system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What exactly makes cannibalism so unhealthy?
gpt
I have a layman's understanding of cannibalism, but...

Meat is full of stuff that can get you sick. Luckily for us, when we eat a different species, the pathogens that are dangerous to that animal aren't dangerous to us (this is excepted by parasites and bacteria, which are bad for most animals). It's the same principle that makes it so that we can catch the flu from other people, but not from our pets.

This is why diseases that cross species and diseases that are dangerous to humans but not animals are such a big deal (swine flu, avian flu, the Black Death, Mad Cow Disease, every disease transmitted via mosquito, etc).