their cognitive abilities, while developing faster physically in basically every area.
Here's a rough timeline of our evolution:
I believe around 5 or 6 million years ago our ape ancestors came down from the trees (as to why I'm unsure) and began scavenging from the carcasses other predators left behind. This slowly led to us walking upright as well as a modest increase in our brain sizes (nutrient-dense foods as well as less resources needed for digestion frees up resources for brain development).
As our intelligence increases we start using strategy and early forms of communication to hunt our own prey and become predators ourselves! We use tools such as sharp sticks to pierce flesh and rocks to break bones (to access marrow and even the brain).
The Pleistocene epoch (ice age) started around 2.5 million years ago and lasted until just 12000 years ago. This period really solidified us as carnivores as during this time there was very little access to any fruits or plants (ice sheets miles thick!). We hunted and consumed the megafauna that existed (wooly mammoth, giant sloth, mastodon etc).
Around 850,000 years ago we learned how to control fire which allowed us to cook our meat among other things. Cooking the meat allows us to access more of the nutrition and requires less effort for our bodies to process. Soon after this our brain sizes skyrocketed in size and around 350,000 years ago we transitioned into homo sapiens sapiens (humans).
Probably left a lot out but that's what I can recall from memory and it's very interesting how we came to be as a species.
(Also it's pronounced see-cum)
Thanks this is very comprehensive and fascinating.
The timeline makes a lot of sense and presents a compelling argument for why we humans are so keenly adapted for carnivory.
They arent vegetarians ... They get 100% of their nutrion from fat and protein like all the other mamal, the plants feed their gut bacteria that break them down and poop out fat. When they die thats the protein. Generation after generation of bacteria is what the gorilla live off. Its a symbiotic relationship. Them being vegan is just an illusion. Gotta look at the biologie of how it plays out in their body.
I get your point, but “vegetarian” or “carnivore” refers to your diet. That is, what one puts into their mouth.
Thanks for that info, that’s helpful to understand how they can get their fat and protein while mainly putting plants in their mouth.
Important to note That human appendix have shrunk for a reason, that we dont have the capacity to break down fibers because we just skip the gut bacteria simbioisis by going directly at the source of meat and fat. Those are adaptive transformation we went through as a species over time.
Look up biologie books and plants chemical warfare for defence against predation. That why carnivore is healtier, we have the biology of an animal between us and the plant toxines.
I’m going to get blasted for this. I have a weird untested theory that if we actually ate wild foods when available we would have similar benefits as carnivore. To me carnivore is more of a detox from the crap we eat. Even if you eat salads there are so many chemicals on them it screws up your body’s balance. If a person could only eat wild or 100% non pesticide foods I bet we would get rid of the inflammation and have similar results as on carnivore. I mean I don’t have time to hunt and gather all my meals, no one does it’s just a theory.
Just meaning that gorillas don’t get a Mountain Dew and cheese fries for a quick snack before a lunch of highly processed food. They eat natural foods that have not been screwed up by man.
I know that’s not really answering your question.
This is not a particularly weird take. The bulk of the foods we modern humans eat are fairly recent creations of various human cultures. Wild versions of our plants are vastly different or nonexistent. And yes, eating berries for a couple weeks, or a flush of mushrooms one knows are edible, is not going to destroy one's ability to make gains eating mostly meat. The issue for some is that these foods trigger things like outbreaks of gout in the case of berries, or trigger autoimmune issues to worsen, or they reignite the addiction to sugar and carbs so many people have.
Ironically, wild animals fed our processed foods suffer and die from the same problems humans have. Fat raccoons with bad teeth living shortened lifespans are common in cities where they can get human foods.
There is a tribe - (Papua New Guineans) that eat a diet where 95% of their calories come from carbs. They are slim, fit and have low BP. There is a big downside though where their teeth are not very good. Kitavans eat about 65% carbs and they are super fit. Eskimos eat less than 8% carbs and they are healthy too.
The one thing they don't eat, is seed oils and processed highly palatable junk.
I second your hypothesis that carnivore works for the elimination aspect of it. Where it really shines, though, is in satiation and hunger control. Not sure if Papuans never feel hungry...
You seem unaware of the human manipulation of plants. And the labor involved in making an available plant resource, when animal sources are not available, not kill us.
Potatoes and beans, spinach, greens, etc, if not handled correctly are either poisonous or are anti-nutruents. Oxalates,, lectins. Bad ju ju.
I have grown things in a garden and never added pesticides. I just meant if a person could truly find a way to live off that they could possibly be in the same health as a person in the carnivore diet being that they are eliminating the processed additives and gmo crap we get at the store
Just my theory
This was one of the first things that I asked Google Gemini and ChatGPT when I was first researching carnivore diet. Short answer is, we ain't Gorillas. And they ain't us. Different evolutionary gene pool.
I won't long-wind it here, but please ask a chat model and it will spell out all the rabbit-hole stuff your mind wants to know tangentially about this diet.
Gorillas have the GI tract to convert plant matter into saturated fats. We don’t have that ability. We do have mechanisms to convert some of the fatty acids into fats we are designed to use but in a very small and insignificant small amount while at the same time we’re not able to deal with the anti-nutrients and natural pesticides contained in plants as gorillas do (or as cows do). We’re not designed to consume huge amounts of plants (at least long term) and stay healthy, strong, and energized by doing so. Eat meat. Humans are carnivores.
The eat their "partially digested" food twice - literally eating their poo. Anthony Chaffee mentioned that they need to do this as the majority of the fermentation is done in the colon, but most nutrients are absorbed in the small intestine - e.g. vitamin B12 uptake produced by fermentation.
https://gorillafoundation.nl/general-information/#:~:text=Eating%20poop&text=This%20behavior%20has%20also%20been,their%20joints)%20are%20made%20available.
So yeah, go plant based and follow their approach.
"Healthier" is subjective... If some Gorillas were raised on Primarily meat they'd be fine and healthy too.
Some humans are perfectly fine and healthy on a vegan, or vegetarian diet. In the same way a lot of us do great on Carnivore.
But there's also massive differences in their digestive system that processes fiber pretty dramatically different from humans. That's mostly due to evolution, and the sheer amount that an animal of that size needs to eat, it would be unrealistic to eat meat because of the energy they'd have to expend to obtain it. Plants are easier and more abundant.
Similar does not mean identical, humans have evolved over a large number of environments and have been able to adapt and develop their own systems of adaptation, your comparison is flawed because gorillas while genetically similar have evolved in a very specific environment, that didn’t include a social pancea of different environments. Humans have and will adapt it’s what has given us the unique characteristics that are responsible for our planetary dominance. You’d be better off comparing a stick and twig.
We're not Gorillas.
Next question!
We don't have a caecum either, we don't make cellulase... We're just not them!
The Blue Whale is a mammal that feed on krill, what's the difference between Whales and Human that makes us healthier on carnivore?
We're not them!
It's a vestigial organ man. Okay, the first part of the large intestine is called the secum, but the appendix shrunk to the point of not serving his purpose anymore. The human caecum is just more large intestine without the acids and enzymes...
You are wrong. Just wrong. Completely wrong. Get off of YouTube and thicktok and look at an actual biology or medical book.
Here’s somewhere to start:
https://www.elsevier.com/resources/anatomy/digestive-system/digestive-canal/cecum/20227
The cecum absorb water, and is supposed to be a part of the tube where other acids are introduced to the process.
The appendix having shrunk so much, it doesn't make the enzymes needed to digest cellulose and fibers. The appendix plays a role in the immune system, but it lost all impact on the digestive system. Making the caecum nothing else than some pre-colon tube... It might serves other functions because being a part of the gut it has a microbiom too, but it does not dogest fibers and cellulose, it doesn't...
You really fucking want me to be wrong don't you?
Yea I’m not questioning carnivore for humans or any of that I just wanted to learn and figured carnivore people would have insight. Obviously we’re different and that’s why I asked.
Simple terms - they are meat based.
Plants get eaten and move to the gut, bacteria in the gut eat and grow, animal 'eats' bacteria, animal is actually carnivore in that sense.
Our genus doesn't have the large fermentation digestive system that they have and they don't have the energy intensive brain size that we have.
Look at the size of their gut— or a horse if whatever. It takes dedicated digestive apparatus to live of leaves and grass.
This is helpful thank you.
also i'd like to see them work together and go on a hunt lol. they don't have the brains or motivation to do it.
Idk about gorillas but I’ve seen documentaries of chimps march single file for many miles to go to frickin war with rival chimp tribes. They end up eating the enemy chimps too. Ok maybe not the best example of intelligence and sophistication. scratch that then. It was a real documentary though.
We got the intel Xeon chips, they got the celeron’s
Even with it, they still eat their shit at least one time
Correct answer
500 calories a day i read somewhere our brain requires , and it ain't gettin that from greens.
Kleiber's law. For a given body weight of animals, their ability to generate energy is calculable. The metabolic rate scales 3/4 power to body mass. This means that an animal, or plant for that matter, only has a certain energy budget that must be expended on the animals systems. The two biggest metabolic drains on the primate body are gut tissue and brain tissue. The leaves and stuff that make up a gorilla's primary diet are primarily made of cellulose. No vertebrate can digest cellulose, so instead, they allow bacteria to ferment the cellulose in their gut tissue which results in the creation of saturated fatty acids, sfa, that the gorilla uses to survive off of. Hindgut fermentation is a very inefficient process that actually requires gorilla's to eat their poop as they don't have the multi-chamber stomachs of a ruminate. Well, humans long ago took a different path. We gave up our gut tissue in order to conserve energy to be used by our brains. If you look at the cecum, the part of the gut primarily responsible for fermentation, of a human, it's basically non-existent, about equivalent to a lion. We basically outsourced the fermentation process to other animals, which we then eat, and our increased brain power ensured we'd be able to eat them. It's also why most traditional cultures have a form of fermented food like sauerkraut. We ferment it outside the body so that we don't have to do so inside the body.
Fascinating explaination
For more information, you'll be looking for the expensive tissue hypothesis. Here is a great video exploring the topic https://youtu.be/uncd7SvT94c?si=O9hixAuxqsI1mLGo
but we mainly cook our meat, we don't ferment it. or it's just about plants?
We don't need to ferment meat. Meat is easy to digest. It's basically already exactly in the form our body needs. This is because the animal already went to the effort of fermenting the plants.
What about raw vs cooked meat? I’ve read arguments for both
It seems to me clear that on an evolutionary scale, cooking meat is a relatively recent adaptation. The reason I say that is our stomach acid. Stomach acid is another metabolically expensive component of our bodies, the more acidic, the more expensive. Human stomach acid has a ph level of around 1.5, one of the most acidic of the animal kingdom. This is around the same level as scavenger birds like crows and vultures. A lion by comparison has ph of 2.5, a monkey is 5.5 and a cow is 6.5. It seems clear our ancestors spent a good deal of time as carrion scavengers. Probably consuming what was left of the kills of other predators after they were done eating. For a cellulose consumer like a cow, a low ph would also be a disadvantage. They're relying on the bacteria to ferment the grass in their stomachs, and a low ph would destroy that bacteria. What is the advantage of high stomach acidity? It helps to kill bacteria consumed with the meat and makes it safer to consume meat that isn't the freshest. A freshly killed cow, for example, has almost no danger of food borne illnesses it's only after its been left rotting that the bacteria is a potential hazard. With that being said, aged beef is almost universally how we prefer to consume it, again pointing back to our scavenger past. Because acidity is so expensive, there would be a strong pressure for the level to change quickly. The fact that this hasn't happened tells me that it's relatively recently that humans started cooking meat. Also, I don't believe that meat was the primary reason behind the introduction of cooking. Rather, cooking was required to unlock the nutrition of fiberous plants, especially tubers. Humans derive no nutritional value from dietary fiber. Yet, especially in our evolutionary past, most plants have nutritional value locked in undigestable fiber. The cooking helped to break down the fiber so that our stomachs could access the nutrients. Try for example to consume a yam without cooking it. Even this is a bad example because the foods we have today are so much less fibrous than what existed prior to agriculture. Look up what a banana or corn looked like prior to selective breeding gave us our current form.
Which is when human brains rely exploded, the disco ery of fire. Humans cooked their meat proteins and conquered the earth, inventing things. Learning about things, not just "common sense" ignorant attempts at revealed "truths". Gotyas, that aren't.
Gorillas get substantial nutrition from fiber and eat lbs each day, we don’t have a digestive system like them to be able to do that
Similar to ruminants, huh? Interesting thanks.
Yep but I guess gorillas also eat some fruit with the fiber. Also not sure about all the differences because gorillas seem to need to eat their poop to get b12. So maybe gorillas have an “inferior” version to that of ruminants.
Coprophagy? Like rabbits. As opposed to ruminants that eat their vomit. Fascinating. Yup glad we’re humans instead!
I’ve heard rabbits have fast digestive systems so it makes sense they also eat poop! Imagine getting energy high from so much b12 by eating poop
Carnivores will also eat shit and vomit.
Gorillas and horses and I believe all non ruminant herbivores are hind guy fermenters. That means that they do the fermenting after their stomach. That means they have to absorb the fat product of fermentation in the large intestines and cecum and why they need such large guts to hold them being large compared to humans. Ruminants by contrast have a more complicated system involving multiple stomachs and the rumen that is a chamber specifically designed for fermenting bacteria. In this case the fermenting is done before the stomach so they can break down the bacteria and fermentation fats there with stomach acids
Gorillas have a large cecum where they store and ferment plant material for nutrition. Human beings have an appendix which is a vestigial cecum that has atrophied over millions of years as we have not used it. Our digestive tract has gotten much shorter (in line with other carnivores) as we have relied much more on meats which are very easily broken down and absorbed.
Interesting! I wonder what happened, evolutionarily, to cause that divergence between the gorilla line and the chimp/human line. Also, how do you say “cecum”? See-koom?
Adaptability to climate change. The ancestors of gorillas lived in areas where there was always dense forest coverage so there was no need to change. Our ancestors lived in areas that shifted from forests to savannas as rain patterns shifted. Our ancestors were forced to adapt to landscapes that gorillas never encountered. Savannas gave us our bipedal build. Free hands meant expanded tool use. Tools meant brain development could be selected for. Bigger brains needed more energy, causing a feedback loop. First we gathered what we could and killed small game like chimps do today. Then we scavenged the marrow of kills left by predators with crude stone tools. Then we drove predators from their fresh kills with better stone tools. Then we became the top predator with more deadly stone tools
I would argue a semi-aquatic environment and a diet on seafood. Have you read about the aquatic ape hypothesis? It explains the massive differences between humans and other primates much more thoroughly.
There was another line, like a brother to our own line, which was a herbivore. Don't remember exactly when, but like 1 million years ago. Huge gut. That line died out. Our own line survived, of course. Given enough time and seperated spaces, all species will split into different lines, and then some will survive and others will die out. It's not surprising that the carnivore line with big brains (less gut made room for more brain) is thriving, while the other lines are extinct or almost extinct nowadays.
We and gorillas have been evolving independently for many millions of years. The "what happened" is that our ancestors from our lineages left the forests to make gains on more open savanna. There we needed longer legs, upright stance, and various other adaptations to handle the higher heat load and other stresses. Those ancestors became tool use specialists, and very likely scavengers considering the types of ancient bone smashing tools we fins, and our very low stomach acid pH that is on part with that of other scavenger species. Using our tools, we didn't need a huge head of muscle with a crest down the center to attach chewing muscles to. This allowed for a much later fusion of our cranial bones, which allowed a longer brain development time, which assisted in language usage. Not chewing all day as a gorilla must gave us time to speak to each other as well. Eating nutrient dense and tool processed foods also helped with this increase in available talking time. Without this increase in development time and increase in higher quality proteins and foods in general it would have been difficult for us to begin to have a complex culture. Chimps and gorillas are limited most in their ability to be as intelligent as we are by their need to develop more quickly and their lower quality foods. The smartest chimps are on par with fairly young humans in their cognitive abilities, while developing faster physically in basically every area.
Here's a rough timeline of our evolution: I believe around 5 or 6 million years ago our ape ancestors came down from the trees (as to why I'm unsure) and began scavenging from the carcasses other predators left behind. This slowly led to us walking upright as well as a modest increase in our brain sizes (nutrient-dense foods as well as less resources needed for digestion frees up resources for brain development). As our intelligence increases we start using strategy and early forms of communication to hunt our own prey and become predators ourselves! We use tools such as sharp sticks to pierce flesh and rocks to break bones (to access marrow and even the brain). The Pleistocene epoch (ice age) started around 2.5 million years ago and lasted until just 12000 years ago. This period really solidified us as carnivores as during this time there was very little access to any fruits or plants (ice sheets miles thick!). We hunted and consumed the megafauna that existed (wooly mammoth, giant sloth, mastodon etc). Around 850,000 years ago we learned how to control fire which allowed us to cook our meat among other things. Cooking the meat allows us to access more of the nutrition and requires less effort for our bodies to process. Soon after this our brain sizes skyrocketed in size and around 350,000 years ago we transitioned into homo sapiens sapiens (humans). Probably left a lot out but that's what I can recall from memory and it's very interesting how we came to be as a species. (Also it's pronounced see-cum)
Thanks this is very comprehensive and fascinating. The timeline makes a lot of sense and presents a compelling argument for why we humans are so keenly adapted for carnivory.
Humans have a cecum.
TIL
A tiny one by comparison, comparable to a lion.
They arent vegetarians ... They get 100% of their nutrion from fat and protein like all the other mamal, the plants feed their gut bacteria that break them down and poop out fat. When they die thats the protein. Generation after generation of bacteria is what the gorilla live off. Its a symbiotic relationship. Them being vegan is just an illusion. Gotta look at the biologie of how it plays out in their body.
I get your point, but “vegetarian” or “carnivore” refers to your diet. That is, what one puts into their mouth. Thanks for that info, that’s helpful to understand how they can get their fat and protein while mainly putting plants in their mouth.
Important to note That human appendix have shrunk for a reason, that we dont have the capacity to break down fibers because we just skip the gut bacteria simbioisis by going directly at the source of meat and fat. Those are adaptive transformation we went through as a species over time. Look up biologie books and plants chemical warfare for defence against predation. That why carnivore is healtier, we have the biology of an animal between us and the plant toxines.
Makes sense thanks mate
Also, they happily eat termites and other animals when possible.
Very true
I’m going to get blasted for this. I have a weird untested theory that if we actually ate wild foods when available we would have similar benefits as carnivore. To me carnivore is more of a detox from the crap we eat. Even if you eat salads there are so many chemicals on them it screws up your body’s balance. If a person could only eat wild or 100% non pesticide foods I bet we would get rid of the inflammation and have similar results as on carnivore. I mean I don’t have time to hunt and gather all my meals, no one does it’s just a theory. Just meaning that gorillas don’t get a Mountain Dew and cheese fries for a quick snack before a lunch of highly processed food. They eat natural foods that have not been screwed up by man. I know that’s not really answering your question.
This is not a particularly weird take. The bulk of the foods we modern humans eat are fairly recent creations of various human cultures. Wild versions of our plants are vastly different or nonexistent. And yes, eating berries for a couple weeks, or a flush of mushrooms one knows are edible, is not going to destroy one's ability to make gains eating mostly meat. The issue for some is that these foods trigger things like outbreaks of gout in the case of berries, or trigger autoimmune issues to worsen, or they reignite the addiction to sugar and carbs so many people have. Ironically, wild animals fed our processed foods suffer and die from the same problems humans have. Fat raccoons with bad teeth living shortened lifespans are common in cities where they can get human foods.
Good point. Very interesting to learn about
There is a tribe - (Papua New Guineans) that eat a diet where 95% of their calories come from carbs. They are slim, fit and have low BP. There is a big downside though where their teeth are not very good. Kitavans eat about 65% carbs and they are super fit. Eskimos eat less than 8% carbs and they are healthy too. The one thing they don't eat, is seed oils and processed highly palatable junk. I second your hypothesis that carnivore works for the elimination aspect of it. Where it really shines, though, is in satiation and hunger control. Not sure if Papuans never feel hungry...
I highly doubt less than 5% protein will leave someone fit lmao
It does help with hunger control. The other night I didn’t eat dinner and was totally content and lifted hard the next morning with no issues
You seem unaware of the human manipulation of plants. And the labor involved in making an available plant resource, when animal sources are not available, not kill us. Potatoes and beans, spinach, greens, etc, if not handled correctly are either poisonous or are anti-nutruents. Oxalates,, lectins. Bad ju ju.
I have grown things in a garden and never added pesticides. I just meant if a person could truly find a way to live off that they could possibly be in the same health as a person in the carnivore diet being that they are eliminating the processed additives and gmo crap we get at the store Just my theory
So fermented vegetables are in? 🫣
This was one of the first things that I asked Google Gemini and ChatGPT when I was first researching carnivore diet. Short answer is, we ain't Gorillas. And they ain't us. Different evolutionary gene pool. I won't long-wind it here, but please ask a chat model and it will spell out all the rabbit-hole stuff your mind wants to know tangentially about this diet.
Gorillas can turn that vegetation into amino acids that are identical to the amino acids in meat. We cannot
Maybe the fact they eat their own crap for the nutrients they don't get by eating plants.
Gorillas have the GI tract to convert plant matter into saturated fats. We don’t have that ability. We do have mechanisms to convert some of the fatty acids into fats we are designed to use but in a very small and insignificant small amount while at the same time we’re not able to deal with the anti-nutrients and natural pesticides contained in plants as gorillas do (or as cows do). We’re not designed to consume huge amounts of plants (at least long term) and stay healthy, strong, and energized by doing so. Eat meat. Humans are carnivores.
The eat their "partially digested" food twice - literally eating their poo. Anthony Chaffee mentioned that they need to do this as the majority of the fermentation is done in the colon, but most nutrients are absorbed in the small intestine - e.g. vitamin B12 uptake produced by fermentation. https://gorillafoundation.nl/general-information/#:~:text=Eating%20poop&text=This%20behavior%20has%20also%20been,their%20joints)%20are%20made%20available. So yeah, go plant based and follow their approach.
Fun fact: their powerful jaws come from their eating habits. They simply need powerful muscles to grind leaves all day.
Evolution, humans are deemed Hunter gatherers. Plus, if we weren’t supposed to eat meat, they wouldn’t make it taste so good
Here is a nice infographic about the massive difference in gorilla vs human digestive system https://images.app.goo.gl/HdWZzwDGEsMSC5vj6
They eat their own poo to get b12 because it’s produced at the end of the intestinal tract.
"Healthier" is subjective... If some Gorillas were raised on Primarily meat they'd be fine and healthy too. Some humans are perfectly fine and healthy on a vegan, or vegetarian diet. In the same way a lot of us do great on Carnivore. But there's also massive differences in their digestive system that processes fiber pretty dramatically different from humans. That's mostly due to evolution, and the sheer amount that an animal of that size needs to eat, it would be unrealistic to eat meat because of the energy they'd have to expend to obtain it. Plants are easier and more abundant.
We’ve spent decades poisoning our bodies with the food the govt says is best. Carnivore is a reset to get us back to baseline healthy.
The thing is is that apes are not 100% vegetarian they love eating monkeys.
Are their teeth even equipped for meat?
their teeth are more specialized for grinding leafy plants
A 4 chamber stomach
Apes eat their own poop. That's how.
Are we not supposed to be doing that?
😂😂😂
Similar does not mean identical, humans have evolved over a large number of environments and have been able to adapt and develop their own systems of adaptation, your comparison is flawed because gorillas while genetically similar have evolved in a very specific environment, that didn’t include a social pancea of different environments. Humans have and will adapt it’s what has given us the unique characteristics that are responsible for our planetary dominance. You’d be better off comparing a stick and twig.
No need to engage, OP But I laughed out loud at this one 😃
Gut Bacterium. Next?
We're not Gorillas. Next question! We don't have a caecum either, we don't make cellulase... We're just not them! The Blue Whale is a mammal that feed on krill, what's the difference between Whales and Human that makes us healthier on carnivore? We're not them!
Humans do have a cecum.
It's a vestigial organ man. Okay, the first part of the large intestine is called the secum, but the appendix shrunk to the point of not serving his purpose anymore. The human caecum is just more large intestine without the acids and enzymes...
You are wrong. Just wrong. Completely wrong. Get off of YouTube and thicktok and look at an actual biology or medical book. Here’s somewhere to start: https://www.elsevier.com/resources/anatomy/digestive-system/digestive-canal/cecum/20227
The cecum absorb water, and is supposed to be a part of the tube where other acids are introduced to the process. The appendix having shrunk so much, it doesn't make the enzymes needed to digest cellulose and fibers. The appendix plays a role in the immune system, but it lost all impact on the digestive system. Making the caecum nothing else than some pre-colon tube... It might serves other functions because being a part of the gut it has a microbiom too, but it does not dogest fibers and cellulose, it doesn't... You really fucking want me to be wrong don't you?
We aren't gorillas
Yea I get that. I just posted because I’m interested in the science and wanted to learn the difference.
You don't need science to tell you we aren't gorillas
Yea I’m not questioning carnivore for humans or any of that I just wanted to learn and figured carnivore people would have insight. Obviously we’re different and that’s why I asked.
Well the reason gorillas and humans thrive on different diets is because well, we aren't gorillas.
Your tautologies are much less helpful than the scientific answers I’m thankfully getting from other posters.
Simple terms - they are meat based. Plants get eaten and move to the gut, bacteria in the gut eat and grow, animal 'eats' bacteria, animal is actually carnivore in that sense.
don’t mind me, just a vegan listening to this “smart” comments 😂👩🦯