Iron

Sept 9

Primates

• Primarily vegetarians

• Big-game hunting originated with Homo Sapiens

• Evidence of extinctions caused by earlier hominids?

Aggression

• Why are humans so aggressive?

• Why did we start hunting?

Bipedalism

• Savanna Theory– Needed free hands for carrying food– Needed free hands for carrying weapons– The need to run on the savanna– Improved vision– Regulation of body temperature– Defensive measure

• Aquatic Ape Theory– 1920 – Alister Hardy– Humans diverged from the primate line by wading out into

the water and staying there for several millions years

The Evo Diet

• Called Evo Diet because theoretically these were the foods we evolved to eat

• 9 individuals with extremely high blood pressure

Giessen Raw Food Study

• 513 raw foodists, ate 70-100% raw food

• Raw food included uncooked vegetables, occasionally meat, cold-pressed oils, honey, and dried fruits, meats, and fish.

• Chronic energy deficiency

• The more raw food women ate, the lower their BMI and the more likely they were to have partial or total amenorrhea

Reduced Reproductive Function

• Raw foodists, anorexics, and marathoners report problems conceiving

• Westra’s How to Do the Raw Food Diet with Joy for Awesome Health and Success: seminal emissions and menstruation meant to remove toxins from the body

Reasons for Raw Food

• Theory: When foods are cooked they might lose their living or active enzymes

• Truth: Enzymes are cooked in our guts anyways

• Instictotherapists – minority group among raw foodists – we are so closely related to apes, we should eat like them

What Happened?

• Our ancestors utilized bush meat, raw fruits and vegetables and other natural products. Why cant we?

• The genetic coding for a well-adapted digestive system could have been lost by chance

• We have small digestive systems relative to other apes, but this allows us to process cooked food proficiently