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Meat based diets made us smarter
- camiller 16y agoAnother theory: "How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf?" - Larry Niven (The Ringworld Engineers)
- oscardelben 16y agoOrganic meat may be good in small doses. However most of the meat today is not the same as it was centuries ago. The book "The China Study" does a good job at explaining the diseases caused by meat.
- lionhearted 16y agoI don't eat much meat - I don't eat beef or pork at all, I eat some fish and chicken. I think too much meat is hard on your digestive tract, and the high caloric density with relatively low micronutrients makes it a bad call for me. Chicken, fish, yes. Beef, pork, other mammals, no. BUT, the China Study book is very questionable. There's a very thorough rebuttal here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2JXW2AQARAXZL/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm http://www.amazon.com/review/R2JXW2AQARAXZL/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pe... It's a very good rebuttal. I agree with a low-ish meat diet, but the China Study book (as opposed to the actual study) is riddled with errors and bad science.
- rubashov 16y ago> too much meat is hard on your digestive tract That's completely crazy. Meat and fat are the easiest things to digest. There is no such thing as an allergy to meat, whereas something like a quarter of people have various allergies to grains, or various nightshade related plants. Pretty much all plants have various toxins to prevent digestion. That's why plants in general need so much heavy processing and cooking to eat safely. You can eat a freshly killed animal raw reasonably safely. Eating a lot of raw grains or sweet potatoes could kill you.
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- chc 16y agoYes, there is such a thing as an allergy to meat (generally specific kinds of meat, just like you'll have an allergy to specific kinds of plants).
- Groxx 16y agoYou can also see one which was posted here: "The China Study: Fact or Fallacy?" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1499447 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1499447
- oscardelben 16y agoI don't want to be right yesterday, so thanks for that link. I agree that the book contains lots of promotion, but it still helped me a lot in understanding the role that nutrition has in our lives. My take home from that book is that eating a lot of processed foods and meat is harmful, and it's better to eat whole foods instead, mostly plants. Edit: I'm not a vegetarian by the way.
- rubashov 16y ago> eating a lot of ... meat is harmful As one of the links explains, the data shows almost the opposite. More meat was weakly protective.
- jimmyrcom 16y agoI liked this book which is less controversial http://www.amazon.com/Anticancer-New-Life-David-Servan-Schreiber/dp/0670020346 http://www.amazon.com/Anticancer-New-Life-David-Servan-Schre... Found the audiobook online one day dotdotdot
- helveticaman 16y agoThat's funny, I specifically avoid fish (but eat other mammals) because I care more about the mercury in fish (and all aquatic meats) than I do about the non-cerebral badness of meat.
- lionhearted 16y agoYeah, nutrition is funny with all the conflicting advice. I did some looking into it and the rates of mercury poisoning are extraordinary low - fish-eating societies like Okinawa and Japan tend to be quite healthy and long-lived, and it takes eating an immense amount of fish to get mercury poisoning (something crazy like 5 servings/day, if memory serves). I feel pretty comfortable eating 1-3 servings of fish maybe 3-4 days per week, chicken or no meat on the other days.
- smokinn 16y agoIf you believe Dr. Colin Campbell you might want to take a look at these articles: http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/16/the-china-study-my-response-to-campbell/ http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/16/the-china-study-my-response... http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cancer/the-china-study-vs-the-china-study/ http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cancer/the-china-study-vs... They're both very well written and put some serious doubt into the validity of Campbell's conclusions.
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- gte910h 16y agoIt's not so much organic meat even, as grass fed, antibiotic free, ranged fed beef, served very fresh has the same benefit. Things such as Vitamin C decay away in the meat with the current slaughter to serving times, and the corn diet instead of the proper grass diet lead the beef to be made up of Omega 6 instead of Omega 3 fats. Meat itself may not be perfect, but modern factory meat is horrible. Corn Fed, Trough Locked Cows are horrible for you.
- wturner 16y agoThe older I get the more I realize our biology has an agenda of its own. I wonder if people who smoke cigarettes are really unconsciously building up their immune systems for their great great great grand children for an unforeseen future where the atmosphere gets really bad and they need the immunity to live long lives. These kinds of thoughts make for great sci-fi.
- paradoja 16y agoYou know Lamarkism was discredited long ago? Anyway I do believe a good story could come from there.
- infinite8s 16y agoEpigenetics is the modern incarnation of Lamarkism. While epigenetics doesn't affect the underlying genetic code, some forms of it modify the expression patterns of genes (look up heritability of methylation patterns) which often have an environmentally determined component.
- dmm 16y agoLamarkism might be seeing a revival. Not really! But something you might see as similar: epigenetics. Scientists are increasingly aware that gene expression is controlled by more than the genes themselves. Some of these control factors may be inheritable.
- tokenadult 16y ago[citation needed] It's important to be clear what people are talking about when they mention epigenetics. What examples did you have in mind?
- rubashov 16y agoHe gave you a citation. search on epigenetics. It's seen a lot of headlines in the last couple years.
- sprout 16y agoLarge-scale agriculture and cooking made us even smarter. A good pot of rice and beans will net you even more energy with less work than meat. It's also less likely to spoil and give you any number of diseases.
- tokenadult 16y agoCooking preceded agriculture in the development of the ancestral line to Homo sapiens by hundreds of thousands of years.
- sprout 16y agoLarge-scale cooking though is a more modern innovation. Especially canning.
- chunkbot 16y agoActually, diseases are largely a result of agriculture. Hunter-gatherers were much healthier (and about 6 inches taller) than their farmer successors.
- dejb 16y ago> Hunter-gatherers were much healthier But probably not smarter in the way we think of intelligence. They didn't develop civilisation, agriculturalists did.
- rubashov 16y ago> They didn't develop civilisation They didn't make very many durable stone structures. That's about all we know. The complexity and quality of their societies may have generally exceeded ours. We do know they had transcontinental trading routes and fairly advanced astronomy, in Europe at least.
- dmm 16y agoSo your hypothesis is that what differentiates agriculturists and hunter-gatherers is intelligence? That's an extremely strong statement. Do you have any proof of significant differences in human intelligence amongst populations? Basically I'm saying you're full of shit. You should read the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel". It was written by someone who took the time to research the issue and develop some convincing arguments.
- bilban 16y agoPerhaps the cooking is key, as stated in this article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.ht... Digesting meat is a lengthy process, which I'd have thought would still tire us. I thought it was pretty conclusive that our digestive systems weren't suited for meat, and that's why there is so much colon cancer. The raw foodies suggest that cooked food, triggers an immune reaction. Though you'd have thought we might have gotten used to it by now. You'd have thought the powers that be would have figured out optimal human nutrition by now!
- donw 16y agoI think that's it's pretty obvious that our digestive systems are suited for meat, since we're completely incapable of digesting most plant matter. Humans are incapable of metabolizing most of the foliage out there, whether or not we cook it, whereas we can draw nutrition easily from fruit, nuts, and even raw meat. Our dentition patters are further evidence; we're dentally equipped as omnivores, but our dentition patters learn more towards carnivore than they do herbivore.
- limist 16y agoWhile we can eat and digest meat, that fact doesn't address the larger question of what is optimal for us to eat. Our canine teeth are quite pathetic compared to true carnivores: 4, not very big. Compared to all our molars, side-to-side jaw motion for grinding veggies, etc. Also, compare teeth patterns of our primate relatives with us, and their diets - gorillas and chimps have much larger canine teeth, but their diets are mostly vegetarian. Also, if we're meant to eat a lot of meat, why are our digestive tracts nothing like carnivores'? Compare length, acidity, and time to digest. Finally, thousands of people die every year from choking on food. I don't think they're mostly choking on berries, leaves, or rice.
- shasta 16y ago> Our canine teeth are quite pathetic compared to true carnivores: 4, not very big You know that people can use tools, right?
- dejb 16y agoThis title appears to be knowingly misleading. Towards the end it actually goes on to say 'And cooking is what he thinks really changed our modern body'. In fact it could just have easily been cooked starchy foods that had the biggest impact in supplying more calories. Either way it was the additional supply of calories that made the difference - not some magical ingredient of meat. I guess the diet Taliban are a ready audience for a journalist without any actual original research to report on.
- chunkbot 16y agoAnd your research comes from...?
- dejb 16y ago...reading the actual article to the end. ...focusing on the facts mentioned and rather than the asides offered by the author. Here's another reference to the part about starches http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6983330.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6983330.stm
- chunkbot 16y agoWhy the downvotes? When I see the statement, "it was the additional supply of calories that made the difference - not some magical ingredient of meat", I want to see research. And the phrase "diet Taliban" doesn't belong in this discussion.
- briancooley 16y agoIt looks to me like the author was building a point about evolutionary bootstrapping of brain growth by eating meat ("but eating meat apparently made our ancestors smarter - smart enough to make better tools, which in turn led to other changes, says Aiello"). Brain growth was later accelerated when early humans gained the intelligence to cook. From what I understand about brain development from my child's pediatrician, dietary fat is important. I don't think the calorie argument is airtight. There's more to the story than is presented here. Anyway, the author opens with information from one source who seemed to focus on meat and later includes information from another source focusing on cooking. An editor probably read two paragraphs and wrote the headline. Nothing to get bent about.
- jshen 16y agoWhat is this person suggesting? I'm assuming that the size of a person's brain is based on two things. First, their genes. Second, the environment including diet. If the researcher is suggesting that diet increases brain size, well that should be easy to measure on living people and will give a fairly definitive answer. If the researcher is suggesting that eating meat changed our genes, well that needs to be explained.