# "Your body does not really digest meat. It only uses the fat & the meat rots in your system" T or F? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 5, 2013, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122 "2013-01-05T01:00:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/1 "2013-01-05T01:00:07Z")
[I was reading about all things poop](http://ichoosethin.com/thinblog/poop-and-you-were-afraid-to-ask/)when this claim popped up. I thought the body got fat and protein from meat not just fat. Is this claim true or false? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/2 "2013-01-05T01:05:34Z")
False. Fat contains no protein. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/3 "2013-01-05T01:08:08Z")
> [@astro](#): > > [I was reading about all things poop](http://ichoosethin.com/thinblog/poop-and-you-were-afraid-to-ask/)when this claim popped up. I thought the body got fat and protein from meat not just fat. > > Is this claim true or false? you _really_ have to ask? this is the same trash that led people to believe we all have 5-10-20 pounds of “undigested meat” in our intestines. just a bunch of bossy vegans who have to lie to try to scare people into thinking like them. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/4 "2013-01-05T01:09:06Z")
Here is the full assertion. > [@](#): > > The human body does not really digest meat. It only processes the fat and the actual meat literally rots in your system before it is excreted through a bowel movement. To understand this process one just needs to understand the term “rabbit starvation”. This term is from the reality that rabbit meat has no fat and if all you had to eat was rabbit meat it would not help you. Since your body can not digest meat (it only digests the fat) you could eat rabbits all day long and still possibly starve to death. The smell you emit from the ass apples is really just a form of rotted meat. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/5 "2013-01-05T01:11:17Z")
It’s false - proteins are broken down into amino acids by your own digestive enzymes - these amino acids are then absorbed and used by your body for repair, growth, replenishment of cells, etc. The bit about rabbit starvation is kinda true, but not for the stated reason - it’s not because meat rots - it’s because protein provides less energy than fats or carbohydrates when digested, and you need fats in your diet anyway, for a variety of reasons. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/6 "2013-01-05T01:11:59Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > you _really_ have to ask? It was going along pretty reasonably and seemed fairly authoritative when this weirdness came out of nowhere. I didn’t know if there was some odd technical angle by which you could view the assertion as a valid statement. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/7 "2013-01-05T01:12:16Z")
“rabbit starvation” is about trying to subsist on protein _only._ as is depressingly common, some idiots misinterpreted it and decided they knew enough to go around trying to tell other people what to do. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/8 "2013-01-05T01:13:11Z")
You digest the protein in meat, not just the fat. “Rabbit starvation” is due to the absence of essential fatty acids in lean rabbit. If you ate a balanced diet an maintained your weight, then added 500 calories a day of lean meat, you’d gain weight. How exactly is your body supposed to differentiate between the proteins in meat (which it supposedly cannot digest) and the proteins in plant foods? This is on the level of insisting that the sky is blue because it reflects the sea. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/9 "2013-01-05T01:14:56Z")
Ouch, vegans are scarily stupid _Checks All-meat sites_ “Carbs are a poison” Ouch! extremists are scarily stupid ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/10 "2013-01-05T01:15:17Z")
They can’t even weasel out by saying meat is processed by your gut flora (as opposed to you personally) - proteins are digested by enzymes secreted by your body, in your saliva, pancreatic juice and intestines themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/11 "2013-01-05T01:15:27Z")
If the rabbit starvation thing worked, it’d be the greatest boon to diet woo since celery. Mmm, tasty rabbit! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/12 "2013-01-05T01:15:56Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Here is the full assertion. Utter bullshit. In fact, you can eat a 100% animal diet and get along fine, which is what the Eskimo used to do. Mind you, you will need to eat some of the meat raw to get vitamin C, or eat stomach contents.. You need proteins , fats, and to a lesser extent fiber, minerals, and vitamins. Rabbit meat has almost no fat, thus you will get a EFA and fat deficiency. This is pretty rare. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/13 "2013-01-05T01:19:04Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > If the rabbit starvation thing worked, it’d be the greatest boon to diet woo since celery. Mmm, tasty rabbit! Rabbit starvation is a real phenomenon, but it doesn’t just cause weight loss. It really should be called rabbit _malnutrition_ ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/14 "2013-01-05T01:22:28Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > If the rabbit starvation thing worked, it’d be the greatest boon to diet woo since celery. Mmm, tasty rabbit! Well I know what my next crash diet will be 😉 The Hasenpfeffer Diet ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/15 "2013-01-05T01:36:31Z")
It looks like a quack website. (The web design itself sucks) That and it’s an advertisement for something called [Medifast](http://ichoosethin.com/thinblog/). That alone should tell you something. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/16 "2013-01-05T02:05:19Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > “rabbit starvation” is about trying to subsist on protein _only._ as is depressingly common, some idiots misinterpreted it and decided they knew enough to go around trying to tell other people what to do. Yup. > [@Lemur866](#): > > You digest the protein in meat, not just the fat. “Rabbit starvation” is due to the absence of essential fatty acids in lean rabbit. … Nope. As above, it is about a ceiling for protein intake. The essence is that the liver can only process so much protein without enough fat or carbs to help it out. That ceiling is felt to be about 35% of daily energy intake. Without that liver processing ammonia builds up from the protein and that can kill you. I think the rabbit starvation bit though is restricted to eating only lean rabbit meat … eat well fed winter rabbits, and make sure to eat the marrow, brain, and other organs, and you should get enough fat to get by on. How much it ever actually happened is unclear. Cordain, in a [classic article](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/3/682.long) surveying the nutrition of extant hunter gatherers, that became the basis for much of what gets called the Paleo nutrition movement, put it like this: > [@Loren Cordain in 2000](#): > > humans may not tolerate diets that contain \>35–40% protein by energy. Previous indirect reconstructions of preagricultural human diets have not considered the modulating influence of dietary protein intake on the selection of dietary fat and carbohydrate (14–16). The avoidance of the physiologic effects of excess protein has been an important factor in shaping the subsistence strategies of hunter-gatherers (39–41). Many historical and ethnographic accounts have documented the deleterious health effects that have occurred when humans were forced to rely solely on the fat-depleted lean meat of wild animals (39). Excess consumption of dietary protein from the lean meats of wild animals leads to a condition referred to by early American explorers as “rabbit starvation,” which initially results in nausea, then diarrhea, and then death (39). Clinical documentation of this syndrome is virtually nonexistent, except for a single case study (42). Despite the paucity of clinical data, it is quite likely that the symptoms of rabbit starvation result primarily from the finite ability of the liver to up-regulate enzymes necessary for urea synthesis in the face of increasing dietary protein intake. Rudman et al (43) showed that the mean maximal rate of urea synthesis (MRUS) in normal subjects is 65 mg N•h−1•kg body wt−0.75 (range: 55–76 mg N•h−1•kg body wt−0.75) and that protein intakes that exceeded the MRUS resulted in hyperammonemia and hyperaminoacidemia. Using Rudman et al’s (43) data (assuming 16% N/g protein), we calculated the mean maximal protein intake for an 80-kg subject to be 250 g/d (range: 212–292 g/d). For a 12552-kJ energy intake, the mean maximal dietary protein intake would be 35.1% of energy (range: 29.7–40.9% of energy). Therefore, dietary protein intakes greater than values in this range may result in hyperammonemia and hyperaminoacidemia, which in turn likely cause some of the clinical symptoms responsible for the rabbit starvation syndrome described by explorers. > > Muscle tissue of wild ungulates typically contains ≈2.0–3.0% fat by weight (14–16, 35). Lean muscle meat of ungulates (2.5% fat by wt) is composed of 79.8% of energy as protein and 20.2% as fat. Consequently, consumption of lean ungulate meat as the sole daily energy intake would rapidly exceed the ability of the liver to eliminate nitrogen as urea and, hence, produce symptoms of rabbit starvation. On a related note, the early protein sparing fasts [ended up killing people](http://www.asbp.org/siterun_data/about_asbp/position_statements/doc6942838921290184986.html) not because of excess protein apparently but because they used collagen, which is not a complete protein, as its protein source. > [@](#): > > Dr. Robert Linn’s Last Chance Diet book was published in 19764. This diet used collagen as the protein source, made by hydrolyzing hoofs and hides of animals with acid and flavoring it with citrus flavorings4. Several people died, partly by starving due to the low biological value protein, electrolyte imbalance and prolonged QT interval leading to ventricular fibrillation5,6 ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/17 "2013-01-05T02:06:22Z")
:smack: ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/18 "2013-01-05T02:08:52Z")
> [@](#): > > On a related note, the early protein sparing fasts ended up killing people not because of excess protein apparently but because they used collagen, which is not a complete protein, as its protein source. isn’t this why things like pork rinds- even though they have 7-11g of protein per serving- aren’t considered to be a “significant source of protein?” ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/19 "2013-01-05T02:14:10Z")
Wouldn’t the “rabbit starvation” thing hold true for _any_ all-meat diet, especially in the American sense of only eating muscle for the most part? Maybe it would take a little longer with the fat content of cow, but you would still end up malnutritioned and deathly ill. The essence of the “Eskimo” diet is not just meat, but raw meat, and fat, and brains, and guts, and the _whole animal_. Plus, largely fish and oceanic animals, full of omega-3 fatty acids and largely consumed without cooking. I watched a show with two brother doctors (British, I think) who spent some time living and eating with different cultures, and their exams found the Pacific/Arctic northeastern Russian indigenous people who ate their traditional diet to be very healthy. Those of the region who started incorporating Western type food into their regular diet were starting to have Western type disease problems, too. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122/20 "2013-01-05T02:16:25Z")
Utter Woo rubbish. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-body-does-not-really-digest-meat-it-only-uses-the-fat-the-meat-rots-in-your-system-t-or-f/646122.md?page=2)