What makes the human mouth so good at eating?
Dr. Michael Roizen Answered: Although opera singers, politicians, and courtside fans are mostly known for what comes out of their mouths, what makes our mouths so special is how we handle what goes in them. For starters, consider your mouth to be just like the guy who buckles you in on a roller coaster-it’s there simply to prepare the food for the journey. We’re different than most other animals in the way we chew. A crocodile, for instance, has nail-like teeth so it can grab its food and rip it apart. Though intimidating, it’s actually not energy-efficient because a crocodile cannot start extracting energy until the food is halfway through its intestinal system. Elephants have flat teeth made to chew in a grinding motion, which allows them to eat all kinds of food, but it also takes a lot of time to prepare it. Neither way is very efficient (in fact, elephants have to make new teeth to replace the worn-out ones throughout their lives, and when they lose their last tooth, they die of s
