
Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains - pjnewton
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/sorry-vegans-eating-meat-and-cooking-food-is-how-humans-got-their-big-brains/2012/11/26/3d4d36de-326d-11e2-bb9b-288a310849ee_story.html
======
bitops
Hopefully folks reading this article won't take it to mean that humans _still_
need to continue consuming large amounts of meat. Maybe it was necessary to
eat meat and hunt to evolve large brains, but the negative economic &
ecological impacts of eating meat are pretty well-documented by now.

I am thinking here of the "meat industrial complex" that powers a lot of large
commercial meat production, not the friendly sustainable organic farm where I
am sure we all shop.

Our brains are big enough now after generations of evolution. Time to put
those big brains to use so we can figure out how to continue the existence of
the human species. I really doubt it'll be by continuing to eat lots of cows.

~~~
graeme
This conflates at least four issues:

    
    
      1. Is is healthy to eat meat?  
      2. Is it right to eat meat?  
      3. Is it healthy to eat sustainable organic meat?  
      4. Is it right to eat sustainable organic meat?  
    

Accepting that the 'meat industrial complex' is bad doesn't automatically
imply vegetarianism/veganism.

In particular, I'm thinking of Joel Salatan's brand of sustainable agriculture
and permaculture.

~~~
icegreentea
I think every single one of those questions is missing yet another 'question'
- that is, how much meat?

From a naive min-max approaching to building your diet, it generally pops up
that -some- meat is super useful. Simply by doing that you ease all sorts of
constraints on your diet, and allows you to optimize your veggies/grains for
other stuff, instead of desperately trying to get all your iron and B12 in.
Even from an overall energy budget point of view, -some- meat is super useful.
There are large amounts of marginal land that is not really useful for large
scale cultivation, but perfectly usable as feedland for free ranging animals.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
How much, how is it produced and what kind?

farm raised alantic salmon have a feed to gain ratio of about 1.2, which is
amazing (cattle are about 5x worse)

Also, there are some serious doubts about whether veganic farming could
support current global population levels (manure is a great fertilizer!)

Of course things get more complicated in terms of efficiency when you start
thinking about dairy and fertilizer and hide production.. the thinking around
permaculture ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture> ) takes this "whole
system" approach to agriculture and would be necessary if you wanted to e.g.
create a self-sustaining colony on mars.

------
earbitscom
Also, the primary point seems to be that we need increased caloric intake to
support the larger brain's greater function. While it may have required meat
consumption at the dawn of our species, I think we can all agree that you
don't need meat now in order to have high caloric intake. I'm vegan and I
guarantee I eat a lot more calories every day than my body or brain need.

~~~
vitno
not really, you should look at the (admittedly well hidden) 2nd page of the
article.

    
    
      This supports the theory that meat fueled human brain 
      evolution because meat — from arachnids to zebras — was 
      plentiful on the African savanna, where humans evolved, and 
      is the best package of calories, proteins, fats and Vitamin 
      B12 needed for brain growth and maintenance.

~~~
IdahoEv
> on the African savanna, where humans evolved

Um... answer's right there. Indeed this _was_ the case on the African
savannah, pre-agriculture.

We're no longer living in that environment. In the 21st century it's trivial
to get sufficient calories, vitamins, and a balanced diet without eating meat.

Other points about our environment: (1) Relative to the African savannah, most
of us burn many fewer calories per day. Fat asses in front of a computer
instead of chasing down antelope, yanno. (2) We live 3x as long now, so our
health concerns are different. That high-calorie blob of fat is tasty because
it meant not freezing to death at age 16 and hence those taste buds were
strongly selected for. Today we don't have that concern, and all those fat
blobs may mean living to 60 instead of 80.

The survival needs of proto-humans on the savannah 100kya are not a very good
guide to nutrition and health in the 21st century.

------
valuegram
Obviously a sensitive subject. Nutrition "beliefs" are right up their with
religion and politics.

Science has a long ways to go before proving anything conclusively, but I can
say from my experience working with thousands of folks on their diets, I have
seen numerous vegans and vegetarians who have added meat back into their diets
have excellent results with their physical performance and body composition.

Since isolating direct causation and long term effects are very difficult, I
really appreciate these archaeological studies. I think from an intuitive
perspective, it makes sense that humans would function well consuming the
things we evolved to consume. Not saying that's the end-all, but it's a good
place to start.

------
nikatwork
There is an awful lot of dog-whistling in this article. Gorilla stupidity and
dead malnourished babies caused by not eating meat! The author tacks on "oh
but plant-based diets can be healthy now" at the end but the overall message
is deceptive and sensationalist.

This is irresponsible journalism.

------
mistercow
Have there been vegans claiming that veganism is natural, and that this is
somehow a reason to be vegan? Because that would be dumb. Veganism is an
ethical stance, after all, so I'm not sure on what basis that argument would
even rest.

Also, archaeologists who don't know about nutrition should probably not talk
about nutrition as if they did. There are plenty of non-animal sources of B12,
including soil (you know, where vegetables grow?).

~~~
Turing_Machine
When it's found in "soil", it's due to bacteria and small animals (insects,
mites) that are in the soil.

Any B12(-like) substances that are in plants (e.g., spirulina) are unlikely to
be in a form that's bioavailable to human beings.

Vegans have to take B12 supplements of some sort or eat foods that have been
fortified with B12. That's just a fact.

~~~
mistercow
>When it's found in "soil", it's due to bacteria and small animals (insects,
mites) that are in the soil.

I'm not sure what your point is.

>Any B12(-like) substances that are in plants (e.g., spirulina) are unlikely
to be in a form that's bioavailable to human beings.

Yes, this is true.

>Vegans have to take B12 supplements of some sort or eat foods that have been
fortified with B12. That's just a fact.

Modern vegans do need to take supplements, yes. The question is whether vegans
in the ancestral environment would have gotten sufficient B12 from eating
unwashed vegetables and roots. As far as I know, research is lacking on that
point, but it is plausible.

~~~
Turing_Machine
The point is that describing or implying that the B12 in "soil" is "vegan" is
utterly absurd.

As for eating enough soil to get enough B12, that's also absurd.

------
fistofjohnwayne
Sorry, vegans: Eating [loads of calories] is how humans got their big brains

------
Tsagadai
Why are we giving airtime to this sort of junk science?

Observing the present and inferring about the past without a testable
hypothesis is not proof of anything. It is storytelling. Gorillas didn't
evolve into humans, we probably have a common ancestor and if we had more
evidence on that common ancestor we could probably come up with what actually
happened. The article and the research connected to it is nothing short of
speculative fiction aimed at getting funding with a catchy headline.

------
daivd
The "sorry vegans" remark seems silly. Let me remind any meat-eater (including
myself) that some of the greatest minds in history, including Albert Einstein,
Leonardo da Vinci and possibly Isaac Newton were vegetarians.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetarians>

~~~
dfxm12
It might seem pedantic, but it is important to note that vegan and vegetarian
diets are two separate things. While it is true that all vegans are
vegetarians, not all vegetarians are vegans.

------
whyenot
> _it would have been biologically implausible for humans to evolve such a
> large brain on a raw, vegan diet_

Elephants evolved in the same environment, are vegetarians, don't cook their
food, and have the largest brains of any land animal.

~~~
stickfigure
Yet elephant brains have half the number of neurons as humans:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_ne...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons)

Perhaps the caloric requirements of a brain are driven by the number of moving
parts. The article suggested a "calories per neuron" metric.

------
brownbat
Earlier (and perhaps more impactful) research in this area:
[http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2744104?uid=3739936...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2744104?uid=3739936&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101366545563)

The tradeoff between digestion and cognition suggests that adaptations are
rarely cost neutral, and explains why random traits don't just improve
forever. (ie, why we don't all have eyes like hawks).

------
Evgeny
If only they didn't call saturated fat "heart-stopping" that would be quite a
fine article.

------
jiggy2011
Isn't this old news?

------
analog
"it wouldn’t be possible to get Vitamin B12, which is only available in animal
products."

Marmite? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmite>

~~~
dietrichepp
> vitamin B12 is not naturally found in yeast extract, but is added to Marmite
> during manufacture

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it can't be found in plants, but
it can be found in animals and it can be produced industrially.

~~~
dllthomas
And for the record, "produced industrially" means farming bacteria,
effectively (per Wikipedia) - it's not synthetic or derived from meat.

