Would alien life eat us?

[Snoopy]

Been a long time since I posted here, but I have been working on something that needs this question answered.

You've probably seen many times alien species chasing down humans for something to eat, but would that really happen? Considering our biological make-up would be entirely incompatible with their digestive system. Another interesting note is how would their senses react to how we smell/look/taste, would it be instantly bad, or completely neutral since their senses have no experience of us or any Earth life?

 

[Kyriakos]

We might be useful for fuel instead

 

[Tee Kay]

First question: we probably wont' fit their diet. Second question: depends on the aliens' biology rather than ours.

We might be useful for fuel instead

Nah; unless our blood has some special properties they're looking for, why use intelligent beings (comparatively speaking) as fuel when there are lots of other less intelligent ones. At least, I'd like to think that we can be more useful to aliens than just being a fuel source.

 

[Artifis]

There are so many variables that will affect the answer that it's almost pointless to attempt this question.

At the very least, here are three basic fundamentals that needs to be set:

- Are they carbon-based life forms
- What is the biological make-up of these aliens
- How advanced they are (did they arrive on Earth via space ship or asteroid)

 

[Silurian]

They would be better off using us as slave labour to farm the planet.

 

[Tee Kay]

I was assuming intelligent aliens with space travel capabilities.

 

[Snoopy]

I'd rather you assume WE travelled to their planet and there were no intelligent species, just some dangerous meat-eaters. And the question is, are we meat to them?

Just being carbon-based may not be enough, don't forget they won't have DNA, their biological makeup and evolution will be completely different to ours which would mean they are unable to digest us and may even experience poisoning or even cancer? This also means we can't eat them.

 

[Silurian]

We might be useful for fuel instead

It would depend if we could be fitted into their power matrix.

 

[strijder20]

Would a carnivore on Earth eat a species it never encountered before?
There should be a 'dangerous, don't eat' system stopping them from doing so : those species might be infected with a virus the carnivores have no resistance against.
So if those species are evolved enough, they should not eat us.

 

[Monsterzuma]

depends on whether they look like trolls.

 

[Snoopy]

Would a carnivore on Earth eat a species it never encountered before?
There should be a 'dangerous, don't eat' system stopping them from doing so : those species might be infected with a virus the carnivores have no resistance against.
So if those species are evolved enough, they should not eat us.

I considered this too. But it's a complicated question we might need to ask a real biologist with. I would suspect all life on Earth is familiar with one another at some level, even if they have never met, their DNA isn't completely alien.

But why is it that humans are not born with the innate ability to identify a poisonous berry from a yummy one? Do all poisonous berries taste awful to us?

I would suspect an aggressive alien species would be stop in its tracks upon first sight of us and not know what to do, it would have no desire to eat us (senses not reacting) and I'd imagine we'd have no desire to eat it too. The only reason it would attack is if we threatened it.

 

[Silurian]

If we looked like its prey and we did not display any do not eat signals then it would eat us.

If we were inedible then they may stop eating us depending on what we do to their digestive system and how tasty we are.

 

[TheLastOne36]

1 - I doubt a Carnivorous species would become intelligent, and further build a civilization. It just doesn't work that way.
2 - As Strijder said, if they are carnivorous, a 'dangerous don't eat' system is likely implanted in their heads.
3 - Our genetic makeup may be so different, we may not even be digestible to them.
4 - If they are intelligent spacetravelers, then surely they would realize that we are riddled with diseases and bacterias that are potentially harmful to them.
5 - If they tried to eat us, we would shoot them. Unlikely they would come with the force to wipe out humanity, and if they did, there would be no food for them anyway.
6 - Humans aren't meaty animals that would provide lots of nutrients.
7 - If they did hypothetically come to earth for eating, then they would more than likely take a closer look at our cows etc. anyway.

I see it far more likely they could try to use us for energy of some sort than for any actual nutritional value.

But why is it that humans are not born with the innate ability to identify a poisonous berry from a yummy one? Do all poisonous berries taste awful to us?

We did. We lost that ability when we decided to settle down in cities.

New Guineans, Amazonians and other tribe people around the world can today still name every plant or mushroom species in their environments.

 

[Snoopy]

If we looked like its prey, then that would check off one of its senses and yes I believe it might prey on us then.

Is there no way to answer the digestive question? I mean it doesn't seem impossible to work out even without real world experiments; we are just chemicals right.

 

[Snoopy]

1 - I doubt a Carnivorous species would become intelligent, and further build a civilization. It just doesn't work that way.
2 - As Strijder said, if they are carnivorous, a 'dangerous don't eat' system is likely implanted in their heads.
3 - Our genetic makeup may be so different, we may not even be digestible to them.
4 - If they are intelligent spacetravelers, then surely they would realize that we are riddled with diseases and bacterias that are potentially harmful to them.
5 - If they tried to eat us, we would shoot them. Unlikely they would come with the force to wipe out humanity, and if they did, there would be no food for them anyway.
6 - Humans aren't meaty animals that would provide lots of nutrients.
7 - If they did hypothetically come to earth for eating, then they would more than likely take a closer look at our cows etc. anyway.

I see it far more likely they could try to use us for energy of some sort than for any actual nutritional value.



We did. We lost that ability when we decided to settle down in cities.

New Guineans, Amazonians and other tribe people around the world can today still name every plant or mushroom species in their environments.

Thanks for the answers; but you're kinda weirdly going off track.

 

[El_Machinae]

We are just chemicals. Their ecosystems would contain microbes that could eat us. We don't know where on the food chain we'd be, but we'd be on the food chain. We might be good equivalents of veal, but we might be equivalents of fertilizer

 

[Cutlass]

How chemically similar are we to their regular food? If close enough, can they digest us?

I would think the odds of that in an alien that actually came here would be too rare to worry about. However it has been done in scifi.

More likely they'd just kill us off for the prime real estate.

 

[Perfection]

No they'd be too busy making hybrids.

 

[Silurian]

Eating and digesting are different.

We could taste like veal (if you like veal) but cause them a bad case of wind and be of no nutritional benefit.

Or they could kill and eat us and vomit ( but that may depend on who they were eating.)

 

[NickyJ]

For this topic, I highly recommend watching To Serve Man.