We Are Not Gorillas: Tolerating Plants Doesn’t Mean We’re Designed for Them

We Are Not Gorillas: Tolerating Plants Doesn’t Mean We’re Designed for Them

by Laurent Glatz – for Athletic Carnivore

The argument keeps coming back: our close relatives, the great apes, eat a lot of plants, so humans should also base their diet on plants. The image is appealing. A powerful, massive gorilla in the forest, nourished by leaves, stems, and fruits. But biology isn’t proven by family resemblance. It’s demonstrated through anatomy, digestion, available energy, and how an organism actually extracts its nutrients.

The gorilla isn’t strong because leaves are miraculous. It’s strong because its digestive system is built to convert a huge volume of plant matter into usable energy through fermentation. Its colon is large, its abdomen adapted for this slow process, and its microbiota converts fibers into short-chain fatty acids. In other words, the gorilla carries a true biological fermentation vat in its belly.

Humans no longer follow this model. Our cecum is reduced. Our appendix is a tiny vestige compared to the fermentative logic of large herbivores or highly plant-eating great apes. Our large intestine still ferments, but much less dominantly. Most of our nutrition happens in the small intestine: enzymatic digestion, absorption of amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, peptides, and bioavailable nutrients.

This difference changes everything. An organism heavily dependent on fiber invests in a large fermentative system. An organism relying on dense foods invests in rapid and efficient absorption. Humans clearly belong to this second category. Our digestive system does not resemble that of an animal designed to derive most of its energy from leaves and cellulose.

Human gastric acidity confirms this reading. A very low pH facilitates the denaturation of animal proteins, activates pepsin, limits microbial load in food, and makes regular consumption of animal tissues possible. This acidity isn’t useless for plants, but it becomes especially coherent in a dietary history where meat, organs, marrow, fish, eggs, and animal fats play a significant role.

The human brain adds another constraint. It consumes a huge share of resting energy. Such an expensive organ demands dense nutrition, rich in energy and usable micronutrients. Leaves cannot support this requirement without a massive fermentative apparatus. Animal foods, on the other hand, provide complete proteins, concentrated fats, heme iron, B12, zinc, choline, DHA, creatine, and carnosine directly.

This doesn’t mean humans can’t eat plants. They can. Some populations have even developed better starch digestion via salivary amylase. But this adaptation doesn’t turn our species into gorillas. It only shows an ability to utilize certain carbohydrates when the environment demands it. Again, ability is not optimality.

Modern nutrition too often confuses these two concepts. Because a food is tolerated, it’s presented as necessary. Because humans can eat plants, it’s assumed they should consume many. But plants also bring fibers that irritate some, oxalates, phytates, lectins, FODMAPs, and defensive compounds that can complicate digestion or limit mineral absorption. The body can manage some of these constraints. That doesn’t prove they’re ideal.

The carnivore approach thus resets the comparison. It doesn’t ask if humans can eat like apes. It asks what happens when we remove foods that ferment, bloat, irritate, or trigger glycemic responses, returning to dense, directly assimilable animal foods. For many, digestion becomes simpler, the belly flatter, hunger more stable, and energy more consistent.

The real question isn’t: “Are we close to gorillas?” Evolutionarily, yes. But digestively, no. We have left the massive fermentative model behind. And if our anatomy no longer tells the story of a great ape eating leaves, why do we continue to build our diet as if our intestines were still those of a gorilla?

#HumanBiology #Gorilla #Chimpanzee #Digestion #Carnivore #LowCarb #AncestralNutrition #Bioavailability #AthleticCarnivore