Interesting article anyone should read !!
By H. Leon Abrams, Jr.
Associate Professor Emeritus of Anthropology E.G.C.,
University System of Georgia
One of the arguments proffered by vegetarians is that our primate ancestors were vegetarians and, to be healthy, we should eat the same kind of diet.
An article entitled "The Western Lowland Gorilla Diet Has Implications For the Health of Humans and Other Hominids," which appeared in a recent issue ofHuman and Clinical Nutrition, makes this argument. With reference to the authors' study of the vegetarian diet of gorillas, the research is sound, but to claim that humans would be better off with a vegetarian diet like that of the gorillas is spurious and equivocal.
One misconception about the gorilla diet is that it contains no animal products. On the contrary, all of the great ape groups take in some animal protein, whether overtly or inadvertently, by consuming insects, insect eggs and the larvae that nest on the plants and fruits they eat. In her pioneering work on chimpanzees, Jane Goodall discovered to her amazement, and to the amazement of the rest of the world, that chimpanzees kill and eat monkeys and make a tool to extract termites from their hills (homes), and that they went to considerable effort to obtain these foods. It is also significant that meat is the only food they share with other chimpanzees.
All monkeys, lemurs and apes are classified as vegetarians and/or fruitivors, but they consume a small amount of animal protein by unconsciously eating the small insects, their eggs and larvae on the plant foods they select to eat. The National Zoo in Washington, D.C. tried to breed the near extinct fruitivorian South American golden marmoset in captivity with no result, but when a little animal protein was added to their diet, they began to breed, which proves that they require a small amount of animal protein to be healthy and reproduce. continued here
