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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

#161

Post by Anotheroneagain »

Tor3 wrote: post #89
berkes wrote: post #83

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…

What do you mean? They eat mostly fruit and vegetables.

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

#162

Post by DarkNova6 »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #149
sph wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is more to eating meat than supporting industrial "murder". And to be frank, industrial agriculture ain't much better for animals and the Earth. One can reduce their impact on this planet without becoming a (hypocrite) zealot, unless you can convince me you don't have a car, avoid any form of plastics, avoid pesticides, avoid processed vegan food, do not import avocadoes, natto and tofu from overseas etc. We ca…

> There is more to eating meat than supporting industrial "murder". 99% of the meat grown in America comes from factory foods. Despite this, every time the horrible treatment of animals is brought up online all of a sudden everyone is getting their meat from farms where the cows get a message twice a day. Statistically, there isn't much more. I still eat meat, very little these days, but lets be honest about it. Your…

I don't reside in the US, but I highly doubt it is 99%. There are always ways of getting organic or poultry food.

At the very least in the EU there is no shortage of it and the legal restrictions are strictly enforced.

Anyway, you are doing yourself a favour not ingesting mass-production. There is a very very good reason virtually no country wants to import US-chicken.

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

#163

Post by scottLobster »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #155
Pucilowski wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosing your (potentially conflicting) interests does not automatically mean you've not been biased/incentivized to discover particular findings, pharmaceutical research is full of examples

Of course, but if you have a specific interest, and then a study comes out that backs it up, you can write about it and promote it, can't you? Show everyone, look at this, we liked this idea, and now this study gives it more backing.

Sure you can, but the thing about ideologies is that they are almost always pseudo-religious philosophies, and those entities that make them their foremost identity typically seek out supporting facts while ignoring contravening facts. Expecting this behavior is reasonable, almost all ideologues engage in it to some degree. Thus additional skepticism/verification is warranted when the source is an ideologue and the purported argument contains facts that supposedly validate their ideology.

Even Trump says something correct about the border every once in a while, but you'd be a fool to take him at face value.

By contrast a more neutral source that lacked said motivation could be taken more at face value. By putting your agenda out in front, you're implying that you prioritize that agenda over everything else, including most likely the actual truth, because agendas become less and less politically attractive the more nuance they try to convey.

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

#164

Post by AYBABTME »

bongodongobob wrote: post #159
AYBABTME wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By poisoned I mean food poisoning. Not sure what happened in the batch I made but drinking the brew gave me cold sweats and fever for two days and I emptied my bowels multiple times. So I stopped there. I still love the flavor, and I love most fermented food.

I would bet money it was something else. Fermentation usually does a good job of keeping bad fungi out. If you were careful with sanitation, it was something else like bad leftovers or something. Also, food poisoning usually takes > 24-48 hours to kick in. So if you drank it and got sick that day, it was something you ate the day or two before.

It was a while back so I can't retell exactly what my day had been but I remember it was unambiguous and it was definitely the kombucha.

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

#165

Post by kossTKR »

depressedpanda wrote: post #68
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…

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.

It's not just as simple as "probably just meat". Of course meat is important but i'd say in light of recent research fermentation and gut flora related concepts would be a better guess.

Cutting edge research into the Gut Biome shows its overlooked significance, connected to pre and probiotics and food, but also mental health, even going as far as questioning how much of "us" are really the gut biome.

People can heal various ailments even mental disease by getting transplants, it's a completely new and wild field of study, and holds much more weight than say eating or not eating meat.

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

#166

Post by giraffe_lady »

Ensorceled wrote: post #136
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 gastr…

Why is that a stretch? At a warm room temp fermentation is quite noticeable after 18 hours in a lot of raw edible plants. As little as 6-8 for some of them. You don't need a cache, simply carrying leftovers with you for the next morning would be enough. It's not a big stretch that a resource you would have to go alarmingly out of your way to avoid (by destroying edible food after gorging) would come before fire.

This is related to what I've heard called the carrier bag theory. Once you can acquire food, the next technological step is being able to bring it with you. A gourd, a large folded leaf is sufficient. Once you're doing that fermentation is inevitable.

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

#167

Post by xolox »

verisimi wrote: post #79
xolox wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It helps foster the desire for fermented food, ie its a means to shift premium product off shelves. Sorry but this sounds disingenuous to me. Isn't one of the hallmarks of fermented foods that you can prepare them at home, fairly cheaply in lots of cases? It is to me...

There are books, kits, jars, drinks, restaurants. And you can buy fermented foods in shops too.

Okay I understand what you mean now (still don't agree). I'm having a hard time envisioning companies involved in the fermented foods scene coming together and "lobbying" to push their "agenda" but who knows, maybe I'm being naive! ;-)

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

#168

Post by Tor3 »

Anotheroneagain wrote: post #161
Tor3 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What do you mean? They eat mostly fruit and vegetables.

The top comment on this thread (https://www.quora.com/Could-a-human-being-survive-on-the-die...) matches what I've learned about this elsewhere. Just that "chewing for six hours a day" part is a problem..

As for gorillas - that's mostly leaves, shoots and stems. All very hard to digest, a human wouldn't get much nutrients out of that.

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

#169

Post by staplers »

trhway wrote: post #31

my take based on several such articles. 8-10M ago humans (big apes that we were back then) got the ability to metabolize alcohol, ie. all those plentiful of fermenting/rotting fruit on the ground became food. That in particular allowed for less tree climbing, more walking on the floor. That, in particular for the purposes of self-defense and body calories storage - to more body mass - that in turn to less tree climbi…

Very interesting theory. Do we know what types of fruits they would have been eating off the ground?

Also wondering if alcohol metabolization can be traced in dna or similar to align this theory.

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