Pretty much as the question states: How is it that animals that consume mostly vegetation as opposed to meat so strong?
More specifically, how are animals like gorillas and horses so strong/decked out with so much muscle mass if they primarily eat grass/hay (in the case of horses) or leaves and bananas and bugs (in the case of gorillas? I understand that certain animals metabolize (break down and use) different foods differently, but it’s just mind blowing to me that these animals have such large muscles on such vegetable-heavy diets.
Moreover, they’re able to gain and maintain this muscle mass on these lean diets while also using those muscles almost ALL OF THE TIME. I mean, it would be difficult enough for a human to achieve such a muscle mass eating that same type of diet, but I would imagine that it would be EXTREMELY difficult for humans to achieve and maintain that level of muscle mass while simultaneously burning so many calories each day by using those muscles – I would imagine that a human with a similar diet with that amount of physical activity and that kind of diet would be fit and muscular, but have more of a “lean” or
“slim” muscular build instead of looking jacked like a horse or a gorilla.
So, what gives? How are they able to be so strong on such vegetable-heavy diets?
In: Biology
Whenever you compare humans to animals, you have to remember that humans are designed to support our brain.
Our digestive systems are optimized with that fact. This comes across in two ways.
First, we need to devote a huge amount of calories to support our brains. Our brains take up something like 50% more calories than an ape like a gorilla. And I don’t even know how much more calories we need compared to a cow brain.
Second, our brains allow us to eat more complex and nutrient dense food. This is because we can cook. Cooked food is much easier to digest than raw food, and it kills more parasites and bacteria. This means that our digestive systems are much smaller because they don’t need to be as extensive as an animal like an ape (or a cow). This translates into getting more energy out of our food while using less energy to digest. But it also means that we can’t eat things that other animals can because our digestive system couldn’t process it.
So, the reason animals with a vegetarian diet can be stronger than us is because they were designed (by evolution) that way. They get more protein out of their diet because their bodies will synthesize protein out of their diet. Humans can’t synthesize all those proteins, so we need to get them from our food.
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