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Comment by Mistletoe | Hacker News Reader

Are you implying humans evolved to only eat plants? Every documentary and paper on early humans I see points to otherwise, and that our large brain was directly a result of access to extra protein from hunting meat.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/04/eating-meat-l...

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It's obvious that we ate meat as early humans, but the article and theory that meat evolved our brains is just that, a theory.

There's also been theories that fire and cooking is more associated with brain development since we're able to absorb more nutrients from meat and tubers that we forged.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-fire-makes...

Hypothesis - not theory

Here's an article citing research published this year that disputes the idea that our large brain was directly a result of access to extra protein from hunting meat:

"They concluded that the evidence for increased carnivory in our ancestors is merely an effect of increased sampling of the archaeological record at certain time intervals starting around two million years ago, meaning that there is no strong relationship between eating more meat and the evolution of larger brains in our ancestors."

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/fourt...

There are as many (or more) studies indicating that human coprolites contained more plant than animal matter. It seems it would depend largely on the season, climate, location, and other factors. Some human populations had little to no reason to hunt. Others more recently would have needed to hunt due to relentless cold conditions from long winters. We are opportunistic and diverse feeders. It doesn’t seem like there’s a clear advantage to eating animals outside of calorie density and availability when plants are absent.

It seems more helpful to view meat eating simply as diversification. Our plant based diets would have supported large brains, and they still do. There’s no clear reason to believe that eating other animals enlarged our brains.

Do we know this for sure, though? I don't think we do. Sounds like self-congratulatory hogwash to me.

Creatures eat what they can. Some purely carnivorous species have been around way longer than us, and yet, the stars did not align just the right way for them.

> Do we know this for sure, though? I don't think we do.

We know for sure we have evolved to be omnivores. This can easily be determined based on e.g. our teeth and the length of our digestive system.

Well, of course. We don't even need science to determine that humans are omnivores. Just look around - not everyone eats meat.

Because meat is expensive, primarily. Especially from poorer backgrounds there is a culture of minimizing meat consumption and saving it for children just because of it's rarety.

That's the meat of the argument for me.

I grew up in eastern Europe. Yes, meat was more expensive 30 years ago. These days, thanks to endless subsidies, meat is way cheaper than quality vegetables and most nuts.

And yet, people choose not to eat it. Earth shattering, I know. Damn, some people really get pissed off when you make the "wrong" choice of not eating meat.

Meat is cheap where I live and about 10% of the population doesn’t eat it. It’s actually 13% according to surveys, but let’s say 10% to be safe.

I could also hunt or spearfish like I used to. Meat is easy to get. There’s no need for it though.

Meat is amazing if you’re starving because it contains a lot of stuff a hungry person needs. Kale is not going to do the same things for you. However, it’s unlikely anyone on here is starving. Meat has rapidly diminishing returns as you stop starving and have a more stable diet of plants. Eventually eating meat becomes harmful, but eating plants does not.

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