How can we digest a seemingly huge variety of foods at the same time?
I was at a wedding function and there were all kinds of foods, milk based, solids, hot, cold, meat, desserts and of course raw meats and veggies. It boggles my mind how our intestine can digest all of these if eaten at the same time. How did we get to this? I don’t seem to know any other species capable of this.
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we have a wide variety of bacteria living in our guts that help with digestion, as well as different enzymes for different kinds of foods. (lactose intolerance means lack of enzyme for digesting dairy).
More broadly humans and many other apes are omnivores, we evolved to eat lots of different things, depending on what is available in a given location and season. Bears and pigs are omnivores too.
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