BBC's Planet Earth

After taking a course on Anthropology and watching chimps on Planet Earth, I first realized how we should not compare our diets to closely related species.

And yes, the chimp diet is highly misconceived. The chimps are very territorial, and when a fig tree is fruiting, a clan will defend it to death. They even take the opportunity to take an infant or female from the other clan and share the meat, regardless of the abundance of fruit. Very gruesome, but true.

I wouldn't want to be anywhere near a gorilla because of their incredible strength, but there is a reason they are also so territorial; food. A gorilla will sit and literally eat all day and nap in the same spot. An adult doesn't even have enough energy to play with their young. In order to survive, it must eat all day long and barely moves outside a 2m radius.

So yes, comparing our diets to the apes can be very misleading. Not to mention how our digestive tracts are much shorter and completely different due to cooking our foods for the past 25-50 thousand years. Tweet