Can humans evolve to digest toxic food like vultures?
EvaDoomGal wrote:
After watching the documentary "What the Health?" on Netflix, I criticized it for not taking into account the possibility that we might evolve to be more tolerant to processed meats, milk, ect.
Here's an article on the recent sigh that evolution is still ongoing: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... _milk.html
If humans recently evolved to become lactose tolerant, who is to say that we can't evolve to not die by eating at McDonald's? Better yet, who is to say science can help humans evolve faster in this regard?
What the Health basically follows the assumption that "Evolution has stopped and we must eat a plant-based diet that our ape ancestors, whom they have a radically different anatomy and digestive system, ate".
I don't buy that. We are not apes. We descended from them, but that doesn't mean we can't evolve to be radically different from them.
What do you think?
Here's an article on the recent sigh that evolution is still ongoing: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... _milk.html
If humans recently evolved to become lactose tolerant, who is to say that we can't evolve to not die by eating at McDonald's? Better yet, who is to say science can help humans evolve faster in this regard?
What the Health basically follows the assumption that "Evolution has stopped and we must eat a plant-based diet that our ape ancestors, whom they have a radically different anatomy and digestive system, ate".
I don't buy that. We are not apes. We descended from them, but that doesn't mean we can't evolve to be radically different from them.
What do you think?
Toxic food is only toxic to those that it's toxic to. Humans eat many things that are toxic to other species. For example, chocolate. Chocolate is poisonous to most other mammals because it contains theobromine, which humans have the unusual ability to metabolize. We can also eat cooked onions, which are highly toxic to cats, and grapes, which are toxic to dogs. Humans, being omnivores, can actually safely metabolize a number of compounds that other animals can't.
We do eat "rotten" things. The key is, to only eat "rotten" things that won't kill us. Most cheeses, aged meat, and fermented foods and beverages fall into this category.
We tend to fall ill when the things we eat, rotten or not, contain toxin (toxic to humans) producing bacteria, molds, or fungus that is in an environment that fosters production of it's toxins, for example, salmonella, E. Coli, listeria, botulinum, etc.
Here is a list or "rotten" things that humans eat.
1. Cheese (below is blue cheese with the rind)
2. Surströmming
3. Kiviak (Inuit "aged" or "high" meat)
4. Natto (fermented soy beans)
5.
6. Alcoholic beverages.
jrjones9933
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