Hello Everyone,
Watching our horses and donkeys this morning munching on grass in the pasture got me thinking, why is it bad for humans to consume grass?
I mean yeah, it taste terrible (I was hungry as a kid! ) but I always heard it’ll make you sick. Just wondering why horses, donkeys, goats, cows, etc. can consume it, yet we shouldn’t.
Grass is mostly cellulose, and we’re not evolved to digest it. Other animals like cows and sheep have multiple stomachs, symbiotic bacteria, etc… that allow them to digest this sort of plant matter.
I would imagine that if it does make you sick, it’s because there’s something in that particular species of grass that makes you sick, not some sort of inherent poisonousness in grass.
Seems like at the very best, it would be a good source of insoluble fiber.
You just have to make sure you’re eating puffed grass.
aka ABV
I remember years ago when a young man was admitted to my hospital with gastrointestinal issues. He was Indonesian and his family used grass from a local park in their cooking. We removed a three foot tapeworm from his stomach which we think he got from the grass.
Aside from not getting much nutritional benefit because of our different digestive systems, we have another issue with eating grass. We also have different teeth. Grass is high in silica making it relatively abrasive. Eat enough of it and it wears away the enamel on our teeth. That is not a problem for the ruminants with teeth that continue to grow throughout their life. (Cite)
Lawn, park, etc. grass sometimes has chemicals applied to it that wouldn’t be allowed for a food crop, under the presumption that nobody’s going to be eating it.
Grass from a pasture, dog park, etc. may have shit on it, which may be carrying pathogens.
Other than that, it’s mostly not digestible by humans. A few blades won’t hurt you, they’ll just pass on through. We used to chew on grass blades sometimes as kids (I think it tastes mildly good; though this may well depend on the species of grass, as well as on personal taste.)
because we can’t extract much from it. grass-eating animals (ruminants, coprophages) have mechanisms to extract nutrition from grasses that we don’t, Ruminants chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow, chew, chew chew, grass so that the bacteria in their gut can help break it down. coprophages like guinea pigs and rabbits eat some of their droppings to re-digest them.
you willing to do that?
So, short answer: The human body is not designed for eating and digesting it.
In general, we don’t eat the leaves of that many plants because the ratio of nutrients to cellulose is usually poor, and unlike animals with specialized digestive systems we can’t break down cellulose to a usable form. Cabbage, spinach, lettuce are used, but aren’t that nutritious compared to other plant foods. Most plant foods are fruits, seeds (including grains), tubers (potatoes), roots (turnips), or other storage organs that have a high ratio of nutrients to cellulose.
I do eat grass, just not raw. I let it get processed into bacon or rib-eye first.
micronutrients vs. macronutrients (calories.) Potatoes, grains, etc. have plenty of calories but not all that much in vitamins and minerals. leafy greens are loaded with vitamins and minerals but almost zero calories. and some of them (e.g. collards) make it hard to get those micronutrients w/o cooking the hell out of them .
Which is sort of their draw … I balance the calories from carbs with the fiber to get my net to do my insulin if I opt for a carby sort of day [like a piece of birthday cake would take a pop of insulin, but if I can do salad instead of pasta I can do less insulin]
And I hate being diabetic and randomly discussing a menu and having some random passer by making comments on something like - Oh, one of those Atkins fools … though it is great to pull out a full syringe and say that I just need to know how much insulin my meal is going to make me need Or a nasty comment about fake gluten allergy when I comment about wanting a veg instead of pasta or bread as a side.
yum =)
And just to be that guy… humanity actually gets the majority of its calories from grass. We just eat the seeds rather than the stalks, for all the reasons mentioned upthread. And we process them first, too (cooking, grinding, etc.)
Yes, grass is a harbor for worms, ticks, botflies, etc.
Growing up on a horse farm, we took regular efforts to reduce such parasites on our pastures. Like rotating pastures during the year, harrowing & raking regularly, etc. You will see any good, successful herd farm putting a fair amount of effort into sanitizing their pastures.
How about the “fleshy” centers? I haven’t even thought about eating grass in decades, but when I was a kid, I found that if you pulled apart long stalks of grass, the inside would often have a more pulpy, less fibrous texture.
That seemed more consumable, anyway.
When we do eat leaves, it’s generally the young growth, before the plant has toughened up the leaf by adding cellulose to make it more difficult to eat. What you were eating there was probably the base of a new young leaf before it had pushed out of the sheath.
And we do eat some grass leaves: bamboo shoots, used in Chinese cooking. These are just the tips of the new stems of bamboo as they are sprouting. Of course it is impossible to eat bamboo, either leaves or stems, once it has toughened up.
Yes – I remember not pulling them apart with my hands, but chewing on and squeezing that pith out of the stalk with my teeth.