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
Okay! Thanks for the answers! Now I have a follow up question! So, based on the answers here, it is now my understanding that other animals are able to build/maintain this muscle mass despite their diet due to the various different ways that their body, more specifically their digestive tract, interact with the food that they eat- simply put, they’re able to break down different foods/parts of food that we are unable to due to their digestive systems and the bacteria/gut flora contained in their respective systems, thereby extracting more nutrients from certain foods, which means they can get more bang for their buck? Like their bodies are able to use more of the food than ours are.
That said, here’s my follow up question: Does this mean that the calorie count for each food is different depending on the species? What I mean is, if calories are a measurement of energy, and we get energy by absorbing it from the food we eat, if certain animals are able to absorb and use more parts of the food, does that mean that the calorie count of certain foods are potentially higher for animals depending on how much of the food they can use?
For example, let’s say that 100 blades of grass is 100 calories (1 calorie per blade of grass), and the calories are evenly distributed throughout each blade of grass (ie 1/2 of a blade of grass is just as calorie dense as the other half of the same blade). If humans are only able to absorb and extract nutrients from a maximum of 50% of each blade of the grass, does that mean that, for humans, the entire pile would only be 50 calories, but for something like a cow or a gorilla, who is able to absorb/extract more of the nutrients from each blade of grass (let’s say 90%), that the entire pile would be 90 calories for them? I hope this makes sense…
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