Eating meat and cooking food is how humans got their big brains

Hopefully folks reading this article won't take it to mean that humans <i>still</i> need to continue consuming large amounts of meat. Maybe it was necessary to eat meat and hunt to evolve large brains, but the negative economic &#38; ecological impacts of eating meat are pretty well-documented by now.<p>I am thinking here of the "meat industrial complex" that powers a lot of large commercial meat production, not the friendly sustainable organic farm where I am sure we all shop.<p>Our brains are big enough now after generations of evolution. Time to put those big brains to use so we can figure out how to continue the existence of the human species. I really doubt it'll be by continuing to eat lots of cows.

Also, the primary point seems to be that we need increased caloric intake to support the larger brain's greater function. While it may have required meat consumption at the dawn of our species, I think we can all agree that you don't need meat now in order to have high caloric intake. I'm vegan and I guarantee I eat a lot more calories every day than my body or brain need.

Obviously a sensitive subject. Nutrition "beliefs" are right up their with religion and politics.<p>Science has a long ways to go before proving anything conclusively, but I can say from my experience working with thousands of folks on their diets, I have seen numerous vegans and vegetarians who have added meat back into their diets have excellent results with their physical performance and body composition.<p>Since isolating direct causation and long term effects are very difficult, I really appreciate these archaeological studies. I think from an intuitive perspective, it makes sense that humans would function well consuming the things we evolved to consume. Not saying that's the end-all, but it's a good place to start.

There is an awful lot of dog-whistling in this article. Gorilla stupidity and dead malnourished babies caused by not eating meat! The author tacks on "oh but plant-based diets can be healthy now" at the end but the overall message is deceptive and sensationalist.<p>This is irresponsible journalism.

Have there been vegans claiming that veganism is natural, and that this is somehow a reason to be vegan? Because that would be dumb. Veganism is an ethical stance, after all, so I'm not sure on what basis that argument would even rest.<p>Also, archaeologists who don't know about nutrition should probably not talk about nutrition as if they did. There are plenty of non-animal sources of B12, including soil (you know, where vegetables grow?).

Sorry, vegans: Eating [loads of calories] is how humans got their big brains

Why are we giving airtime to this sort of junk science?<p>Observing the present and inferring about the past without a testable hypothesis is not proof of anything. It is storytelling. Gorillas didn't evolve into humans, we probably have a common ancestor and if we had more evidence on that common ancestor we could probably come up with what actually happened. The article and the research connected to it is nothing short of speculative fiction aimed at getting funding with a catchy headline.

The "sorry vegans" remark seems silly. Let me remind any meat-eater (including myself) that some of the greatest minds in history, including Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci and possibly Isaac Newton were vegetarians. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetarians" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetarians</a>

&#62; <i>it would have been biologically implausible for humans to evolve such a large brain on a raw, vegan diet</i><p>Elephants evolved in the same environment, are vegetarians, don't cook their food, and have the largest brains of any land animal.

Earlier (and perhaps more impactful) research in this area: <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2744104?uid=3739936&#38;uid=2129&#38;uid=2&#38;uid=70&#38;uid=4&#38;uid=3739256&#38;sid=21101366545563" rel="nofollow">http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2744104?uid=3739936&#3...</a><p>The tradeoff between digestion and cognition suggests that adaptations are rarely cost neutral, and explains why random traits don't just improve forever. (ie, why we don't all have eyes like hawks).

If only they didn't call saturated fat "heart-stopping" that would be quite a fine article.

Isn't this old news?

"it wouldn’t be possible to get Vitamin B12, which is only available in animal products."<p>Marmite? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmite" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmite</a>