Eating raw meat

[Bert Preast]

Having just watched a documentary on the Nenets people of Siberia, and obviously now being a supreme authority on the subject...  why can't we eat raw meat?  The Nenets do, and they didn't seem to be starving and there was nothing about projectile vomiting it all up again a few minutes after dining.

I suggest that we be able to eat fresh raw meat, which would also simulate eating the liver etc. raw.  It should be more nutritious than cooked meat, but maybe with a small chance of making you sick?  Raw meat should perhaps spoil faster, to encourage cooking.

[ineedcords]

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It should be more nutritious than cooked meat
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Why do you think it should be more nutritious? Based on data available, I do not think it would be a good idea to make raw meat more nutritious.

My source is link1 (below), which reference multiple scientific studies before summarising as follows:
"SUMMARY: Data on the nutritional differences between raw and cooked meat is limited, and there are no notable benefits of eating raw meat over cooked meat."

So on the one hand there is risk of food poisoning, on the other there is no tangible benefit at all. Overall, it sounds like a bad idea for the average person to do this in real life or in game.

link1: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/eating-raw-meat#no-proven-benefits

[Tinker]

I eat lots of raw meat, irl, most days in fact, not only does it taste better but subjectively I feel it is more nutritious. I have never been ill in any way from eating raw food and I have done for more than 60 years.

[Erkka]

Gamewise, I think the benefit would be not needing to start a fire. So, in emergency situations it would be a life-saver to be able to consume raw meat.

(What comes to nutrition; hard to say - while cooking might destroy some of the nutrients, it also makes some stuff more soluble for the human gut)

Raw herbivore meat should be pretty much safe - I'd guess ones own fingers would be the bigger source of food poisoning (assuming that your fingers touch both the food, and occasionally also your lips)

Raw fish and raw carnivore meat is a lot more risky, for example you might get some of these : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichinella_spiralis

ps. here my thoughts are about the meat of a fresh kill - the warmer the temperature the faster raw meat will get contaminated. So, adding this in the game would probably require some more internal tweaking to check how fresh the meat is - on a hot day just six hours might be enough to attract parasites to lay their eggs in raw meat, thus increasing the risk of getting sick after eating.

[Bert Preast]

Thanks all for your thoughts.  I did mention that eating raw meat would simulate eating the organs, hence the extra nutrition.

Maybe a simpler way to implement it would be to bring organs into the game?