The “natural” behavior of the xtauh can sometimes be difficult to characterize, overlaid as it is with learned and cultural behaviors that cannot be meaningfully separated from them or from each other.

Xtauh are versatile feeders. Although a strong and ingrained preference for meat is found across almost all xtauh cultures, and therefore could cause them to be considered facultative carnivores, they are capable of subsisting entirely without it, and indeed where meat is scarce, restricted, or absent, will do so without undue inconvenience. Even when meat is plentiful, hunter-gatherers will often eat plants or fungi if they are within easy reach.

Xtauh are not, generally speaking, restricted to feeding on a particular type of meat, and the targets of their consumption have consisted of a wide variety of animals. Although capable of consuming plant material, xtauh must discriminate between different types of material. In particular, neither their teeth nor their digestive systems are well-adapted for consuming leaves or stems, due to their high cellulose content and resulting toughness; nor does either material provide much energy for a xtauh's active metabolism. Although certain types of leafy vegetables can be made palatable by cooking, particularly stewing, they are generally a minor component of the xtauh diet, except when used as herbs or flavoring. The xtauh diet places far more value on more digestible and higher-energy parts of plants, such as fruits, nuts, tubers and other root crops, pulses, and grains. Some types of fungus are edible to xtauh as well; those that are perceived as having a “meaty” taste are favored foods, albeit considered somewhat inferior to actual meat.