Did fermented foods fuel brain growth?

I do not have any expertise specifically in fermented food and brain health however I always found it super interesting that pretty much every culture (both independent of one another and sharing with cultures close by) came up with their own unique sets of fermented foods. Unfortunately most of these are now forgotten (mainly with the advent of refrigeration and mass farming).<p>Everyone knows about standard types of yogurt and pickles and whatnot - there is a whole world of legume ferments (mainly beans) that use much more &#x27;advanced&#x27; types of microorganisms. Examples would be things like Natto from Japan mentioned in the article (using Bacillus Subtilis). Unlike the simple yeasts that break down milk sugars in yogurt and produce various organic acids (like acetic acid for example) the bacteria in Natto can consume the resistant starch in beans and produce short chain fatty acids like Butyrate (very beneficial for health) AND can break down the complete protein in soybeans into their constituent amino acids. I believe Natto originally came about because cooked and cooled soybeans were then wrapped in rice leaves for transport and Bacillus Subtilis happens to naturally live on those leaves.<p>It is also really unfortunate that in the west we miss out on tons of fungi based foods (not talking about anything psychedelic here) as many mushrooms contain tons of prebiotic fiber like substances that feed the probiotics already found in our gut.

Hunting probably helped a lot. The ability for a tribe to eat large animals is something that likely helped humans benefit from the different tradeoff of brain size&#x2F;guts size.<p>I am not convinced that fermented food helped as much as meat.

For people interested in eating at fermentation-focused modern restaurants -<p>- Noma is the obvious (expensive) choice and the author of an eponymous fermentation book.<p>- Silo in London is a lesser-known restaurant that does a lot of in-house lacto fermentation and garums<p>If you have any other to add, please to comment.<p>(I specify &quot;modern&quot; because a lot of traditional cuisines incorporate fermentation, such as kimchi, sauerkraut or even koji in soy sauce)

My pet theory is that our advances in brain capacity improved our ability to obtain, plan, prepare and preserve food, paving the way to further brain development. It&#x27;s a positive feedback loop.<p>So purposeful fermentation might have played a role, just like fire, and hunting, and gathering techniques, and farming. It probably wasn&#x27;t a revolutionary and sudden change, but gradual developments.

If only this were true for my fermented drinks of choice.

This previous thread about &quot;Homemade Sriracha&quot; had some fun discussion about basic at-home lacto-fermentation, if that interests you:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37469590">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37469590</a>

the fermentation idea sounds interesting, and i can buy it to some degree, there&#x27;s never one magic switch when it comes to evolution, there&#x27;s always multitudes.<p>&gt; The problem with this theory is that the earliest evidence places the use of fire at approximately 1.5 million years ago — significantly later than the development of the hominid brain.<p>but this, isn&#x27;t really a problem. evidence != truth, its always pushed back upon new findings, and its sensible to assume we will never know the true date, but we will definitely know it was earlier than our best evidence.<p>nonetheless, that million year difference is a whammy. that&#x27;s a lot of time for divergence and development of just a single organ.

One thing I rarely see noted in these discussions is that no other animal treats or processes their food like humans, even without fire or fermentation. We effectively pre-chew our meals with our hands, breaking everything into a nice bite-sized pieces, with mashing or grinding of what would otherwise be too hard to eat. We will sort through thousands of tiny berries carefully, to make sure we don&#x27;t eat something unpleasant. We will go hungry even when edible food is around, because we know it will be even more ripe later.

Questionable. Plenty of animals cache, and therefore &quot;ferment,&quot; their food. Why have they not developed hominid brains?

How cooking might have influenced brain development, from tedx:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=_7_XH1CBzGw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=_7_XH1CBzGw</a>

- Fermented foods<p>- Fire : cooking<p>- Farming<p>- Meat<p>- Tools usage<p>Possible things that may had impact on brain development.

Fermented foods have probiotic benefits, and your gut is often called the second brain, so why the heck not

Once again, sauerkraut saves the day?<p>I don&#x27;t need an excuse to enjoy sauerkraut, but it doesn&#x27;t hurt. Guten Appetit, everyone!

Related: <i>A surprising food may have been a staple of the real Paleo diet: rotten meat</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencenews.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;meat-rotten-putrid-paleo-diet-fire-neanderthal" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencenews.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;meat-rotten-putrid-paleo...</a><p>Is the process of rotting also part fermentation?<p>(God, I hope this doesn&#x27;t start a new fad of eating rotting meat, among the Paleo dieters).