Random Fact # 3,591
Why can't humans eat raw meat without getting sick but other animals can?
Humans CAN eat raw meat.
It has to be properly handled and stored, but we can totally eat raw meat.
Some examples of dishes that contain raw meat at the end of preparation include:
Carpaccio (Italy) - Extremely thin slices of raw sirloin beef
Carne cruda all’albese (Italy) - Slices of raw veal marinated in lemon juice and served with Parmesan
Kitfo (Ethiopia) - Raw minced beef flavoured with a chili powder and spiced clarified butter
Mett (Germany) - Minced pork spread
Gored Gored (Ethiopia/Eritrea) - Unflavoured raw cubes of beef with buttered flatbread
Koi Soi (Thailand) - Finely chopped or ground lean beef is marinated with plenty of fish sauce, garlic, lime juice, chillies, and herbs
Steak Tartare (France) - Raw minced or chopped beef formed into a patty and served with a raw egg yolk on top
Yukhoe (South Korea) - Beef sliced into matchsticks and trimmed of any fat, then tenderised in a marinade of soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil and flavoured with garlic, spring onions and sesame seeds
Raw Kibbeh/Quibe (Lebanon/Brazil) - Ground meat, minced onions, spices, and bulgur, often served with olive oil and flatbread
Basashi (Japan) - Horse sashimi
Here are what they look like in the order mentioned above:
"But other animals don't need to be careful about how they store and handle the meat and don't get sick!"
False.
It's very common for predators to get parasites from eating raw flesh, they just don't have another option. It's so common, in fact, that it's a large part of why we tend to avoid eating carnivores; it's much harder to keep them healthy.
It's not that they can do something we can't, but rather that they're a bit better at it than we are.
And that's because of evolution... and stomach acid.
Because we've been cooking meat for a very very long time, our stomach hasn't needed to become quite as sturdy as, say, a vulture's (who primarily eats rotten meat).
The reason a vulture's stomach is able to handle rotten meat and ours can't mostly has to do with how acidic their stomach acid is. Very few parasites can survive that level of acidity, which means the vulture has a higher chance of remaining healthy.
