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How to Make a Nation of Meat Eaters Crave the Humble Bean
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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Sure, if you ignore the whole genetics part where humans literally evolved a preference for cooked meat and fermented foods.
But we ARE! Doesn't anyone remember the whole kerfuffle about the 'bitter' gene and PTC sensitivity?
You just qouted my qoute, I'm not saying that. I agree with you. It's a bit similar to arachnophobia. There seems to be a genetic inate behaviour to avoid certain creepy crawlies. And it can be unlearned. But it's absurd to deny that it's there.
Sorry, I was trying to add my support. You gave good evidence for a meat preference and I wanted to back it up with evidence of genetic aversion to the specific vegetable mentioned in the original article.
This is one study. Both the author of this article and you should not be so quick to draw strong conclusions.
For instance, the idea that early humanoids took the form of "cavemen" who ate a ton of meat is debated, and largely built on assumptions made from finding hunting tools.
More recent evidence of the oldest known fossilized human feces has shown very amounts of dietary fiber - much more than our modern diet. The amount of meat eaten in the USA today is not historically common.
Yeah, it's just one study but it's part of a bigger picture.
Once humanity discovered fire and basic techniques for preservation it became viable for groups of people to work together and produce a surpluse of highly nutritious food and the ability to store it for later. And the majority of very early human history is centred around either hunting or fishing communities. That's how most humans lived before we eventually came up with agriculture, which was just around 10.000 years ago. We were hunter-gatheres for like 200.000, maybe much longer. That's a timespan that allows for minor gentic adaptations like that, especially if there is a strong evolutionary pressure. Some extreme example would be early civisations in the arctic regions, which sometimes entirly depened on one food source (very often seals).
So I'm pretty confident in saying that taste not just "learned behavior". Of course there are genetic factors involved, it would be aburd if there weren't. We are just animals afterall.
2nd reply, because when I wrote my first one, your reply was just the first line.
I think they were highly seasonal. You had periods where you could gather a lot fruit and plants to eat, your hunting season and your "bare" season where you had to rely on surpluse and preservation. Diet would be highly variable depending on where and when and what resources and technologies were availbible.
Not on average, for sure. But as I said in my first replies, there are examples of early communities that lived almost entirly of meat. Not even a side of fries.
This is plain false.
Cooked doesn't have to mean meat.
I'm sure there are also preferences towards other cooked foods, but the study I linked is specifically talking about cooked meat.