Why don't we eat carnivores?

Why don't humans eat carnivores if we are the apex predators? This was something that never really crossed my mind until I read about it, so I was obviously intrigued. While we have no definite answers, we do have some solid theories as to why we don't eat carnivores!  

One theory is safety reasons. Animals pick up bacteria, parasites and heavy metals as they go along their life. When a predator eats prey, it picks up any of the harmful things inside of the animal. If per say a tiger eats multiple different animals, it could accumulate lots of bacteria and parasites. If a human were to eat a tiger, we would be exposed to many more bacteria and parasites. 

Another theory is taste. Perhaps carnivores simply do not taste as good. The meat of a tiger may not taste as delicious as a cow or chicken because of texture. While the meat of a chicken is soft and tender, a tiger would have much tougher meat. Predators generally tend to be lean and muscular, with muscle fibers closer together. Most predators lack the juicy fat we humans crave. Humans typically prefer juicy meat, with a soft tender texture. Another theory is that animals that eat other animals just don't taste good! 

One exception to this rule is fish. I'm personally NOT a fan of fish, but speaking for the general population here, fish are an exception to this rule. 

The next theory, which I personally place the most accuracy to, is inefficiency. It's just not efficient to farm carnivores. Supplying meat is much more costly than grass or corn, and predators tend to be territorial. The land needed to farm tigers would be large, and the amount of food larger. If a cow were to eat 10,000 calories of grass, only 10% of that would go into beef, the rest going to keeping the cow alive. Then you would get about 1000 calories of beef. If you were to feed the thousand pounds of beef to a tiger, you would only get one hundred calories of tiger!

The final hypothesis is religion. Judaism doesn't permit its followers to eat predators.  The Kuraim is against eating any animal with claws or fangs, classifying almost all predators. It's not strange for something that started as a religious practice to transform into a commonplace behavior. 

Thank you for reading my blog post. I hope that you learned something new in the process- Marissa

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