What are some ways to explain why a ghoul feeds exclusively on humans?
In "The Thousand and One Nights", the ghouls were vile tricksters and ravenous flesh eaters. They kidnapped victims and lured lustful men to their doom by taking the guise of beautiful women. Sometimes they even snuck into storerooms and munched on dates. The Arabic texts apparently did not identify them as grave robbers who dined on the dead. So I guess they won't turn down a living meal if the situation presents itself.
A panda's diet is 99% comprised of bamboo. But bamboo doesn't have a lot of nutritional value, so pandas have to eat 26 to 83 pounds of bamboo a day. I'm not an expert on biology but does that mean ghouls need to eat a lot of humans if their digestive system can only breaks down one type of food?
Pandas are from the animal order Carnivora, though, and so they occasionally will eat small rodents. I imagine this is true for ghouls too.
My question is: if ghouls are able to derive nutrients from flesh other than humans, why would they prefer to hunt and feed exclusively on humans? From my point of view, the ghouls risk being exposed if a lot of humans go missing.
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1 answer
Humans are yummy
They prefer the taste of human flesh over the flesh of rodents that crawl around everywhere. Especially when munching on humans that are well off and can therefore afford to be clean(er) most of the time compared with other animals. That would also explain certain preferences when it comes to humans - the more well off someone is, the higher the chance that they will be eaten.
The strategy to disguise as women to find some men would also fit when those men were rich and therefore cleaner, making them more yummy. More work for more tasty food. The same could of course be said about dining on female humans, but maybe it's just easier to lure men into their doom and they don't really distinguish between male and female humans - humans are all tasty.
In a dire situation where the ghouls have to fight for their survival or it's too risky to feed any more on humans they might try to feed on something else, but they simply prefer the taste of human flesh.
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