Nutrition and food sharing: Instinctive human behavior? by SIGNYM

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Nutrition and food sharing: Instinctive human behavior?

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Saturday, May 13, 2023 19:19
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Saturday, May 13, 2023 1:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Apropos of nutrition, I was thinking how starch and fat almost never occur together in nature. Tubers, roots, shoots, fruits, and grains ... whatever can be grubbed out of the ground or picked or harvested are almost always low fat. (The only exception would be nuts and oil seeds which are a rarity in most natural sources)

Grubs, little fish, shellfish, meat and bone marrow - which are fattier- are low starch.

"Eat as you go" would rarely present all three macronutrients (starch, protein, fat) together in one meal. Seems like the concept of a "balanced meal" is maybe a little whacked? I know that various health organizations have pointed to the combination of flour (cheap and easily stored) and oil (cheap and easily stored) as the source of worldwide malnutrition and obesity.

But I digress. So I mentioned this to sis with her superior knowledge of anthropology and biology, and she said even the most primitive people don't "eat as you go": they carry a pouch or something and throw in the lizard, tuber, grub, or whatever to take back with them and share.

Which got me to wondering: is that one of the defining human traits? Bc one thing that happens in any human group... family, friends, tribes, villages, etc... is widespread food sharing.

I know that mothers of other species will share food with their young, and pack hunters will share their kill in some sort of hierarchical manner, but is food sharing common among the gatherer-hunter-scavenger species?

Back to nutrition: I'm still of the opinion that the combo of starch and fat in one meal...as much as we crave it and as tasty as it is... is the devil's combo.

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Saturday, May 13, 2023 3:10 PM

JAYNEZTOWN

I would assume food was shared among a tribe and culture, but not with the alien culture, there was trade of resource there was learning and mix of people and ideas but there was also war.You get all kinds of food movements today, religious ones Buddhist going Vegan or the Paleolithic diet it strives to achieve a diet similar to that of ancient hunter-gatherer groups.

Geography probably played the biggest role, to you have Ice or Tropical cliamte, do you have high snowy mountains or Rivers and vast plains, did your people and country have access to sophisticated ports, did they make canals, have they traded, was there desert, were there Hunter Gatherer type, Fishermen who knew what nets to make they had good boats and knew what fish to catch at what season, was there Agriculture and Farming, could people trade arrow heads or knives at the farm market for wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, barley, chickens, olive oil, corn, bitter vetch, chickpeas, and flax, the farmer who fells trees and vegetation, then burns it to fertilize the soil before planting would also be destroying timber or wood that could be used for ships or building a house, did Little Ice Ages or Drought lead to Irrigation and several techniques of water harvesting, what were the growing seasons like was there Sub Polar Oceanic, Warm Summer humid continental, Hot Summer Mediterranean or Dry Summer Subartic or was there Monsoon or Savana or Rainforest, were there certain plant and animal that could survive and live easily in the area or certain plant and anima that would struggle and die due to climate conditions. The Phoenicians and Greeks and later Roman spread their cuisine wherever they colonised, from the Black Sea to southern Spain, its difficult to know if North America farmed but it had Vikings and Native Cahokia Mounds a Historic Site. The cooks from Rome were especially good at finding ways of preserving their food, they trade with the world Europe, North Africa and Middle East and Asia and adding more flavor using imported spices, their fish sauce speciality. The pre Colonization world in Mesoamerica, maize was king, even had its own god. the Incas were sculpting their landscape to create high-yield terracing and networks of storage houses. Ancient Japan, changes from hunter gathering to farming and so rice was such an important food they not only had a national rice god but many local god variety of a food deity. The animal across the ancient world was important a good breed of dog to guard a flock of sheep, Horse or Donkey Cow or Ox as a beast of burden, domestication of animal, using them to deliver messages or some used horses in chariot battles, the bird delivered notes becoming a messenger, a whole network of specialists for people who would take care of animals to keep the society functional. Neolithic cultures, Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age in Asia and in Europe would have died if not ready for a short summer and long winter. Added on top of all these factors would be invader hostile cultures and natural struggle with events like insect plagues and locusts.

Starch synthesized serves as an energy source at night, Fat helped people get through winter and Sugars gave energy...we like these tastes because in the past it was more of a necessity and helped you survive.

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Saturday, May 13, 2023 5:59 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Well, I guess I had two points. The first is that whether you're talking about the !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari, or the Innuit in the Arctic, or an Italian family in New Jersey, or the hamlet up in the mountains where hubby grew up, there all do the same thing: they share food with their "in group".

Their definition of "in group" may vary... it can be a family, a tribe, a village... but they share food. Not with an "outgroup" tho.

My second point is that one food combination -oil and refined starch- seems to be not good for a whole range of people.

There are differnces- generally speaking, agriculturalists tolerate grain better. Europeans can digest milk. Asians and native Americans can't metabolize alcohol. NNatives in the southwest and Sonoran deserts, who depended greatly on plants adapted to arid climate (by retaining water in soluble gels) fare poorly and develop diabetes at high rates when eating refined starches.

But it seems no matter where you go, the combination of oil and starch isn't good for almost anyone. Recent study shoes that getting just 20% of calories from fast food restaurants (grease, starch, and salt) leads to higher heart attack rates.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Saturday, May 13, 2023 6:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

As a generality, I'm sure people share food, and like Jaynez said... within their own "tribes" is more likely.

On and individual level, I don't share food. You'll rarely ever find me sharing resources of any kind at all, unless those are something that I think will be valuable to somebody I know and I no longer have any use for it.

I share my abilities, and since I'm a jack of all trades both in skilled labor and the tech sector, I have a very wide range of things that I can help people with. Everybody I've ever helped is always happy to share dinner with me, whether it be friends, family or neighbors.

And on the rare occasions that I do give new gifts to people, its things that I got for nearly free on an amazing deal and stocked up on. They're always useful items, if not very exciting items. Everybody I know got a 12 pack of 60 watt equivalent LED light bulbs that I got for 98 cents a piece last Christmas.

I'm sure you're right about the oil and refined starch. Most likely what give me the diabetus and maybe contributed to my silent heart attack. Our collective diets are shit these days. One of the drawbacks of trying to grow food to feed 8 Billion people.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Saturday, May 13, 2023 7:19 PM

BRENDA

As for Janyez comment about farming in North America. In the US, you had tribes that grew the "3 Sister" which are corn, squash and beans.

I would have to do more research on food farming among tribes in Canada but I know in Ontario tobacco was farmed then traded with colonists for probably refined flower and other goods.

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