Chimpanzees are similar to humans in many ways. Scientists at the Institute for the Study of Chimpanzee and Human Social Behavior at Washington Central University (WCU) even believe that "chimpanzees should be classified as a species of humans."
After studying the behavior of these creatures in detail, VCU researchers have become convinced that chimpanzees are significantly smarter than most humans assume. According to the scientists' notion, chimpanzees have their own language and even their own special culture that humans are not even aware of, probably because chimpanzees cannot speak due to the peculiarities of their vocal cords. However, as it turns out, chimpanzees use their own sign language, which is quite diverse. For four decades, scientists have persistently studied the features of chimpanzee communication. The researchers state:
"We have uncovered a wealth of new evidence indicating that the structure and diversity of communication that exists in chimpanzee communities falls under the definition of culture. We also know that chimpanzees' intellectual, emotional and cognitive abilities are similar to our own. According to the new findings, chimpanzees should be classified as a species of humans."
Most researchers agree with the view that chimpanzees and humans are similar in many ways. Unfortunately, scientists use chimpanzees in scientific experiments on this basis. I will quote just a few of the scientific articles that prove the extraordinary similarities between humans and chimpanzees.
"Humans and chimpanzees share approximately 99.4% of the same genetic DNA sequence. This means that we are closer to each other than we are to any other two species of creatures on Earth."
"Chimpanzees resemble humans more than any other animals..... The human brain is very similar to the chimpanzee brain. The main differences between humans and primates are not anatomical, but rather behavioral."
"Chimpanzees have the same blood types as humans; their organs are used to study compatibility in tissue transplants and for other medical research."
"Primates play a crucial role in biomedical research related to treating and preventing infectious diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis and malaria, as well as chronic degenerative disorders of the central nervous system such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.... The close genetic proximity of primates and humans not only offers great promise for testing the safety and efficacy of new drugs and vaccines, but also offers promising hope in evaluating new treatments for human infectious and genetic diseases."
"Primates are excellent models for studying human biology and behavior due to their close phylogenetic proximity to humans. The conduct of biomedical research on chimpanzees has been crucial to advances in medical science, as evidenced by the discovery of the Rh factor and the development of the poliovirus vaccine; in fact, all fields of medicine have seen an increase in the number of experiments with chimpanzees."
I thought: if chimpanzees and humans are really so close and studying chimpanzees is crucial to our health, why aren't we doing research in both directions? How could it be that we infect chimpanzees with the worst human diseases but don't learn about health from them? Instead of making them sick, why not make ourselves healthy? Why not at least try to eat what they eat?
I bought many books and DVDs about chimpanzees and their lifestyle, sent a letter with many questions to Jane Goodall University. I also visited three large zoos that keep chimpanzees and talked to many of the people who feed and care for them every day.
As a result, I learned a staggering amount of new information about chimpanzees that completely changed my perspective on the lives of these animals.
For example, during the experiment, scientists found out that chimpanzees are able to transmit information to a human observer in the language of deaf-mutes. They use signs, for example, the sign "dog" - for any dog, "flower" - for any flower, "shoe" - for any shoe, etc. Through signs, chimpanzees communicated ordinary events to humans and each other. They also demonstrated abilities in inventing new signs or composing signs to metaphorically label a new object. For example, they referred to a radish as a "crying-sick-fruit" or referred to a watermelon as a "drinking-fruit."
"The twin studies found that chimpanzees can comprehend and even create new phrases, understand spoken English words, translate words into American Sign Language, and even pass on their sign skills to the next generation without human intervention. The play behavior of chimpanzees demonstrated that they use the same imaginative play techniques as humans. They have also been shown to be able to carry on a conversation among themselves and even talk to themselves in private using sign language. Observations of their conversation show that chimpanzees start and maintain conversations in a similar way to humans. For example, chimpanzees can correct the flow of a conversation if it has been disrupted by a misunderstanding. We were also able to catch them using sign language during sleep."
When I learned so much about chimpanzees, they became some of my favorite creatures. While I understand their intelligent nature, I feel pain for those chimpanzees who spend their entire lives in the cramped cages of medical labs.
Despite numerous scientific studies, human health is continually declining. Many nutritionists attribute health problems to nutritional deficiencies. This is why I am so grateful for members of a species so similar to our own.
In particular, I was delighted to learn that there are hundreds of thousands of chimpanzees living in Africa's Gombe Valley. The great thing is that the chimpanzees there live in completely natural conditions.
What a great fortune for us humans! This gives us hope of finding an answer to the most urgent question of all: what kind of food should we eat?
Understanding the basics of chimpanzee nutrition will help us better understand the needs of humans. Take a look at the diagram (Figure 1), which shows a typical chimpanzee diet in the wild (I created it based on data from Jane Goodall's book Chimpanzees of the Gombe Valley).
:fig1:
As you can see, the two main groups of the chimpanzee diet are fruits and greens. Please do not confuse greens with root vegetables such as carrots, beets or potatoes. Also, please do not confuse greens with cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini and peppers. Chimpanzees eat root vegetables very rarely, only in cases of drought or starvation. According to Jane Goodall, the amount of time chimpanzees eat greens varies from 25 to 50% depending on the season.
Between 2 and 7% of a chimpanzee's diet consists of the bark and soft core of plant stems. When trees are in bloom in March or April, up to 10% of their diet consists of flowers. Chimpanzees do not eat many nuts, but still seeds make up to 5% of their diet. They also consume small amounts of insects and even small animals in November, but Goodall claims that this is irregular, as they are able to live for many months without consuming any animal food, with no apparent ill effects. There is also evidence from another study that insects and other animals never make up more than 1% of the diet of wild chimpanzees.
As far back as I can remember, chimpanzees have always been depicted holding bananas or oranges. This repeatedly seen image led me to the erroneous assumption that chimpanzees only eat fruit. The fact that greens make up almost half of their diet was a real revelation to me. The study of chimpanzee nutrition gave me a strong conviction that humans should be eating far more greens than I had realized.
Let's compare, for example, the standard diet of an American (shown in Figure 2) with that of a chimpanzee.
:fig2:
As you can see, they are very different from each other. The two diets hardly have anything in common! We humans eat mostly things that chimpanzees do not consume at all: e.g. starchy foods, vegetable and butter oils, considerable amounts of animal products such as yogurt, cheese, hamburgers, etc. Of vegetables, our diet is dominated by root vegetables, which wild chimpanzees almost never eat, except during periods of drought, when fruits and greens are simply unavailable.
But what I find most critical is the significant lack of greens in the human diet. We have reduced our consumption to just two wilted lettuce leaves on a sandwich.
Now, let's compare the diet of a typical American and what a raw food diet looks like (Figure 3).
:fig3:
I think the raw foodist's diet looks significantly better. First, all the ingredients are raw foods full of valuable enzymes and vitamins; thus, this raw food diet is a true revolution in healthy eating.
This explains why so many people have testified that they felt better pretty quickly after switching to raw food dieting.
The chart shows that raw eaters eat a lot of fruit, especially when you consider that peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes are theoretically fruits as well. However, even with the fact that raw foodists tend to consume noticeably more greens, greens almost never make up 45% of their diet.
Currently, I try to avoid eating after 6pm. If I succeed, I feel better and lose excess weight easily. However, I have to admit that weaning myself off late night eating is much harder than I expected. I attribute it to the high nervous tension we usually accumulate at the end of the day.
