• gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
    8 hours

    The thing is that cows can’t digest grass either. They have an extra stomach along their oesophagus which is basically just a pouch where the grass goes in first. There are a lot of bacteria and they can digest grass. Then these bacteria grow because they eat the grass.

    Then the cow swallows these bacteria and digests those. That’s where a cow gets their calories from.

      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
        5 hours

        they can

        when you eat fruit, the sugar can enter your bloodstream directly through the mucosa in your mouth, you don’t even need to swallow it. although the main part of the absorption happens in the colon still.

  • Alsjemenou@lemy.nlNederlands
    4 hours

    Why? Because otherwise we wouldn’t exist and that wouldn’t be in line with the future.

  • Quilotoa@lemmy.ca
    10 hours

    I’d rather evolve the ability to photosynthesize, now that we have indoor lighting. It’d save a whole bunch of time and grocery bills.

  • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
    13 hours

    Take the tier zoo aproach. Would you rather use evelution points on grass or evolution points on being big brain.

  • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
    18 hours

    There’s a reason grass is so common - it’s because it’s a wildly effective life strategy. Grass is actually quite hard to eat - there’s basically no nutrition in the leaves themselves, and grass evolved to incorporate silica “needles” in its leaves, so that it wears down your teeth when you try to eat it anyways.

    Not to say that it’s impossible to eat grass, but you need to undergo a ton of highly specialized adaptations to make it possible. For most animals (including humans), it’s just not worth the effort

    • Mothra@mander.xyz
      20 hours

      We eat the seeds, I presume OP refers to the leaves/blades of grass which are also present in species that aren’t cereals

        • CanadaPlus@futurology.todayEnglish
          19 hours

          Plants are selected to not be great to eat, basically. Cellulose in particular is almost impossible to biochemically break back down (but not completely), and is a pretty good structural material, too.

          Seeds are often still palatable once you get through the shell, basically because turning into a baby plant is an already tough design constraint. Some plants still have tricks - notice that it’s the spiciest part of a hot pepper.

  • daannii@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18 hours

    A lot of grass. Like lawn grass. Is wheat.

    If you let it grow more.

    So actually we did evolve to eat grass.

    Cat grass is wheat grass.

  • Gamma@beehaw.orgEnglish
    18 hours

    It’s more efficient to let others eat the grass, and then eat them

  • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
    20 hours

    Grass is mostly cellulose and lignin. Those molecules are difficult to break down.

    Animals that can digest the cellulose either need a really long digestive track or to do something really gross to keep the stuff in their digestive track longer.

    • Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
      15 hours

      or to do something really gross to keep the stuff in their digestive track longer.

      Looking at you, rabbits.

    • NKBTN@feddit.ukEnglish
      12 hours

      Any chemistry we could perform to make it more viable? E.g. cook it with alcohol?

      • INeedANewUserName@piefed.socialEnglish
        11 hours

        Folks have looked at it with acid or enzymes to try and produce fuel ethanol from the sugar forming the cellulose. Humans use the chemistry of grazing animals.

        • NKBTN@feddit.ukEnglish
          11 hours

          Yeah the grass to milk, meat and hide pipeline is a great one

  • thatsnomayo [he/him]@lemmy.mlEnglish
    18 hours

    Vegetables have pretty limited availability for protein, as an animal you have sit there eating grass all day. Our ways allow us plenty of time to be smart & stuff

  • Ada@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    20 hours

    It’s all down to the way the brain works. Our brains use up something like 20% of our calories when standing still doing nothing.

    Grass does not supply the amount of calories and micronutrients needed to keep the human brain running, simply because it is low on both of those things.

    Grass eaters have multiple stomachs, slow digestion and graze pretty much the whole time they’re awake, and because their brains use a lot less energy than human brains, the balance works out.

  • rants_unnecessarily@piefed.socialEnglish
    16 hours

    If you look at all the other animals in the world that do eat grass, we did. But the “we” that eat grass, look like those animals, with those traits.
    The “we” that became smart became so due to what we evolved to eat and do.

  • Mothra@mander.xyz
    19 hours

    Essentially as others said, because you need to invest heavily in your gut and metabolism to get enough energy out of grass alone. You don’t evolve into what you want, you evolve into what you can while you are pressured to do so. There is currently no pressure to rely solely on grass, that pressure hasn’t been on us for millions of years. Our foods may be trickier to find but on average they yield more energy compared to grass.

    But don’t get me wrong. It’s a valid strategy. Our ancestors did have the window of opportunity at some point, and they took it… We were something more like rats back then, the grass eaters niche had room. Grass was everywhere. And our cousins back then adapted and spent practically the whole day foraging for grass in order to get by. But you know what also was everywhere? Trees. And our ratlike ancestors that were more inclined to climb, jump, and spot predators from above found it easier to stick to the omnivore diet.

    Adapting to trees lets you move into places with less grass… Like jungles and swamps. And while you are there for a couple million years you will have other problems to solve, problems that require wits, sharp vision, and social skills. You don’t have time to forage 18hrs every day and grass isn’t as abundant here anyway.

    If you don’t rely solely on grass you will probably fare better during winter. Especially during those ice ages. By the time you have grass as an option again you are pretty much an ape and pivoting back to it makes no sense.