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> Dogs don't seem to mind [spoiled meat] I've recently seen proof of that. A dead horse was left on a trail I frequently hike, and I saw dogs eating it a week

> Dogs don't seem to mind [spoiled meat] I've recently seen proof of that. A dead horse was left on a trail I frequently hike, and I saw dogs eating it a week later. I don't even want to imagine how awful that meat was after sitting in the sun for a week.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
That said, all the pets I've had throw up way more than I do. I think we're ignoring the very real possibility that ancient people were constantly living with some level of gastrointestinal problems.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > I think we're ignoring the very real possibility that ancient people were constantly living with some level of gastrointestinal problems. We do know that humanity from its earliest days over the Rome Empire [1] up to, what, maybe a century or even less ago has had massive infestations of all kinds of parasites, including gastrointestinal. Would it be possible that these parasites actually could have a symbiotic relationship, in helping to break down spoiled food? [1] https://www.livescience.com/53303-ancient-rome-infested-with-parasites.html https://www.livescience.com/53303-ancient-rome-infested-with...
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  I mean many modern people also live with constant gastrointestinal problems, and I'm not talking about teens eating taco bell and mountain dew every day and wondering why they have bathroom troubles, I'm talking about average people eating a varied and healthy diet with IBS.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    You're not wrong and that's an excellent example. I'm questioning the idea that somehow people were able to consume this food impact-free. I struggle with the common narrative that somehow people were healthier and better in some dark forgotten past and we should return to those times for our own well being. There often seems to be promises that conditions like IBS would stop existing if we did that. But maybe ancient man was cool with having near-constantly runny poos because there was no alternative.
    - mlyle 4y ago
      > I struggle with the common narrative that somehow people were healthier and better in some dark forgotten past and we should return to those times for our own well being I think there's a bit of a slightly saner way to put this viewpoint-- that: - Humans evolved in a very different environment from which we live now - Our degree of genetic adaptation to modern living is relatively small, because there's been a blink of an eye for it to happen in - Even if something newer has a sane rationale for it being "healthier" or "better" despite us not having genetically adapted to it, it may not be so: most of our handwaving rationale about complex systems ends up being wrong after careful trials and measurement, and the rest we may be missing a lot of second-order and third-order effects. Not that I'm advocating for eating rotten meat. I'm just saying that the system is complicated and has a bunch of set-points learned from very different conditions.
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        I agree that the system is complicated. But it's hard to make the argument that we were genetically well adapted, or that said adaptation didn't come up with sub-optimal tradeoffs to everything we suffered through when we were paleolithic as well. Evolution is very good at building "good enough" systems for an organism to survive in whatever environment it's in based upon what energy it has available. I too don't like rejecting things outright, but knowing that, I also don't accept things outright either. We have no reason to believe that eating rotten meat wasn't a choice made out of necessity rather than out of some sort of optimal health.
        mlyle 4y ago
        > We have no reason to believe that eating rotten meat wasn't a choice made out of necessity rather than out of some sort of optimal health. First, basically every choice could be said to be made out of some kind of necessity. There's a big middle ground even from this. E.g. "eating rotten meat caused a lot of harms, but it also happened to fulfill a couple of somewhat important functions, and thus there was no evolutionary pressure to meet these requirements in any other way" Thus, even if eating rotten meat today would be a net negative for many, many reasons (and I strongly suspect this is the case), it makes a lot of sense to think about and study what possible benefits it could have had besides merely being available.
- protastus 4y ago
  Pets have diet sensitivities too, which can upset their stomachs. My cat used to occasionally throw up but with her current food she has gone for more than a year without any events. By eating spoiled and contaminated food, ancient people were certainly getting internal parasites too (also something that a big fraction of pets have).
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Oh, I'm sure if you wait long enough someone is going to argue that the parasites were a good thing too.
- runnerup 4y ago
  Animals also don't have the social stigma of vomiting that humans do. Sometimes they'll vomit for basically no reason at all, because there's a low "cost" to doing it. One time my dog and cat both ate some human food which was perfectly fine for them, but the cat didn't like the flavor. So the cat vomited. The dog looked at the cat, looked at the food, looked at the cat, and then vomited also. Then the dog finished all the food and was fine.
  - throwayyy479087 4y ago
    I wish we'd vomit more. It's a fantastic reflex and, compared to lower GI food poisoning, very preferable.
fencepost 4y ago
I haven't yet listened to the podcast but this has links to all the relevant info on Dogs In Elk which seems relevant. https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2022/02/25/dogs-in-elk https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2022/02/25/dogs-in-elk
giantrobot 4y ago
Dogs have much shorter GI tracts compared to humans. Just that fact means there's less opportunity for bacteria/toxins from rotted food to affect them.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

That said, all the pets I've had throw up way more than I do. I think we're ignoring the very real possibility that ancient people were constantly living with some level of gastrointestinal problems.

mschuster91 4y ago
> I think we're ignoring the very real possibility that ancient people were constantly living with some level of gastrointestinal problems. We do know that humanity from its earliest days over the Rome Empire [1] up to, what, maybe a century or even less ago has had massive infestations of all kinds of parasites, including gastrointestinal. Would it be possible that these parasites actually could have a symbiotic relationship, in helping to break down spoiled food? [1] https://www.livescience.com/53303-ancient-rome-infested-with-parasites.html https://www.livescience.com/53303-ancient-rome-infested-with...
mrguyorama 4y ago
I mean many modern people also live with constant gastrointestinal problems, and I'm not talking about teens eating taco bell and mountain dew every day and wondering why they have bathroom troubles, I'm talking about average people eating a varied and healthy diet with IBS.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  You're not wrong and that's an excellent example. I'm questioning the idea that somehow people were able to consume this food impact-free. I struggle with the common narrative that somehow people were healthier and better in some dark forgotten past and we should return to those times for our own well being. There often seems to be promises that conditions like IBS would stop existing if we did that. But maybe ancient man was cool with having near-constantly runny poos because there was no alternative.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > I struggle with the common narrative that somehow people were healthier and better in some dark forgotten past and we should return to those times for our own well being I think there's a bit of a slightly saner way to put this viewpoint-- that: - Humans evolved in a very different environment from which we live now - Our degree of genetic adaptation to modern living is relatively small, because there's been a blink of an eye for it to happen in - Even if something newer has a sane rationale for it being "healthier" or "better" despite us not having genetically adapted to it, it may not be so: most of our handwaving rationale about complex systems ends up being wrong after careful trials and measurement, and the rest we may be missing a lot of second-order and third-order effects. Not that I'm advocating for eating rotten meat. I'm just saying that the system is complicated and has a bunch of set-points learned from very different conditions.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      I agree that the system is complicated. But it's hard to make the argument that we were genetically well adapted, or that said adaptation didn't come up with sub-optimal tradeoffs to everything we suffered through when we were paleolithic as well. Evolution is very good at building "good enough" systems for an organism to survive in whatever environment it's in based upon what energy it has available. I too don't like rejecting things outright, but knowing that, I also don't accept things outright either. We have no reason to believe that eating rotten meat wasn't a choice made out of necessity rather than out of some sort of optimal health.
      - mlyle 4y ago
        > We have no reason to believe that eating rotten meat wasn't a choice made out of necessity rather than out of some sort of optimal health. First, basically every choice could be said to be made out of some kind of necessity. There's a big middle ground even from this. E.g. "eating rotten meat caused a lot of harms, but it also happened to fulfill a couple of somewhat important functions, and thus there was no evolutionary pressure to meet these requirements in any other way" Thus, even if eating rotten meat today would be a net negative for many, many reasons (and I strongly suspect this is the case), it makes a lot of sense to think about and study what possible benefits it could have had besides merely being available.
protastus 4y ago
Pets have diet sensitivities too, which can upset their stomachs. My cat used to occasionally throw up but with her current food she has gone for more than a year without any events. By eating spoiled and contaminated food, ancient people were certainly getting internal parasites too (also something that a big fraction of pets have).
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  Oh, I'm sure if you wait long enough someone is going to argue that the parasites were a good thing too.
runnerup 4y ago
Animals also don't have the social stigma of vomiting that humans do. Sometimes they'll vomit for basically no reason at all, because there's a low "cost" to doing it. One time my dog and cat both ate some human food which was perfectly fine for them, but the cat didn't like the flavor. So the cat vomited. The dog looked at the cat, looked at the food, looked at the cat, and then vomited also. Then the dog finished all the food and was fine.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  I wish we'd vomit more. It's a fantastic reflex and, compared to lower GI food poisoning, very preferable.

fencepost 4y ago

I haven't yet listened to the podcast but this has links to all the relevant info on Dogs In Elk which seems relevant. https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2022/02/25/dogs-in-elk https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2022/02/25/dogs-in-elk

giantrobot 4y ago

Dogs have much shorter GI tracts compared to humans. Just that fact means there's less opportunity for bacteria/toxins from rotted food to affect them.