Is any animal life TRULY inedible for humans?

[Quercus]

@ivn1188

So to slightly hijack this, in a lot of science fiction there is a premise that alien life forms would be toxic/inedible by nature. Most of the examples here are only inedible because they are laced with things we can’t eat, but the underlying meat itself would seem to be digestable. Are there any life forms on earth that are inedible, not because they have toxins/poisons/etc in them, but because their basic biochemistry is incompatible with our own?

Well, wood is basically indigestible, because our biochemistry can’t break down cellulose. And in fact even most non-woody plants are mostly cellulose and are not very digestible. So that’s quite a few terrestrial life forms right there. (The OP said ‘animal’ but the quoted post didn’t).

Moving to animals, arthropod chitin is also indigestible. We can probably get some nutrition out of the juicy inner stuff of most of them, but there are certainly plenty that the chitin to good stuff ratio is so low that they’re functionally inedible.

[ShibbOleth]

@Robot_Arm

This tough.

The problem is that they only serve that flambé.

[astro]

Is horseshoe crab with it’s copper based blood edible?

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

@astro

Is horseshoe crab with it’s copper based blood edible?

Yes. The American Indians ate it (specifically the muscle that controls the telson). Don’t know if there’s any other source of “meat.” Also, some poster once mentioned a restaurant in Castine, Maine that served horseshoe crab soup.

[WhyNot]

@astro

Is horseshoe crab with it’s copper based blood edible?

Yep, although there’s not much muscle on 'em. The tail muscle and legs are edible, as are the eggs, which, like every weird food, are considered an aphrodisiac or sex tonic in parts of Asia.

[drillrod]

Although not strictly what the OP had in mind, I believe that I saw a program on the Nature Channel that said that an adult Giant Anteater is inedible for humans due to the buidup of formeric (?) acid in it’s system.

Wiki makes no metion of this, however.

[Malthus]

I just wanted to add - great username/op combo.

[pancakes3]

el chupacabra

[DrDeth]

@Chronos

I can personally attest that bear meat is tasty: A friend of my grandfather’s once killed one in self-defense, and shared the meat. A bit on the greasy side, but good. The primary reason that humans don’t eat carnivores (much) isn’t flavor, but cost: It would take a lot of pounds of meat to raise each pound of meat. Why not just eat whatever you’re feeding the carnivore, yourself?

Well, yes and no. My Dad grew up with the Eskimo in AK. He said that bear meat depends heavily on what have been feeding on- berry fed bear is very tasty but salmon eating bear is rank and nasty.

Generally, the taste of mammal carnivore meat is not very nice.

Note that dogs and bear are omnivores.

[T.Slothrop]

I remember a pamphlet from the seventies about the Fugu that stated that the skin, liver and eggs of the Fugu were poisonous, but if the fugu ate its own eggs, then the entire fish would be poisonous. But in the seventies, Science was not so Scientific.

[jovan]

@T.Slothrop

I remember a pamphlet from the seventies about the Fugu that stated that the skin, liver and eggs of the Fugu were poisonous, but if the fugu ate its own eggs, then the entire fish would be poisonous. But in the seventies, Science was not so Scientific.

There are actually several sub-species of fugu and the toxicity of various body parts varies among them. Skin, liver and eggs are usually the most toxic but in some species they’re actually edible. It’s apparently not very clear how the fugu’s poison is created but it’s likely coming from its food, as farmed fugu has lower concentrations of toxin and in some cases none at all.

[Velocity]

So all the salmon I’ve been eating these years is toxic??? ^^^^ jk

[Darren_Garrison]

You haven’t been eating them in Hindi.