Rattling Around

OK, here's the number one reason we are special. Humans are more omnivorous than pigs! We can eat anything! We kill herbivores and eat them. We plant vegetables and eat them. We forage for nuts, berries, fruits, fungus, wild grains, and seeds. We can eat road kill. We've eaten each other (not recommended, not because of moral grounds, but because it's a good way to get diseased; never eat another person's brain, due to the risk of slow viruses). In fact, we even eat diseases (such as corn smut). We eat fish from a mile down in the ocean, and mammoths that have been frozen since the Ice Age. We just love herbs and spices, even though most of them actually contain chemical warfare agents the plants use to prevent their reproductive bodies from being eaten. We have developed manipulative hands and tool use so we can get and eat the most difficult foods; black walnuts, spiny sea urchins, porcupines, turtles, poisonous snakes. We have developed big brains so we can figure out how to prepare toxic or hazardous foods, such as Fugu (blowfish), acorns, and manioc. We learned about fire so we could improve the digestibility of many foods, by cooking them. We have learned many ways to preserve food so it can be eaten later; salt, freeze-drying, canning, chemical preservatives, radiation; and don't forget 1000-year eggs. We are absolutely the top predators on the planet; we eat sharks, snails, locusts, worms, frogs, and everything that was on the Ark. We've learned to perform genetic manipulation, to modify food plants. Corn used to be tiny, now it's huge. (one of these days I'll have to make an entry about gene engineering of foodstuffs) We have mastered fermentation and yeast, so we can all enjoy tofu, bread, beer, and wine. We make soup out of bird spit. We have even managed to install artificial teeth, so we can keep eating for many more years! And our livers must be just amazing...