Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
washingtonpost.com
Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
1–10 of 43 posts
Re: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
#2Obviously a sensitive subject. Nutrition "beliefs" are right up their with religion and politics.
Science has a long ways to go before proving anything conclusively, but I can say from my experience working with thousands of folks on their diets, I have seen numerous vegans and vegetarians who have added meat back into their diets have excellent results with their physical performance and body composition.
Since isolating direct causation and long term effects are very difficult, I really appreciate these archaeological studies. I think from an intuitive perspective, it makes sense that humans would function well consuming the things we evolved to consume. Not saying that's the end-all, but it's a good place to start.
Re: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
#3Hopefully folks reading this article won't take it to mean that humans still need to continue consuming large amounts of meat. Maybe it was necessary to eat meat and hunt to evolve large brains, but the negative economic & ecological impacts of eating meat are pretty well-documented by now.
I am thinking here of the "meat industrial complex" that powers a lot of large commercial meat production, not the friendly sustainable organic farm where I am sure we all shop.
Our brains are big enough now after generations of evolution. Time to put those big brains to use so we can figure out how to continue the existence of the human species. I really doubt it'll be by continuing to eat lots of cows.
Re: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
#4Isn't this old news?
Re: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
#5Sorry, vegans: Eating [loads of calories] is how humans got their big brains
Re: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
#6Hopefully folks reading this article won't take it to mean that humans still need to continue consuming large amounts of meat. Maybe it was necessary to eat meat and hunt to evolve large brains, but the negative economic & ecological impacts of eating meat are pretty well-documented by now. I am thinking here of the "meat industrial complex" that powers a lot of large commercial meat production, not the friendly sust…
This conflates at least four issues:
1. Is is healthy to eat meat?
2. Is it right to eat meat?
3. Is it healthy to eat sustainable organic meat?
4. Is it right to eat sustainable organic meat?
In particular, I'm thinking of Joel Salatan's brand of sustainable agriculture and permaculture.
Re: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
#7"it wouldn’t be possible to get Vitamin B12, which is only available in animal products."
Marmite? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmite
Re: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
#8Also, the primary point seems to be that we need increased caloric intake to support the larger brain's greater function. While it may have required meat consumption at the dawn of our species, I think we can all agree that you don't need meat now in order to have high caloric intake. I'm vegan and I guarantee I eat a lot more calories every day than my body or brain need.
Re: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
#9Hopefully folks reading this article won't take it to mean that humans still need to continue consuming large amounts of meat. Maybe it was necessary to eat meat and hunt to evolve large brains, but the negative economic & ecological impacts of eating meat are pretty well-documented by now. I am thinking here of the "meat industrial complex" that powers a lot of large commercial meat production, not the friendly sust…
This conflates at least four issues: 1. Is is healthy to eat meat? 2. Is it right to eat meat? 3. Is it healthy to eat sustainable organic meat? 4. Is it right to eat sustainable organic meat? Accepting that the 'meat industrial complex' is bad doesn't automatically imply vegetarianism/veganism. In particular, I'm thinking of Joel Salatan's brand of sustainable agriculture and permaculture.
I think every single one of those questions is missing yet another 'question' - that is, how much meat?
From a naive min-max approaching to building your diet, it generally pops up that -some- meat is super useful. Simply by doing that you ease all sorts of constraints on your diet, and allows you to optimize your veggies/grains for other stuff, instead of desperately trying to get all your iron and B12 in. Even from an overall energy budget point of view, -some- meat is super useful. There are large amounts of marginal land that is not really useful for large scale cultivation, but perfectly usable as feedland for free ranging animals.
Re: Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains
#10Also, the primary point seems to be that we need increased caloric intake to support the larger brain's greater function. While it may have required meat consumption at the dawn of our species, I think we can all agree that you don't need meat now in order to have high caloric intake. I'm vegan and I guarantee I eat a lot more calories every day than my body or brain need.
not really, you should look at the (admittedly well hidden) 2nd page of the article.
This supports the theory that meat fueled human brain
evolution because meat — from arachnids to zebras — was
plentiful on the African savanna, where humans evolved, and
is the best package of calories, proteins, fats and Vitamin
B12 needed for brain growth and maintenance.