Thank you for sharing such an insightful exploration of "Nightbitch." I found the themes of motherhood's demands and personal aspirations, as well as social expectations very thought-provoking.
Interesting perspective, a lot of things I’ve never considered before in here. Could you explain more about how humans are "physiologically herbivorous?"
Of course! If we look at things like the length of our intestinal tract, it's far longer than those of carnivores and omnivores. (This gives our bodies extra time to break down fibrous plant matter, rather than quickly expelling non-fibrous flesh.) We have long fingers but no claws. We have dull teeth, rather than sharp fangs, and our jaws can move side to side. Meat-eaters' jaws generally only move up and down, designed to snap onto living prey and tear off pieces of flesh. (For instance, when I give my dog a piece of carrot, she looks a little silly trying to chew it into tiny pieces because she's trying to cut it up rather than grind it down.) We have trichromatic vision, prioritizing the ability to see poisonous or non-poisonous plants, rather than the dichromatic vision of predators; generally speaking, their eyesight is designed more for spotting quick movements of prey.
Since animals and animal products are calorically dense, they were a great source of sustenance in the past, but ancient diets were comprised predominantly of plants, with meat supplemented. Rather than building tools to go hunt whenever we want to eat meat, now we can just go to the grocery store, causing us to eat more meat than would ever have been possible before.
I'm certainly not an expert, but I'd recommend checking out Plant Based Times here on Substack or nutritionfacts.org -- they make great, short videos and articles explaining all the latest scientific studies about food/diet. Thanks for the question!
Thank you for sharing such an insightful exploration of "Nightbitch." I found the themes of motherhood's demands and personal aspirations, as well as social expectations very thought-provoking.
Thanks for reading, glad you liked it!
Interesting perspective, a lot of things I’ve never considered before in here. Could you explain more about how humans are "physiologically herbivorous?"
Of course! If we look at things like the length of our intestinal tract, it's far longer than those of carnivores and omnivores. (This gives our bodies extra time to break down fibrous plant matter, rather than quickly expelling non-fibrous flesh.) We have long fingers but no claws. We have dull teeth, rather than sharp fangs, and our jaws can move side to side. Meat-eaters' jaws generally only move up and down, designed to snap onto living prey and tear off pieces of flesh. (For instance, when I give my dog a piece of carrot, she looks a little silly trying to chew it into tiny pieces because she's trying to cut it up rather than grind it down.) We have trichromatic vision, prioritizing the ability to see poisonous or non-poisonous plants, rather than the dichromatic vision of predators; generally speaking, their eyesight is designed more for spotting quick movements of prey.
Since animals and animal products are calorically dense, they were a great source of sustenance in the past, but ancient diets were comprised predominantly of plants, with meat supplemented. Rather than building tools to go hunt whenever we want to eat meat, now we can just go to the grocery store, causing us to eat more meat than would ever have been possible before.
I'm certainly not an expert, but I'd recommend checking out Plant Based Times here on Substack or nutritionfacts.org -- they make great, short videos and articles explaining all the latest scientific studies about food/diet. Thanks for the question!