by Yusef Raahman Sudah

Created on: November 11, 2008   Last Updated: July 06, 2010

All living things need food. And believe it or not only humans have a diet to lose weight! Though the diets of each living creature may be different and so might the taste, yet for the body of each nutrition is of primary concern. It is the ability to absorb nutrition from the food that is the driving force for survival. The great magic of nature is that all living things are given the skills to extract what it needs to survive. The companion process to survival is consumption better  known as "eating".  It does not matter to "Nature" whether one becomes "food" or is "seeking food". One of Nature's primary gift is providing energy from nutrition. And the "gift" is given without restriction to every life form on the planet no matter a plant, an animal or an insect.

I offer this view to lt we humans know we are but a small segment of what lives on Earth. We tend to inflated egos and over estimate our value. Clearly Earth can "live" without human presence and given the present health of the planet, Earth would likely be better off. Make no mistake about this, Earth has done it before and it can do it again.  Most assuredly to all living creatures whether animal to animal or plant to plant taste is secondary to the need to survive. Know that the magical "horn of plenty" is the gift of nutrition in our food. Since the discovery of vitamins and mineral there has been some improved understanding of nutrition. Yet, we still have a long way to go!

There are a few animals on Earth that eat insects,  there are insects that eat animals and believe or not there are plants that eat insects. But, Man, the primary food gatherer eats them all. Humans are the only mammal that has a kitchen, use spices and condiments, owns a refrigerator and that considers setting a table before dining to eat them. In fact much of human economy is based around the idea of eating and many humans believe that taste matters more than nutrition. It is well known that humans love to eat.

We like the smell of food, the texture of food and the looks of food. We like to roll it around in our mouths, we like to photograph food, talk about food and we even base our interactions with others around to idea of eating...food!. We really like food! We will even travel long distances just to taste food! However, without the nutrients in our food we would die.

Nature, the mother of survival, looks after us "because" we are highly ignorant of "what we need" from food. It is "taste"

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