Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I got into a random debate with a lady yesterday, she claimed that eating meat contributed to the growth in the human brain that lead to mankind evolving from neanderthals. Has anyone heard of this before. I did a quick google search but what I found so far quickly that supported her theory didn't sound very legit.

-Dylan

i always get this one from people in work! so my reply is usually something like, well it hasnt done us much good has it? more people are sick than ever before, more wars, more starvation, more animal suffering.......yeh we've evolved real well!

It is a hypothesis that is out there but there isn't any sort of scientific consensus on the subject.

It has been covered at PaleoVeganlolgy a great blog that doesn't have to do with the Paleo diet but rather is run by a paleontologist. http://paleovegan.blogspot.com

In the end it really doesn't matter if it did or didn't. The moment in evolution is over and meat is required for brain function now.

Ha ha nice one MrBear…DeEvolution?
Evolution is such a complex and diverse phenomenon that modern scientist can’t fully explain it. But if all were doing here is making speculation than you can easily make a case in the other direction. Mankind is approximately 2.5 million years old and yet the first civilizations didn’t appear until about 8,000 BC. One of the main reason that civilizations started was because of farming. Once people learned how to grow crops they had an abundance of food and could barter. So you could say vegetables not meat helped us evolve.

Cruelty is cruelty regardless of our 'ancestors' involvement with it. We are at a stage where we can stop and think about our own involvement. ie. Human survival does not depend on meat consumption. With the rate of deforestation, climate change, fresh water shortages etc, I personally don't expect humans need to worry much about future 'evolution'. Even if there was time for further human evolution, the genetically modified strain of humans will just take over. (I jest.. sort of)

Why aren't chimpanzees endowed with human brains? They eat meat.
And why aren't lions and tigers smarter than us? They eat a lot more meat! I think the meat eating 'theory' is thus debunked. Or perhaps the cats are just biding their time and will soon wage war, then round up the humans and put them all on factory farms. hmm... wouldn't that be true karma.

yeah thats ^ a ^ good ^ one too, not thought of it that way!

Look at what spiritual masters said about eat animals... they don't eat them., They said that eat animals is the cause of a lot of our problems... for our body and also for our spirit. And i think like that too.

There's evidence our ancestors could have cooked their food 1.9 million years ago. If so, they could have obtained lots of extra energy from starchy tubers and other foods to grow bigger brains.

There may also have been a boost to evolution caused by a mutation in how a particular gene is regulated. An article based on the following study:
PLoS Biol. 2005 Dec;3(12):e387.
Ancient and recent positive selection transformed opioid cis-regulation in humans.
PMID: 16274263

Says:

'Researchers have discovered the first brain regulatory gene that shows clear evidence of evolution from lower primates to humans. They said the evolution of humans might well have depended in part on hyperactivation of the gene, called prodynorphin (PDYN), that plays critical roles in regulating perception, behavior and memory.

They reported that, compared to lower primates, humans possess a distinctive variant in a regulatory segment of the prodynorphin gene, which is a precursor molecule for a range of regulatory proteins called "neuropeptides." This variant increases the amount of prodynorphin produced in the brain.

While the researchers do not understand the physiological implications of the activated PDYN gene in humans, they said their finding offers an important and intriguing piece of a puzzle of the mechanism by which humans evolved from lower primates.'

Full article at:
medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=34876

The full study is available on PubMed.

This is great, I'm loving reading all the feedback here. Thanks everyone for posting, keep them coming. PS- I am checking out that website now.

-Dylan

I would probably have to say no. The fats in the brain are from omega 3 DHA's. The only way to get them would be fish or plant foods. The fats in meat are saturated. Your brain can make the cells from saturated but they are more rigid and don't absorb nutrients as well. If there is any basis to their story I think it would make more sense maybe that our ancestors started to eat fish?

Also chimpanzees currently cannibalize each other and kill other animals to eat. I don't see why they wouldn't have in the past. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDFh5JdYh7I (a little graphic its chimps hunting a monkey)

I think there are a few different ways evolutionary changes happen. Natural selection. Random mutation could just be a mutation of our genes to give us larger brains. The mutation could also have given us smaller brains, hence, random. Also attraction could have swayed to more intelligent partners so the less intelligent wouldn't have had a chance to mate. We don't really control what we are biologically attracted to. It's written in our DNA from the moment of inception. Actually considering the diversity of life I would say there are a myriad of reasons and not just 1 to explain it.

I wouldn't care either way whether we evolved to get larger brains from meat. If it was true I would just have to accept it, but if there are no facts to back it up I would just have to chalk it up as myth.

I just basically know what I know from a little bit of research and countless hours of animal planet. It would be best to talk to an evolutionary biologist if you wanted the whole story.

This makes more sense hehe