Kid #1: It's a new food. It's supposed to be good for you. You wanna try it? Kid #2: I'm not gonna try it! You try it! Kid #1: Let's give it to Mikey, he'll eat anything! Both Kids: Look Mikey's eating it! He likes it!
There is a very rigorous method that is even used by survivalists today which involves gradual exposure to the plant. It takes weeks and at the start you dont even eat it. I dont remember the exact details but its something like: at first you just smell it, then you touch it, then you lick your finger after touching it, and so on, with days between each of these incremental exposures to allow for any effects to show. This means that more often than not if theres any adverse effects you will experience them before you come into contact with enough substance to really hurt you. No doubt our ancestors had figured this out before we were even homo sapiens.
the first hominid who saw a random mushroom: “I’m hungry and I don’t what that is. But hey, 🤷♂️you only live once” .... *dies* Blessed be the these original culinary thrill-seekers; for without them, we’d never eventually discovered portobello.
They actually ate little of them, and tried more later that day if it didn't make them sick. Pretty much you are told to do that on survival emergencies.
I’m learning so much from this RU-vid channel. I was homeschooled by a deeply Christian mother who believes the earth is 7000 years old. I’m grateful I can learn as an adult.
Terrifying, right? You're something out of a horror story. The megafauna of entire continents have died to feed your hunger. Entire species have been bred into slavery. You're the All-Consuming Swarm.
According to Pinterest, our ancestors ate "paleo diet cupcakes, with whipped mocca frosting, and organic fairtrade cocoa". I eagerly await confirmation of this diet through the fossil record.
Yeah. I came across a paleo recipe that called for bread flour and sugar. I was thinking "You're kidding. Just because you made it from scratch doesn't mean it's paleo. Do you even know what that word means?"
Don't know how they could have eaten cocoa, as that came from the Americas, same with vanilla, and I'm not sure people were in the Americas that early. Mocca I take it to mean some form of coffee, which definitely wasn't a paleolithic thing. So nope. If it was processed, if it came from the Americas or other parts of the world that was not populated by humans during the paleolithic, if it is a recipe that involves techniques and equipment not available to said humans, it's not truly paleolithic. I also doubt that they had sugar back then.
It's not about hoping it doesn't attack you, it's about hoping all the wound you get from it attacking you don't kill you nor incapacitate you from hunting again, or, at the very least, don't stop you from killing and eating the thing.
Yup, sometime going days without eating was probably a regular occurrence, esp. in the winter months. That's what you call some HARDCORE intermittent fasting lol
The crazy part in the poisoned homo erectus story is that someone cared for her for months, since there's evidence of bone growth. In those perilous times, 1.6 million years ago, someone cared for their sick mama.
I like how homo erectus were more developed morally and socially than half of humans today. It's sad to think brainwashed right wingers wouldn't care for their families like our ancestors did but actively push them off cliff for for being "freeloaders" or the sake of "economy" or hell, even haircuts (see these morons protesting life saving measures in USA today...)
Humans cannot survive individually out in the wild, so a cooperative effort is required for our survival. This is so ingrained into our genes that humans feel uncomfortable, anxious, and even depressed when we are asked to stay at home or to keep a distance from others. It is hard wired into each of us to care for each other.
@@tabularasa0606 I dont think its practice before they record, more like years of studying using those terms until it forms part of their daily vocabulary.
They've been using those words for so long, they have become natural for them. For example, the ancient Romans spoke Latin fluently because that's their mother's language. When I try, I summon the devil.
That’s what happens when you’re an actual professional in a field. It’s a part of his vocab - just like curse words fly from a lot of our vocab, naturally 😂
@@dennycote6339 Found the vegan. I guess it takes one to know one. Our ancestors had to eat whatever they could find. We don't have to. We can eat foods that reflect our compassion, and is better for the environment, and is better for our long term vitality and longevity. A whole food plant based vegan diet.
I always wondered how was the process of people who discovered spices. Like, how they found out certain plants were tasty when put in other stuff and also helped slow rotting
I wanna know who figured out how to make cassava root not be poisonous....like failed poisoning? Here enjoy this tapioca pudding, I swear it's not poisoned....
@@GodzillaofTokyo I’m not certain but I think when humans learned to heat up food with fire or dry it in the sun is when they made most poisonous foods safe. My question is, what drove ancient humans to toss food into fire in the first place? You would think that to them food is very precious and they wouldn’t want to throw something precious into fire. Maybe they were cold so they wanted to eat something warm and that’s when they tested out rudimentary “cooking”.
@@enviromental2565 There was a very dark case of a teenage kid that ate a gardening sług on a dare. The sług contained a deadly parasite that caused lungworm disease. The boy was in a coma and died. So lucky that you were there in time, imagine if your son swallowed it.
As a human biologists, it's really fascinating to think how our diet has impacted our species. Roughly 20 000 ago a mutation occurred which made humans lactose tolerant. Since this was a huge selective advantage during periods of starvation the mutation quickly spread and, now, the majority of Europeans are lactose tolerant (I made a video about this a while ago). I think that's a great example of how a small change in diet (and a small mutation) can change a species!
@@fionagibson7529 also how hot it is and if you're worried about a rib puncturing the guts, you can take the quarters and backstrap without entering the cavity.
It's mind-blowing to think just how many generations of humans there have been and how small your life is in the timeline. Also how weird this modern era is compared to the millions of years that preceded it. 99% of all the humans so far have been these hairy ape people wandering around killing mammoths, it's only been the last 10,000 years that we began to make towns, cities and civilisations, and then it's only been the last couple of hundred years that we started to exponentially develop our technology. So at one time it seems like we're just another human generation, one among millions of others that have come before, but on the hand the position we're in now is really strange and unprecedented.
"Our willingness to eat anything is the hallmark of the human story, going back to our earliest hominid relatives" A legacy continued today during weekend nights by drunken youth who will risk their life for a very suspicious kebab.
Eating shrimp with Rice, Peas, onion, red and green peper, dringking orange juice and looking foward that delicious ice cream for dessert I realized how varied my dinner is
To think, humans have been eating meat for a million years... If you ask a vegan, we just started recently... Sorry vegans, I'll keep eating what our ancestors did, everything.
The note on cultural bias at 5:32 is GREAT, i think its so important to include items like this particularly in these quick look kind of videos!! Thanks Eons team!
and olives. actually lots of things we eat are toxic if they aren't prepared in a *really* specific way that one has to wonder how the frick people ever thought of in the first place.
@@primusloy aren't most toxins pollutants etc need to build up in your body first before it becomes dangerous? That or you consume like a gazillion toxic fish at once
Nutmeg is my favorite spice. At a very high dose, it can cause hallucinations. At an extreme dose it can cause death. But it is absolutely delightful in very small amounts.
One of the absolute constants of our existence is starvation. I suspect most of our ancient ancestors were always a week away from serious malnutrition, so I don't blame them for eating anything they came across. The energy and nutrition equation demands it. This condition was really only addressed in the last 40 years.
When you mentioned taking a risk for food that might be tasty, I couldn’t help but think of that Tide Pod challenge last year. Some weird instinct to eat something ridiculous just because on an evolutionary instinct, there’s a chance it’s an amazing new source of nutrition
the problem with that meme though was that it started off as an inside joke among autism spectrum communities about how "normal" people assumed they would eat tide pods, only to then mutate into a thing with people actually trying it as a social thing... maybe people would try new things as a way to build social prestige
I've been binged watching your videos for the last 2 weeks and FINALLY I've caught up now. Your content is so world widening, fun, and comprehensible. 😁
Imagine living back during this time and having no knowledge of any animal, like the crocodile, and just living and surviving.. really puts things into perspective. this video is awesome
Please there's so many videos of people now that have no idea what type of animal they are shown. I saw one, with yes a blonde girl swearing a goose on the water was an ostrich! People have no idea what chickens really look like unless it's breaded and fried! 😂
Many areas of the world still have pests in their foods, Like weevils in grain. You remove as much as you can down to where you can manage to eat the food. The ones left are just extra protein :P
Honestly, never thought about how early anthropologists were western and didn't eat bugs, so they never thought about them as a food source. But, now makes perfect sense. Thanks!
I love this series so much. In college, my favorite classes were anthropology. I especially loved the biological anthropology subject. If I could do anything, I would study prehumans and our closest living relatives. Thanks for these videos! They've answered a lot of questions I had in college that weren't covered. :)
The intro reminds me, someone I know is a big believer in naturopathy and all that entails. So she went to a naturopath who prescribed her a crapload of vitamin A and she ended up with vitamin A toxicity, which led to a trip to the emergency room. It's been about three years and she still has chronic issues that she has to deal with. Frustratingly, her take on this whole thing was, "well, _that_ naturopath was obviously a quack, but my new one's great!" Which means I guess he hasn't poisoned her yet.
Cooking food also made a very big difference. Eating too much liver can be dangerous, for instance, the Inuit always divide the liver in their group so everyone gets a tiny portion and they have enough vitamin C in the end because they have hardly any plant-based food. Clever people the Inuit...
@@paulleddy3185 I mostly left the comment because I'm a Blake fan, but did try weights and powders, problem is I have rheumatoid arthritis and repetitive stress injuries and tore a rotator cuff, so lifting a pencil is a challenge now.....old lady syndrome is slowly taking over my body and it sucks. I never understood why old people don't work harder to stay fit--now I get it--illnesses like autoimmunity and chronic inflammation can overwhelm you....and all I can do is watch my muscles disappear and my bones dissolve like every other old lady. just glad if I can get out of bed.
@@paulleddy3185 you're so kind to care--thank you. isn't it an odd thing how connected we are and yet we are all strangers here. I do follow many of those suggestions--which is probably why I'm not worse--I don't take immune suppressing drugs either. I homestead and grow some organic foods--get plenty of sunshine even in winter. it's hard work tho and sometimes I just can't do things I wish I could. I'm worn out. The stresses in my life kicked me over the edge into autoimmunity I think--we are more than a machine....A broken heart can be life threatening tho doctors don't know how to treat that--I see a therapist but it's a drop in an ocean so to speak. I'm just glad for every day I'm still alive and carry on. Don't know why I'm telling you all this but don't expect you to have a solution--just sharing my humanity. I'm sure there are a lot of other people out there who can relate. sending my compassion out to those who struggle with limitations--there are still good things you can do and be, even if you are not able to get ripped muscles. Who knows maybe I'll go into remission and start lifting.....
One thing that's never a risk is the support of our boi STEVE mysterious benefactor, so enigmatic I really would like to know more about him.. if it even is one person?
Great video! Thank you for mentioning insects were a likely part of our ancestor's diets. I hate those trendy paleo diets proclaiming ancient humans chowing down on steaks and ribs every night was somehow historical or natural. They bring up BS 'evidence' just as flawed as all the trendy vegan diets claiming that humans have actually evolved to be herbivores. Nice to see this video pointing out we evolved to eat *everything and anything^ and that's how we managed to survive. Science and actual facts are becoming a rarity these days and it's good that there are still sources for them.
Anyone with common sense should know that the diet was stupid. Our ancestors ate what they could...plus they didn’t live a sedentary lifestyle. Running 10 miles to snag a wooly mammoths...eating berries along the way so they wouldn’t pass out from exhaustion. A little different from the modern world.
There are different chances of opportunities to catch a prey and to find berries. And nutrition values of these are different either. A lucky hunt provide food for a week for whole family, no need whole family to run whole week. Researches of modern hunter-gatherers show they're spending time for recreation activities and rest more than populations of developed countries.
I'm curious, if Insects where a part of our ancestors diet (which i do not doubt) why do many people nowadays (including myself) find insects to be extremely disgusting and thinking about eating them to be nauseating?
Kinda weird how people find eating insects strange, but will happily eat shrimp, which are close relations of insects. Personally there's no chance I'd ever eat octopus but some people think that's normal too.
Only time I ever broke a bone was when mom tried to ride me in front of her on a bike when I was 4 and I fell off and broke my collarbone. Ahh the 60s.
Agreed, such a good presentation, yet full of cultural platitudes, confirmation bias and selection bias (always leaving out pan paniscus due to their reactive socially functional group bonding which is opposite to pan troglodytes society based on proactive political games over status).
I really like these videos. We're not talked down to and the presenters actually know the correct pronunciation, and isn't just some 20 something who would treat this like a big joke.
5:05 "... but we managed to survive as a species, somehow." yeah, inhereting/exchanging information, tools weren't the only thing passed on to our species from their ancestors
This is the basis of the ETH (Expensive Tissue Hypothesis) where nutritionally superior meat created selective evolutionary pressure to metabolically trade digestive complexity for larger brains. With larger brains, we became better hunters and the need to expend enormous resources to maintain a digestive system complex enough to digest vegetation was less needed. By freeing up metabolic resources away from the digestive system, we were able to re-allocate those metabolic resources to our brains.
@@ufosrus Other big carnivores weren't being selected for intelligence. The limit of human intelligence and brain size was energy. Other carnivores don't eat nearly as much as us, and they expend several times more energy for a kill. It's not as simple as "more food = huge brain", it's "animal with already huge brain gets bigger with food"
@@ufosrus What are you trying to get at here, exactly? If you're suggesting that humans are historically herbivorous and the "meat industry" has manufactured all the historical and physical evidence of meat eating? Are you suggesting that plant matter doesn't require more energy to digest or that meat isn't more calorie rich? Regardless of any current moral objections to eating meat, there is ample physical, biological, and historical evidence that homo sapiens are omnivores and that our diet has had implications for the path of our evolution. "Big Meat" isn't out there inventing this stuff. Biology doesn't care about morality or philosophy. It just exists.
I would like to see how our ancestors, some how manage to eat wild mushrooms, and survive. So many poisonous types I'm wondering if we didn't start cultivating mushrooms later in life.
