It's a common assumption that gorillas, like other terrestrial herbivores, prioritize protein intake. However, studies reveal a more nuanced approach to their diet. This article explores the dietary habits of gorillas and how they might inform human weight loss strategies.
Understanding the Natural Gorilla Diet
Gorillas are primarily herbivorous animals, with their diet consisting mainly of leaves and stems. Their food intake includes leaves, stems, shoots, fruits, seeds, flowers, and tree bark. Approximately 85% of their diet is leaves and stems, 5% seeds, insects, flowers, and tree bark, and 10% fruits. Tender leaves and shoots provide gorillas with essential nutrients, including protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Fruits are also a crucial part of the gorilla diet, as they are rich in natural sugars, vitamins, and water.
Adaptations for a Plant-Based Diet
Gorillas are gifted with a unique digestive system featuring a tract specialized for breaking down fibrous plant materials. Gorillas also have a large gut, which allows food fermentation. Lastly, gorillas have large and powerful jaws and molar teeth that are designed for grinding tough plant-based materials. These adaptations enable them to thrive on a diet that would be difficult for many other animals to digest.
The Importance of Protein
Protein is one of the essential nutrients required for growth and maintenance in large animals like gorillas. A variety of green leaves in their habitats are rich in proteins. Gorillas prefer leafy greens with higher protein levels compared to other plants. For example, they consume plant species such as the nettles and hibiscus. While a few fruits like avocados and guava are rich in protein, others contribute to the overall protein intake. In a day, a gorilla can eat about 18 to 30 kilograms of food to maintain its size and strength. The amount of food eaten by a gorilla per day varies depending on its age, health, activity level, and availability of vegetation in its natural habitat. In areas rich in diverse plant life, particularly during the rainy season, gorillas have an abundance of food to sustain their body mass.
Seasonal Dietary Variations
Gorillas are primarily folivores, meaning they spend much of their day foraging, moving to distant places in search of nutritious leaves, shoots, and stems. They adjust their feeding behaviors according to seasons. In Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda, the intake of energy-rich fruits by gorillas can seasonally exceed 40 per cent of the diet on a wet weight basis. In other months, high-protein leaves compose the major portion of the diet, with fruits contributing less than 10 per cent.
Read also: Gorilla Diet Analysis
The "Protein Paradox"
The gorilla diet, composed of high-protein terrestrial herbaceous vegetation, contains much higher protein concentrations than are estimated to be required by gorillas in relation to food intake. This observation has led to what is known as the "protein paradox." To decipher this apparent ‘protein paradox’, researchers used the geometrical framework of nutrition and took advantage of natural variation in the diets of wild mountain gorillas in Uganda.
Geometrical Framework Analysis
Geometrical analysis is a modelling approach used to determine which nutritional parameters animals maintain and which they allow to vary when faced with variation in food availability and composition. It thus enables the nutritional priorities of animals to be deciphered by comparing the extent to which the intake of different nutrients is defended against variation in food composition.
Studies of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei) in Uganda revealed that, in some periods, carbohydrate-rich fruits displace a large portion of protein-rich leaves in their diet. Non-protein energy (NPE) intake was invariant throughout the year, whereas protein intake was substantially higher when leaves were the major portion of the diet. This pattern of macronutrient intake suggests that gorillas prioritize NPE and, to achieve this when leaves are the major dietary item, they over-eat protein.
Protein Overconsumption in Leaf-Based Diets
When gorillas ate leaves, the balance of available protein (AP) to non-protein energy (NPE) aligned along a nutritional rail of 0.5, and gorillas consumed 30 per cent of total energy as protein. In contrast, when gorillas ate fruit-dominated diets, the concentrations of protein in relation to energy were similar to those recommended for humans.
The concentrations of protein consumed in relation to energy when leaves were the major portion of the diet were close to the maximum recommended for humans and similar to high-protein human weight-loss diets.
Read also: The Gorilla Diet Breakdown
Implications for Human Weight Loss
The dietary habits of gorillas, particularly their ability to thrive on a plant-based diet, offer valuable insights for human health.
Lessons from Zoo Gorillas
Witness the amazing stories of Mokolo and Bebac, two male Western lowland gorillas who live at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo (CMZ). In 2008, a cardiac ultrasound revealed that Bebac, then 24, was suffering from heart disease. Then Mokolo, then 21, received the same diagnosis. Both apes were treated with human heart drugs, including beta blockers and ACE inhibitors. Incredibly, heart disease is the leading killer in Western lowland gorillas in North American zoos, according to Animal Planet. Yet in the wild, apes don't develop obesity, diabetes or heart disease, a mystery that used to perplex veterinarians.
Mokolo and Bebac's plight prompted scrutiny of their diet. At the time, the two gorillas were relatively young -- in captivity, their breed can live up to 54 years -- but were overweight and had developed highly abnormal behavior, such as pulling out and eating their fur, along with repeatedly regurgitating and reingesting their food, habits that are not seen in the wild.
Like most zoo gorillas, Mokolo and Bebac were fed several servings of "nutritional cookies," made from grains, starch and sugar. In other words, they were eating processed, calorie-dense chow that was a far cry from their natural diet in the wild (with the good intention of ensuring that the gorillas received all the nutrition they required).
In the hope of halting the progression of their heart disease -- and saving their lives -- the pair of obese apes were switched to a new, healthier diet. Gone were the starchy, sugary cookies. Instead, they were fed wheelbarrows full of vegetables, including green beans, dandelion greens, romaine lettuce, and endive. In all, they were consuming 10 pounds of veggies a day.
Read also: Lose Weight Like a Gorilla: The Diet Explained
Their high-fiber, low-sugar diet was supplemented with fruits and flaxseeds, the zoo reported, with the food scattered around their enclosure so they ended up spending up to 75 percent of their day foraging. Even though the gorillas actually took in twice as many calories with the new diet, after a year, the apes, who previously weighed about 450 pounds, dropped nearly 65 pounds apiece, according to ScienceDaily. Along with significant improvements in their heart health, the two gorillas also stopped regurgitating and re-eating their food -- a habit that may have occurred, because the processed zoo food upset their stomachs.
The Omni Diet: A Human Adaptation
The Omni Diet is similar to what wild apes eat. Seventy percent of your food should come from whole plants -- such as freshly-prepared vegetables, vegetable juice, a little fruit, nuts, and seeds. The other 30 percent should come from high-quality, lean protein. Gorillas don't eat grains! Yet these foods have become a cornerstone of the American diet, as rates of obesity and chronic disease skyrocket. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate wild grains sparingly, if at all.
With our shorter digestive tracts, people need a higher amount of protein and that's why this diet, which includes small amounts of wild fish and high-quality (naturally raised) lean meat, is designed for omnivores. Some key takeaways from our furry friends are these: Vegetables are nutrient-dense and calorie-sparse, so you can and should eat a lot of them. Filling up on low-density foods is the best way to lose weight, according to a recent analysis of 17 earlier studies. High-fiber foods take longer to digest, so you stay satisfied longer. That means you can enjoy a hearty, wholesome diet, chock full of nutrients, and still slim down. Eating more plant foods could save your life by reducing heart attack and stroke risk by up to 30 percent, according to a Harvard study that included nearly 110,000 men and women who were tracked for 14 years.
The Guerrilla/Gorilla Diet & Lifestyle Program
The Guerrilla Diet and Lifestyle Program helps anybody wanting to improve their health get the best, unbiased information on healthy dieting for a longer, healthier life and is based on research, facts and over 20 years of experience in search of the healthiest diet for human consumption.
This book takes you on a journey back in time examing the changes that occured in the human body, and which foods allowed humans become the most developed species on the planet. This is not a regular diet book, its a wide-eyed look at human evolution.
This book holds the secret to this diet which the food industry has been trying to hide from us. In fact, this diet is not really a diet, but rather a total lifestyle program backed by solid scientific evidence from many different scientific fields combined, including genetics, evolutionary science, anthropology, zoology, medicine, and nutritional sciences. This book holds the knowledge and step by step guidelines to apply the ideal diet for human consumption along with precise lifestyle habit changing plans to support you on your path to optimal health, vitality, and longevity.
Practical Steps for Adopting a Gorilla-Inspired Diet
- Increase Vegetable Intake: Focus on consuming large quantities of non-starchy vegetables like leafy greens, broccoli, and green beans.
- Limit Processed Foods: Avoid processed foods, sugary snacks, and refined grains.
- Choose Lean Protein Sources: Include small amounts of lean protein sources such as fish, poultry, or plant-based proteins.
- Prioritize Fiber: Incorporate high-fiber foods like vegetables, fruits, and legumes to promote satiety and digestive health.
- Stay Active: Engage in regular physical activity to support weight loss and overall health.