Can Human Teeth Crush Raw Bone?

[PaleoPhil]

Goodsamaritan's post of an article raises this interesting question. This man interviewed in the article claims he can:

<<Crushing a raw cattle bone to demonstrate his ability to this reporter, he said, "I can crush out any bone squeeze out the marrows of it but I prefer sheep bone because of its high level of juice.">> "Nigeria: 'I Eat Raw Meat, So What?'" 8/9/09, http://allafrica.com/stories/200802250895.html

And this person reports to such incidents:

CutsieMarie89
Blooregard Q. Kazoo (2,559 posts)
   
Old 07-22-09, 04:25 PM
    #31

It doesn't make sense that we are natural herbivores because at least half of our teeth are meant for tearing, cutting, and ripping. And our molars can crush crush bone, when I worked at a health clinic two different guys came with crushed fingers. One guy had been bitten by his brther another by some college girl (he wasn't trying to rape ) Neither bone completely snapped, but I think crushed or at least crunched is an accurate description. But why would we need to crush bone anyway? We don't eat them, but our teeth seemed to be pretty well designed for tearing meat off of bone. Something a natural omnivore would probably have a bit of difficulty doing. http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=94795&page=2

I'm thinking that it's probably not a good idea to crush bones with your teeth unless you've been eating a carnivorous diet your whole life and thus have very strong teeth. Years of carb eating might leave one's teeth more brittle and prone to fracture.

[TylerDurden]

I don't buy the notion that eating bone is a good idea for even carnivorous rawists. For one thing, due to evolutionary changes c.100,000 years ago(as opposed to just diet), our teeth have become much weaker than a carnivore's(the jaw also becoming smaller over time), thus lending more credence to the scavenger theory. Secondly, since c.2.5 million years ago, we already had tools with which we broke up the bone to get at the bone-marrow inside, so we didn't need teeth for marrow, at least. Fish-bones are another matter, of course.

[PaleoPhil]

I agree with you and didn't mean to suggest that people should actually try this themselves.    I probably should have written: "unless MAYBE you've been eating a carnivorous diet your whole life and even then I wouldn't recommend it."

I was just shocked that it was even possible for any human. I suspect that early hominids likely did have stronger teeth and may have done this with small-to-moderately-sized bones, so that stones and other tools were not always necessary. I know that hunter gatherers do supposedly chew and crush small bones, such as the raw bones of small birds. What this African man does runs so counter to the claims of the vegetarians that they would probably have to deny that he ever did what he claimed and allege that it's some sort of trick.

[William]

I think it possible that we ate more mice than mastodon.

I've only once heard from someone who ate one, she found it tasted like greasy fried chicken, so would have been a complete diet. The bones would have been completely digested, leaving no evidence for archaeologists to squabble over.

My spam filter eats stuff from Nigeria.   

Who would not prefer a tasty mouse to a bitter/sour/mouth-puckering piece of Paleolithic fruit?

[phatdave]

mouse all the way. But only a paleo, wild mouse - not one thats been eating the wax candles in our larder and who knows what else!

(i bet that gave even a mouse a tummy ache!!)

[PaleoPhil]

...Who would not prefer a tasty mouse to a bitter/sour/mouth-puckering piece of Paleolithic fruit?

Probably mouse. However, I did try a cherry-size crab apple yesterday, which is closer to what Paleo apples would be, and it wasn't that bad. My taste buds are starting to be able to detect even tiny amounts of sweetness and better handle tartness now that I'm no longer eating significant amounts of carbs.

[Hannibal]

From time to time I do eat some small lamb bones, although my teeth have got quite a lot of fillings so they are not too strong

[redfulcrum]

I doubt that, you'll need to eat a whole colony of mice to feed not just yourself but your whole tribe.  The mastadon made more sense.  It's like being an Orca and eating penguins all the time, why waste time with penguins when you can eat seals. 

[wodgina]

William jokes! And yuck to dry pithy paleo fruits LOL

[William]

I doubt that, you'll need to eat a whole colony of mice to feed not just yourself but your whole tribe.  The mastadon made more sense.  It's like being an Orca and eating penguins all the time, why waste time with penguins when you can eat seals. 

I once watched a polar bear move about a cubic yard of gravel to get a lemming (Arctic mouse) - that was in summer, when they can't get their normal food.
There's no doubt that we can eat mice, and in hard times probably did since they could live when bigger animals died.

[redfulcrum]

I'm not saying you can't eat mice, but it was highly unlikely that mice were a staple.  Early humans were big game hunters just like wolves and any other top of the food chain predators.