6 ms·

Yeah not sure I understand the entire idea behind correctly. To stick with other primates for now. Gorilla's have an obscene amount of muscles; adults need 800

Yeah not sure I understand the entire idea behind correctly. To stick with other primates for now. Gorilla's have an obscene amount of muscles; adults need 8000 calories per day, compared to 2000-3000 calories for an adult human. Somewhere, even though they eat low bioavailable food, even though they had to eat all day the heave muscle guys & girls had better chances of survival. Why do we think the brain's need are more special then a feature like muscles? Am I missing something here? There is a decent amount of unfermented and uncooked food with lots of nutritional value a smarter brain can find, mainly meats (fatty parts especially) & nuts (if you are smart enough to open them), that would relatively on parr with the Gorilla way. I'm sure as soon as tools, fire etc, became part of human culture it became even easier for those with more intelligence to became favorable. But that also needed to be in line with the development of more complicated social structures, either genetically or culturally.

toxik 3y ago
Generally, the great apes are better adapted to plant diets, humans are better adapted for eating meat. Gorillas eat leaves and pith, and A LOT of it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964658/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964658/
- berkes 3y ago
  Yes. But the parent commentor asked "why". As in: why can a gorilla sustain it's immense needs to build muscles by eating a lot, but humans cannot do this to build a large brain? To ask that question differently: why would humans need to change to meat/fermentation/cooking in order to grow brains, if they could "just" eat more, as other primates do?
  - Tor3 3y ago
    Humans (since Erectus) _can't_ eat more. We don't have a big enough ingestion system for that. Our guts are tiny compared to other great apes. We're completely unable to survive on what chimpanzees eat, not to mention gorillas. The fire/cooked food hypothesis (and now this speculative one about fermented food) is that it made it possible to greatly reduce the guts, as well as chewing muscles. More calories and better nutrients (both cooking and fermentation greatly improves the nutritional value of many foods), and less need of energy for guts is what's supposed to be the driver here (and seafood has also been mentioned as a possible source of important amino acids which is necessary for brain development)
    - AlecSchueler 3y ago
      Sounds like "standing up" was the real pivotal moment.
    - wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
      but we can, you can perfectly fine live on raw meat (pork back fat) nuts etc. And Guts also shrank because they could. It sounds to me like this part mostly came after we learned to cook, then the body didn't need to waste energy on large complex guts. Hugely complicated brains such as Elephants & Whales do just fine on raw food diets.
      - Tor3 3y ago
        Erectus are about 2 million years old, and they already had "our" body shape.. i.e. small guts. The question has always been - did they already know how to cook? It's somewhat early for fire control. But it is one of the arguments for the idea that fire/cooking came much earlier than we have physical evidence for. This study/idea about fermented food is exactly about this - if there wasn't fire that early, could it have been fermentation?
        wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
        Some of it makes sense. The question why & when humans gut could start to shrink. It seems more the other way around in my view, brain development helped develop cooking & other preparation methods and in turn to the need for less complicated guts.
    - berkes 3y ago
      > Humans (since Erectus) _can't_ eat more Again, the question is not if they can (they can't) but WHY. Or, differently, what is the cause, and what the effect.
      - kjkjadksj 3y ago
        The cause is selective pressure and the effect is evolutionary change.
  - spacecadet 3y ago
    Spoken like you expect an answer when this is just incremental understanding. This is not a video game where we discover some tech tree humans followed and can then replicate that in say apes. Maybe Im reading too much into this? by seems like a-lot of screaming for why.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
More probably the idea behind is some dill preserves company donated for the research.
- spacecadet 3y ago
  Ah yes big pickle mucking with research...

toxik 3y ago

Generally, the great apes are better adapted to plant diets, humans are better adapted for eating meat. Gorillas eat leaves and pith, and A LOT of it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964658/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964658/

berkes 3y ago
Yes. But the parent commentor asked "why". As in: why can a gorilla sustain it's immense needs to build muscles by eating a lot, but humans cannot do this to build a large brain? To ask that question differently: why would humans need to change to meat/fermentation/cooking in order to grow brains, if they could "just" eat more, as other primates do?
- Tor3 3y ago
  Humans (since Erectus) _can't_ eat more. We don't have a big enough ingestion system for that. Our guts are tiny compared to other great apes. We're completely unable to survive on what chimpanzees eat, not to mention gorillas. The fire/cooked food hypothesis (and now this speculative one about fermented food) is that it made it possible to greatly reduce the guts, as well as chewing muscles. More calories and better nutrients (both cooking and fermentation greatly improves the nutritional value of many foods), and less need of energy for guts is what's supposed to be the driver here (and seafood has also been mentioned as a possible source of important amino acids which is necessary for brain development)
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    Sounds like "standing up" was the real pivotal moment.
  - wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
    but we can, you can perfectly fine live on raw meat (pork back fat) nuts etc. And Guts also shrank because they could. It sounds to me like this part mostly came after we learned to cook, then the body didn't need to waste energy on large complex guts. Hugely complicated brains such as Elephants & Whales do just fine on raw food diets.
    - Tor3 3y ago
      Erectus are about 2 million years old, and they already had "our" body shape.. i.e. small guts. The question has always been - did they already know how to cook? It's somewhat early for fire control. But it is one of the arguments for the idea that fire/cooking came much earlier than we have physical evidence for. This study/idea about fermented food is exactly about this - if there wasn't fire that early, could it have been fermentation?
      - wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
        Some of it makes sense. The question why & when humans gut could start to shrink. It seems more the other way around in my view, brain development helped develop cooking & other preparation methods and in turn to the need for less complicated guts.
  - berkes 3y ago
    > Humans (since Erectus) _can't_ eat more Again, the question is not if they can (they can't) but WHY. Or, differently, what is the cause, and what the effect.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      The cause is selective pressure and the effect is evolutionary change.
- spacecadet 3y ago
  Spoken like you expect an answer when this is just incremental understanding. This is not a video game where we discover some tech tree humans followed and can then replicate that in say apes. Maybe Im reading too much into this? by seems like a-lot of screaming for why.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

More probably the idea behind is some dill preserves company donated for the research.

spacecadet 3y ago
Ah yes big pickle mucking with research...