https://gregladen.com/blog/2007/12/18/cooking-and-human-evolution/ Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:59:31 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 https://gregladen.com/blog/2007/12/18/cooking-and-human-evolution/#comment-2012 Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:59:31 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2007/12/18/cooking-and-human-evolution/#comment-2012 Yes, a very good paper, and even better for recognising that carbohydrate-rich plant foods could contribute much more to usable energy than meat. (100gm of beef actually has nearly 3 times as much energy as 100gm of yam, but that is solely due to its fat content – 100gm of antelope has exactly the same calories as yam – it’s not likely that early humans hunted prime beefsteak). Yams are also more easy to obtain than antelopes.The orthodox, widely held, and now lazily-maintained theory that male hunting/meat eating led to human brain development simply doesn’t accord with basic dietary facts. The gathering part of hunting/gathering did very much more, forcing the development of cognition (searching, pattern-matching, communication of results, etc) and could be done by women and children as well as men.But another food source for early humans that has been almost completely ignored, also better than meat, in every way, are insects. Some of your Paranthropic digging-sticks seem to have been used for grubbing up termites.I wrote some articles about this a couple of years ago, at:http://www.coconutstudio.com/skull&bonesx.htmhttp://www.coconutstudio.com/Brain%20Development.htmhttp://www.coconutstudio.com/Insects.htmhttp://www.coconutstudio.com/Fat&theBrain.htmI haven’t checked these lately – I hope I wasn’t as sarcastic about your paper as I was about some of the classic studies.I am certainly not a feminist, or a vegetarian, so my stance on this aspect of human development is not ‘political’.For nutrition values, see:http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

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