Taken from 'Creation' magazine Vol. 26 No. 3 2004 by Dr. David Catchpoole, B.Ag. Sc. (Hons.) Ph.D.
Have you ever seen a kinkajou or 'honey bear'? It looks really cute and cuddly, except like the koala bear, it has long claws for climbing.
'Researcher Roland Kays had a problem: to find out more about the elusive kinkajou, actually the raccoon family. People knew that it slept all day in tree holes in the tropical rainforests of central and south America, and that it was usually found alone - but who could say what actually goes on up in the canopy at night? So, Dr Kays wanted to fit kinkajous with radio collars for tracking - but to do that, he had to catch them first!
Dr. Kays rigged up a system for hoisting traps up into tree, but ... not knowing what nutrition they eat ... how to lure kinkajous into the traps?
Kinkajous are classified as carnivores because of their skull structure and teeth, so Kays thought he'd try using the nutritionally sound meat (chicken) as bait. But the kinkajous weren't interested. Dr. Kays had heard reports of pet kinkajous raiding their owner's liquor stocks, so he tried luring with some schnapps which was just as fruitless - still no kinkajous.
Then Dr Kays considered what fruit might entice the kinkajous, he tried using bananas, which don't grow in that forest. It turned out that, finally, here was something the kinkajous couldn't resist. Success at last!
Wait! Isn't the kinkajou classified as a carnivore on the basis of its skull structure and teeth - so what's it doing going after bananas?
In fact, many animals classified as carnivores have their nutrition derived largely or even exclusively, from plants e.g. the panda (and other bear species, various species of bats, and the red panda. Thanks to Dr Kays and his research team, we now know that the kinkajous they studies in the wild are exclusively vegetarian, feeding on fruit, leaves, flowers and nectar.
Simply goes to show that just because an animal has teeth usually associated with meat-eating, it doesn't mean that it has to eat meat.
Surely this helps us to understand how it could have once been - that all animals (whether they had sharp teeth or not) were originally exclusively vegetarian, just like the kinkajous in the forest today.'
Mannatech Inc. are the leaders in the glyconutrient industry and recommend glyconutrients for all people whether vegetarian or meat eaters. Their glyconutritional products help the body overcome the problems of pollution, chemicals, soil depletion etc. giving optimal health and well-being.
