• Question: Why can wild animals eat raw meat without any risks when humans and tame animals cant?

    Asked by matthewb to Alex, Jools, Lynz, Matt, Rika on 15 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Julie Greensmith

      Julie Greensmith answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      There are two things here I think, but I’m not an expert in this. One is that we dont have the right enzymes (chemicals) in our guts to break down the raw meat proteins quite so easily so they might make us sick. Also, cooking food gets rid of a lot of bacteria and parasites like worms which can be found in raw meat, like salmonella in raw chicken. The cooking kills the bacteria so we can eat it. Wild animals are more used to these bacteria so their immune system can fight them. We are less used to raw meat so we cant.

    • Photo: Chandrika Nair

      Chandrika Nair answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Yes, I think it’s because we humans started eating cooked food and didn’t have the need for certain enzymes and immune defenses that we lost them and now can no longer eat most raw meat safely. Animals do still get diseases from some contaminated meat (eg worms) but as Julie said they are overall better adapted than us.

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