Bamboo bro
People have a muscle mass regulating hormone that prevents us from developing huge muscles easily.
Also gorillas don’t eat bananas in the wild, true banana species all come from Asia. The closest they could get is Ensete ventricosum.
Also, their testosterone levels are through the roof
Cows and Kangaroos are pretty jacked too. Wouldn’t want their palates or diets though.
Cows and kangaroos get their protein from gut bacteria, bit of a cheat code
We all get our protein from gut bacteria, or at least thanks to gut bacteria. In nutrition, “protein” refers to the collection of the proteins (amino-acid chain macromolecules) that we can digest. The rest of the proteins (the proteins we can not digest) are called “fiber” in nutrition.
Foregut fermenters turn all of protein ingested, in addition to ingested nitrogen like urea, into base blocks like ammonia and then back into bacterial proteins that have much better amino acids. They are creating the amino acids they need, roughly in the quantities needed. In humans this does not happen in any meaningful way - we must eat the amino acids we need.
Well, that is cheating.
Other comments are about how gorillas have guts adapted for digesting lots of vegetation. And that’s true. But at its core, it’s just that gorillas actually do eat a ton of protein.
They eat like 30 kg of food per day for 5000 calories, about 25% of which is from protein. That’s more than 300 grams of protein per day.
Nothing they eat is super calorie dense, but the lack of density also means they need to eat all day. And as it turns out, the leaves they eat tend to be pretty high in protein.
Weird that every time you see a gorilla though, he’s just sitting there looking like a jacked freaking gorilla, not doing a dang thing.
Per calorie, Broccoli has as much protein as steak.
Do you realize how much of my day would be spent eating and shitting in order to meet my macronutrient targets by consuming broccoli? I’d just be sitting around all day like some kind of gorilla.
That’s kind of fascinating - though it’s only about 1/10th of the amount by weight - so something like 75g of protein would need ~300g of Steak or ~3kg of Broccoli (about 10 full heads of Broccoli).
For plant based proteins, you’re probably better off with beans.
broccoli doesn’t look as calorie dense as steak though.
That we, as homo sapiens, will never access because we do not have the gut microbiome necessary to break down and use.
No, I’m literally talking about the bioavailable protein for you, a human.
Don’t forget that Homo sapiens evolved as fructivorous apes eating stuff like broccoli and our omnivorous diet is a recent development. (The bacteria-dependent digestion you mentioned is for the cellulose in grass, not protein.)
Skill issue
No kidding? Is this true of other brassicacea?
Genetics, more muscle fibers per unit area than humans, lots of T, and constant foraging.
Leaves and stems are 10-20% protein by dry weight
Not to mention the fiber must be off the charts. Any fat’s not sticking around long enough to be absorbed.
Awww shit guess it’s time for Bananamaxxing!
I’ve been beanmaxxing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34225517
But for a healthy person, “it would be impossible to overdose on bananas,” says Collins. "You would probably need around 400 bananas a day to build up the kind of potassium levels that would cause your heart to stop beating… Bananas are not dangerous - and in fact they are, and always have been, very good for you."
Adults should consume about 3,500mg of potassium per day, according to the UK’s National Health Service. The average banana, weighing 125g, contains 450mg of potassium, meaning a healthy person can consume at least seven-and-half bananas before reaching the recommended level.
There are some people who should steer clear of foods that are high in potassium though, warns Collins - those with kidney disease.
“These patients have a very low kidney function which can potentially see a build-up of harmful potassium levels in their blood stream because they can’t get rid of the mineral when they pass urine,” she says. “So in theory it is possible for someone with kidney disease to die of a high blood potassium level if they decided to consume lots of different food types rich in the mineral.”
She once had a patient on dialysis who had a heart attack after eating too many tomatoes - another fruit rich in potassium. His kidneys had already stopped working so he was unable to get rid of the excess.
Banana for scale
Banana Island time 🍌
Realistically I would say they don’t eat just bananas.
But I’m also wondering: How many bananas a day do you eat right now? Maybe the key is a banana heavy diet.
Trust me, do not do this. You will regret it. 2 bananas per day is enough
Potassiumaxxxing
Remember to balance it with low sodium. Otherwise you’ll have too many electrolytes
You ever see the gut of a gorilla? They have much better mechanisms and microbiota to get all their nutrients from plants than we could dream of.
Plus they build muscle by all the other things people mention, like genetics and weight lifting (their own mass).
Could we get a a fecal transplant from a gorilla and then get all muscley
They have huge guts. We have tiny guts.
Speak for yourself.
Built different.
They’re also swinging from vines, too.
