Expensive tissue theory

[kurite]

I just read up on the expensive tissue theory. Im just wondering since we obviously don't believe the advent of cooking is the reason for our gut size decreasing the second time than what is the reason?
thanks

[goodsamaritan]

I just read up on the expensive tissue theory. Im just wondering since we obviously don't believe the advent of cooking is the reason for our gut size decreasing the second time than what is the reason?
thanks

A time when the atmosphere was a more nutritious plasma soup?  You inhaled a lot of nutrition then?
More nutritious raw food? With the advent of tools we were able to eat brain, marrow, liver, live sea food.

[Paleo Donk]

I believe humans have sacrificed plenty of tissue for a larger brain - Yes gut size is one of them, but so is body hair, musculature (we are quite the weaklings), teeth size. Basically things that modern tools could replace so that our bodies did not have to do the work. Also other senses in the brain probably got substituted for higher level reasoning - smell being one of them.

[pioneer]

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html

maybe it happened during the time of mirror neurons which is a very good theory. Apparently when the human brain was in its great development, we developed mirror neurons which allowed us to perceive the actions of others and copy them, hence cooking.

[kurite]

Very interesting vid.

[kurite]

Just thought of something else. I believe I read somewhere that humans have unusually large pancreases. Just wondering is it possible that when our bodies are introduced to cooked food at a young age the body responds by increasing the size of the pancrease and decreases the size of the stomach because the body needs to get the energy from somewhere else? So yes the advent of cooking may be the cause of our gut reduction but what if its just from a temporary pancrease increase?

[raw-al]

I believe humans have sacrificed plenty of tissue for a larger brain - Yes gut size is one of them, but so is body hair, musculature (we are quite the weaklings), teeth size. Basically things that modern tools could replace so that our bodies did not have to do the work. Also other senses in the brain probably got substituted for higher level reasoning - smell being one of them.

PD
That's an interesting observation. Normally my girlfriend can detect odours unbelievably well. I can't smell most of what she notices. High meat is not problematic for me. However as a pilot I can smell electrical smoke or anything that shouldn't be there in a heart beat, normally long before others. Somewhere I read that we have the ability to smell things according to the effect that the source has on us. In other words if something is dangerous such as sewage (which has a pungent odour) it is easily detectable and the (Parts Per Million) PPM can be very low for our detection. However, benign odours require considerably larger PPM. So we develop what we need to survive ie large pancreas