Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
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Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
#2Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39469988
Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
#3From the article:
"Backing up this hypothesis is the fact that humans have relatively smaller large intestines than other primates. This indicates that our ancestors were eating food that was already partly broken down by fermentation."
IIRC another interpretation of the smaller large intestine is that early humans were eating more bioavailable food (i.e. meat) than other primates, which doesn't need to be broken down as much as more fibrous material (seeds, leaves, stalks etc). Can someone more knowledgable than me confirm or deny?
Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
#4It used to be meat, and then that was corrected to be starch (potatoes are easy to farm and store)
Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
#5I wish the article lingered a bit more on how people might've been fermenting foods in the past as well as exploring what fermentable food options were available. It would be interesting to run some experiments storing various foods in different ecosystems over long periods of time. How falsifiable is their hypothesis?
This would've been mostly in the African continent, right? I'd imagine it would be hard to get consistent fermentation going in more tropical climates.
Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
#6It used to be meat, and then that was corrected to be starch (potatoes are easy to farm and store)
Potatoes are native to the Americas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato
But there are other starches too.
Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
#7Fermented foods, especially yogurt, kefir, buttermilk are vital for good health. People buy probiotic pills etc. But all it takes is to buy a tub/can of Greek yogurt. The best snack there is.
Medicine is food, food is medicine.
Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
#8Fermented foods, especially yogurt, kefir, buttermilk are vital for good health. People buy probiotic pills etc. But all it takes is to buy a tub/can of Greek yogurt. The best snack there is. Medicine is food, food is medicine.
Less so, chocolate and salami
Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
#9This is a conjecture, not a study.
Sorry if that seems to be nitpicking, but I see too many "studies" like this. A study is supposed to report the truth of something that the author studied.
But this is an idea that the author liked and explored, and then wrote up.
Maybe we can keep calling these studies, and come up with another term for fact based studies. And not "theory" please, that word in a scientific context just confuses everyone.
Edit: "research paper" might be a good name (I saw someone else call it that in a post). i.e. "Research paper posits/theorizes/suggests that Fermented ....."
Also the paper itself doesn't call itself a study, it calls itself an article.
Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
#10Fermented foods, especially yogurt, kefir, buttermilk are vital for good health. People buy probiotic pills etc. But all it takes is to buy a tub/can of Greek yogurt. The best snack there is. Medicine is food, food is medicine.
Less so, chocolate and salami
Don't overdo the beer either