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Since 2017
Plant Digestion
Truth is way stranger than fiction
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How to plant; how to nutrition
Hey, saplings!
Updated with science!
Also, I got verbally attacked by a dude with a serious plant fetish. Get off my lawn!
We cannot digest plants. No animals can. It’s fermented by bacteria in the gut, as animals lack the enzymes to break plant matter down to extract nutrients (1-4). Herbivores have specialized systems to ferment massive amounts of vegetation, and some consume their own feces to extract the nutrients that they didn’t absorb in the bowel (5), as its main purpose in most animals is to absorb water back into the body, with some nutrients (6). These animals are generally hind-gut fermenters, and the digestion of plants by their microbiota takes place in a specialized pouch called the cecum, which is not specialized in humans and other non-herbivores, and in humans is just the short beginning part of the colon (7). Like hind-gut fermenters, nutrients from plants are mostly deposited from the body in the feces. Humans have a digestive system closer to that of a wolf than to any herbivores, with a few differences. We are not plant-eaters and do not have proper amounts of phytases to inactivate the phytic acid that blocks nutrient digestion, as well, which means we are obligate carnivores (8), and by very means of inadequate plant digestion unless pre-fermented or cooked, facultative omnivores—which means we can eat plants if forced into it, but it’s not sustainable nor healthy to maintain long-term.
Only cooked or fermented vegetation can be utilized to the maximum:
“It is an error to suppose that cooking increases the digestibility of foods. That is only true of vegetable foods. The digestibility of animal foods is diminished rather than increased by cooking.”
…Which is why raw vegans starve almost to death and most quit.
Here’s the rest of the above cited statement:
… This diminution of digestibility in cooked foods is upheld by Clementini [1923] who found that when animals were fed on autoclaved meat the nitrogen balance became negative. He states however that this may partly be accounted for by the dislike shown to the autoclaved meat by his experimental animals. … Richet, Oxner and Richards [1925, 1926] state that cooked meat is of less value as a food for fish than raw meat, since fish fed on cooked meat die about the fiftieth day whilst those kept on raw meat survive. It seems possible since meat formed the sole diet in these experiments that an alteration in the vitamin content may be one of the causes of the inferiority of cooked as compared with raw meat as a fish food. A similar observation was made on the diet of Eskimos by Heinbecker [1928] who states that the Eskimo in his natural state eats practically only raw flesh and remains healthy. On the contrary it is well known that when, owing to the spread of civilisation, the Eskimo cooks his meat, scurvy breaks out. …
How interesting, no?
Protease inhibitors block digestion of [plant] protein (10-13) [pesticides; people are eating pesticides] and they are incomplete and inappropriate to human nutrition which leads to common diseases clinically seen in vegetarians (14-15). Animal protein is complete and is thoroughly digested by the time it hits the duodenum and jejunum and is completely absorbed at minimum of 95% by the time it reaches the colon (16). Cooked meat digests faster but the nutrients are destroyed, so it promotes faster growth but causes nutrient insufficiency (9).
Transit time through the colon is absolute bunk because we absorb it in the small intestine, whereas the [vegetables] have to be fermented in the colon because they’re locked to antinutrients (17 and 1-4) that bacteria have to break down. Guess what we absorb in the colon? Almost none of that. You poop plant protein out, along with a vast amount of other nutrients.
People on the Carnivore lifestyle actually do not poop all that much. [They] go about every 3 days to a week. Why? Meat absolutely digests and is absorbed entirely, or a vast majority (16). You urinate and breathe out the by-products.
Most plant contents are expelled.
The reason plants seem to move through the digestive system quicker? We can’t digest them in the stomach (18-20 and 1-4), except for starches, which are digested by amylase beginning in the mouth, inactivated by acid, then reactivated in the duodenum (21). The fibrous bits have to be shunted to the colon for the bacteria to ferment. A vast majority of the nutrients produced are expelled with the waste. Gorillas do the same, then eat their own feces multiple times to get that nutrition that went out with the poop (22). If you don’t eat your poop, you are not getting the nutrition. Period.
GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: Within the article is a link to a video of typical gorilla behavior with feces consumption to obtain unabsorbed nutrients such as vitamin B12 and A, and a slew of others that rear-gut digesters do not absorb adequately. Viewer discretion is advised.
Gorilla coprophagy (eating feces): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b_zEg6dSyw
References
Digestion of plant matter:
1. K.-J.Cheng, et al. Electron microscopy of bacteria involved in the digestion of plant cell walls. Animal Feed Science and Technology. Volume 10, Issues 2–3, January 1984, Pages 93-120. https://doi.org/10.1016/0377-8401(84)90002-6
2. Inman M. (2011) How Bacteria Turn Fiber into Food. PLoS Biol 9(12): e1001227. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001227
3. University of Waikato. (n.d.) Cows’ guts and microbes. Microbiology. Accessed 6 Sept 2018 from https://sci.waikato.ac.nz/farm/content/microbiology.html
4. Cheng KJ., Costerton J.W. (1980) Adherent rumen bacteria — their role in the digestion of plant material, urea and epithelial cells. In: Ruckebusch Y., Thivend P. (eds) Digestive Physiology and Metabolism in Ruminants. Springer, Dordrecht.
Coprophagy:
5. “Coprophagy.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. Accessed 6 Sept 2018.
Biology
6. Medical News Today. Website. (Updated 2018). The Large Intestine (Human). Retrieved from https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-Does-the-Large-Intestine-Do.aspx
7. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Cecum. Encyclopædia Britannica; 8 Sept 2018. [britannica.com/science/cecum]
8. T H Iqbal, K O Lewis, and B T Cooper. Phytase activity in the human and rat small intestine. Gut. 1994 Sep; 35(9): 1233–1236.
Digestibility:
9. Winifred Mary Clifford. CXCII. THE EFFECT OF COOKING ON THE DIGESTIBILITY OF MEAT. From the Physiological Laboratory, King's College of Household and Social Science, Kensington, London, W. 8. (Received Odober 23rd, 1930.)
Protein information:
10. A. R. Piergiovanni, et al. (1991). Digestive enzyme inhibitors and storage pest resistance in cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) seeds. SpringerLink. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00039607
11. Della Gatta C., A.R. Piergiovanni & P. Perrino, 1988. An improved method for the determination of trypsin inhibitor levels in legumes. Lebensm. Wiss. Technol. 21: 315–318.
12. Gatehouse A.M.R. & D. Boulter, 1983. Assessment of the antimetabolic effects of trypsin inhibitors from cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) and other legumes on development of the bruchid beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus. J. Sci. Food Agric. 34: 345–350.
13. Rackis J.J., W.J. Wolf & E.C. Baker, 1986. Protease inhibitors in plant foods: content and inactivation. In: M. Friedman (Ed.). Nutritional and toxicological significance of enzyme inhibitors in foods, p. 167, Plenum Press, New York.
14. “incomplete protein.” Medical Dictionary for the Health Professions and Nursing. 2012. Farlex 8 Sep. 2018 https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/incomplete+protein
15. Yves Ingenbleek M.D. and Kilmer S.McCully M.D. Vegetarianism produces subclinical malnutrition, hyperhomocysteinemia and atherogenesis. Nutrition. Volume 28, Issue 2, February 2012, Pages 148-153.
16. Bax M-L, Buffière C, Hafnaoui N, Gaudichon C, Savary-Auzeloux I, Dardevet D, et al. (2013) Effects of Meat Cooking, and of Ingested Amount, on Protein Digestion Speed and Entry of Residual Proteins into the Colon: A Study in Minipigs. PLoS ONE 8(4): e61252. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061252
Antinutrients:
17. “Antinutrient.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. Accessed 8 Sept 2018.
Actual plant digestion:
18. J. Stanton. (February 8th, 2011). Does Meat Rot In Your Colon? No. What Does? Beans, Grains, and Vegetables! Retrieved from http://www.gnolls.org/1444/does-meat-rot-in-your-colon-no-what-does-beans-grains-and-vegetables/
19. Carnivore digestive system. Web article. (n.d.) Retrieved on 8 Sept 2018 from https://www.raising-rabbits.com/carnivore-digestive-system.html
20. Roar of Wolverine. Website. (27 October 2011). CAN HUMANS DIGEST MEAT? Accessed 8 Sept from http://roarofwolverine.com/archives/412
21. “Amylase.” Dictionary.com, n.d. Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. Web. Accessed 08 Sept 2018.
22. International Primate Protection League. (n.d.). Gorillas. Accessed 08 Sept 2018 from https://www.ippl.org/gibbon/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Gorillas-done.pdf
GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING
Gorilla pulls poop out his butt, eats it, and shares with son. YouTube Video. 20 Jan 2012 by emceeANTONE.