لماذا لا يأكل البشر لحوم الحيوانات المفترسة؟ — Transcript

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1. 0:00In December 1912, in the middle of
2. 0:03Antarctica.
3. 0:05Two men pull a sled across endless snow
4. 0:07.
5. 0:08The wind lashes at their faces. And the
6. 0:10temperature is dozens of degrees below
7. 0:13zero. They are over 500 kilometers away
8. 0:15from the camp.
9. 0:17A few days ago, they were three. The
10. 0:20third fell into a deep crevasse in the
11. 0:22ice. With him went most of the food, the
12. 0:24main tent, and the strongest dogs.
13. 0:27They were left with only a little food
14. 0:29and a few tired dogs.
15. 0:30And that was when the difficult decision
16. 0:32came. They began eating the dogs one
17. 0:35after another.
18. 0:36The meat, heart, and liver—everything
19. 0:38was cooked and eaten.
20. 0:40Because hunger shows no mercy. The meat
21. 0:43was supposed to give them strength. But
22. 0:45what happened was the exact opposite.
23. 0:47The skin on their legs began to peel and
24. 0:49fall off in chunks. Their hair started
25. 0:51falling out. Their stomachs ached.
26. 0:54And one of them, a young Swiss man named
27. 0:57Xavier Mertz, was delirious and rambling
28. 1:00.
29. 1:01On one of the nights in January 1913,
30. 1:03Mertz went to sleep and never woke up.
31. 1:06So, a hungry man finds meat, eats it,
32. 1:09and dies. What was inside that meat?
33. 1:12Keep that question in mind for a moment
34. 1:14. Because the answer is part of a much
35. 1:17bigger question. A question you may have
36. 1:19never stopped to consider. You eat lamb
37. 1:22, beef, and chicken. And some people eat
38. 1:25camel meat. These are all animals that
39. 1:28eat grass and grains. But when was the
40. 1:30last time you saw someone eat lion, wolf
41. 1:33, or tiger meat? The strange thing is
42. 1:36that it’s not impossible. Lion meat is
43. 1:38edible. Historically, some people have
44. 1:41eaten bear, and others...have eaten wolf
45. 1:43during times of famine. Meaning, the
46. 1:45option was always there. Yet, almost no
47. 1:48civilization in the world has based its
48. 1:50diet on predators. Why?
49. 1:54The first answer that comes to mind is
50. 1:56that they are dangerous, and that’s half
51. 1:58the story, but the real answer is deeper
52. 2:01and starts with something very simple:
53. 2:03energy.
54. 2:04The plant gets its energy from the sun.
55. 2:07The gazelle eats the plant.
56. 2:09But its body only retains a small amount
57. 2:11of its energy, roughly 10%.
58. 2:14The rest is spent on...walking,
59. 2:16breathing, and body heat. Then the lion
60. 2:19comes and eats the gazelle. And the same
61. 2:21thing repeats.
62. 2:23Meaning, the lion lives on the leftovers
63. 2:25of the leftovers. And here, the problem
64. 2:27becomes clear. A single lion needs about
65. 2:29seven kilograms of meat a day. Just to
66. 2:32stay alive. That’s more than two and a
67. 2:35half tons of meat a year for just one
68. 2:37animal. Okay. Think about it as a
69. 2:40breeder. If you want to raise lions to
70. 2:42eat their meat, you must first raise
71. 2:44sheep and cattle. And then feed them to
72. 2:47the lions. So that in the end, you get
73. 2:49far less meat than what you invested.
74. 2:52You lose 10 kilograms of meat to gain
75. 2:54just one. Any sane person would just eat
76. 2:57the cow itself and be done with it. And
77. 2:58that is before we even talk about their
78. 3:00temperament. A wolf won't follow you in
79. 3:03a herd like sheep. And a lion won't be
80. 3:05caged in a yard.
81. 3:06They are animals that fight, defend
82. 3:08their territory, have few offspring, and
83. 3:10take a long time to grow. Everything
84. 3:13about them is the opposite of what
85. 3:14anyone wanting to raise food needs. And
86. 3:16even if you decided to hunt them instead
87. 3:18of raising them. Early humans faced two
88. 3:21choices.
89. 3:22A gazelle that runs from you, or a lion
90. 3:24that might kill you. And the gazelle has
91. 3:26more meat and poses less risk. The
92. 3:29calculation was clear from the start.
93. 3:31But energy explains why we don't farm
94. 3:33them. It doesn’t explain why the food
95. 3:35itself might harm you.
96. 3:36And here begins the story that is
97. 3:38invisible to the eye. In the sixties,
98. 3:41scientists in America and Britain
99. 3:42noticed something strange. Birds of prey
100. 3:45, like the bald eagle and peregrine
101. 3:48falcon. Their numbers were dropping
102. 3:50scarily, and the reason. It wasn’t
103. 3:52hunting or disease.
104. 3:54The reason was in the eggs. The
105. 3:56eggshells became so thin that. When the
106. 3:59mother sat on them to warm them, they
107. 4:00would break underneath her. When they
108. 4:02tested them, they found a substance
109. 4:04called DDT. A pesticide they used to
110. 4:07spray on farms. The pesticide went with
111. 4:09the rain into the rivers. And the small
112. 4:11organisms in the water took a little bit
113. 4:13of it.
114. 4:14The small fish ate thousands of them.
115. 4:17So the pesticide in its body became more
116. 4:19. The big fish ate thousands of the
117. 4:22small ones. So it increased more. And
118. 4:24finally, the bird at the top of
119. 4:26everything eats the big fish. So it
120. 4:28receives everything that accumulated
121. 4:29below. And the problem is that these
122. 4:31substances don't leave the body easily.
123. 4:34They store in the fat and remain. Each
124. 4:36meal adds a little more to it. And the
125. 4:38higher.
126. 4:39You go up the chain, the concentration
127. 4:40becomes terrifyingly higher.
128. 4:42And the same thing happens with mercury
129. 4:44. That’s why you hear advice not to
130. 4:47overconsume certain types of large fish
131. 4:49. Like shark and swordfish. Not because
132. 4:52the fish is spoiled, but because it’s a
133. 4:54big hunter. It ate many fish all its
134. 4:56life, and collected in its meat
135. 4:57everything that was in them. Meaning the
136. 5:00predator is not just an animal, it’s
137. 5:02like an archive. Carrying in its body
138. 5:04everything its prey ate before it. And
139. 5:07that’s not all. Because what accumulates
140. 5:09in the predator's body isn't just
141. 5:11chemicals, there are living things too.
142. 5:14Predators eat raw meat all their lives.
143. 5:17And every prey can bring with it worms
144. 5:19and parasites.
145. 5:21One of the most famous is a small worm
146. 5:23called Trichinella, which lives inside
147. 5:25the animal's muscles. And if a human
148. 5:27eats the meat without it being cooked
149. 5:29well, it hatches in their intestines and
150. 5:31moves to their muscles. Fever, swelling
151. 5:34, severe pain. And in many cases in the
152. 5:36past, it would lead to death. And bear
153. 5:39meat is one of the most famous sources
154. 5:41of it in the world. That’s why cultures
155. 5:43that ate bear knew it must be cooked
156. 5:46well. Not for the taste, but because a
157. 5:49mistake here could be the last mistake.
158. 5:51Okay, toxins accumulating and parasites
159. 5:54living in the meat, but none of them.
160. 5:57Explain what happened in the South Pole
161. 5:59. Because the two men were cooking the
162. 6:01meat. And the dogs hadn’t been eating
163. 6:04pesticides. The answer was in one part
164. 6:06in particular, the liver.
165. 6:09The livers of meat-eating animals store
166. 6:11vitamin A in huge quantities.
167. 6:13Because the animal eats prey. And every
168. 6:16prey has a little vitamin. And the body
169. 6:19collects it and stores it in the liver.
170. 6:21And this vitamin is useful in small
171. 6:23amounts. But if it exceeds, it becomes
172. 6:25poison.
173. 6:27The polar bear's liver, for example, has
174. 6:29vitamin A. To the degree that a small
175. 6:30piece of it can poison a human.
176. 6:33And the Inuit people in the North Pole
177. 6:35have known this for hundreds of years.
178. 6:37They eat the bear, but they throw the
179. 6:39liver far away. And the dogs that Mertz
180. 6:42and his colleague Douglas Mawson ate
181. 6:44were sled dogs.
182. 6:46Their livers were full of vitamin A. And
183. 6:48the symptoms of poisoning include
184. 6:50peeling skin, hair loss, stomach ache,
185. 6:52dizziness, and hallucinations.
186. 6:55Exactly what happened to them. This
187. 6:57explanation didn't emerge until more
188. 6:59than 50 years later. When researchers
189. 7:02returned to read Mawson's journals and
190. 7:04compare the symptoms. And today, it is
191. 7:06the most compelling explanation for
192. 7:07Mertz's death. Meaning hunger wasn't the
193. 7:09only thing that killed him.
194. 7:11What killed him was that the animal he
195. 7:13ate carried something in its body it
196. 7:15shouldn't have.
197. 7:17But wait, if predators are that
198. 7:19dangerous, why do we eat tuna? Tuna
199. 7:22itself is a hunter. And salmon is a
200. 7:24hunter. And even grouper is a hunter. In
201. 7:26the sea, the story is a bit different.
202. 7:28The sea is full of fish without us
203. 7:30needing to farm them. And we eat their
204. 7:32meat. So the energy problem a lion faces
205. 7:34doesn't apply here. And furthermore. We
206. 7:36know our limits with it. That's why
207. 7:39there are guidelines regarding the
208. 7:40quantity of large fish. And that's why
209. 7:42shark. Isn't a daily meal for most
210. 7:44people. The rule isn't "don't eat any
211. 7:47predator." The rule is, the higher. You
212. 7:50go up, the more you pay. It is
213. 7:52remarkable that humans have avoided
214. 7:54these animals for a long time. In Islam
215. 7:56, there is a prohibition against eating
216. 7:59any beast with fangs. And any bird with
217. 8:01talons. In the Torah, there is a list of
218. 8:04forbidden birds, mostly raptors like the
219. 8:06eagle. And many other cultures, distant
220. 8:09from one another, abandoned predator
221. 8:12meat. None of them knew what Vitamin A
222. 8:15was, or what parasites were. But the
223. 8:17result was one and the same. A predator
224. 8:20is not food.
225. 8:21Mawson continued on his own. He walked
226. 8:24for weeks over the ice. And fell into a
227. 8:26crevasse. He climbed out, hanging onto
228. 8:28the sled rope. And after about a month,
229. 8:31he reached the camp. When he arrived, he
230. 8:33saw the ship that was supposed to take
231. 8:36him back sailing away. It had left just
232. 8:38a few hours earlier. He had to stay an
233. 8:40entire second winter there. He returned
234. 8:43alive. But he returned knowing a lesson
235. 8:45his colleague paid for with his life.
236. 8:48This is the same lesson humans learned
237. 8:50over thousands of years without anyone
238. 8:52writing it down.
239. 8:54The next time you sit in front of a
240. 8:56plate of meat, remember that what is in
241. 8:58it isn't a random choice. It is the
242. 9:00result of a long calculation.
243. 9:02A calculation that started from the sun
244. 9:04, passed through the grass, and stopped
245. 9:06at the animal that gives you the most
246. 9:07and harms you the least.
247. 9:09And the animals at the top of the chain
248. 9:11, we didn't leave them because they are
249. 9:12strong. But we left them because
250. 9:14everything they ate their whole lives is
251. 9:17still there.