Shellfish (& meat); From an evolutionary point

spring · Post by **spring** » Sat 06 Jan 2007 08:07

Again I am not arguing that we eat shellfish over salmon, I just want to know about the evolutionary explanation. (I know about the high zinc in shellfish.) Was primitive man then eating a non-ideal diet then? Assuming they were eating way more shellfish than they should and not enough salmon as they should?

As for man's location, primitive man would have to have lived near water. I don't mean he had to be coastal necessarily although I think they were mostly coastal dwellers - I mean near rivers and lakes as well near the ocean.

They wouldn't have survived if they had lived in the middle of the desert or such places far from large bodies of water - they didn't have wells and pumps etc. I am talking about PRIMITIVE man.

spring · Post by **spring** » Sat 06 Jan 2007 08:14

As I said, we are not designed to chase and catch small mammals:

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/07/13697.shtml

We are mainly frugivores. We can eat some proteinaceous foods - according to our evolutionary history I think these foods include shellfish. I doubt they include small mammals. I am talking about RAW, don't forget.

Our bodies are designed quite differently to carnivores like cats, and are not suited to preying on small mammals as cats' bodies are suited for.

spring · Post by **spring** » Sat 06 Jan 2007 08:44

This is the link I am looking for.

http://www.ecologos.org/meat-eating.htm

It explains how we are not herbivores, and not carnivores but frugivores (although we can eat proteinaceous foods like seafood - I think shellfish in the main although Wai says it's deep-ocean fish like mackerel, tuna and salmon - both ocean and river food - river when spawning time).

I think Wai is right about too much shellfish (as a main source of protein) being harmful because of high zinc and other reasons, but I want to understand how this came about. How did an ideal food from the point of view of ease of obtaining, availability and easy to eat raw become less ideal than a food that primitive man would have had more difficulty harvesting?

So I am not recommending, Benzapp, I am asking WHY?

There is a difference.

Getting upset and closing off the discussion by saying, "well, eat shellfish if you want to," isn't answering the questions.

I am not saying you have to have an answer or that anyone has to have an answer, but becoming defensive is counterproductive.

So far things like fruit make sense as our main food from an evolutionary POV - we evolved in tropical places where fruit was plentiful and we are designed evolutionary-wise to be frugivores.

We seem also to be designed to be shellfish-eaters as well but apparently if primitive man was eating a lot of clams, oysters and mussels as his main seafood/proteinaceous food - he was eating suboptimally. He would better spend his time going near streams where salmon spawn or go diving in the deep sea for mackerel - but not many primitive men could have done that - lack of equipment eg. boats and being able to swim is not an innate ability of humans - many would have drowned if they had tried to go fishing in deeper waters.

RRM usually has an explanation for these sorts of questions so it is mainly posed to him and likeminded people. I am sure he doesn't mind my asking and doesn't think I am trying to push shellfish on anyone by my asking.

And even though it may sound solipsistic, I didn't mean to. I said this from the POV of most people I know and that they wouldn't want to chase small mammals and eat them raw.

If you know of cultures where their main food is raw small mammals or raw insects, then let me know.

And remember I am talking about RAW food. The link you showed me had mostly COOKED insects.

avalon · Post by **avalon** » Sat 06 Jan 2007 13:14

I second that!

And just to be clear- benzapp wrote:

this does not mean this diet is solipsism. It is not logical to state that because you personally find eating raw meat and eggs objectionable this diet is fundamentally flawed.

Ben, perhaps you wai misunderstood me. I certainly, personally eat raw meat and eggs! I eat raw buffalo, steak, liver, chicken even

and fish and oysters and nuts and more. And I certainly never said the diet was solipsisitasomething.

Oh, and thanx, solipsistic is a new word for me

Peace,
Avalon

Post by **Oscar** » Sat 06 Jan 2007 13:53

I've never mentioned COOKED animals. I'm talking about RAW. So RAW insects, and RAW animals. The link was just to illustrate people nowadays still eat insects. Although the link displayed COOKED insects, there are restaurants (in Paris for instance) where they serve RAW insects.

What you seem to forget is the time difference. It's not just 1 year ago, but 1 MILLION years ago (or more). There was no COOKING then, and how our ancestors looked at animals was probably very different than we do now. The cultures and traditions we have now don't date back that far.

In another thread we were discussing the diet of primates vs humans. From that thread:

A footnote on Chivers and Hladik [1980, 1984]: Human gut morphology

Sussman [1987] describes the analysis of the gut of 6 human cadavers using the measures defined in Chivers and Hladik [1980, 1984]. Analysis of the human gut data using the coefficient of gut differentiation (a measure of gut specialization) placed humans in the frugivore range, along the margin with the faunivore category. However, analysis of the same data using the index of gut specialization (yet another measure of gut morphological specialization) placed humans squarely in the faunivore range.

Note that the frugivore classification above came from using the coefficient of gut differentiation, which is an intermediate result in Chivers and Hladik [1980, 1984], hence presumably less desirable (from a certain analytical viewpoint) than the (faunivore) classification achieved using the end result of Chivers and Hladik [1980, 1984], i.e., the index of gut specialization. Also recall that the term frugivore does not mean or imply that a diet of nearly 100% sweet fruit (as advocated by some fruitarians) is appropriate. Recall that all frugivorous primates eat at least some quantities of animal foods, even if only insects. Thus the result that humans appeared to be frugivores by one measure and faunivores by another suggests a natural diet for humans that includes both animal foods and fruits.

The Wai Diet is not just an evolutionary diet, nor is it just a modern scientific diet, it is a combination of both. So it doesn't mean our ancestors ate olive oil daily, and neither were they eating salmon on a regular basis. I think we all agree that the stable of the diet was fruits. But we definitely ate some animal protein, and the most probable source is insects. Aside from insects it's becoming more speculative. I think small mammals, because they are present where fruit grows. I also think they would look more appetizing from the outside than shellfish.

Avalon, your article isn't actually about teeth striations, and it also handles about a different species, preceding the Homo species.

...the study of the now-extinct, ape-like species known as Paranthropus robustus...

Other results are usually from a limited number of specimen, yielding results as:

These results suggest that none of the early Homo groups specialized on very hard or tough foods...

avalon · Post by **avalon** » Sat 06 Jan 2007 15:40

Hi Oscar, my point was your "far from conlusive" comment doesn't really hold up as technology is zooming forward. I'm sorry, laser techniques, striations- I was going for the- look, we now can pretty much narrow down what type of diet might have been ingested.

The truth is all this knowledge and science is in flux to a degree.

Post by **Oscar** » Sat 06 Jan 2007 16:41

Interesting. I guess you are ahead of your time then, as you seem to know more than the scientists of today.

avalon · Post by **avalon** » Sat 06 Jan 2007 17:23

Thanx Oscar! It's about time you caught on

Hey, but check this out for a smile

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... wstop.html

Early modern humans in East Africa initially survived on an inland diet based on big game but by 70,000 years ago, archaeological finds suggest their diet had changed to a coastal one consisting largely of shellfish.

DOHHH!!!

Post by **Oscar** » Sat 06 Jan 2007 18:16

Hahaha!

It's indeed a funny article. This, however, is the original article in Science: Article
The article mainly deals with migration of Homo Sapiens, after the period of Homo Erectus. Note that your quote is not from this article, and could very well be the imagination of the journalist of the newspaper the Telegraph.

spring · Post by **spring** » Sun 07 Jan 2007 03:21

avalon wrote:Thanx Oscar! It's about time you caught on

Hey, but check this out for a smile

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... wstop.html

Early modern humans in East Africa initially survived on an inland diet based on big game but by 70,000 years ago, archaeological finds suggest their diet had changed to a coastal one consisting largely of shellfish.
DOHHH!!!

I've read that somewhere too. About primitive man and coastal living. It seems man started to eat mammals - game etc with the advent of cooking. But before that for longer than there has been cooking, primitive man ate shellfish as their main source of proteinaceous foods.

If you have a source about raw small mammals (and raw insects), Oscar, please put it up. The first time I've read about small mammals (raw) being the main flesh (animal) food of primitive man was when you brought it up here. Wai has never said anything like that on their website, and they've talked about how (big) game was not man's natural food - it was usually cooked. They as far as I know never have never mentioned raw small mammals as food. I have read about some paleos catching small mammals like oppossums and eating them raw but that's a tiny minority.

Most people I know would say, "Ugh!" if I told them that raw small mammals could be considered food. Most people would say, "Yes please!" if I offered them raw oysters - the real fresh kind - although a small minority would say, they are allergic to them or don't like them but it wouldn't be outright revulsion. Justa s most people like some fruits although there are some who hate all fruit. So I don't think I am being solipsistic at all. Just describing most people's normal reactions and talking about what cultures around the world do - eat COOKED insects mostly if they eat them at all and COOKED small mammals if they eat them at all.

As I said, this is the first time it's been mentioned raw small mammals are man's natural food and if you have any source or any data to back you up do so.

The coastal and shellfish example of Avalon's may have been from a news report (although it summarizes what researchers have found) but it's much better than what you've provided so far - which is just a webpage about cooked insects (maybe one bug was eaten raw - not sure).

Early modern humans in East Africa initially survived on an inland diet based on big game but by 70,000 years ago, archaeological finds suggest their diet had changed to a coastal one consisting largely of shellfish.

If you look at that - it says:
1) Big game not small game
2) 70,000 years ago is not that long ago when man has been around for a couple of million years or so. I think around the time of big-game hunting fire had been discovered and there are many prehistoric findings of barbecue pits and bones of big mammals.
3) The article doesn't mention what man ate before the time of big mammals when man did not have the tools to do hunting of big game - perhaps shellfish?
4) It seems like some people preferred the coastal life and shellfish diet and even made big migrations to stick to this diet and coastal living.

We need to know what man living 1 million, 2 million years ago ate and where he lived. As far as I have read man in those times lived in the tropics, not plains with big game, and in the tropics you usually find lots of bodies of water - lagoons, lakes, rivers etc - the place is hot and steaming and teaming with life. You would find plentiful shellfish that could easily be gathered; indeed in "Survivor", you find people stuck on an island subsisting on pippies and other shellfish for their animal foods. No one is successful at hunting game although sometimes the producers put a pig into the picture to make it look like it was already there and so on.

The people there have no problem eating pippies though they may complain that the effort of gathering it isn't worth the amount of protein, but these people are used to eating far more than 18 grams of flesh foods at a pop, and Sue Hawk seemed to not lose that much weight living on pippies - she was one of the more avid hunters of shellfish on that show.

avalon · Post by **avalon** » Sun 07 Jan 2007 05:12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5398850.stm

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/sci ... 277363.ece

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/food_for_thought.shtml

http://sambali.blogspot.com/2005_04_21_ ... chive.html

Just for reading if you want.

I had not given shellfish much thought before your post Spring. And especially in regards to evolution. I do love to eat oysters now and then and It is interesting to think about such things. It's sad that one article I just read was about how farmed oysters could transmit campylobacter and salmonella from polluted waters

spring · Post by **spring** » Sun 07 Jan 2007 08:25

avalon wrote:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5398850.stm

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/sci ... 277363.ece

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/food_for_thought.shtml

http://sambali.blogspot.com/2005_04_21_ ... chive.html
Just for reading if you want.

I had not given shellfish much thought before your post Spring. And especially in regards to evolution. I do love to eat oysters now and then and It is interesting to think about such things. It's sad that one article I just read was about how farmed oysters could transmit campylobacter and salmonella from polluted waters

Great links, avalon. I looked for links about early man and shellfish and couldn't find any except the first link you posted up.

It seems to me there is good evidence that early man consumed much shellfish. Unlike quadripeds, humans are not suited for chasing after small mammals. Bipeds are more suited I think to walking around at a leisurely pace gathering things like shellfish. Shellfish aren't moving and some crustaceans like crabs don't move fast. The third link makes a good argument that the consumption of shellfish and other seafoods caused man's brain to expand in size, and I think Wai has touched on that with cholesterol consumption and increase in brain size. The researcher mentions the importance of iodine in the diet.

Plains living came later, after the ice age probably when much of the tropics had been destroyed and man was driven to survive on plains. As the third article mentions, this move would have had a shrinking effect on the brain as has been demonstrated by some species of apes.

With plains living came fire and cooking. In that era there was much big-game hunting and then all the big game died out. Then there was pressure for people to migrate as there was competition for resources on the plains - dwindling numbers of big game seeing as man was such a successful hunter; he was hunting at a faster rate than the replacement rate of the game.

I think people easily adapted to a seashore culture and when they migrated, they moved along the coastline and fell back to living a seashore-shellfishing (and fishing if primitive man had the means) lifestyle. Or some bands never gave that lifestyle up although many other people moved to the grassy inlands. Despite the iceage, some pockets of such people could have survived.

Early humans were beachcombers who lived by the warm seas of East Africa and ate oysters, mussels and crabs.

An archaeological find, on the Eritrean coast, has produced the earliest evidence to show that man may have first colonised the world by migrating along beaches.

A team of scientists led by Robert Walter, of the Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Educacion Superior in Ensenada in Mexico, has found a set of stone tools 125,000 years old on the Red Sea coast site, which was rich in edible shellfish. "This is the earliest well-dated evidence for human adaptation to a coastal marine environment, heralding an expansion in the range and complexity of human behaviour from one end of Africa to the other," the scientists say in the journal Nature.

n addition to the tools, the archaeologists found the remains of several edible marine animals, including oysters, mussels and crabs.

"The simplest explanation for the occurrence of stone tools [at the site] is that whoever made the tools used them to harvest edible - energetically profitable and palatable - shallow marine molluscs and crustaceans and to butcher large land mammals near the shore," the scientists say.

Being well adapted to living off coastal animals, seabirds and shellfish, early humans would have preferred to move along the coasts rather than migrate to the less hospitable inland habitats of deserts and rainforests, Professor Stringer sai

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/sci ... 277363.ece

According to Dr. Stephen Cunnane, this was the point at which the human brain showed signs of "explosive" growth due to the iodine rich foods that they were harvesting from the waters and shorelines where they now lived.

It was by chance that early humans started eating the foods with the necessary minerals and nutrients that fed the already inherent potential for brain growth in early humans, reckons Cunnane. "Initially there wasn't selection for a larger brain," he explains. "The genetic possibility was there, but it remained silent until it was catalyzed by this shore-based diet." It is this hypothesis that forms the basis for Cunnane’s book entitled Survival of the Fattest, published in 2005.

Cunnane argues that his theory casts doubt on the idea that tool use and language forced the brain to adapt and grow to accommodate these newly acquired skills. "Anthropologists and evolutionary biologists usually point to things like the rise of language and tool making to explain the massive expansion of early hominid brains. But this is a Catch-22. Something had to start the process of brain expansion and I think it was early humans eating clams, frogs, bird eggs and fish from shoreline environments. This is what created the necessary physiological conditions for explosive brain growth," says Dr. Cunnane, a metabolic physiologist at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec.

Apart from being huge compared to our closest primate relatives, right from birth the human brain has an insatiable hunger for energy and the minerals and nutrients needed for growth, development and maintenance. Cunnane argues that this is why among all of the primates only human babies are born cute and chubby. With a newborn baby’s brain consuming 75 percent of its daily energy intake, the extra body fat functions as a "built-in energy reservoir," says Cunnane. For a newborn’s brain to grow to its full potential, a particular polyunsaturated fatty acid called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is required. It so happens that baby fat contains very high concentrations of DHA and Cunnane argues that the benefits of the surplus fat on early human babies provided the optimal conditions for "explosive" brain growth to transpire.

So, where did this surplus body fat come from? From their new shoreline diets, which included shellfish and catfish, Cunnane believes. "The shores gave us food security and higher nutrient density. My hypothesis is that to permit the brain to start to increase in size, the fittest early humans were those with the fattest infants." However, it seems debatable as to whether a mother’s high protein diet explains the chubbiness of her newborn, or indeed, whether newborns at this time were carrying surplus pounds at all. In any case, Cunnane continues by saying that one of the advantages of having a shoreline diet was that, unlike Africa’s hostile savannahs, it provided a constant nutrient rich food supply, which accommodated the inherent potential for human brain growth.

Cunnane knows that early humans settled in these shoreline areas, as associate Dr. Kathy Stewart’s own excavations in East Africa uncovered numerous Homo habilis sites that contained a large quantity of catfish and other assorted fish bones. The significance of these finds is crucial to Cunnane’s hypothesis in yet another way, as a rich aquatic diet is also high in iodine. "The evidence of the importance of key shoreline nutrients to brain development is still with us – painfully so. Iodine deficiency is the world's leading nutrient deficiency," explains Cunnane.

The result of iodine deficiency in its severest form is cretinism, which results in varying degrees of physical and mental impairment. In a recent edition of the Australian Medical Journal, Professor Cres Eastman explains how even children in prosperous countries run the real risk of suffering the consequences of iodine deficient diets. Eastman has campaigned for the distribution of iodized salt by law in many countries, such as Tibet, where cretinism is rife. Thanks to Eastman and others, iodine is legally required to be added to salt in more than 100 countries. "We've created an artificial shore-based food supply in our salt," says Cunnane. This observation together with the other evidence he has gathered has led Cunnane to conclude that: "It was the combination of abundant shoreline food and the "brain selective nutrients" that sparked the growth of the human brain."

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/food_for_thought.shtml

The earliest anatomically modern humans are associated with shell mounds in South Africa dating to 100,000 years ago. According to one theory of human migrations out of Africa along a southern route, populations hugged the coast because of their shellfish gathering practices.

The human nervous system, like that of all mammals, is composed almost entirely of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (AA).

These essential fatty acids are generally lacking in land-based animals but high in in fish and shellfish. A study by Broadhurst et al. suggests that the move to shellfish and fish as major parts of the diet is linked with the brain development in early humans. They argue that such a diet "would have provided the advantage in multi-generational brain development which would have made possible the advent of H. sapiens. Restriction to land based foods as postulated by the savannah and other hypotheses would have led to degeneration of the brain and vascular system as happened without exception in all other land based apes and mammals as they evolved larger bodies."

The building of shell mounds by shellfish gathering people eventually took on a cultural form that is rather distinctive. The mounds were usually built at some distance from the community at first. Studies have suggested that the depth of shell mounds increases by about 8 inches to 1 foot per 100 years.

Eventually as the mounds grew high enough the community would often relocate on top of the structure. The raised elevation provided protection from floods and tides. Once on top of the mound, the midden continued to grow. Some waste was disposed of right under the home over the existing midden, while other types of waste were moved to a nearby dump that tended to extend the size of the current mound.

Some middens were also used as burial grounds and platforms for ceremonies. In cultures that still build shell mounds like the sea gypsies of Southeast Asia, the Andaman Islanders and the Nicobar Islanders, the heaps are a source of pride for the community.

Surface of a shell mound, Andaman Islands

In shellfish gathering cultures, the work tends to be done by women while men hunt, fish or do other chores. Consumption of shellfish and fish, on the one hand, is associated with nomadic and underdeveloped communities, and on the other with the food of the world's elite i.e., caviar, escargot, sashimi and oysters.

In the islands of Southeast Asia, shells were formed into blade tools during the early or pre-Neolithic period. These tools were often made from the operculum. In addition to their use as blades, shells were also used for bailers, scrapers, sanders, hooks, shovels and other instruments.

For some uses, shell tools were superior to those made of stone, while inferior for other uses. This situation may have sparked the trade of shell for stone tools and vice a versa in early Southeast Asian cultures.

The value of shells and their availability to seafaring merchants probably led to their eventual use as the first trade currency. The cowrie became the principal shell for this purpose over much of the world.

When the Phoenicians developed coins for trade they made them into the shapes of murex, scallop and triton shells. Today shells are displayed on the coinage of various countries.

http://sambali.blogspot.com/2005_04_21_ ... chive.html

avalon · Post by **avalon** » Sun 07 Jan 2007 14:31

Isn't it interesting about the mounds of shells! And that as they grew, the people built on them and then later proceeded to discard shells under their homes.

I also didn't know shells were like the earliest form of currency!

Great stuff!

Best wishes,
Avalon

Post by **Oscar** » Mon 08 Jan 2007 21:18

Your original question was:

spring wrote:From an evolutionary point of view aren't we supposed to be eating things like shellfish - mussels and oysters and scallops rather than fish like salmon or mackerel?

Evolution takes time. A lot of time. So if you want to find answers from an evolutionary point of view, you have to concentrate on the longer timeframes, millions of years. If we look at our genus, Homo, by far the longest living species within that genus is Homo Erectus. For more than 1.5 million years Homo Erectus lived on Earth. The next species is Homo Habilis, with more than 500,000 years.

The problem with all the linked articles, is that they all handle about Homo Sapiens (Sapiens), which has only been around for about 120,000 years.

spring wrote:The first time I've read about small mammals (raw) being the main flesh (animal) food of primitive man was when you brought it up here.

I didn't say that.

benzapp wrote:I think all of your posts here are very solipsistic.

spring wrote:Most people I know...

spring wrote:So I don't think I am being solipsistic at all.

Hmmm, I think you've just proven Benzapp's point.

avalon · Post by **avalon** » Tue 09 Jan 2007 00:04

Oscar wrote:

The problem with all the linked articles, is that they all handle about Homo Sapiens (Sapiens), which has only been around for about 120,000 years.

What problem? But besides that, when exactly did our grey mass brains start expanding? I'm pretty sure that I'd rather focus on that period than before we were thinkers. In fact, aren't our brains smaller now? (warning alarm sounds) Were your homos even near water at that time?

we're talk'n seafood here.

Now, if the particular homos we are talking about went extinct, isn't it again more important to focus on those who didn't? 'Our' early diet and not some other Homo's?