23/8/22, 06:39 What Can the Diet of Gorillas Tell Us About a Healthy Diet for Humans?

lthy Diet for Humans? - The Weston A. Price Foundation

The Weston A. Price Foundation

What Can the Diet of Gorillas Tell Us

About a Healthy Diet for Humans?
FEBRUARY 17, 2004 BY H. LEON ABRAMS, JR.
(HTTPS://WWW.WESTONAPRICE.ORG/AUTHOR/HABRAMS/)

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One of the arguments proffered by vegetarians is that our primate ancestors were
vegetarians and, to be healthy, we should eat the same kind of diet.

An article entitled “The Western Lowland Gorilla Diet Has Implications For the Health of
Humans and Other Hominids,” which appeared in a recent issue of Human and Clinical
Nutrition, makes this argument. With reference to the authors’ study of the vegetarian diet of
gorillas, the research is sound, but to claim that humans would be better off with a vegetarian
diet like that of the gorillas is spurious and equivocal.

One misconception about the gorilla diet is that it contains no animal products. On the
contrary, all of the great ape groups take in some animal protein, whether overtly or
inadvertently, by consuming insects, insect eggs and the larvae that nest on the plants and
fruits they eat. In her pioneering work on chimpanzees, Jane Goodall discovered to her
amazement, and to the amazement of the rest of the world, that chimpanzees kill and eat
monkeys and make a tool to extract termites from their hills (homes), and that they went to
considerable effort to obtain these foods. It is also significant that meat is the only food they
share with other chimpanzees.

All monkeys, lemurs and apes are classified as vegetarians and/or fruitivors, but they
consume a small amount of animal protein by unconsciously eating the small insects, their
eggs and larvae on the plant foods they select to eat. The National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
tried to breed the near extinct fruitivorian South American golden marmoset in captivity with

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no result, but when a little animal protein was added to their diet, they began to breed, which
proves that they require a small amount of animal protein to be healthy and reproduce.

With the exception of humans, the native habitat of all the primates is in the tropics. By
contrast, for thousands of years, humans have inhabited all the land masses of the world,
except for Anarctica. The first humans, the Australopithicines, circa 2 million years ago, were
omnivorous. Recently, some researchers, in examining their fossil teeth, have claimed that
the Australopithicines were vegetarians; but the evidence indicates they were omnivorous. It
is clear that by the time “humans” evolved, from Homo erectus through to what is now
considered “modern” humans, such as Cro-Magnon man, humans were primarily meat eaters.
According to J. Brownoski, (The Ascent of Man), it was meat-eating that led to the rise of
modern man. Homo erectus invented stone tools for hunting big game which led to the
invention of more advanced stone tools by Cro-Magnon to modern humans.

It was the quest for meat that led Homo sapiens to colonize the world. They followed the
herds of animals. When overpopulation caused the animal food supply to dwindle, many
moved on, from tropical Africa to North Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and Australia. They
walked and adapted to the cold climates and were able to do so because meat is compact
energy, and one kill of a mammoth or other big game could feed many people and lasted for
a long period of time; whereas gathering plants and fruits to eat was seasonal. Until the early
part of the 20th century there were peoples who lived almost entirely on animal food. For
example, the Eskimos of North America and Lapps of Scandinavia lived almost entirely on
animal protein and were very healthy.

However, when we refer to meat, remember that meat entails fats which are necessary for
sound health. The protein and minerals in the meat cannot be utilized without the nutrients
in the fat. Both Steffanson and Brody, who spent time with the Eskimos and Indians of North
America, reported that these people saved the fat from game animals and always ate their
meat with fat.

The Eskimos ate raw meat, which is very healthy, but there is a caveat for modern society:
fresh meat often contains bacteria and parasites that can cause illness, and even death,
therefore it is recommended by the government that all meat should be cooked well enough
to kill all such pollutants.

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Humans only turned to plant foods as major food sources when, due to the ever-increasing
human population, herds of animals became scarce. They learned to domesticate some
animals and invented agriculture.

Humans learned to use fire, to any extent, in the Paleolithic age. Cooking certainly was
necessary, because grains cannot be eaten raw. It is also interesting to note that when
humans began eating a diet high in grains, the incidence of tooth decay increased
considerably. Tooth decay increased dramatically when refined grains (wheat and rice)
became staple diets for a large percentage of the world’s population.

For normal growth and sound health throughout life, the human species requires eight amino
acids which their bodies cannot manufacture, vitamin B12 and some essential minerals. The
only viable source of these amino acids and of vitamin B12 is animal protein such as red meat,
fish, shell fish, eggs, milk, insects and worms. The lack of these amino acids results in serious
illnesses. For example, kwashiorkor is a deficiency disease which impedes the normal
development of vital brain cells and stunts growth. People may be getting all they need to eat
to satisfy their hunger from grains and other plant foods. They may even become plump on a
diet of grains, but their normal growth and development is stunted. For instance, some Maya
Indian peasant groups of Guatemala primarily have only corn, beans and squash to eat. They
like meat, but are too poor to purchase meats or raise animals. Feeding domesticated animals
would sacrifice land needed to grow the grains on which they subsist. This condition is
common over much of the world.

Unlike humans, the digestive tract of gorillas is equipped to manufacture the essential amino
acids and other vital nutrients. The human digestive system is not so equipped and we must
rely on animal proteins.

It is interesting to note that advocates of vegetarian diets who use the diet of apes as a
rational to support their food choice–asserting that the ape diet is more “natural”–fail to
advocate eating a diet of all-raw plant foods as the apes do. The basic plant foods that
humans eat must be cooked. Vegan advocates also say that by combining grains with

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legumes, one can get the essential amino acids. Though this may be theoretically possible, in
practice it is not viable and extremely difficult or impossible to accomplish, particularly if
robust health is to be achieved and maintained generation after generation. Of course, due to
modern technology, many of the essential nutrients can be supplied by synthetic or
processed products, but these merely duplicate what is naturally in animal protein and are
often extracted from them. To be on the safe side, it is wise to procure essential nutrients
from their best source–animal protein.

Anthropologists have wondered why certain foods came to be prohibited by some religions.
The anthropologist, Dr. Marvin Harris, in his two extremely readable, informative and
enjoyable books, Cannibals and Kings and Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches, shows that the
prohibition of pigs (pork) by the Jewish religion and cows by the Hindu religion came about
due to the ever-increasing pressure of population growth.

Pigs eat grain. It takes lots of land to grow grain for wheat which could feed more humans
than it could feed pigs that require the grain to become meat on the human dinner-table. So
wheat was in competition with pigs and the wheat won out when human referees decided
wheat was more efficient in feeding the growing population. So pork wasn’t worth the grain
and was prohibited by the religious leaders as a strategy to feed the population more
efficiently.

Likewise, in India where beef was widely eaten at an earlier time in history, the Hindu religion
prohibited it because the cow was more valuable for its milk and dung than as edible beef.
Milk from the cow provided animal protein and the dung provided fuel for the fires to cook
food. Religious sanctions are a very powerful societal force of control. (In these books by
Harris, only a few pages are devoted to this subject, but the books are highly recommended
for gaining insight into human behavior.)

In economically diverse societies where animal protein is scarce among the poorer classes
and more abundant in the increasingly affluent sectors of society, it is interesting to note the
differences in body height that seems to reflect the way people are forced to eat. The less
affluent sectors subsist primarily on grains and a few vegetables and lack the height that is

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found among the more affluent ruling classes. This situation can develop as a result of
overpopulation because too many humans inhabiting in a region can deplete the carrying
capacity of the land upon which the food is produced.

The ancient Maya of the Classical Period used the slash and burn strategy to create more
arable land as their population outgrew the surrounding forest. In order to create fields in
which to grow corn, squash, beans and chili peppers, forest land was cleared by the
destructive method of cutting down trees and burning the debris. This is a very brutal strategy
within a fragile ecosystem that rapidly exhausts the soil. The Mayan diet consisted chiefly of
the vegetables they grew, a few fruits and game. But the game became scarce as the forest
was cleared for farm land and only the tiny ruling class had access to animal protein. (They
had the domestic turkey and dog, but these animals ate the same food as humans.) This
ecologically unstable situation led to the collapse of the Classical Maya civilization when they
abandoned their great cities. The point for this article is that the skeletons unearthed from
the Mayan burial grounds reveal that the ruling class was taller than the masses. The nobility
supplemented their basic diet of corn, beans and squash with what animal protein was
available; whereas the masses had practically none.

So what can the diet of gorillas tell us about what constitutes a healthy diet for humans? Little
if anything. Humans are omnivores and need animal protein as well as plant foods to
maintain sound health. The author of this article and Dr. Melvin E. Page recommend, as
presented in their book, Your Body is Your Best Doctor, the following as a sound diet to help
maintain optimal health: Eat a variety of fresh animal protein and fats, a wide variety of fresh
vegetables, fruits and nuts and whole grain breads and cereals.

For a complete bibliography on this subject, see “The Relevance of Paleolithic Diet in
Determining Contemporary Nutritional Needs,” H. Leon Abrams, Jr. The Journal of Applied
Nutrition. Vol. 31, Numbers 1 and 2.

Editor’s Note: Many practitioners still recommend the use of raw meat for its health-building
properties, pointing out the careful handling and protective factors in the diet can minimize
the risks of parasite and microbial infection.

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This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly
magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2000
(http://www.westonaprice.org/blog/2000/08/30/journal-summer-2000-pasture-based-
farming/).

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About H. Leon Abrams, Jr.

H. Leon Abrams, Jr., MA, EDS is Associate Professor Emeritus of
Anthropology E.G.C., University System of Georgia. His areas of
specialization in anthropology are Mesoamerica and nutritional
anthropology. He has written seven books and 170 articles and reviews. He is an honorary
board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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