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Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

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Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#51

Post by SRTP »

quadcore wrote: post #34
gerdesj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"who figured out that you could use rocks to bust open bones." Most carnivores use their teeth to crush bones - lions and hyenas both do it. Heck, we buy doggie treats related to marrow and I have watched my own dogs crush bones to get to the marrow. Marrow is quite accessible to all, including me - omnomnomnomnom.

I use to feed street dogs in Thailand. I gave them BBQ-cooked chicken legs, and gosh, there would be nothing left in 10 seconds.

While I'm sure you did this out of good will, please don't give chicken bones to dogs.

They tend to splinter, leaving sharp spikes that may hurt the dog's intestines.

Beef and pork bones are better since these don't shatter.

Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#52

Post by alaithea »

code_duck wrote: post #13
burtonator wrote: post #8

One of the first human foods was actually bone marrow which is basically pure fat. This happened about 2MYA by Homo habilis who figured out that you could use rocks to bust open bones. Lions and Hyenas would leave huge piles of bones in the middle of the dessert which had been picked clean by vultures. One of our ancestors had the brilliant idea to use a rock to bust open the bones. Well it's a massive source of free…

Extended simmering (>6 hours) releases much of the nutrients in bones, too - collagen, gelatin, fats, minerals. I frequently slow-cook whole chickens and small bones become so soft they can easily be eaten after about 24 hours. Of course, you don't want to over-do this due to issues like histamine and lead.

Can you elaborate on the histamine/lead issue?

Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#53

Post by narag »

shard972 wrote: post #15

It's still a bit bizarre watching the western world switch form carbs good, fat bad to carbs bad fat good in the span of like a decade.

...to carbs bad fat good in the span of like a decade

Not at all. I remember it was a thing in the seventies. The low-carbs diet has been viciously attacked for many decades, so it comes and goes every few years. I first heard of it when Atkins popularized it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet

See how Wikipedia says it's "a fad diet" and its claims "questionable", implying that it doesn't work at all.

But now take a look at this other article, a couple links further:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis

"In glycolysis, higher levels of insulin promote storage of body fat and block release of fat from adipose tissues, while in ketosis, fat reserves are readily released and consumed.[5][7] For this reason, ketosis is sometimes referred to as the body's "fat burning" mode.[8]"

So it turns out it works?

Is it dangerous? Maybe, but I wouldn't trust the sources that I already know are lying to my face. Not to talk about my own experience, but that's valid for me, YMMV.

In HN there were some submissions past year about this guy that did the research in which Atkins based its diet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yudkin

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+...

Edit: I forgot to say what I started writing this comment for to begin with, that many millions did the Atkins diet at the time and vouched for it.

Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#54

Post by gus_massa »

strainer wrote: post #46
village-idiot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brain size to body size matters a lot too. Sperm whales have about 6x the brain we do, but far more than 6x the body to control.

Just looking now.. Mice have similar brain/body-mass ratio as humans. There is no strong (or visible) distinction in brain size between carnivores and herbivores in these comparisons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio#Compa...

You don't have to compare brain-mass/body-mass. You have to compare brain-mass/body-mass^(2/3).

> This phenomenon can be described by an equation of the form E = CS^r, where E and S are brain and body weights, r a constant that depends on animal family (but close to 2/3 in many vertebrates

Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#55

Post by darkpuma »

koverda wrote: post #6

Wouldn't other animals with strong bites be capable of crushing bones to eat the marrow inside? The theory is big on assumptions, but I guess that's how it goes when you're trying to figure out what happened millions of years ago.

I was under the impression that it had more to do with lips than jaws. Hyenas can outbite humans a thousand times over, but they can't drink a milkshake through a straw!

In other words, breaking bones is the easy part; sucking out the marrow is the tricky bit.

Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#56

Post by darkpuma »

narag wrote: post #53
shard972 wrote: post #15

It's still a bit bizarre watching the western world switch form carbs good, fat bad to carbs bad fat good in the span of like a decade.

...to carbs bad fat good in the span of like a decade Not at all. I remember it was a thing in the seventies. The low-carbs diet has been viciously attacked for many decades, so it comes and goes every few years. I first heard of it when Atkins popularized it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet See how Wikipedia says it's "a fad diet" and its claims "questionable", implying that it doesn't work at all. But now…

The notion that low-carb diets are superior has deeply unsettling political implications, for exactly the same reason that low-meat diets don't: what are the staple crops of humanity?

The top ten in order are: corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, sassava, soybeans, sweat potatoes, yams, sorghum, and plantains. These are all carbs! If we accept that low carb diets are better for people, then we must either accept that we are going to feed humanity sub-optimally, or that humanity is well past the healthy carrying capacity of the planet. There is simply no way in hell we can get 7.5 billion people eating keto, or anything close to it.

Vegan activists are proposing a dietary future that is very much in line with the current global agro-industrial status quo. However low-carb proponents are proposing a diet that, if universalized, would necessarily put them in the camp of people like Pentti Linkola.

Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#57

Post by darkpuma »

village-idiot wrote: post #44
rgbrenner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought you would get from the "balanced diet" part that I generally don't feel the need to demonize individual food groups. Moderation is a good thing. Fruit packages fructose with fiber, giving your body more time to process it. It also includes vitamins, minerals, etc that are good for you. I don't know how you jumped to saying it's worse than alcohol. Alcohol actually damages the cells of the liver, making it f…

> I thought you would get from the "balanced diet" part that I generally don't feel the need to demonize individual food groups. Moderation is a good thing. I despise the notion of a "balanced diet", it's generic nonsense that gives no specific guidance towards what one should eat. How do you balance a diet? Nobody ever says. > Fruit packages fructose with fiber, giving your body more time to process it. It also incl…

> "I despise the notion of a "balanced diet", it's generic nonsense that gives no specific guidance towards what one should eat. How do you balance a diet? Nobody ever says."

To expand on this, what the hell is "balanced diet" anyway? In what sort of environment is fruit year-round "balanced"? In anything other than a tropical environment, fruit being part of a "balanced diet" is an ecological impossibility barring the modern global agro-industrial complex that ships you fruit from the other side of the planet no matter the season.

The idea of food even having seasons seems alien to most of us these days! At most whether a fruit is "in season" is a matter of how cheap it is, or whether the texture is precisely right. A food that is out of season might have a slightly undesirable texture and cost more, because it's been sitting in a warehouses and cargo vessels for too long.

The "balanced diet" as we know it today is a cultural artifact, not some biological truth.

Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#58

Post by samstave »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #26
EnderViaAnsible wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The translation of deficiencies into food cravings has always fascinated me. People with pica, for example, often compulsively eat non-foods that are in fact related to a deficiency they have. Anemics sometimes crave dirt (which does contain iron). But how does it "know"?

Probably a memory of the taste and the vitamins that follow it. My wife craves mints when she's low on iron.

But do mints provide any iron?

Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#59

Post by murukesh_s »

mancerayder wrote: post #22
burtonator wrote: post #8

One of the first human foods was actually bone marrow which is basically pure fat. This happened about 2MYA by Homo habilis who figured out that you could use rocks to bust open bones. Lions and Hyenas would leave huge piles of bones in the middle of the dessert which had been picked clean by vultures. One of our ancestors had the brilliant idea to use a rock to bust open the bones. Well it's a massive source of free…

Lions and Hyenas would leave huge piles of bones in the middle of the dessert which had been picked clean by vultures. One of our ancestors had the brilliant idea to use a rock to bust open the bones. Wait - I thought hyenas were specifically bone-busting / eating: "Spotted hyenas are some of Africa's most proficient predators. A frenzied scrum of them can dismantle and devour a 400-pound zebra in 25 minutes. An adul…

May be hyenas also adapter over million year period to bust open bones. But i wonder why they did not develop a brain like ours!

Re: Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains

#60

Post by steve_adams_86 »

alaithea wrote: post #52
code_duck wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extended simmering (>6 hours) releases much of the nutrients in bones, too - collagen, gelatin, fats, minerals. I frequently slow-cook whole chickens and small bones become so soft they can easily be eaten after about 24 hours. Of course, you don't want to over-do this due to issues like histamine and lead.

Can you elaborate on the histamine/lead issue?

I'm not sure about histamines, but animals accumulate heavy metals in their bones and teeth (including humans). Some lipid-soluble forms of metals will accumulate in fat too, like mercury in tuna or marlin.

Unfortunately there's evidence that metals like lead, arsenic, and cadmium are increasingly present in animal feeds. This is especially true in fish feed. Since farmed animals don't typically eat other farmed animals this won't have a biomagnification effect, but it's definitely happening in the wild (hence fish feed made from wild fish being especially contaminated).

The bottom line is that if you eat the bones, it'll dramatically increase the possibility of you metabolizing and storing the contaminants in your own body.

You'll be fine if you have a bit here and there. I personally believe (with no solid evidence) that this is where pasture-raised animals in most areas will be superior to feedlot livestock from who-knows-where. Heavy metals can be everywhere, but we know that they're increasingly present in feedlots. If the farmer near you has pastures, organic certification, and the cows aren't downstream from a pulp mill or landfill, chances are pretty good that it's worth the extra few dollars per pound.

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