• Question: @Sarah how come when we eat raw meat we get ill, but when animals eat it they don't get ill , does it have something to do with the digestive system or the immune system ? thankyou for your time :)

    Asked by Lilac-Electra to Christopher, Dan, Jen, Mohan, Sarah on 9 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Mohan K

      Mohan K answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      I didn’t have a great answer for this so I did a quick google and this was a top answer:

      Geek Answers: Why can animals eat raw meat, but we can’t?

    • Photo: Sarah De Vos

      Sarah De Vos answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      I’m not sure and I will have a look at the link Mohan posted, in a minute. If this was asked in a quiz show I’d probably have guessed that it is something to do with the bacteria in the raw meat, which make us ill if we don’t kill them first (by cooking it). Animals, as they have evolved to digest raw meat a lot better than us, probably have bacteria in their gut which can deal with the ‘bad’ bacteria.

Comments

  • Photo: Sarah

    Sarah commented on :

    And now I’ve had a look – I guess I’m right in part 😛 as salmonella is one of those ‘bad’ (for us anyway) bacteria which occurs in raw chicken. But looks like the main issue is with how long we store the raw meat as opposed to animals.

    Though in the meantime it seems like steak tartare and sashimi are ok but freshly killed gazelle isn’t…