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How Meat Changed Our Bodies
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» databoy a répondu le Mon 5 Sep, 2011 @ 3:49pm
databoy
Coolness: 105915
by Hillary Mayell

Meat-eating has impacted the evolution of the human body, scientists reported today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Our fondness for a juicy steak triggered a number of adaptations over countless generations. For instance, our jaws have gotten smaller, and we have an improved ability to process cholesterol and fat.

Our taste for meat has also led us into some trouble—our teeth are too big for our downsized jaws and most of us need dental work.

"It's really amazing what we know now that we didn't know 15 or 20 years ago," said Mark Teaford, a professor at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University. Teaford helped organize a panel discussion on human diet from a number of perspectives:

• How did the ability to eat meat shape the evolution of humans?
• What can we learn about early humans from tooth shape?

Carnivorous humans go back a long way. Stone tools for butchering meat, and animal bones with corresponding cut marks on them, first appear in the fossil record about 2.5 million years ago.

How Did Meat-Eating Start?

Some early humans may have started eating meat as a way to survive within their own ecological niche.

Competition from other species may be a key element of natural selection that has molded anatomy and behavior, according to Craig B. Stanford, an ecologist at the University of Southern California (USC).

Stanford has spent years visiting the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda, Africa, studying the relationship between mountain gorillas and chimpanzees.

"It's the only forest where mountain gorillas and chimps both live," he said. "We're trying to understand the ecological relationship—do they compete for food, for nesting sites?"

The key difference between chimps and gorillas ecologically is that chimps eat meat and gorillas don't. A total herbivore is able to coexist with an omnivore because they have significantly different diets.

"From there we can extrapolate back to what two species of early humans may have done vis-à-vis each other two or three million years ago," Stanford said.

Better Fat Processors

When humans switched to meat-eating, they triggered a genetic change that enabled better processing of fats, said Stanford, who has worked extensively with gerontologist Caleb Finch of USC.

"We have an obsession today with fat and cholesterol because we can go to the market and stuff ourselves with it," Stanford said. "But as a species we are relatively immune to the harmful effects of fat and cholesterol. Compared to the great apes, we can handle a diet that's high in fat and cholesterol, and the great apes cannot.

"Even though we have all these problems in terms of heart disease as we get older, if you give a gorilla a diet that a meat-loving man might eat in Western society, that gorilla will die when it's in its twenties; a normal life span might be 50. They just can't handle that kind of diet."

Diet and Teeth

Tool-use no doubt helped early humans in butchering their dinners. But there is evidence that the advance to cooking and using knives and forks is leading to crooked teeth and facial dwarfing in humans.

Today it's relatively rare for someone to have perfectly straight teeth (without having been to the orthodontist). Our wisdom teeth don't have room to fit in the jaw and sometimes don't form at all, and the propensity to develop gum disease is on the increase.

"Virtually any mammalian jaw in the wild that you look at will be a perfect occlusion—a very nice Hollywood-style dentition," said Peter Lucas, the author of Dental Functional Morphology and a visiting professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "But when it comes to humans, the ideal occlusion [the way teeth fit together] is virtually never seen. It's really the only body part that regularly needs attention and surgery."

Lucas argues that the mechanical process of chewing, combined with the physical properties of foods in the diet, will drive tooth, jaw, and body size, particularly in human evolution.

Essentially, by cooking our food, thereby making it softer, we no longer need teeth big enough to chow down on really tough particles. By using knives and forks to cut food into smaller pieces, we no longer need a large enough jaw to cram in big hunks of food.

"We're evolving to eat mush," said Bernard Wood, a paleoanthropologist at George Washington University.

[ news.nationalgeographic.com ]
I'm feeling low freq right now..
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Screwhead a répondu le Mon 5 Sep, 2011 @ 7:40pm
screwhead
Coolness: 685390
This just tackles the physical aspect of things, which is one of the two major reasons why people eating a vegan/vegetarian diet are absolutely fucking stupid.

We've not just physically evolved to process meat better, but our brains have evolved to take energy from meat better. Vegetables, fruits, grains, etc., can all provide us with some energy, but not the same kind of energy that our brain requires to be at optimal performance. For our brains to work properly, they require creatine, which is 100% available ONLY from animal sources.

If you think of the brain like you would a car engine, eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is like filling your car up with rubbing alcohol, whereas eating meat is like putting in rocket-fuel.

Our gut has also changed and evolved and now takes MUCH more energy to process raw fruits and vegetables, so if you're on a veggie diet, your gut takes even more energy away from your brain to process the food you've eaten.

There are more than a few dozen studies that show that creatine intake (through meat or supplements) increases people's cognitive skills, helps memory, speeds up information processing, etc.. People who don't intake creatine in any way are observably stupider and slower than those that do, and taking creatine supplements or eating meat makes them have a very high and measurable increase in everything from problem solving to math to memory.

We still need fruits and veggies for certain vitamins and minerals, but we need just as much of a balance of eating meat to keep our bodies and minds in peak condition. Anything else is just taking a step backwards on the evolutionary ladder.
I'm feeling like a drama magnet right now..
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Trey a répondu le Mon 5 Sep, 2011 @ 10:49pm
trey
Coolness: 102565
Meat from free roaming animal is always better. When our ancestor hunted for their food, the animals had muscle lean body and the good fat. Meat from farming factory is not the best.

Meat is good for you, but make sure you pick the best cut. I've cut down on meat consumption but what meat I eat tends to be the healthy good thing (well I try too... expensive!! $$$). I want to try all of these; bison, red deer, wild boar, wapiti, ostrich, etc..

Great, now I am hungry.
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Screwhead a répondu le Mon 5 Sep, 2011 @ 11:03pm
screwhead
Coolness: 685390
Boar is fucking awesome! There was a place in Val David that made an awesome boar stew, but now they changed theme/owners

Personally one of my favorites is goat, but nicely curried in a roti..

Horse gets the top points though; lots of good iron, no bad fat or cholesterol.. it's the healthiest meat you can get, and damn tasty!
I'm feeling like a drama magnet right now..
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Trey a répondu le Mon 5 Sep, 2011 @ 11:18pm
trey
Coolness: 102565
Isn't horse meat super salty though? When I taste it, it was.. ofc I was young and didn't have refine taste buds.
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» DCRn a répondu le Tue 6 Sep, 2011 @ 10:46am
dcrn
Coolness: 158035
Meat. Hmmmmmm. Had camel last weekend. Delicous.
I'm feeling nerdy right now..
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» databoy a répondu le Sun 25 Sep, 2011 @ 11:48am
databoy
Coolness: 105915
Though I believe meat to be a necessary part of of human life and evolution. I do also think we eat way more than we need to be at the top of our potential. Too much meat bogs down your digestive system and brings down your energy levels. Not to mention the energy it takes to produce meat at such large scales puts our ecosystem at risk.
I'm feeling bump right now..
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Screwhead a répondu le Sun 25 Sep, 2011 @ 12:07pm
screwhead
Coolness: 685390
It's actually the other way around; our digestive system is better suited to digest meat than it is to digest fruits and veggies.. We can't do away with them completely though, because just as there's no creatine in fruits and veggies, there's a lot of necessary vitamins that aren't found in meat.. But to use the engine analogy; meat is the gas our body needs, but fruits and veggies are the oil.. you don't get an oil change every two days, but you DO need to gas up fairly often.. The engine will break down without the oil to keep things running smoothly, but if you take away the fuel source (or try to power your car with oil instead of gas) you're not going to be driving anywhere..

Meat that 'drains' your energy is usually because it's not cooked in a healthy way (too much salt/spices, fried, etc).. a plain steak with nothing extra on it won't have that effect.. but you also need to balance everything out.. don't eat a 24oz steak and be surprised you can't move; you're overloading your body so it needs time to recover.

Everything in it's reasonable portions.. meat portions are usually smaller than veggie portions because meat has creatine, which is the energy your brain needs for thought processing, and a small amount of meat is like a super-charge.
I'm feeling like a drama magnet right now..
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» databoy a répondu le Sun 25 Sep, 2011 @ 12:20pm
databoy
Coolness: 105915
Originally Posted By SCREWHEAD

It's actually the other way around; our digestive system is better suited to digest meat than it is to digest fruits and veggies..


Do you have a source for that?

Seeing as creatine supplements are quite available. The need for creatine hardly justifies the consumption of meat
Mise À Jour » databoy a écrit sur Sun 25 Sep, 2011 @ 12:55pm
If humans where truly carnivorous, would they not have a proportionally shorter digestive tract, like dogs and cats?
I'm feeling bump right now..
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» Trey a répondu le Tue 11 Oct, 2011 @ 12:06am
trey
Coolness: 102565
Humans have been carnivore for far longer. Agriculture is a (relatively) recent phenomenon.

Anyhow I tried it for 1 week, being vegetarian. I had major headaches by the end of the week. Didn't work for me. I burned at least 400 cals per day, a lot more (x2-x3) in the summer. I would need meat at least once every 3 days.
Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» databoy a répondu le Tue 11 Oct, 2011 @ 2:05am
databoy
Coolness: 105915
Many species live as omnivores, grainivores or vegetarian without knowing the first thing about agriculture.

Seeing as humans don't really have any natural attributes towards hunting such as fangs and claws or great speed or keen eyesight, but rather agile fingers and a nimble mind, Gathering would seem to be more natural than hunting.
I'm feeling bump right now..
How Meat Changed Our Bodies
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