Homo Carnivorus

[Griffin NoName]

This paper appears to prove that low fat diet causes heart attacks. Also cliams that we lost 8% of our brain size due to modern diet. All very odd and rather unsubstantiated but quite a jolly read because it has pretty pictures.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

The author clearly likes his meats although I would think that there may be a point about too many carbs in our current diet.
---
I would love to know where does he come with the stats for smaller vegan brains, I'm inclined to agree on purely anecdotal evidence though... 

[Aggie]

IMHO, it takes a lot more brains to gather and prepare plant food, and a lot more balls to hunt big game.  

(note: I haven't read the paper that Griffin linked to)

There have been some studies that suggest that vegetarian moms have more daughters, which would make sense in the context of a hunter/gatherer society where the men were such poor hunters that women were providing 100% of the sustenance (it's been said that in many settings they usually were the primary providers of calories anyways, with meat being welcome but not a reliable foodsource).

That being said, language may be more important in planning hunts than teaching between 'eat' and 'don't eat', so the bulky bits of the brain that are largely maladaptive in humans (with respect to getting born in the first place, and not drowning in toilets when toddlers) may not need to be as massive.

As for vegans, IMHO they are well-intentioned but largely fundamentalist vegetarians more interested in the ideology of not harming animals than actual health practices (for some people, it's the healthiest lifestyle possible, but that's by no means universal). I suspect a larger correlation between brain deficiencies and ideological fundamentalism, independent of the 'vegan' part, personally. 

I subscribe more to the notion that it was cooking that allowed us get our big brains in the first place.

[Swatopluk]

There are certain nutrients difficult to get from a pure plant diet. And I think there is a consnet among scientists that in the transition from ape to man meat consumption played a significant role, esp. in the development of a larger brain. A classic feeback loop. The high energy content of meat allowed to maintain such a lavish consumer as the advanced brain and the improved brain increased the chance to acquire meat. Until recently the theory was very popular that the Neanderthals relied too much on the availability of meat (the SUVs among humans) and were less able to run on a meat-reduced diet than our own forebears. There was just one bottle-neck too many for them that our ancestors managed to squeeze through (barely) but they were not. In the long term the human organism began to rely on at least a minimum amount of animal products and dropped/shed the metabloc processes to produce certain essential compounds (e.g. vitamn D). Since humans are omnivores their organism is relatively flexible, i.e. humans can survive on a non-optimum diet but usually at a cost. There is also often a balance where compounds are good for some processes but bad for others, so increasing their consumption will maybe lower risk A but increase risk B.

[Swatopluk]

There is that old bumper sticker: I am a vegetarian not because I love animals but because I hate plants

[Aggie]

I like to ask vegetarians if they've ever heard a carrot scream as it was ripped from the ground...  baby carrots are worse, it's a high-pitched piercing shriek.

I shall not bait the vegans... I shall not bait the vegans... I shall not bait the vegans...  Oh, but it's so fun to see if you can badger them about plants suffering until they turn fruitarian!

I've wanted to make a bumper sticker that says Cooking Vegan Isn't Easy - But They're So Tender!  


Those recoiling in horror should be aware that I swing both ways, and am vegetarian-sympathetic.  I love to eat veggie, but I start losing weight and feeling dreadful if I keep it up for more than a month or so at a time.  Even with meat in my diet, I constantly battle for healthy calories. I disagree strongly with factory-farm production of meat, and will probably take up hunting again as a more ethical and honest form of meat consumption, at least until I can start raising my own livestock.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

They're certainly grass fed... 
----
This is one of the subjects that have a lot of absolute statements coming from less than knowledgeable people, when in reality the trick is that we are omnivorous, adaptable and that many of the diseases that are claimed by the authors are usually the ones that kill after 40 (when our warranty has clearly expired...).
----
I wonder if they go back to some sort of misunderstood hunter gatherer diet (nuts, berries, eggs, the occasional meats) expecting to live longer, when our ancestor at that point rarely survived after 40.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

With regards to the veggy diet?

I cannot read about that, without thinking about one of the (many) dodges creationists use to try to "explain" the deficiencies in their bible stories (if taken literally, instead of a cultural lesson-story).

One such, was that prior to The Fall, all animals were vegetarians... even those wily lions.... no, seriously, they make this silly claim.

Still others claim every animal was a vegetarian until after The Flood-- and being vegetarian was how Noah was able to feed them all inside the ark.... (seriously-- these people do not understand that vegetarian animals need almost 10 times the input of meat-eaters, and have 10 times the output to go with... what did Noah do with all the animal "exhaust" anyway?)

And anytime I read about creationist's claims like this?  I laugh and I laugh and I laugh...until I remember that these people ..... also vote.

[Griffin NoName]

... what did Noah do with all the animal "exhaust" anyway?
.......

In the absence of a fundamentalist creationist to ask, I should think he had the foresight to build toilets  

[pieces o nine]

... what did Noah do with all the animal "exhaust" anyway?
.......

In the absence of a fundamentalist creationist to ask, I should think he had the foresight to build toilets  

As in all matters of perplexment, a ready solution can be found if we but turn to the WORD...

And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.

... here we see divine mercy, foresight, and intervention in putting digestion 'on hold' until such time as the waters receded, since the 'sinful trade of plumbing' had not yet been invented.

[Griffin NoName]

Well, they probably all got scurvy.

[Swatopluk]

Well, they probably all got scurvy.

That usually takes more than 40 days.
But a lot of seasickness is to be expected (a problem for horses that by their very nature cannot vomit).
And the ark must have gone up like an elevator more than 200m per day (unless the Himalayas were constructed only afterwards.
But maybe the flood was not actually a global rise of the water level by 9000m but a wandering depression the oceans rushed in giving the impression that everything was under water. Arizona/Colorado came last and when the Lord lifted His hand from the ground all the water had to go back to its original place in one go creating the Grand Canyon. It is indeed a creationist belief that the Grand Canyon came into being when the flood subsided in a few or even a single day(s). Leonardo da Vinci could have told them otherwise already btw.
We still lack a biblically based solution about how the animals got back to Australia though. But maybe the continental drift also took place only after the flood.
1 And the Lord spake to the animals to each in its tongue. 2 Each of you is to step on the tectonic plate I assign you 3 and I will push it to were it belongs 4 cursed be the stragglers that do not step on their assigned plate in time 5 I will purge them from this Earth and bury their bones deep in its bowels 6 and people that will dig them up will see and say how powerful and terrible The Lord your God is that he slew the stragglers after the flood. 7 but those animals that got sick on the ark and vomited and shat mountains of manure I will make them the prey of those that stayed firm and clean. 8 I will set the lion to eat the lamb and the vulture to clean up the mess afterwards. 9 For The Lord your God is a tidy and fussy god who will not let go unpunished any disorder for it displeases him greatly. 10 So The Lord spake and so he did then, does now, and will do until the End of Times when he will rapture the tidy and ravish the untidy.

[Aggie]

I wonder if they go back to some sort of misunderstood hunter gatherer diet (nuts, berries, eggs, the occasional meats) expecting to live longer, when our ancestor at that point rarely survived after 40.

Yes, the Paleolithic Diet is a real thing...  people are following it.  

Leonardo da Vinci could have told them otherwise already btw.

Even (St.) Augustine of Hippo knew that trying to pit a literal interpretation against science would make you look like an ass... 1600 years ago. 

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

    — De Genesi ad literam 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [408]

(iow, if science makes it obvious that a passage in the bible was written according to the knowledge at the time and is not objectively correct, STFU before you become a laughing-stock.  Bolding is mine)

Since the protestant reformation admonished Christians to look to Scripture only, and not retain and build on the writings and thoughts of previous generations, I doubt any of today's creationists know who the hell Augustine is anyways...

[Griffin NoName]

I wonder if they go back to some sort of misunderstood hunter gatherer diet (nuts, berries, eggs, the occasional meats) expecting to live longer, when our ancestor at that point rarely survived after 40.

Yes, the Paleolithic Diet is a real thing...  people are following it.  

They really are. The original link in the first post of this topic turned up in one of my (health) (doctor) specialists websites - she is recommending it to her patients. 

[pieces o nine]

I wonder if they go back to some sort of misunderstood hunter gatherer diet (nuts, berries, eggs, the occasional meats) expecting to live longer, when our ancestor at that point rarely survived after 40.

Yes, the Paleolithic Diet is a real thing...  people are following it.  

They really are. The original link in the first post of this topic turned up in one of my (health) (doctor) specialists websites - she is recommending it to her patients. 

Yeah, V follows it religiously/sporadically (in between the others which have caught her eye). I like to think we've moved on *just* as bit since then...