Curing Gorillas of Heart Disease

[Jumpstart]

The where do you get your protein stories keep appearing over and over. In addition food "manufacturers" are in the current craze of stuffing protein into everything. I remembered a story from some years ago about zoo gorillas dying of heart disease and I dug up one of those stories. It seems zoos were big on feeding gorillas what amounted to high sugar and highly processed refined grain chips/cookies loaded with vitamins, minerals and protein. Unfortunately, they started dying of heart disease at an early age. One zoo decided to turn things around and started feeding their gorillas greens and vegetables and got rid of the highly processed monkey food. Those two gorillas ate twice their previous calories yet each dropped 65 pounds by the end of that year. Here is one write up about that process. I'm sure you can find even better written stories about this experiment.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110217091130.htm

[arugula]

I know of a Pittsburgh news report that told of the escape of a 150-pound 10-year old female gorilla from her pen.

She crossed a wide moat and scaled a 14-foot wall to enjoy nearly an hour of freedom and many foods of her choice.

She did not choose salads and fresh fruit, but instead helped herself to muffins, cherry Danish and orange soda.

It was from the Feb 5, 2001 Post Gazette.

I know that my dogs would eat garbage until they exploded if it were not for my choices of what and how much they eat. It's not just human nature. Most animals prefer the densest calorie sources when they have the choice. It takes a lot of willpower, the kind that most animals (including the human type) don't have to overcome that.