The Evolution of Eating

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It's like Alton Brown and Good Eats on
crack. -Albany Eats Review
Plants 11 Feb, Dr. George Robinson (Univ Albany)
and Chef Tim Warnock (US Food Service)
Inverts 18 Feb, Dr. Jason Cryan (NYSM) and Chef
David Britton (Springwater Bistro, Food Network)
Fungus and Yeast 25 Feb, Dr. George Hulder
(Cornell) and Chef Paul Parker (Chez Sophie)
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The Evolution of Eating

• Culinary adaptations in humans

Dr. Roland Kays NY State Museum rkays_at_mail.nysed.g
ov
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Eat or Die
Not a difficult concept
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Individuals vary
Evolution Recap
Variations are passed on to offspring

Some variations have more offspring survive than
others

4,500,000,000 years
The earth is very old
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Traits that help you eat something better are
selected by evolution Feeding Adaptations
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Morphological Digestive Behavioral
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Feeding Ecology Behavioral Adaptations

• 52 different fruits in diet
• Favorites
• Big trees with lots of fruits
• Fruits with high pulp/seed ratio
• Fruits with high percentage digestible
  carbohydrates
• Fruits with high phenolic compounds
• Leighton 1993

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Eating adaptations in humans?
www.cakespy.com
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Physical Adaptations - Teeth
Human
Teeth of different monkeys
Bobcat Teeth
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Digestion a little help from our friends
Bacteria are your friends

• Human large intestine has complex microbe
  community composed largely of anaerobic bacteria
• Number of bacteria in our gut 100 Trillion from
  1000 species
• Cell densities in Colon can exceed 1011 per gram,
  highest recorded for any microbial habitat
• We are born germ free so the microbes that
  populate our intestinal tract must come from the
  outside
• Evolutionary principals decide who survives in
  your gut, and therefore what your farts smell
  like!
• Human Gut Microbiome Initiative

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Behavioral Adaptations - Cooking
Why Cooking is Important - More Nutrition from
Food
More Types of Food Cooking detoxifies many
plants More Benefit from Food Cooking increases
digestibility of plants markedly, typically 100
or more
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Behavioral Adaptations - Cooking

• Why Cooking is Important - More Nutrition from
  Food
• German 100 raw foodist suffered from
• 31 diagnosed with chronic Energy Deficiency
• Worse reproductive performance (50 of woman
  amenorrheic, other irregular or incompetent).

VS.
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Behavioral Adaptations - Cooking

• Why Cooking is Important Easier to Eat Meat
• It took an adult male chimp 9hrs to eat a young
  3.8kg baboon
• He didnt even finish it, leftovers eaten by
  others.
• Two chimpanzees eating a newborn bushbuck for
  5hrs (10 chimp hrs)
• Group of chimps eating a 4kg monkey for 11.5
  chimp-hrs.

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Behavioral Adaptations - Cooking

• Chimps eating raw meat
• Homo erectus female needed 2269-2487 cal/day
• Therefore, would need to chew raw meat for
  5.7-6.2 hr/day.
• Similar to time spent feeding by chimpanzees
  (46.9-55.7)

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New Controversy How important was cooking to
human evolution?
Richard Wrangham
Wrangham Cooking explains the increase in
hominid brain sizes, smaller teeth and jaws and
decrease in sexual dimorphism that occurred
roughly 1.8 million years ago Archeological
Evidence cooking fires began in only
250,000-500,000 years ago, when ancient hearths,
earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint appear
across Europe and the middle East.
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Adaptation in our cuisine? New concept
evolutionary adaptation?
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Food Spices and Temperature
Survey of Recipes 93 traditional cookbooks (100
years of use)
Sherman and Billings 1999
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Adaptive function of spices?
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Spice Hypothesis Predicts more important for
meat dishes
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• Adaptation in our cuisine?
• How Local?
• Genetic isolation
• Different food-related selective pressures
• Time

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Example from the wildLocal adaptation to habitat
in Cali coyotes
Habitats
Highways
Genetic sample population assignment
San Fran
Sacks et al 2004
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Example from the WildWolf population genetics
map to diet and climate in Europe
Moose
Boar
Deer
Pilot et al 2006
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Human population genetics structure obvious
genetics groups
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3000 people 500,000 genetic markers
Novembre et al 2008, nature
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Genes mirror geography within Europe
Novembre et al 2008, Nature
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Are there any Gene/Race/Food correlations?
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Lactose Tolerance in Europe
In most mammals, the gene for lactose tolerance
switches off once an animal matures beyond the
weaning years. A mutation in the DNA of an
isolated population of Northern Europeans around
10,000 years ago introduced an adaptive tolerance
for nutrient-rich milk.
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Alcohol Tolerance in Europe
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Other examples Many active research projects

• The response of Sardinian males to fava beans
  and malaria
• Ability of Cretans to live on a diet rich in
  greens and high in fat
• The changes wrought upon the physique of
  aboriginal peoples by processed carbohydrates

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The second wave of personalized medicine to come
rolling out of the Human Genome Project (after
pharmacogenomics, or designer drugs). NYT - What
Your Genes Want You to Eat 2003
Think theres any money to be made here?
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Nutrigenomics

• Common dietary chemicals can act on the human
  genome to alter gene expression or structure.
• These interactions vary depending on personal
  genetic makeup.

• Some diet-regulated genes are likely to play a
  role in the onset, incidence, progression, and/or
  severity of chronic diseases.
• Dietary intervention based on knowledge of
  nutritional requirement, nutritional status, and
  genotype (i.e., "personalized nutrition") can be
  used to prevent, mitigate or cure chronic
  disease.

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What does this mean for you?
No one-size fits all diet (despite what the book
shelf says)
basic fruit/vegetable heavy diet
respond disastrously to conventional diets
don't have to worry much about what they eat
How Much Diet Matters to a Person
NYT - What Your Genes Want You to Eat 2003
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What does this mean for you?
Future Personalized Gene Scan and Diet
Recommendations (Think theres any money to be
made here?)
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Hopefully your not Scottish like me!
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Tell me what you eat. Ill tell you who you
are. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Tell me
who you are. Ill tell you what you should
eat. - Nutritional Genomics
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