What does our culture tell us about food, and what does food tell us about ourselves and the cultures we live in? Tune in each Tuesday as I pull out my Ph.D. and write on the anthropology of food in a weekly feature, "Food and How it Gets That Way."
Between the crashing economy and the ever-mounting evidence that a daily dose of red meat is about as healthy as swallowing plutonium, Americans are fast taking to a plant-based diet that leaves us so healthy and choc full of energy we could wrestle a wild beast – were we so inclined. But modern humans tend to avoid beastly combat, preferring to get our carnivorous fixes the easy way, which is to say, nicely packaged and ready to grill. Which isn’t all that different from our prehistoric ancestors who, it turns out, were a lot like Fred Flintstone after all – sitting down to the dinner table and bellowing, “Wilma!!” -- who would obediently deliver his mastodon steak cooked just the way he liked it.
Well, maybe it wasn’t quite like that, but the prevailing image of “man the hunter” has given way to new thinking about how and what early humans ate. It is true that modern humans are omnivores – our bodies are designed to consume both meat and plant-based diets. And not only has the evolution of the human brain made us better hunters, but anthropologists are reaching a consensus that the concentrated proteins of a meat-based diet contributed to the development of the human brain. In other words, being smarter didn’t just make it easier to obtain meat, but eating meat has made our species smarter.
But in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, as more and more women began entering doctoral programs – including anthropology – the questions these researchers asked began to change. No longer were only male activities studied, but the activities of females were increasingly examined – and their contribution to household economies gained new focus. We now know that early humans hunted in bands that included women and children. We also know that as populations increased, meat became more scarce, leading to greater dependence on the nuts and berries women gathered.
Meat was not only scarce, but because meat was difficult and risky to obtain and could not be easily preserved, the contributions of women who gathered plants, roots, berries and nuts, was crucial to human survival. While meat may have been an excellent source of protein, plants were a more reliable source of calories. But because plants do not typically survive as long as animal bones do, the evidence of plant-based diets is more difficult to uncover. But with better technology and some remarkable discoveries, we now know that humans depended on a plant-based diet, and that they cooked their food more commonly than previously thought.
But because obtaining meat was such risky business, once it was obtained it was highly prized. So whoever could provide it, and more importantly, distribute it, gained prestige. Whoever received the choicest cuts also gained prestige – so the distribution of meat protein played an important role in social stratification as a person’s status was recognized by the quantity and quality of the meat received.
Yet hunting meat with rudimentary weapons could be foolhardy, particularly in savannah environments where there was limited protection from predators. Consequently, early humans were in many cases more likely to scavenge than to hunt. Cut marks overlying teeth marks on the remains of animal bones indicates that early humans often feasted off the remains of animal kills that other animals had hunted.
With the advent of agriculture, however, humans began to migrate across the globe, settling in communities where they could work cooperatively and protect against marauding predators. Unfortunately, the shift from hunting and gathering to cultivating more food had its costs. The concentration of the population increased infectious diseases, leading to increased infant mortality. Tooth decay increased and bone density decreased as diets and exercise patterns changed. Women and men assumed more distinctive roles as women remained closer to home to cultivate their farms and raise their children, while men engaged in hunting expeditions, commerce with neighboring villages, and warfare.
Modern humans evolved about one hundred thousand years ago, and there remains a great deal of debate about the paleo-diet that contributed to our early development. But what is generally accepted is that women played a far more crucial role in the diet and economies of early humans, that the human body is designed to consume both meat-based and plant-based diets, and that scavenging for animal protein was common and an important source of protein.
But modern times have brought us modern troubles. Meat is no longer hunted by most humans, but is raised in surreal conditions that produce genetically-modified, radiated and anti-biotic laced flesh that our bodies may or may not be prepared to process. And the waters and soils in which our fish swim and crops grow is saturated with toxins that we know cause grave damage to our bodies – particularly as they are developing in the womb or in childhood.
The human species has thus far proven to be resilient and our bodies have consistently changed to accommodate new stressors. But evolution takes time – time our individual bodies do not have to adjust to as technology maximizes our dietary production, but often minimizes our ability to meet our dietary needs. Whether we choose to be carnivores, herbivores or omnivores, like our early human ancestors, we are likely to get the calories we need. But unlike our early ancestors, no matter how grave our economic means, we have far more choices about how we obtain these calories.
So next time your stomach starts to grumble, skip the road kill and the weeds. But choose wisely. And even more importantly, remember that it wasn’t only protein and calories that enabled our modern minds to develop. It was also mutual support. By working, playing and eating together, early humans fought off predators, invented new technologies, and changed worlds. One meal at a time.
