
Meat based diets made us smarter - barmstrong
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128849908
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dejb
This title appears to be knowingly misleading. Towards the end it actually
goes on to say 'And cooking is what he thinks really changed our modern body'.
In fact it could just have easily been cooked starchy foods that had the
biggest impact in supplying more calories. Either way it was the additional
supply of calories that made the difference - not some magical ingredient of
meat. I guess the diet Taliban are a ready audience for a journalist without
any actual original research to report on.

~~~
briancooley
It looks to me like the author was building a point about evolutionary
bootstrapping of brain growth by eating meat ("but eating meat apparently made
our ancestors smarter - smart enough to make better tools, which in turn led
to other changes, says Aiello"). Brain growth was later accelerated when early
humans gained the intelligence to cook.

From what I understand about brain development from my child's pediatrician,
dietary fat is important. I don't think the calorie argument is airtight.
There's more to the story than is presented here.

Anyway, the author opens with information from one source who seemed to focus
on meat and later includes information from another source focusing on
cooking. An editor probably read two paragraphs and wrote the headline.
Nothing to get bent about.

~~~
dejb
> It looks to me like the author was building a point about evolutionary
> bootstrapping of brain growth by eating meat

He actually spoke to 2 separate anthropologists who had different views about
our evolutionary diet and he chose to weave them into his own narrative. The
second anthropologist, Richard Wrangham wrote the book "Catching Fire: How
Cooking Made Us Human" and as you can see below he strongly contradicts the
notion that we ate much raw meat

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/books/27garn.html?_r=1&...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/books/27garn.html?_r=1&ref=books)

Instead of writing about the differing opinions the author choses to strongly
favor one view hide the fact that other is even in disagreement.

> Nothing to get bent about.

I think that deliberate twisting the of truth is something to legitimately get
'bent' about. The sad thing is the more than 50% of the people who see this
will come away thinking they are basically saying 'meat makes you smarter'
when neither of the views presented suggest anything of the sort.

~~~
chc
The latter anthropologist is actually a vegetarian, so I very much doubt he
believes that "meat makes you smarter." That was the part that made me really
notice what the author was doing — when he smugly notes that his his source
has to _settle_ for a vegetarian meal.

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sprout
Large-scale agriculture and cooking made us even smarter. A good pot of rice
and beans will net you even more energy with less work than meat. It's also
less likely to spoil and give you any number of diseases.

~~~
gahahaha
Have a look at "The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race" by Jared
Diamond
[http://www.environnement.ens.fr/perso/claessen/agriculture/m...](http://www.environnement.ens.fr/perso/claessen/agriculture/mistake_jared_diamond.pdf)

Agriculture was (is?) a disaster for our health.

Edit: I noticed that you spoke about increased energy intake and brain size,
not just health.

~~~
slowpoison
Thanks for sharing that. What strikes me is that even given all that Jared
argues, it's somewhat preposterous to call agriculture the worst mistake in
the history of the human race.

Agriculture paved the road the specialization, and hence the progress,
diversity, safety and richness we see in our lives today. We can argue over
whether these are virtues or not, but we can't turn our heads from the
Darwinian view of life. Living as a nomad, with everybody toiling just to feed
the mouths doesn't scale. And, Natural Selection says any group that is able
to specialize even a little bit gains strategic advantages over non-
specialized groups. No wonder hunters and gatherers were driven to extinction.

Is Jared kidding us when he says that social echelons are bad? I guess, he
thinks our hunter-gatherer ancestors treated everybody equally and with
respect. I guess 30 seconds in front of Discovery Channel would tell him how
apes live - alpha males "ruling" over females, and killing other males over
food and right to reproduce. I'm quite amazed at his ability to scorn at
social echelons and other malices brought upon us by agriculture while giving
a silent nod to killing for food in the same breath!

------
camiller
Another theory:

"How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf?" \- Larry Niven
(The Ringworld Engineers)

------
oscardelben
Organic meat may be good in small doses. However most of the meat today is not
the same as it was centuries ago. The book "The China Study" does a good job
at explaining the diseases caused by meat.

~~~
lionhearted
I don't eat much meat - I don't eat beef or pork at all, I eat some fish and
chicken. I think too much meat is hard on your digestive tract, and the high
caloric density with relatively low micronutrients makes it a bad call for me.
Chicken, fish, yes. Beef, pork, other mammals, no.

BUT, the China Study book is very questionable. There's a very thorough
rebuttal here:

[http://www.amazon.com/review/R2JXW2AQARAXZL/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pe...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R2JXW2AQARAXZL/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm)

It's a very good rebuttal. I agree with a low-ish meat diet, but the China
Study book (as opposed to the actual study) is riddled with errors and bad
science.

~~~
oscardelben
I don't want to be right yesterday, so thanks for that link. I agree that the
book contains lots of promotion, but it still helped me a lot in understanding
the role that nutrition has in our lives. My take home from that book is that
eating a lot of processed foods and meat is harmful, and it's better to eat
whole foods instead, mostly plants.

Edit: I'm not a vegetarian by the way.

~~~
rubashov
> eating a lot of ... meat is harmful

As one of the links explains, the data shows almost the opposite. More meat
was weakly protective.

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bilban
Perhaps the cooking is key, as stated in this article:
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/08/990810064914.htm)

Digesting meat is a lengthy process, which I'd have thought would still tire
us.

I thought it was pretty conclusive that our digestive systems weren't suited
for meat, and that's why there is so much colon cancer.

The raw foodies suggest that cooked food, triggers an immune reaction. Though
you'd have thought we might have gotten used to it by now.

You'd have thought the powers that be would have figured out optimal human
nutrition by now!

~~~
donw
I think that's it's pretty obvious that our digestive systems are suited for
meat, since we're completely incapable of digesting most plant matter.

Humans are incapable of metabolizing most of the foliage out there, whether or
not we cook it, whereas we can draw nutrition easily from fruit, nuts, and
even raw meat.

Our dentition patters are further evidence; we're dentally equipped as
omnivores, but our dentition patters learn more towards carnivore than they do
herbivore.

~~~
limist
While we can eat and digest meat, that fact doesn't address the larger
question of what is optimal for us to eat.

Our canine teeth are quite pathetic compared to true carnivores: 4, not very
big. Compared to all our molars, side-to-side jaw motion for grinding veggies,
etc. Also, compare teeth patterns of our primate relatives with us, and their
diets - gorillas and chimps have much larger canine teeth, but their diets are
mostly vegetarian.

Also, if we're meant to eat a lot of meat, why are our digestive tracts
nothing like carnivores'? Compare length, acidity, and time to digest.

Finally, thousands of people die every year from choking on food. I don't
think they're mostly choking on berries, leaves, or rice.

~~~
shasta
> Our canine teeth are quite pathetic compared to true carnivores: 4, not very
> big

You know that people can use tools, right?

~~~
run4yourlives
Are you suggesting that we've been using tools so long that our teeth have
evolved to account for this adaptation?

In other words, are you suggesting that there was a human at one time that had
a more canine like mouth?

~~~
shasta
No, I'm saying that big canines are useful for killing things, not eating
meat. People don't kill the way a tiger does, and probably never have. I don't
see how it follows that people weren't designed to eat meat.

~~~
run4yourlives
Is there an example of an animal you have that supports the assertion that it
is hunting habit that determine the style of teeth and not diet?

I'm curious because I always thought diet was the driver in mouth design,
while hunting was more a factor in eye placement.

~~~
shasta
Most teeth are for chewing or incising food, and thus I'd expect most teeth
styles to be designed for diet. Canines aren't used for eating - they're used
for killing. So I'd be surprised to learn that they evolved for diet only. I'm
too lazy to do the research, but I'd be happy to be learn I'm wrong. A quick
search turned up a somewhat relevant article about large canines in primates
(not carnivorous):

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080626145058.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080626145058.htm)

It discusses whether they evolved the large canines for fighting or to impress
females, but either way it wasn't related to diet.

~~~
run4yourlives
Actually, if you read further into the article it seems to suggest that, yes,
in fact there was a time when hominids had large canines, and we evolved into
our current tooth structure.

Interesting link.

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jshen
What is this person suggesting?

I'm assuming that the size of a person's brain is based on two things. First,
their genes. Second, the environment including diet.

If the researcher is suggesting that diet increases brain size, well that
should be easy to measure on living people and will give a fairly definitive
answer.

If the researcher is suggesting that eating meat changed our genes, well that
needs to be explained.

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wturner
The older I get the more I realize our biology has an agenda of its own. I
wonder if people who smoke cigarettes are really unconsciously building up
their immune systems for their great great great grand children for an
unforeseen future where the atmosphere gets really bad and they need the
immunity to live long lives.

These kinds of thoughts make for great sci-fi.

~~~
paradoja
You know Lamarkism was discredited long ago?

Anyway I do believe a good story could come from there.

~~~
dmm
Lamarkism might be seeing a revival. Not really! But something you might see
as similar: epigenetics. Scientists are increasingly aware that gene
expression is controlled by more than the genes themselves. Some of these
control factors may be inheritable.

~~~
tokenadult
[citation needed] It's important to be clear what people are talking about
when they mention epigenetics. What examples did you have in mind?

~~~
rubashov
He gave you a citation. search on epigenetics. It's seen a lot of headlines in
the last couple years.

~~~
tokenadult
Where do we see a specific citation in the thread below my question or nearby?
A lot of different phenomena have been labeled "epigenetic" in the last few
years, without great consistency. I have quite a large number of reference
works on genetics at hand in my office, and I was asking specifically which
study the HN participant to whom I was replying had in mind.

