5 ms·
Pigs are omnivorous and naturally eat carcasses of other pigs or in the case of packs of wild boar, sometimes even kill other pigs to eat them. Feeding pigs wit
by exDM69 14y ago
Pigs are omnivorous and naturally eat carcasses of other pigs or in the case of packs of wild boar, sometimes even kill other pigs to eat them. Feeding pigs with food containing bits of pig meat (like human food leftovers) is not ideal but it's not a very serious situation.
Cows, on the other hand, are herbivores. Their digestive system cannot properly handle animal protein and this can have disastrous consequences. BSE, aka. mad cow decease is a symptom that is caused by feeding cows with animal protein, in particular from other cows. This decease is not caused by a bacteria or a virus, but a wrong kind of protein that ends up in the brain.
- mikeash 14y agoBSE has nothing to do with a digestive system that can't handle animal protein. After all, the human digestive system handles animal protein just great, but we can catch BSE by eating contaminated food even so.
- nobodysfool 14y agoPigs are safe from BSE, so feeding pigs pig meat has nothing to do with BSE.
- exDM69 14y agoHumans can get BSE (or Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease) from eating contaminated meat, but the meat gets contaminated in the first place because cows or other animals eat protein that they can't handle and produce misfolded proteins called a prions.
- mikeash 14y agoIs there any evidence that the misfolding occurs due to the inappropriate digestive system? I've never heard of this, and some quick searching around shows nothing of the sort.