How Much Protein Do Gorillas Get From Eating Leaves?

More Than Enough for a Human Being, and Even More Than Enough for a Pig!

Here’s a rather dry and tech­ni­cal arti­cle that describes the amount of “avail­able pro­tein,” as opposed to “crude pro­tein,” in the foods that wild moun­tain goril­las eat.

http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/anthro/chapman_files/cweb/Pdf/229_FiberNitrogen.pdf

The moun­tain goril­las in this study were get­ting more than enough pro­tein, main­ly because they were eat­ing so many leaves. Although leaves are low in calo­ries, a sub­stan­tial pro­por­tion of those calo­ries comes from pro­tein. If goril­las eat enough leaves to get enough calo­ries, the pro­tein takes care of itself. A leafy diet is so rich in pro­tein that the goril­las can afford to snack on some low-pro­tein fruit.

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