Homo Erectus - The Galloping Gourmet

[Minimalist]

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/10089373/homo-erectus-was-master-of-the-kitchen/

The first ancestor of modern humans to have mastered the art of cooking was likely homo erectus, which evolved around 1.9 million years ago, according to a US study.

The ability to cook and process food allowed homo erectus, the Neanderthals and homo sapiens to make huge evolutionary leaps that differentiated them from chimpanzees and other primates, researchers at Harvard University said on Monday.

Based on an analysis of DNA, molar size and body mass among non-human primates, modern humans, and 14 extinct hominids, the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences support previous studies that suggested homo erectus may have known how to cook.

Preparing food with tools and fire meant more calories could be consumed and less time needed to be spent foraging and eating. Molar sizes shrunk while body mass increased.

And he had boats, too!

[kbs2244]

Rumor has it that there are plenty of good mussels for the taking on Crete.

[Digit]

I think I can hear RS in the distance Min, screaming!
The evidence is there, but there is no mention of any gentic change, which must have ocurred as we can no longer survive on a diet of uncooked food, our digestive tract is too short.

Roy.

[kbs2244]

You just chew it a lot.

[Digit]

Not that simple kb, cooking always conjures images of roast Dinosaur, but cooking also involves vegetable materials.
Cooking releases enzymes in meat that makes it more easily digested, it tenderises the meat making it easier to chew, and of course it improves the flavour.
Much the same applies to vegetable matter.
Without the benefit of cooking many materials pass through the human digestive tract before all the calorific value is absorbed, therefore a larger quantity must be consumed. This is especially true of vegetable matter.
Take a look at a sitting Gorilla, it looks the very personification of Buddha, a paunch!
Gorillas are vegetarians and spend much of their day eating, their paunch is due to their having a digestive tract adapted to a vegetarian, raw diet.
If you tried it you would probably starve to death!
Many of the reconstructed skeletons of early homids, and their precursors, show a rib cage wider at the lower end than the upper, a sure sign of a large digestive tract.
We have changed, either as a result of cooking, or as the need.
Forget the wheel, cooking was man's greatest step forward.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

I think I can hear RS in the distance Min, screaming!

In other words, "situation normal," eh Dig?

[Digit]

Yeah!

Roy.

[dannan14]

Digit, the raw food movement has many thousands of adherents. It is possible to be healthy eating all or nearly all raw foods. Like many other nutritional philosophies, it simply takes more change than most people are willing to do.

[Digit]

Certainly in the modern age that may work if you are prepared to spend enough time eating.
You only have to look at the OP to see that vegetarian Hominids spend 10 times as much time eating as we do.
I would venture to suggest that those you speak of do not live entirely on such uncooked food as Horse or Deer flesh, also in the northern hemisphere such a diet would require imported food stuffs to supplement the lack of vegetable matter in winter. Also such enthusiasts would have a greater choice than our ancestors
A modern human has the potential to meet their grand children, and even great grand children, a fact that we are almost unique in as a species. My 4 yr old grandson spends much of his time with me and my wife, as we are now 'non-productive' we have time for him. It was probably always so. Also such child minding leaves the parents to forage and hunt, thus there would be an advantage to an older generation.
A modern human would probably lose all their teeth by their forties on the type of uncooked food available in temperate regions...... and how long could they survive without teeth on uncooked food?
I watched a TV trial on this subject some time ago, it had to be curtailed as the subjects simple could not survive on that regime. A doctor and other such were available and it was found with many food stuffs that would have been available that more enegy was expended in digesting the same than was released before being voided. That way leads to starvation.
Modern humans have a narrow rib cage, all other vegatarian hominids have a wide basal structure to make room for the larger gut.

You may wish to read this and similar....

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source ... 0Q&cad=rja

this is even more telling....

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source ... iQ&cad=rja

and again....

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source ... 2Q&cad=rja

Roy.

[Minimalist]

I have a sister-in-law who is a vegan. She's 10 years younger than my wife and has numerous skeletal and muscular disorders. Doctors have told her that she needs protein but she reads her vegan propaganda and sucks down another friggin' carrot.

Other than being a food fanatic she's quite a nice person.

You cannot simply undo 2 million years of evolution by reading a book.

[Digit]

Veganism is the personal practice of eliminating the use of non-human animal products. Ethical vegans reject the commodity status of animals and the use of animal products for any purpose, while dietary vegans or strict vegetarians eliminate them from their diet only.[1] Another form, environmental veganism, rejects the use of animal products on the premise that the industrial practice is environmentally damaging and unsustainable.[2]

From Wiki.

Vegans are, in my experience Min, delusional. With the exception of the high light above they cannot live in a modern society.
I got called all sorts of names recently on an eviromental forum by listing a selection of animal products that are either consumed directly or used in food production.
The men were pissed off when I explained that Gelatin, for example, is used as 'finings' in the production of wine and beer, then pissed the ladies off by explaining that it is also used in lipstick and shampoo.
I wasn't exactly flavour of the week on that occasion!

Roy.

[dannan14]

Vegans who don't get enough protein or iron are simply doing it wrong. There are a great many non-animal foods high in protein. A vegan knows this, but many people just like to be trendy and don't do the research.

Digit, those articles were interesting. i've read similar stuff many times before, but the studies are obviously missing some important angles because so much anecdotal evidence flies right in their face. i know some people who only rarely have eaten cooked foods in the last several decades. By rarely, i mean maybe a handful of times per year. These folks are among the healthiest people i've ever known. i can't speak to the teeth issue, because to my knowledge, none of them have had a raw diet since birth, but i don't see the need to concentrate on abrasive foods so that may really be a non-issue too.

As for myself, i'm never going to give up carne asada tacos or bacon or tri-tip or london broil etc, but when reality and the studies collide, i have to conclude that the researchers simply have missed something crucial.

[Minimalist]

There are people who smoke two-packs a day for fifty years and never develop lung cancer, either.

I'd be reluctant to rely too much on anecdotal evidence.

[dannan14]

i understand that, but how often do we read of science finally catching up to medicine or technology from the, sometimes ancient, past? The Euro-centric view that "science" took in the 19th century dismissed nearly everything that they didn't have the means to prove. It's still going to take science centuries more to prove (and disprove) things that have been "known" since time immemorial.

i also don't rely heavily on anecdotal evidence, but sometimes, when the research sounds like it was intended to disprove rather than investigate, the anecdotal evidence is stronger. In the case of raw foods, the science has started to go well beyond that point. The info in the articles Digit linked to shows that some good work is being done in this area, but the research on the subject is still in its infancy, especially since the science of nutrition in general is still rapidly changing.

[Digit]

Vegans who don't get enough protein or iron are simply doing it wrong. There are a great many non-animal foods high in protein.

Dannan, to be perfectly honest I'm not concerned about modern day Vegans who will have a wider choice of foods than 3M yrs ago, who may have means of tenderising and pureeing etc and may also use supplements.
If it costs you more calories to digest a hardish root or bulb than you get out of it you are gonna lose weight! Fact.
Also if you maintain your view can you give an alternative to why we have a shorter gut than the great Apes?
If your vegan friends aren't spending most of they day eating then they are not following the type of diet that we must assume was eaten by hominids before they cooked.
The fact that we have no canine teeth of any size, even compared to a Chimp, suggests that either we have changed, as I suggested earlier, or we come from a very long line of vegetarians.
The body doesn't lie mate.

Roy.