Why do humans not eat meat of carnivorous animals?

Answer 1

On the contrary, we can. Humans are omnivores, which means e eat both plant matter and meat. Salad and herbs are plants and we eat thoses. Most things we eat are plants - except meat obviously.

Hugh Fernley Whittingstall (apologies for an incorrect spelling) is famous for making food dishes whihc contain dandilions, nettles and the likes. Its true our gastric system does have to put a little more effort into digesting plants but we are perfectly capable of eating them.

In fact, more energy is obtained by eating plants than if you eat meats. In a typical food chain, all the energy stored in plants goes to a herbivore, such as a cow, and then we humans eat the cow and obtain energy. However, the original energy is lost as it had to by-pass the cow so to speak. If we simply ate the plant matter, we would gain more energy from our food. No doubt this is a strong thumbs up for vegetarians!

Answer 2

There are definitely many carnivorous animals that are not mammals which people eat on a regular basis. These include predatory fish, such as tuna, swordfish, and even shark, reptiles such as crocodiles and snakes, and amphibians such as frogs. I don't recommend eating tuna, swordfish, and especially shark on a regular basis because they are so high in Mercury. Furthermore, sharks are already being heavily overfished.

The reasons that humans do not typically consume carnivorous mammals are varied, and the following will only highlight a few of the most salient reasons. In the first place, some carnivorous mammals (gregarious ones aside), may be solitary, and thus, more difficult to locate spatially since predators typically have quite large home-ranges. Secondly, the predatory nature of these animals should be taken seriously. While I'm not saying that all artiodactyls (i.e., sheep, goats, cattle, bison) are danger-free, compared to carnivores, the former pose less risk to humans and are easier to keep in a domestic setting. Think about it: carnivores need meat protein to survive. So, if you're going to try to keep a pack of carnivores in captivity, not only are you going to have to worry about finding them enough meat on a daily basis so they don't all die (which has to seem a bit taxing seeing as you're keeping them in the first place to feed yourself), but you also must think about whether you can feasibly raise a group of carnivores together in the first place, and how easy it will be for you to waltz into their enclosure without winding up as their dinner. Keeping a flock of sheep, which can graze on grass, is a decidedly simpler solution, don't you think? Personally, if I was thrust back in time to the African heartland as a hunter-gatherer during the nascent of our species, or as a horticulturalist some time later, I'd much rather target an ungulate (much easier prey) than trying to eat carnivores. Finally, I'd like to point out that eating carnivore livers (if anyone actually does that), especially over the long-term, is a terrible idea and may lead to hypervitaminosis A.

Answer 3

We humans are omnivores, not carnivores. Omnivores eat both plant and animal matter, not just meat.

In this day and age, most meat comes from industrialized farms which finish or raise, depending on the animals, on grains, which are unnatural and unhealthy. Also, people are not nearly as physically active as they were 200 years ago. Thus, people can benefit from having less meat in their diets, more fruits and vegetables and quite possibly less grains, no matter if they are processed or not. Dieticians may not agree with me, but its not meat that is causing nation-wide obesity in the USA and the world over, but too much grain and not enough fruits and veggies.