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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

#131

Post by wil421 »

giantg2 wrote: post #114
LeonB wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nature causes various food sources to ferment which is exploited by many animals.

Like what? Usually lacto fermenting requires a specific salt level. I know fruit tends to ferment, but that produces alcohol, which is a negative factor for brains.

Lacto only requires a specific salt level to keep the bad bacteria out. I doubt caveman humans cared much about sanitary conditions. Also, I doubt the vessels they used would be air tight (except to expel gases) like the ones I use.

Modern humans have genes to process alcohol and some populations don’t have the gene (Asian flushing). Alcohol and fermented fruit were probably sources of calories and drinkable water for many populations.

Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth

#133

Post by JosephRedfern »

DarkNova6 wrote: post #130

From the "about us" page: > Plant Based News is a mission-led impact media platform focused on elevating the plant-based diet and its benefit to human health, the planet, and animals. And > The world’s leading scientists agree that time is running out in the fight to stop the climate crisis. Shifting away from an animal-based food system is one of the most impactful ways we can slow global warming. It’s also a critic…

This summary article may be biased, but note that the cited paper has been peer reviewed and was published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-05517-3.

Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth

#134

Post by h0l0cube »

giantg2 wrote: post #102
depressedpanda wrote: post #68

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)?

The study speculates that accidental fermentation by stashing food in the same location is how such foods were introduced into the human diet

Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth

#135

Post by [deleted] »

chii wrote: post #80
depressedpanda wrote: post #68

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.

But lots of animals also eat (uncooked) meat. It doesnt explain why the developmental difference occured in humans but not other animals eating a similar diet. But cooked meat, on the other hand, can explain this difference.

[deleted]

Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth

#136

Post by Ensorceled »

taejavu wrote: post #3

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…

> 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?

Yep, it's also why the Giant Panda needs to eat so much bamboo in a day, they also have a carnivore-like short gastrointestinal tract.

The idea that humans were fermenting via persistent food caches a million years before we discovered fire, and doing it consistently enough to affect brain evolution is, well, a stretch.

Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth

#137

Post by andsoitis »

LeonB wrote: post #109
giantg2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

Nature causes various food sources to ferment which is exploited by many animals.

> Nature causes various food sources to ferment which is exploited by many animals.

I did some searching and cannot find any evidence to support that.

Only the contrary, for instance: Some non-human animals are documented to consume fermented foods, but it appears to be somewhat infrequent, and limited to a narrow range of foods. from https://fermentology.pubpub.org/pub/2h9z1g3y

The article continues:

As a part of this unique relationship that humans have with fermented foods, it's perhaps not surprising to learn that humans have some adaptations associated with the consumption of fermented foods. Now, these technically aren't unique to humans. These are adaptations that are shared with African apes as well. In particular, there's two genes that we know about that signal this kind of special relationship with fermented foods among the great apes.

The first is the ADH4 gene. We have a special variant of this gene. It's an alcohol dehydrogenase gene. It basically lets us break down alcohol more effectively than many other primates. Alcohol is a byproduct of many types of fermentation. There are three major types of fermentation, two of which produce ethanol as a byproduct. Therefore, being able to break down ethanol provides us with an advantage in terms of being able to consume fermented foods.

The other gene is the HCAR3 gene. This gene codes for a receptor that's thought to make humans and great apes more sensitive to signals that come from certain types of microbes, particularly Lactobacillus. Lactobacillus are one of the key groups of microbes that are involved in food fermentations. Together, these two genes suggest that there's a kind of unique relationship between African apes and humans, and fermented foods.

Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth

#138

Post by _0ffh »

throwup238 wrote: post #96
0xEF wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely more accurate. I'm not sure why anyone thinks any surviving development in an organism is due to this "one weird trick" thing, as opposed to a multitude of factors that rendered that organism fit for their environment, at least enough to pass said development on, anyway. Meat, fermented foods, fire, and a slew of other variables likely played a role. Talking about evolution as though there was some single expl…

> Talking about evolution as though there was some single exploding popcorn kernel that caused change is a pretty narrow take on things. That’s kind of one of the predominant theories in evolution though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium > Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and that stasis…

> the actual evolution happens really fast

With the qualification, that they can be "fast" in geological time scales, which are rather big. It might look like rapid change in the fossil record, but that is a very compressed representation.

Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth

#139

Post by _0ffh »

chii wrote: post #80
depressedpanda wrote: post #68

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.

But lots of animals also eat (uncooked) meat. It doesnt explain why the developmental difference occured in humans but not other animals eating a similar diet. But cooked meat, on the other hand, can explain this difference.

> But lots of animals also eat (uncooked) meat. It doesnt explain why the developmental difference occured in humans but not other animals eating a similar diet.

As to the gut: "The guts of carnivores are usually shorter and less complex than those of herbivores because meat is easier to digest than plant material."

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Anatomy_and_Physiology_of_Anim...

As to the brain: These foods may give an animal the option to invest more into brain size, but that won't happen unless there is a local gradient in the evolutionary fitness landscape that gives a higher roi for larger brains in comparison to alternative investments, like more muscle mass, or just being content with the lower power consumption relative to intake, which makes the animal more resistant to starvation risks, etc.

Re: Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth

#140

Post by neuronic »

DarkNova6 wrote: post #130

From the "about us" page: > Plant Based News is a mission-led impact media platform focused on elevating the plant-based diet and its benefit to human health, the planet, and animals. And > The world’s leading scientists agree that time is running out in the fight to stop the climate crisis. Shifting away from an animal-based food system is one of the most impactful ways we can slow global warming. It’s also a critic…

What are you calling them out for? A bias against torture and violent industrialized murder of sentient life?
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