It has been suggested that humans have intestinal receptor(s) for haem (heme) iron which can only be found in animal flesh. Doesn this mean we are biologically adapted to eating meat?
No, for two reasons. First, some vegetarian animals, such as the guinea pig, have intestinal heme iron receptors (Latunde-Dada, 2006). Second, humans are adapted for insect, invertebrate, and egg consumption (i.e. omnivorous adaptations) so, it should come as no surprise, that we may have heme iron receptors to handle the job. Insects, such as crickets, grasshoppers, termites, and various others, are very high in iron (The Food Insects Newsletter, 1996). In fact, termites contain 12 times more iron than red meat. Eggs also contain heme iron (USDA, 1997), as do most invertebrates. References • The Food Insects Newsletter, July 1996 (Vol. 9, No. 2, ed. • Latunde-Dada, G. et al., Haem carrier protein 1 (HCP1): Expression and functional studies in cultured cells. FEBS, Volume 580, Issue 30, 22 December 2006, Pages 6865-6870. • Parsons, J. et al. Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 protects excessive DNA strand breaks from deterioration during repair in human cell extracts. FEBS Journal 272 (2005
