this is a repost of a tumblr ask posted on the 12th of august 2024

annonymous asked over on tumblr:

You might have answered it before, I tried to search for it but got no results, do kyhuines and maanuls share a diet? That is, is there anything that one can eat that the other can't digest?

i think i did answer that a while ago, or maybe my memory is failing and I only did it with friends. but even if this is a repeat, i don't mind it!

yes, maanuls and kyhuines can eat each other's food, at least they can eat the majority of it safely. Some products may cause one to be sick, and a few may be lethal. And when it's lethal it's mainly because of the quantity of a toxin found in the food that the other can't process because of their biology.

for example, many bugs, which are a large part of a kyhuines diet, cannot be safely eaten by maanuls because of their toxins. some species can be processed in various ways to remove said toxins and become safer for maanuls to consume.
Things like kelp are things kyhuines can eat safely. And are quite a common dry snack to import inside the mountain alp ring, once trading routes are open between the "inner" continent and the "outside". However, Kyhuines will digest it worse than their larger cousin counterparts. their digestive system does not take as many nutrients from it as maanuls, because maanuls have evolved to process it better since kelp has been used a lot in their cuisine for thousands of years. Kyhuines are better at having a lot of starch in their diet too because of the way their agriculture was and what species they'd cultivate compared to maanuls, and so on with things like this. its quite a fun subject honestly!

in areas such as kaar'kchir and its sister cities, where the population is of mixed species, meaning the area has on average as much kyhuines that there is maanuls around. food stands and other services involving food, will prefer serving food that accommodates both so they can have more clients (kaar'kchir and the sister cities live under different systems that utilize money compared to the majority of the world). But also out of consideration, because establishments and even houses are expected to be able to welcome both species inside. Food stands that only offer food
More recently built infrastructures in kaar'kchir are rather large to let maanuls in, while older still standing builds from before the traverse of the alp and first contact are too small for maanuls. The older ones are usually familial homes that are still living here or have been repurposed for storage. kaar'kchir was a kyhuine colony for info, build before first contact and the traverse of the alp expedition. So old buildings never had maanuls in mind because they didn't even know they existed.

even between the non-gliding kyhuine species and mierthri kyhuines there is food that the other cant consume, many fungal species from the mierthri biome is used by the mierthri kyhuines to ferment food and have it last longer. Their guts are better suited to eat the weird things that grow near the mierthri biome, while non-gliding kyhuines may get extremely sick from it.

on a silly note, because of the size difference between the two (actually 3, since miethri is a different species but in-world they don't categorize it as such. but even then myself ill just say the 2) alcoholic beverage and how fast it affects one is quite silly. the percentage of alcohol in maanul fermented drinks is very high on average even for a human because of their size being larger they can take up more, kyhuines are much smaller than maanuls (kyhuines are smaller than you are for info). So 1 glass of a medium alcoholic drink that is of maanul origin to a kyhuine can be enough to make their head feel warm and funny already. mierthri kyhuines do not drink alcohol made by maanuls. Theyre 120cm (1 ft tall) so if they do they're KO quickly. unless its very light and made with kyhuines in mind, including the gliding kyhuines (mierthri), but then its so light that it defeats the purpose for maanuls. if they care about that to begin with.

i had fun writing ask answer, thank you!

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