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THIS MONTH'S FEATURED ARTICLE
FATHERS, FOOD AND FABLES
Explaining our Origins and Telling Stories
At first glance, the task of identifying the human ancestral diet is like that of identifying a child's father. You make your best guess, you believe the most plausible story, you tell the story yourself. There is no direct verification (as there is between mother and child), only claims resting on the trustworthiness of the witnesses, circumstantial evidence such as physical resemblance, and later, the more specialized, arcane work of science, like DNA testing. In the case of the ancestral diet, circumstantial evidence is adduced from archeology and comparative anthropology, and then science comes in with DNA testing, carbon dating and large-scope comparative studies.
But there are some important differences in this comparison! In the case of identifying a father, most of the time people are content to accept that the father is who he says he is. For that matter, most people are content to eat what they were raised on, tacitly assuming and accepting that this is what they're 'supposed' to eat. But the question of ancestral (or 'original' or (that fraught word) 'natural') diet is so complex and controversial that as soon as you dips a toe into those waters, you'll finds yourself in a veritable whirlpool of strong opinions and plausible claims, data, studies and arguments.
Curiosity about origins, and telling stories about them, have been prominent in human culture from time immemorial. Visit any locale where old traditions are remembered and there will be stories about how this or that rock took its unusual shape involving contests between men and gods, or wise animals, or other transformations. Herbology and traditional folklore are full of stories about how plants acquired the potencies that they have. Each culture has its story about how it obtained fire, whether it was a gift from the sun or stolen from the gods.
There are also a host of stories about ancestral diet - from the myth of an original Paradise, like the Garden of Eden or the Golden Age in the Greco-Roman and Hindu traditions, in which trees gave fruit of their own accord and no one had to work for their food, to stories of hunter-gatherer cavemen, to gods, or wise animals, gifting mankind with staple foods. Even today, the people who are hypothesizing theories about man's ancestral diet are still telling stories. Even with the benefit of 'modern science,' the interpretation of data from deep in the mists of time is a form of storytelling, as shown by the consistent appearance of different explanations of the same data offered by different scientists.
In this Father's Day edition of 'Eighty Percent Raw,' I am going to talk about a recent book that purports to prove that the use of cooking by humans is as old as humanity itself, and then tells a story about how its use affected human social development. The book is Richard Wrangham's 'Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human' (Basic Books, 2009). I will show that there is a clear distinction between the 'highly probable' status of the claim of cooking's antiquity and the 'story' status of the rest of it, and talk about the implications of the 'story' part for all of us.
It is tempting to believe that we rely on stories, folktales and myths until we advance our knowledge to the point that we have proof positive, at which point a 'story' becomes an explanation, a proof. I want to suggest that given our constantly changing state of knowledge, and given the power of each person's belief system, no matter how positive a proof may seem, we should still consider it as being a 'story,' accepting that it may yet be trumped by more data or a different interpretation (a different story). This attitude acknowledges the importance of stories rather than minimizing the significance of proof.
Wrangham's Plausible Claim About the Antiquity of Cooking
Humans have been cooking food for a long time. No other animal cooks, although other animals do seek out food that has been cooked by forest fires, or baked by the sun. Some people tell a story that cooking is relatively recent in human history and therefore 'unnatural' and inevitably detrimental. Until Wrangham's book, claims for the origin of cooking suggested that it came into use as much as 500,000 years ago. This is sufficiently long ago that the story that it's too recent an innovation to be a good thing has been disputed. The fact that humans have cooked for so long, and continue to do so, suggests at the very least that it conferred an evolutionary advantage (otherwise, the practice would not have continued.
Wrangham makes the introduction of cooking even older than that: he claims that it took place up to 2.5 million years ago. His claim is even stronger: in his view, cooking was the innovation that actually facilitated the transition from habiline to homo erectus, the earliest human species. So, contrary to the story that we all started out as rawfooders, Wrangham suggests that in fact we've been cooking from the get-go.
His proofs of this are actually quite convincing. He uses the evidence of comparative anatomy (more on this in a moment), and recent archeological finds showing the use of fire much earlier than had been previously believed, with charred animal bones that had been hacked into with tools in a way consistent with food use at the burn site. An additional important element of his proof is comparison of wild fruit with modern cultivated fruit (wild fruit has more tannins, antinutrients and indigestible fiber, compared to cultivated fruit, which is a quick and ready source of calories) and of cooked versus raw foods (especially fibrous starchy vegetables and tough muscle meats). He cites several experiments that demonstrate that the cooked versions of these foods are significantly easier to digest and specifically, provide far more calories than their raw counterparts, as well as the universal observation (verified experimentally) that animals, from insects to livestock, grow more rapidly on cooked foods than on raw, even without having evolved with cooked foods.
The 'comparative anatomy' and the discussion of the kinds of foods that were actually available 2.5 million years ago are both worth some more attention, especially for anyone who knows the usual raw-food-promoting stories. Wrangham compares the anatomy of apes to that of modern humans, as well as to that of habilines and early humans. Whereas apes are wonderful climbers, they are poor runners and walkers; humans are wonderful runners and walkers and, compared to apes at least, poor climbers. This obviously suggests that whereas apes spent more time in the trees, humans and their ancestors spent more time on the ground - and Wrangham actually hypothesizes (tells a story) that it was controlling fire that enabled human ancestors to come down out of the trees and sleep on the ground in safety. Even more important is the comparison of digestive tracts, joined with the information about the greater digestibility of gelatinized fibers and muscle meats. Humans' guts are only 60% of the size that would be predicted based on comparison with related species. Apes eat about twice as much food by weight as humans do, most of the extra weight being fiber. Their much larger colon uses a lot of energy principally in breaking down that fiber, and their much larger jaws and teeth are designed for masticating tough foods. Not having to eat as much food and not having such large guts correlates with a savings of at least 10% energy expenditure for humans, compared to apes, and a corresponding increase in brain capacity - more energy available to it.
Wrangham suggests that this picture of smaller guts and larger brain - as well as much smaller jaws and teeth as compared with apes - points to the use of cooking, which breaks down the fiber that would require such a large digestive tract and so much chewing. He shows that these differences between humans and apes cannot be explained (as some have tried) by meat-eating on the part of humans. For starters, many apes also eat meat. Furthermore, humans' smaller jaws are not good equipment for the hours of chewing that raw meat would require. Thirdly, humans have no resistance to meat-borne bacterial infections: if raw meat had long been an ancestral staple, one might expect a degree of resistance. Fourthly, meat was not available year round: in every geographical area except perhaps in the Arctic, plant food was a crucial and often staple component of the human diet for much of the year. Calorically dense fruits and nuts were seasonal, not reliably available year-round, leading to reliance on root vegetables for nutrient dense food. Now, you can eat sweet potatoes raw, but it takes a long time and a lot of hard chewing - cooking them has been shown to make them more easily digestible and more completely assimilable, and it's obvious that they're easier and quicker to eat that way. But what about taro, cassava, manioc? These and some other roots are actually poisonous when raw, and this is another place where the evolutionary advantage of cooking comes in: where cooking renders a food edible that is otherwise inedible, the rate of survival will be increased.
As a former fruitarian, I was a little wistful to concede that my notion of a pristine 'Garden of Eden' where we all lived on sweet fruit in peace and love really was 'just a story.' However, I had already concluded pretty much the same thing from my own extensive study of fruit cultivation and the character of wild fruits. Even durian, 'the king of fruits,' is not typically composed of those cream-filled pillows when wild and grown from seed. Some seedling trees produce fruits like this, but most make fruits that are stringy, with small arils and big seeds. Wrangham tells how he actually followed chimpanzees around, tasting the fruits that they were making meals of, and that most of them were so tannic or bitter that he could barely eat them at all: there was just one berry that tasted delicious to him, and it was scarce.
One final issue, before we move on to the story Wrangham tells about how controlling fire influenced the human character. An additional argument that he adduces in demonstrating that cooking has been with humans all along is that modern day rawfoodists do not thrive. His suggestion is that we are not equipped to process optimally foods that are highly fibrous and thus higher in volume per calorie. He cites anecdotal evidence and one short-term and one major medium-term study, the German 'Giessen study' (Koebnick et al., 1993, 1994). He does acknowledge that a group of three 'Instinctotherapists' with whom he met were healthy, but points out that these people (as well as the apparently less healthy Germans) had access year-round to all the best modern cultivated foods, including high-calorie pressed (i.e. processed) oils (as well as blenders, juicers, dehydrators, etc) without having to travel long distances on foot to obtain them, a far different scenario than the ancestral situation. On the other side of the coin, he concludes his book with a compassionately-expressed word of warning about the plethora of calorie-rich and nutrient-empty foods that are so prevalent nowadays and have such a benighting influence. He points out that from an evolutionary standpoint, these are the logical conclusion: they are 'what we are evolved to want.'
Of course, extremely bland, extremely processed food is an extreme on the food continuum - and yet, it is troubling to think how many people eat this kind of food mostly or exclusively. At the opposite end of the spectrum, if you are a 100% rawfoodist and are concerned about Wrangham's reporting of rawfoodists' failure to thrive (as well as the discussions by former rawfoodists in places like http://www.beyondveg.com that tend to recommend high-raw and some cooked food), this is where the 'Eighty Percent' principle comes in! On the other hand, if the 'Garden of Eden' story works for you in your life, and it's a story you're able to practice and thrive, please enjoy! Although I think that Wrangham's demonstration of the antiquity of cooking and its evolutionary role in human development is highly plausible, I do not think that his comments about modern rawfoodists are necessary to his argument at all, and, whilst I don't dispute the results of the Giessen Study or the other anecdotes, I also do believe that nowadays it is very possible to thrive on a raw food diet.
In fact, a counterexample to the picture Wrangham paints of widespread calorie deficits on raw foods would be Aajonus Vonderplanitz's raw-animal-products based 'Primal Diet,' whose followers are encouraged to gain weight, even excess weight, which should then be shed, on the theory that toxins stored in fat tissue will then exit the body. Loading up on raw milk, cream, cheese, butter and meat is definitely a way to create a rapid calorie excess with nothing cooked in sight and with minimal processing. I've seen many people try this diet and gain a lot of weight: I did so myself, for the only time in my life, when I briefly tried it out a couple of years ago. But even if you are not drawn to such extremes, since (for better or worse) our food environment does include fruits and vegetables that are coevolved with us to be appealing to us (read: sweet and less fibrous), as well as high-quality processed oils, juices and let's not forget superfoods, many of which are concentrated, dried or otherwise processed, I believe that it is much easier than Wrangham suggests to obtain plenty of very nutrient dense calories from 'raw' foods.
Wrangham's 'Story' About the Implications of Cooking for Human Development
We tend to think of a father's role in the food context as limited to opening cans or the occasional glorious pyrotechnic display with the barbecue. My husband traces his longstanding nostalgic love of popcorn to his childhood when, on the rare occasions that his father would fix dinner, it would invariably consist of 'popcorn and fudge.' Of course, this is not to deny or ignore the many fathers who are wonderful cooks and grocery-shoppers - but those tasks are more typically on the mother's 'to-do' list.
Wrangham compares behaviors in present-day hunter-gatherer tribes with archeological evidence to suggest that this division of food labor between the sexes is as old as humanity itself, with cooking as the cause of it. He says that control of fire and an assured cooked meal at the end of a long day had two implications. It freed humans to go longer distances in order to hunt. They could be gone all day and efficiently refuel in the evening, since fire enabled them to eat safely after dark and cooked food was easier to eat in less time. If, instead, they were eating only prehistorically available raw food, they would have had to stop much earlier in the day just in order to get their eating - of foods that required much more chewing and digesting - done in daylight hours. Second, the dependence on cooked food, which is food that has been specially processed beyond the condition in which it is hunted or gathered, created the need for that food to be guarded/protected against predation, as well as the need to tend the fire and cook the food. He traces the universal or near-universal division of labor into women as gatherers and cooks and men as long-range hunters to these two implications. He also notes that cross-culturally, women's gathered foods have tended to be the constant, reliable, boring staples of the diet, whilst men's hunting is more likely to provide the rarer, prized items, like meat and honey. In many cultures around the world, men also cook, but only on special occasions, outside the basic family context, often in circumstances where only males are present.
Wrangham goes on to suggest that the whole patriarchal structure of human society is based upon this division of labor: that in some sense, women were subordinated by their responsibility to tend the fire and prepare the food - and often, gather all the food too, whilst men, who provided the food that was more rare and precious, would go hunt or not as they saw fit, their immediate survival needs being taken care of by the women. Characterizing the situation as a 'primitive protection racket,' he suggests that male-female pairings began around the fire, with the man guaranteeing the woman that her fire and food would be guarded, in return for the guarantee that he would receive a cooked meal in the evening. He cites many cases from modern hunter-gatherer societies, as well as the situation of modern urbanized families where most basic survival needs such as water, shelter and warmth are taken for granted and the food procuring and preparing still tends to fall on the woman's shoulders.
This section of Wrangham's book is well-argued and full of evidence, but the story itself is far more hypothetical than the basic picture of humans' evolutionary reliance on cooking. It may be a story that is useful to think with. Nowadays, gender roles are more confused and up-for-grabs than they have been at any previous point in history. Women who choose to adopt traditional homemaker roles get told, by well-meaning people, that they are being enslaved and oppressed, whilst men are invited to feel guilty for their higher levels of physical assertiveness and hard play.
Living as I do in a cold-climate homesteading environment with no plumbing, where many people have no electricity, and where a lot of basic living involves heavy labor, I often find myself wondering whether these theories could exist outside of the urban context where the 'heavy lifting' has been mostly eliminated, but please understand that I am as much against oppression of women as the next person. Although I have many stalwart female friends who move and shake and hunt and hustle with enormous strength and exertion, the one thing that I can't get away from, being around my husband, is that there are many things that are central to traditional methods of food acquisition that are relatively easy for him to do but very difficult for me! I can dig, but I can't dig all day. I can row a boat, but I can't row for as long as he can, as long as one might need to, to get to remote places for sustainable hunting or for gathering wild berries. I can't pack out a large butchered animal by myself as he can. On the other hand, I'm a much better chef than he is!
We are at our best when we play to our strengths. I honor my husband's physical prowess and that of other husbands and fathers. The expression 'play to our strengths' is neither random nor accidental. A key attribute of men is that their baseline physical strength is generally greater than that of women. A key non-physical characteristic is that men tend to be better at playing. You have probably noticed, if you are a man, or observed, if you are a woman, that a playful man who gets to use and enjoy his strength tends to feel fulfilled. On the other hand, I encourage husbands, fathers, brothers and sons to honor their women's strengths also. Wrangham's story suggests that an original division of labor, perhaps based upon 'playing to our strengths,' led to one side of the equation having a higher value placed on their work and the other side becoming taken for granted and even oppressed. Let's value the home-cooking men and the heavy-lifting women for sure, but if they are the exceptions who prove the rule, let's allow ourselves to celebrate our moms in their kitchens and our dads who play hard and strong too!
Postscript: If you are interested in reading more about Wrangham's book and its implications for rawfooders, I wrote about it in great detail in my blog some months ago: the relevant posts are linked below:
http://ulteriorharmony.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-catching-fire-part-1-summary-of.html/ On 'Catching Fire' Part 1
http://ulteriorharmony.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-catching-fire-part-21-implications.html/ On 'Catching Fire' Part 2.1
http://ulteriorharmony.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-catching-fire-part-22-implications.html/ On 'Catching Fire' Part 2.2
http://ulteriorharmony.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-catching-fire-part-23-implications.html/ On 'Catching Fire' Part 2.3
COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 -
Dear Ela, thanks very much for your very interesting and insightful article.
Can you tell me more about the "magic seeds that come to our assistance" please?
A: Hemp, flax and chia are all wonderful 'super seeds'! As I discussed in the article, hemp has the ideal omega 3 to 6 ratio, whilst flax and chia actually contain more omega 3's than 6's, making them helpful in correcting the general deficiency in omega 3 acids that most people experience. Two further notes here: first, the omega 3's that these contain are ALA, from which the body can produce EPA and DHA. However, not every body is effective at making this conversion,and EPA and DHA are essential omega 3's, so it's often recommended that one supplement with oily fish or krill oil to ensure obtaining those. Second, the omega 6 acids contained in hemp include GLA and SDA, which are omega 6's that actually help with the absorption of fatty acids in general, and are not contained in flax or walnuts, for example.
Something else that these three super seeds have going for them is fiber. Chia and flax are especially good in this regard, because they have so much _soluble_ fiber, which is why when you soak them in water, they form a gel. Consuming this gel is a good way to soothe intestines and also to stay well-hydrated, because the seeds hold the water in them as they pass through. Flax is the best source of a particular kind of fiber called lignans, which also functions as an antioxidant and a phyto-estrogen. This may mean that flax is better for women than for men, however. Aside from the lignans, chia is champion when it comes to antioxidants: it is so high in them that it is quite stable even when ground into a meal, despite the high amounts of omega 3 and 6 fats which are inherently unstable. (Care needs to be taken to keep hemp and flax cool and out of direct light, especially when they have been milled.) Hemp has more insoluble fiber. In the US, though, you can't buy whole hemp seeds: they are only sold hulled and split, without that insoluble-fiber-rich hull. On the other hand, you can get 'Hemp protein and fiber powder,' which is basically all the solids left over from pressing the oil out, a wonderfully nutritious protein source with enormous amounts of fiber. In Europe, whole hemp seeds are often the cheapest seeds in the natural food store, and they sprout avidly!
Protein: all three contain good amounts of protein, but hemp is king here. Hemp and chia are both complete proteins, but hemp has more protein than any other seed - about 35%. About two thirds of hemp's protein is in the form of edestin, which is a very easily-absorbed form of protein.
So, in all sorts of ways these are great foods to eat every day!
Sunday, May 2, 2010, 3:02pm -
You make some very interesting points here and it certaily make sense that large scale farming inevitably leads to the use of fertilisers and pesticides. The latter is so easilly absorbed into the oil-rich nut. this leads to the numerous allergies we see today, but did not see 40 years ago.
Interstingly,Soya- bean suffers of similar controvesy.
BIO
Ela Harrison Gordon is a Classical scholar, linguist and poet who has chosen to devote her life to healing and spiritual growth. She has worked as a raw food chef, beekeeper and farmer as well asa translator, writer and editor. Of English and Israeli heritage and raised in London, she has lived inthe USA since 2000 and has explored cultivated and wild land whilst living in California,
Hawaii and now Alaska.She regards her body's intolerance of grains and most modern foods, as well as her journey back
from near-death from anorexia, as blessings that have led her to a greater reverence for the body and its place in our
spiritual development, a more holistic understanding of health, and a deep interest in nutrition both of person and of planet. These blessings first led her to raw foods in 2003, and she is excited to share the breadth of what she has learned from pursuing the lifestyle in a variety of climates whilst integrating with local customs and growth patterns.
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