Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm picturing a guy hauling a roadkill deer in, tossing it on a table and yelling "meat's up!" I mean, sure, they didn't have cars back then, but it's better than letting trash-eating deer meat go to waste.
I dimly recall a New Yorker article about people who eat roadkill. They do have their limits though. It has to be fresh roadkill :)
Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
81–90 of 171 posts
Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
#82I don't see how that's surprising, at least if you subscribe to the Endurance Running Hypothesis (and I do). Any prey humans used to hunt using what we now know as persistence hunting would have been large game. Especially in the hot, tropic climates early humans seemed to have thrived in, such meat would have started to spoil, even if hunted fresh, before any such hunter would have had the time to bring it back to t…
Why subscribe to the endurance running hypothesis, though? There are no contemporary examples of humans hunting that way, and hominids were already making tools by the time they had developed to subsist on meat. The endurance/persistence hypothesis doesn't even make sense without tools like spears, knives, or arrows, because humans don't kill their prey by biting into them. If they had access to primitive weaponry, w…
Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why subscribe to the endurance running hypothesis, though? There are no contemporary examples of humans hunting that way, and hominids were already making tools by the time they had developed to subsist on meat. The endurance/persistence hypothesis doesn't even make sense without tools like spears, knives, or arrows, because humans don't kill their prey by biting into them. If they had access to primitive weaponry, w…
> There are no contemporary examples of humans hunting that way. There are some examples [0], although admittedly they are isolated cases. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might have been a good thing?
There does seem to be this notion that being "too hygienic" is a negative thing because it doesn't train your immune system. That's only kind of true. Exposing a healthy person to small amounts of weakened virus tends to build immunity. Exposing the healthy person to large amounts of the virus overwhelms the immune system and may not even lead to a strong viral immunity. If I had to guess, eating rotten meat is somet…
Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
#85Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
#86As an aside, most industrial meat is exposed either intentionally or unintentionally to lactobacillus strains. Working in kitchens I've had the opportunity to taste spoiling meat that had high amounts of it. When prepared right it is actually quite good. Taste can be similar to dry-aged steak, but juicer and more flavorful. I've never gotten sick, but it certainly seems like a risk, however tasty it may be.
It is what makes the sourdough bread taste so good too.
Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious about sources for this. I see some indication that botulism toxin can be destroyed by cooking, though the bar is pretty high - needs to be boiled over 5 minutes. So lesser temperature methods such as grilling the meat may not be sufficient, but something like stewing over many hours seems like would work fine.
USDA indicates that boiling for 10 minutes can prevent botulism: https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media_file/202... Although the boiling doesn't destroy the toxin itself, only the bacterial spores.
The other way around
Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
#88I don't see how that's surprising, at least if you subscribe to the Endurance Running Hypothesis (and I do). Any prey humans used to hunt using what we now know as persistence hunting would have been large game. Especially in the hot, tropic climates early humans seemed to have thrived in, such meat would have started to spoil, even if hunted fresh, before any such hunter would have had the time to bring it back to t…
Why subscribe to the endurance running hypothesis, though? There are no contemporary examples of humans hunting that way, and hominids were already making tools by the time they had developed to subsist on meat. The endurance/persistence hypothesis doesn't even make sense without tools like spears, knives, or arrows, because humans don't kill their prey by biting into them. If they had access to primitive weaponry, w…
This is the main point why I don't believe in the endurance running hypothesis. Humans are lazy. Why would they opt to run for days over just waiting at the local watering hole for prey?
Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
#89I don't see how that's surprising, at least if you subscribe to the Endurance Running Hypothesis (and I do). Any prey humans used to hunt using what we now know as persistence hunting would have been large game. Especially in the hot, tropic climates early humans seemed to have thrived in, such meat would have started to spoil, even if hunted fresh, before any such hunter would have had the time to bring it back to t…
Why subscribe to the endurance running hypothesis, though? There are no contemporary examples of humans hunting that way, and hominids were already making tools by the time they had developed to subsist on meat. The endurance/persistence hypothesis doesn't even make sense without tools like spears, knives, or arrows, because humans don't kill their prey by biting into them. If they had access to primitive weaponry, w…
Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets
#90Took me months to recover from it. Up to that point in my life, I was totally "regular" as they say. It was probably a year before I got back to normal in that respect.
Don't mess with your gut flora if things are going well, imo.