The late chef James Beard once said: “Food is our common ground, a universal experience.”
Although meant as a social commentary, Beard—he hosted the first live television cooking show, I Love To Eat, in 1946—may actually have gotten it right on a scientific level, too.
According to an article written by Brian Handwerk for the Smithsonian Magazine, some foods may have helped contribute to human evolution.
Over the last million years there have been changes in human anatomy, teeth and the skull, that we think are probably related to changes in diet.
And, what we eat today, will influence human evolution tomorrow because human beings are still evolving genetically. You can see evidence of that in such things as skin colour, no longer a this-or-that scenario.
Or consider lactose intolerance. Nowadays we say it like it’s a bad thing—but the lactose intolerance is something human beings had thousands of years ago. Being lactose intolerant is “old-school”.
But now, two-thirds of the population is lactose intolerant, which implies that the rest of the global population has evolved to have lactose tolerance.
This example is asserted by the belief that eating fermented dairy such as cheese, causes lactose from the dairy milk to breakdown into an easier-to-consume lactose digestible. This has allowed some humans to lose their lactose intolerance—creating a more tolerant society (LOL)—at least as far as dairy products go.
This older Smithsonian article discusses how cheese, wheat and alcohol have shaped the way humans have evolved—but it’s still interesting. To read the story in its entirety, click here: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-cheese-wheat-and-alcohol-shaped-human-evolution?utm_source=pocket-newtab