6 ms·

The role of meat in the human diet: evolutionary aspects and nutritional value

46 points by hirundo 3y ago

onionisafruit 3y ago
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the only reason meat is delicious is because we evolved to think meat is delicious.
- ggm 3y ago
  Reductively can you honestly say there is anything we enjoy or dislike that isn't true for?
  - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    Anything that didn't provide an evolutionary or reproductive advantage, or liking it / disliking it is simply a side-effect; e.g. adrenaline pumps / extreme sports, puzzles, modern creative work.
- voz_ 3y ago
  You didn't say anything.
- mannyv 3y ago
  Animals love meat too, so it's not just a human thing. Many of them will prefer meat as well. otoh, not many people believe vegetables are delicious. That preference should be stronger, from an evolutionary perspective, since it's less work to hunt plants.
  - fallous 3y ago
    It is less work to "hunt plants" but it also carries far more risk from a consumption standpoint due to the biological defenses that plants have evolved to defend themselves and their seeds from undesirable predators. Identifying the correct plants that are safe to eat raw vs those that are safe if prepared properly vs those that are unsafe is pretty knowledge-intensive, and it tends to be geographically limited since flora can vary dramatically based on microclimates.
    - shapefrog 3y ago
      > the biological defenses that plants have evolved to defend themselves and their seeds from undesirable predators Hunting and gathering meat doesnt traditionally involve going out into a field and picking up a strip of meat wrapped up in plastic.
      - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
        Of course, it requires setting up a trap before you harvest the meat fields.
        shapefrog 3y ago
        The "trap" in the meat fields being a refrigerator.
    - cfn 3y ago
      Foraging for plants is actually quite difficult. You can try it, go into the woods for a weekend and try feeding only on plants. There are very few edible plants outside of fruit in tropical places. It is easier to catch small birds and rodents, for example.
  - totetsu 3y ago
    I think an assortment of roast veges can be as delicious as meat. But a roast spud and a piece of pork crackling are delicious in different ways. The pleasure of eating meat if defiantly more carnal.
  - detrites 3y ago
    > Many of them will prefer meat as well. This intuitively didn't seem correct. I'd guess that the majority of animals would be herbivorous. What'd odd is I can't find online a referenced percent breakdown of animal kingdom eating habits in terms of herb/omni/carni-vorous. Anyone know where to find that or something similar?
  - pwrrr 3y ago
    Not only that. Give a baby vegetables, and they will do everything in their power to avoid eating it. They prefer meat too ;)
    - n4r9 3y ago
      I'm at the age where lots of friends are having babies,and this has not been my experience. They love all sorts of vegetables - beetroot, carrot, artichoke, you name it. And at least one toddler really doesn't like meat.
choeger 3y ago
It is important to note the role that meat takes in subsistence agriculture: Chicken, for instance not only produce eggs and manure, they also serve as breathing refrigerators: Whenever there is the need, especially in the winter, one can easily kill one or more and eat them. I think cattle plays a similar role at a larger scale. Obviously, we have moved very far from these basics and industrialized the whole chain, but it should be worth considering that mass adoption of vegan food requires the very same industrialization whereas true organic food will profit from a certain amount of livestock.
- Faaak 3y ago
  > vegan food requires the very same industrialization Well, there is, for example, flour ?
  - woolion 3y ago
    From Wikipedia: >In sunny countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Bangladesh, there is sufficient endogenous vitamin D due to exposure to the sun. However, [Rickets] occurs among older toddlers and children in these countries, which in these circumstances is attributed to low dietary calcium intakes due to a mainly cereal-based diet If you treat food as simple calorie numbers, you end up with deficiencies with very bad consequences. This is just an example that I found interesting.
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    If you don’t properly bake/freeze and vacuum seal your wheat/flour, expect to find lots of little “friends” making a home in your food.
  - Arnt 3y ago
    The flour you eat uses copious industrial support, both before and after harvesting. Fertiliser is called NPK, named for the main chemical ingredients, which come from factories and mines on distant continents. This gadget is very industrial: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Kauran_puintia_4.jpg/1280px-Kauran_puintia_4.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Ka... The use-by date of flour is generally a few weeks or up to three months depending on the kind of flour and the climate. Providing fresh flour all year requires a bit of technology, too. Not nearly as much as collecting N, P and K and producing fertiliser, but not zero either.
voz_ 3y ago
The abstract is clear and readable. It also seems to signal, overwhelmingly, "MEAT GOOD". And the problem here, is that I cannot trust it. Not because I disagree, but because any study involving food feels so heavily lobbied, and so chock full of vested interests vying for a headline. (Red wine is good for the heart! Grass feed meat prevents cancer! Beef is terrible for the environment). It is sadly weaponized science for mass consumption. As a lay person , my eyes glaze over. Is sugar alright for me in moderation? Or am I poisoning myself? Should I stop eating meat because I want to preserve our environment, or as this study says, will I deprive myself of B12? How does one know who to believe? It seems easier to just check out and kinda guess through it on ones own.
- boudin 3y ago
  The thing that sounds off to me is that meat consumption increased a lot in just a few generations. Meat being such a part of a diet is something way too new to be considered evolutionary.
  - zamfi 3y ago
    ...since the invention of agriculture, yes. But prior to agriculture, meat was a reasonably large part of diet in a number of places.
  - guerby 3y ago
    Relative to native americans or inuit? Both were most or only meat eaters.
  - cfn 3y ago
    This is absurd, agriculture was invented 10 thousand years ago, what do you think Homo Sapiens ate for the previous 1990 thousand years of its existence?
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    We were a hunter/gatherer society for a reason. Meat/fat is incredibly nutrient and calorically rich, which gave us the ability to grow our brains out and shrink our stomachs. Once we discovered agriculture, we found we could more safely and sufficiently meet our caloric needs with breads, and meat became a luxury as livestock is expensive and hunting was inefficient and costly in a time that normalized daily labor in the community. Once we industrialized farming, we could once again fulfill our demands for meat.
rasengan0 3y ago
Since I don't eat meat, I had to take my B12 today, was not a burden. But, ah yes, evolution, I guess we "disconnected" from this kind of meat: https://bigthink.com/the-past/paleo-diet-cannibalism-ancient-humans/ https://bigthink.com/the-past/paleo-diet-cannibalism-ancient... Maybe the good doctors really need to reassess those evolutionary aspects and nutritional value...
sourcecodeplz 3y ago
At least eat fish if no other meats & think for yourself, stop relying on others telling you how to think. Search your feelings. Stop taking sides. Be balanced. Supplements are a scam. They don't "work" OR barely add little if anything of what they claim. Richard Feynman, famously stated, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." Scientific knowledge is always provisional and subject to revision based on new evidence and insights. Scientific theories and hypotheses are not considered absolute or infallible truths, but rather working models that provide the best explanation of the available evidence at a given time. As new evidence emerges, scientists may revise or even abandon their previous theories to account for the new observations.
- MissLaeti 3y ago
  Where are your sources for such a claim?
- shapefrog 3y ago
  Ethical vegetarians who eat fish are my favourite kind of hypocrites.
rikketikm 3y ago
Eating fortified meat or taking supplements, what's the difference? People in current times are mostly able to live of a plant-based diet. There's plenty of alternatives (which are also fortified with e.g. B12) that are as tasty as cheap processed meats most people buy. Most people just WANT to remain naïve about the fact that they're paying other people to kill an animal that is as smart as the one they call "companions".
- pwrrr 3y ago
  Synthetic vitamins aren't that good apparantly
  - rikketikm 3y ago
    That's the point, your meat is fortified, it doesn't make a difference. There's plenty of meat eaters living with a B12 deficiency too.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  >Most people just WANT to remain naïve No, most people don’t care. Huge difference. You are not somehow more knowing and worldly than the average person, in fact realistically you are average.
  - rikketikm 3y ago
    You're right.
ranguna 3y ago
I know people that follow the Mediterranean diet who are perfectly healthy and those who are not. I know people who follow the vegan diet who are perfectly healthy and those who are not. It seems studies around diets like to spin the wheel and decide to make a paper based on where the wheel lands in one of those 4 options.
amriksohata 3y ago
Gamechangers is an interesting documentary that presents evidence that vegetarianism may have predated meat eating.

46 points by hirundo 3y ago

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the only reason meat is delicious is because we evolved to think meat is delicious.

ggm 3y ago
Reductively can you honestly say there is anything we enjoy or dislike that isn't true for?
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  Anything that didn't provide an evolutionary or reproductive advantage, or liking it / disliking it is simply a side-effect; e.g. adrenaline pumps / extreme sports, puzzles, modern creative work.
voz_ 3y ago
You didn't say anything.
mannyv 3y ago
Animals love meat too, so it's not just a human thing. Many of them will prefer meat as well. otoh, not many people believe vegetables are delicious. That preference should be stronger, from an evolutionary perspective, since it's less work to hunt plants.
- fallous 3y ago
  It is less work to "hunt plants" but it also carries far more risk from a consumption standpoint due to the biological defenses that plants have evolved to defend themselves and their seeds from undesirable predators. Identifying the correct plants that are safe to eat raw vs those that are safe if prepared properly vs those that are unsafe is pretty knowledge-intensive, and it tends to be geographically limited since flora can vary dramatically based on microclimates.
  - shapefrog 3y ago
    > the biological defenses that plants have evolved to defend themselves and their seeds from undesirable predators Hunting and gathering meat doesnt traditionally involve going out into a field and picking up a strip of meat wrapped up in plastic.
    - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
      Of course, it requires setting up a trap before you harvest the meat fields.
      - shapefrog 3y ago
        The "trap" in the meat fields being a refrigerator.
  - cfn 3y ago
    Foraging for plants is actually quite difficult. You can try it, go into the woods for a weekend and try feeding only on plants. There are very few edible plants outside of fruit in tropical places. It is easier to catch small birds and rodents, for example.
- totetsu 3y ago
  I think an assortment of roast veges can be as delicious as meat. But a roast spud and a piece of pork crackling are delicious in different ways. The pleasure of eating meat if defiantly more carnal.
- detrites 3y ago
  > Many of them will prefer meat as well. This intuitively didn't seem correct. I'd guess that the majority of animals would be herbivorous. What'd odd is I can't find online a referenced percent breakdown of animal kingdom eating habits in terms of herb/omni/carni-vorous. Anyone know where to find that or something similar?
- pwrrr 3y ago
  Not only that. Give a baby vegetables, and they will do everything in their power to avoid eating it. They prefer meat too ;)
  - n4r9 3y ago
    I'm at the age where lots of friends are having babies,and this has not been my experience. They love all sorts of vegetables - beetroot, carrot, artichoke, you name it. And at least one toddler really doesn't like meat.

choeger 3y ago

It is important to note the role that meat takes in subsistence agriculture: Chicken, for instance not only produce eggs and manure, they also serve as breathing refrigerators: Whenever there is the need, especially in the winter, one can easily kill one or more and eat them. I think cattle plays a similar role at a larger scale. Obviously, we have moved very far from these basics and industrialized the whole chain, but it should be worth considering that mass adoption of vegan food requires the very same industrialization whereas true organic food will profit from a certain amount of livestock.

Faaak 3y ago
> vegan food requires the very same industrialization Well, there is, for example, flour ?
- woolion 3y ago
  From Wikipedia: >In sunny countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Bangladesh, there is sufficient endogenous vitamin D due to exposure to the sun. However, [Rickets] occurs among older toddlers and children in these countries, which in these circumstances is attributed to low dietary calcium intakes due to a mainly cereal-based diet If you treat food as simple calorie numbers, you end up with deficiencies with very bad consequences. This is just an example that I found interesting.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  If you don’t properly bake/freeze and vacuum seal your wheat/flour, expect to find lots of little “friends” making a home in your food.
- Arnt 3y ago
  The flour you eat uses copious industrial support, both before and after harvesting. Fertiliser is called NPK, named for the main chemical ingredients, which come from factories and mines on distant continents. This gadget is very industrial: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Kauran_puintia_4.jpg/1280px-Kauran_puintia_4.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Ka... The use-by date of flour is generally a few weeks or up to three months depending on the kind of flour and the climate. Providing fresh flour all year requires a bit of technology, too. Not nearly as much as collecting N, P and K and producing fertiliser, but not zero either.

voz_ 3y ago

The abstract is clear and readable. It also seems to signal, overwhelmingly, "MEAT GOOD". And the problem here, is that I cannot trust it. Not because I disagree, but because any study involving food feels so heavily lobbied, and so chock full of vested interests vying for a headline. (Red wine is good for the heart! Grass feed meat prevents cancer! Beef is terrible for the environment). It is sadly weaponized science for mass consumption. As a lay person , my eyes glaze over. Is sugar alright for me in moderation? Or am I poisoning myself? Should I stop eating meat because I want to preserve our environment, or as this study says, will I deprive myself of B12? How does one know who to believe? It seems easier to just check out and kinda guess through it on ones own.

boudin 3y ago
The thing that sounds off to me is that meat consumption increased a lot in just a few generations. Meat being such a part of a diet is something way too new to be considered evolutionary.
- zamfi 3y ago
  ...since the invention of agriculture, yes. But prior to agriculture, meat was a reasonably large part of diet in a number of places.
- guerby 3y ago
  Relative to native americans or inuit? Both were most or only meat eaters.
- cfn 3y ago
  This is absurd, agriculture was invented 10 thousand years ago, what do you think Homo Sapiens ate for the previous 1990 thousand years of its existence?
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  We were a hunter/gatherer society for a reason. Meat/fat is incredibly nutrient and calorically rich, which gave us the ability to grow our brains out and shrink our stomachs. Once we discovered agriculture, we found we could more safely and sufficiently meet our caloric needs with breads, and meat became a luxury as livestock is expensive and hunting was inefficient and costly in a time that normalized daily labor in the community. Once we industrialized farming, we could once again fulfill our demands for meat.

rasengan0 3y ago

Since I don't eat meat, I had to take my B12 today, was not a burden. But, ah yes, evolution, I guess we "disconnected" from this kind of meat: https://bigthink.com/the-past/paleo-diet-cannibalism-ancient-humans/ https://bigthink.com/the-past/paleo-diet-cannibalism-ancient... Maybe the good doctors really need to reassess those evolutionary aspects and nutritional value...

sourcecodeplz 3y ago

At least eat fish if no other meats & think for yourself, stop relying on others telling you how to think. Search your feelings. Stop taking sides. Be balanced. Supplements are a scam. They don't "work" OR barely add little if anything of what they claim. Richard Feynman, famously stated, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." Scientific knowledge is always provisional and subject to revision based on new evidence and insights. Scientific theories and hypotheses are not considered absolute or infallible truths, but rather working models that provide the best explanation of the available evidence at a given time. As new evidence emerges, scientists may revise or even abandon their previous theories to account for the new observations.

MissLaeti 3y ago
Where are your sources for such a claim?
shapefrog 3y ago
Ethical vegetarians who eat fish are my favourite kind of hypocrites.

rikketikm 3y ago

Eating fortified meat or taking supplements, what's the difference? People in current times are mostly able to live of a plant-based diet. There's plenty of alternatives (which are also fortified with e.g. B12) that are as tasty as cheap processed meats most people buy. Most people just WANT to remain naïve about the fact that they're paying other people to kill an animal that is as smart as the one they call "companions".

pwrrr 3y ago
Synthetic vitamins aren't that good apparantly
- rikketikm 3y ago
  That's the point, your meat is fortified, it doesn't make a difference. There's plenty of meat eaters living with a B12 deficiency too.
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
>Most people just WANT to remain naïve No, most people don’t care. Huge difference. You are not somehow more knowing and worldly than the average person, in fact realistically you are average.
- rikketikm 3y ago
  You're right.

ranguna 3y ago

I know people that follow the Mediterranean diet who are perfectly healthy and those who are not. I know people who follow the vegan diet who are perfectly healthy and those who are not. It seems studies around diets like to spin the wheel and decide to make a paper based on where the wheel lands in one of those 4 options.

amriksohata 3y ago

Gamechangers is an interesting documentary that presents evidence that vegetarianism may have predated meat eating.