Grazers and Browsers
Grazers and browsers limit their consumption of certain plants to avoid overloading any one kind of detoxification machinery. This dietary diversification also helps to provide adequate supplies of vit- amins and other trace nutrients. Left to our own devices in a natural environment, we do the same. If your favorite vegetable is broccoli and you were given an unlimited supply of it and nothing else, you would not eat as much as you would if given both broccoli and cucumbers. Many weight-loss diets are based on the principle that we eat less if given only a few foods than we would if we had access to a well-stocked cafeteria. We minimize the damage caused by dietary toxins by this instinctive diversification, as well as with our own spe- cial array of detoxification enzymes. These enzymes are not as potent or diverse as those of a goat or a deer, but they are more formidable than those of a dog or cat. We would be seriously poisoned if we ate a deer’s diet of leaves and acorns, just as a dog or cat would quickly sicken on what we might regard as a wholesome salad.
