101–110 of 226 posts
Is don't understand the obcession with making everything binary, and then from there having to have a single winner take all assumption.
From 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 dow…
Yes, meat being the driver is the more common (and simpler) explanation for our smaller intestines and larger brains. I guess plantbasednews.org just accidentally left this alternative explanation out. That said, fermented foods could very well have played a part in it.
Apart from this, when I was a teenager, I remember I read in a Belgian scientific magazine called "Athena" that studies confirmed red meat to be the key to our ancestor's brain evolution.
I've been eating more fermented, marinated and pickled stuff lately and while it's nutritious, it's not very calorie-dense - hard to imagine something like this supplying enough energy to power a large brain.
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>fizzy enzyme drinks Do you mean kombucha? Kefir?
No, I mean enzyme drink. They are called differently all over the place. They are similar to kombucha, just without all that disgusting shroom in a jar thing.
> "Reduced gut sizes could only evolve if our ancestors were able to exploit a more nutrient-dense and easily digestible food source,” I've been eating more fermented, marinated and pickled stuff lately and while it's nutritious, it's not very calorie-dense - hard to imagine something like this supplying enough energy to power a large brain.
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Yes. But the parent commentor asked "why". As in: why can a gorilla sustain it's immense needs to build muscles by eating a lot, but humans cannot do this to build a large brain? To ask that question differently: why would humans need to change to meat/fermentation/cooking in order to grow brains, if they could "just" eat more, as other primates do?
Humans (since Erectus) _can't_ eat more. We don't have a big enough ingestion system for that. Our guts are tiny compared to other great apes. We're completely unable to survive on what chimpanzees eat, not to mention gorillas. The fire/cooked food hypothesis (and now this speculative one about fermented food) is that it made it possible to greatly reduce the guts, as well as chewing muscles. More calories and better…
reminds me of high meat recently learned that you need nitric oxide, and when you don't eat veggies, you can still get it from salami, which is fermented meat. Also trying to make garum these days, will take half a year until it's done though.
If you are referring to sodium nitrite which is used (as part of curing salt) to preserve meats. Its also not terribly healthy in foods IIRC (of course its healthier to eat cured meat than to eat meat with Botulinum bacteria).
The problem isn’t nitrates and nitrites themselves though, but rather what’s present when they’re digested. Something has to convert nitrates to nitrites, or you need to consume nitrites, then something has to activate the nitrites into something harmful.
With meat, the presence of haem for example allows for the formation of a type of N-nitroso compound (nitrosylated-haem in this case) which is cancer-causing. Vegetables don’t tend to come with such compounds, but actually come with compounds which inhibit the development of harmful nitrite-based compounds. Most of these are antioxidants.
This doesn’t mean it’s impossible for vegetable-derived nitrites to harm you. It’s just far, far less likely.
Fried meat that was previously cured is by far the most dangerous source of these cancer-causing compounds. The most well known example is probably bacon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, meat being the driver is the more common (and simpler) explanation for our smaller intestines and larger brains. I guess plantbasednews.org just accidentally left this alternative explanation out. That said, fermented foods could very well have played a part in it.
I'm curious, but knowing how to safely ferment foods would seem indicate that one has an advanced brain. Are there any examples of other primates fermenting thier food (lacto, not alcohol - alcohol shrinks brains)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. But the parent commentor asked "why". As in: why can a gorilla sustain it's immense needs to build muscles by eating a lot, but humans cannot do this to build a large brain? To ask that question differently: why would humans need to change to meat/fermentation/cooking in order to grow brains, if they could "just" eat more, as other primates do?
Humans (since Erectus) _can't_ eat more. We don't have a big enough ingestion system for that. Our guts are tiny compared to other great apes. We're completely unable to survive on what chimpanzees eat, not to mention gorillas. The fire/cooked food hypothesis (and now this speculative one about fermented food) is that it made it possible to greatly reduce the guts, as well as chewing muscles. More calories and better…
Again, the question is not if they can (they can't) but WHY. Or, differently, what is the cause, and what the effect.