| > Nature causes various food sources to ferment which is exploited by many animals. I did some searching and cannot find any evidence to support that. Only the contrary, for instance: Some non-human animals are documented to consume fermented foods, but it appears to be somewhat infrequent, and limited to a narrow range of foods. from https://fermentology.pubpub.org/pub/2h9z1g3y The article continues: As a part of this unique relationship that humans have with fermented foods, it's perhaps not surprising to learn that humans have some adaptations associated with the consumption of fermented foods. Now, these technically aren't unique to humans. These are adaptations that are shared with African apes as well. In particular, there's two genes that we know about that signal this kind of special relationship with fermented foods among the great apes. The first is the ADH4 gene. We have a special variant of this gene. It's an alcohol dehydrogenase gene. It basically lets us break down alcohol more effectively than many other primates. Alcohol is a byproduct of many types of fermentation. There are three major types of fermentation, two of which produce ethanol as a byproduct. Therefore, being able to break down ethanol provides us with an advantage in terms of being able to consume fermented foods. The other gene is the HCAR3 gene. This gene codes for a receptor that's thought to make humans and great apes more sensitive to signals that come from certain types of microbes, particularly Lactobacillus. Lactobacillus are one of the key groups of microbes that are involved in food fermentations. Together, these two genes suggest that there's a kind of unique relationship between African apes and humans, and fermented foods. |