Nick wrote


Well, actually, it's even less accurate than that!

Some predators cannot eat carrion, and quite a few animals cannot
eat overripe or event slightly rotting fruit etc. Mostly tropical
ones, where fresh food is easier to come by, but they exist.
However, most of the dog and corvid families (to name but two)
are adapted to eating carrion, as you say. And so are crocodiles.

But the biggest mistake is to say is that we differ. We don't.
We can probably eat a wider range of 'off' foods than any animal
except rats - it is merely modern 'supermarket culture' that
makes people believe we are different. It was traditional to
hang game birds until they were definitely starting to rot;
even now, good beef is matured for weeks. And then we get onto
cheese (especially blue and ripe soft cheeses), bletting and
fermentation, etc. etc.


The farm butcher we use for our beef hangs it for 28 day minimum. It's very
dark red/brown when we buy it with yellow fat as good beef should be, it is
always tender and very tasty, such that a 74 year old friend said it was the
best beef he had tasted in his life.
Supermarkets seem to have convinced people beef should be bright pink, the
opposite of what it should look like.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK