Eating Fresh Animal Carcass

I just watched a National Geographic documentary on how our early ancestors lived in order to survive in the wild. One of the things they have showed that our early ancestors did was to look for fresh animal carcass which were usually hunted down by lions or tigers. These hunter animals usually leave their catch after they're full but they eventually come back to it again and finish their meal. On the other hand, humans who find the animal carcass will feed on it as fast as they can while the lion or tiger is away and try to bring a portion meat with them to eat along the way. They also drink the fresh blood that comes out of the carcass. That's how they survived.

 

Yes, scavenging is a way to survive. But not a really suggested one since the risk of end up hosting a parasite, a bacteria or virus is fairly high. Good thing our ancestors knew how to use fire to their favour for thousands of years.

 

When I was watching the documentary, the question of acquiring parasites from eating carcass meat and eventually getting sick also came into my mind. But then I thought that maybe our ancestors' bodies had their way of adapting to their situation and environmental conditions that they were able to develop immunity against certain types of diseases.

 

It's also a reason why life expectancy was so low. Trial and error and not knowing right from wrong is one of many reasons why early species of man died off. If you think about it, who came up with the idea of cooking meat before consumption? One day somebody did an experiment or found a dead carcass that had been in a forest fire?

 

Beggars cannot be choosers especially when you are already famished. But I don't have the guts to eat raw meat. I may take the carcass as my source of food but I would definitely cook it first to at least make it palatable. Even in the woods, we have to exert effort in making our food palatable. And if you don't know how to start a fire then maybe you have to try eating raw meat.

 

Eating like that for humans has its risks. There is a theory about how AIDS came into being. One of them is that people in African villages contracted a virus from uncooked ape meat that they sold in the markets or ate in the wild. Humans have not evolved, unlike say cows with parasites in their system, to handle the parasites, bacteria, and other microorganisms that come with eating the raw animal carcass. Lions, on the other hand, have adapted to this method of survival. This adaptability is why lions don't scavenge the way humans in the wild would have to. The people that ate raw meat are the ones that died off, and the ones that didn't are the people who cooked the meat, like someone else above also said, which is why we cook meat today. People today still do eat raw meat, like raw steak, or Japanese beef, but in those cases, the meat is usually high quality, I believe. They warn people with compromised immune systems to not eat raw meat.

 

Hi OP great topic! He does make a point about parasites and so do you in saying how we would develop an immunity to certain bacteria and diseases. As for parasites though, I have to ask, did they have as many of them back then? Is that a unintelligent question to ask? I'm not an expert in them suckers. What I do know about parasites is that a lot of people use them as an argument against the existence of God. Because let's be honest, the way some parasites work is just plain harsh and inhumane in a way. Well, the parasite doesn't care about its host victim. Well, that's not strictly true, because some parasites rely on their host victim staying alive. And some that people pick up are truly grizzly and bizarre! And I realize it might be out of the scope of this discussion, but it is very harsh the way that parasites work and it does make you ask, what all-loving God would create something like that?

Now as for eating a fresh carcass, well, in a eat or die situation, and with a potentially very angry and still hungry lion somewhere close, it's not wise to hang about. Just either grab what you can and go, eat some along the way by slicing only fresh meat or even drinking its blood if its not been sitting for too long. But only in an eat or die situation. Otherwise, take it and cook that up on grill or fire and then it will be safer. That's my advice!

 

As far as we know, they have been alive for as long as Homo sapiens have been, which is around 150, 000 years. There are two kinds of parasites. Heirlooms are the ones we acquired from our ancestors in Africa. Souvenirs are the ones we acquired through evolution. As far as God is concerned, that's a whole separate issue that I can't answer. Life has never been perfect for human civilization. Our ancestors did want to have lives like ours, though. It truly makes you wonder if there is an all-knowing being out there. In my opinion, it doesn't have to invalidate God's existence. It can validate it because you need an original Creator to bring these creatures to life. You can argue that He is not all-loving, perhaps. You could also argue that he wanted to put his creatures through trials so that they could advance in human civilization and become independent beings. It depends on how you look at it.

 

I pick up fresh road kill deer all the time.

 

I think I would have to be pretty hungry before attempting to eat an animal carcass, but if you are starving, I guess it is preferable to starving. But yeah, I would cook and cook that thing, better to eat charcoal then to end up with some kind of a disease from eating uncooked meat. I hate to think of eating carcasses though. The thought of it is nasty.

 

Coming from a germaphobe, I don't think I could survive in the wilderness if I had to depend on eating wild animal carcass to get my daily bread and nutrition. I would not like the taste. I am a very picky eater, much to my mother's chagrin. God bless her soul. Anyway, as a kid, I didn't even like to touch the door. I was scared of bacteria. I was terrified and had nightmares about germs. My sisters would laugh at me since I was the oldest. I also don't like raw eggs. Therefore, raw carcass would make me faint in a minute.

 

Meaning they don't cook or what? It most have been tough for our fore fathers honestly. What happen to killing it themselves and taking home to prepare and eat in peace.