Re: Humans as scavengers

on Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:56:45 -0900, Floyd L. Davidson <floyd@xxxxxxxxxx> sez:

Canines do not chew anything, and digest food mostly with
intestinal bacterial action. A canine basically has to eat the
same kind of protein today that it did yesterday, or it cannot
digest what it eats. Hence if you change brands of dog food,
your dog may not want to eat the new stuff, and will very likely
suffer diarrhea when it does eat it. It may take a couple weeks
to develop the right intestinal bacteria before the dog can
digest the new food.

Canines, as with some other animals, may have less difficulty
digesting some types of "meat" (oily food, such as the brains or
cold water fish) unless it is at least partially processed by
bacteria. They can digest almost anything easier of it is first
processed; which is no different than humans.

I presume you have the sense of that sentence backwards - "unless"
should be replaced with "if", right?


Humans chew foods and use acid and enzymes for digestion more
than bacteria. Humans can digest a variety that changes with
each meal.

Just as with canines though, humans often have to process some
foods in order to digest them. Bacterial actions is suitable,
except we can't tolerate many of the toxins released by some
bacteria (a problem that canines don't have). Hence instead of
commonly processing with bacteria, humans more often eat food
that is processed by fermentation, by enzyme action, or by heat.

Um, the problem here is that fermentation generally means processing
with bacteria. In fact I can't think of a counterexample. Liquors
are sugars fermented with yeasts; pickles of many sorts are fermented
with "mother of vinegar" bacteria, as is tobasco sauce; many
asian condiments like soy sauce are fermented with salt-tolerant
bacteria; cheeses ...etc. In a few cases, fermentation processes
are emulated by chemical processes which curdle the input substance,
like chemically curdled tofu, and some curdled milk products, but
in those cases the label distinguishes them from fermented (aka
cultured).

This is another example of the various gradations of the meaning
of words. I would suggest here that lots of things get processed
by bacteria, and the processing is then described according to
the dietary abilities and preferences of the observer: if I am in
the habit of eating it, it's been fermented, or cultured; if I can't
or won't, it's rotten.


--
==========================================================================
vincent@triumf[munge].ca Pete Vincent
Disclaimer: all I know I learned from reading Usenet.
.

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