The Primal Feast : Food, Sex, Foraging, and Love

Rating:
Summary: A multi-dimensional look at food and how it has shaped us
Review: Allport sees herself as a forager, a creature with a drive to look for food. She attributes this drive to her ancestors who spent much of their time searching the forests and savannas for food. From this personal observation, keenly felt, Allport branches out to thoughts about food and eating, from the habits of the deer and squirrels near her home to the proclivities of the chimpanzees of Africa. Primary among her concerns is how these behaviors relate to human food consumption, and how the search for food and what we eat has shaped our social structure and psychology.

This is a very interesting read, graceful written and full of intriguing bits of information. Did you know, for example, that virtually all common spices, oregano, thyme, cinnamon, rosemary, etc. have "powerful antibacterial and antifungal effects" (p. 118)? Or that there is a beeswax-eating bird used by the Hadza people of Tanzania that leads them to bee hives? The bird loves beeswax but is unable to open a hive, but is rewarded when people do. This "honey guide" is thought to be human kind's "oldest surviving partner in predation, much older than the dog or the falcon" (p. 148). Or that corn treated with an alkali (tortillas are made with lime) frees the otherwise unavailable essential amino acid tryptophan from the corn so that those who depend heavily upon corn in their diet will not develop pellagra, an often-fatal dietary disease? This is just one example of an eating technique developed through trial and error and happenstance that allows a people to live on an otherwise incomplete diet--a "cuisine" altered only at considerable risk.

Allport also goes from observation to speculate on such things as the origins of tool use, the sexual differentiation of hunting and gathering, and the use of food for social and sexual advantage. Generally she follows the well-documented and successful path of evolutionary biology and psychology, noting along the way where earlier ideas have proven wrong or incomplete (Raymond Dart's mistaken belief that Australopithecus was largely a meat-eater (p. 157) is a case in point.) She is insightful and presents her arguments well so that we tend to agree with what she says. Her idea that tool use began with females and then later spread to males, as presented in Chapter Twelve "The Nature of Food," is persuasive. Particularly interesting to me is the material on the nature of omnivores and how food choices dictate physiology and vice versa. For example, primates with their big brains that require large amounts of energy rich foods cannot subsist on leaves and other foods requiring long intestinal tracts and a slow-motion life style. Or, reverse that and observe that creatures that have the ability to find and consume energy rich foods can grow big, energy-demanding brains, while those who eat leaves and other foods that require a lot of digestion can't afford to grow a big brain.

Also interesting is the chapter on food and cooking aptly entitled, "The Only Cooks on the Planet." Cooking and other processing techniques such as leeching and preserving freed up many foods for our consumption not available to other creatures. In this connection, Allport makes the astute observation that the technique of cultivation, that of agriculturally engineering energy-rich and less toxic foods, made these plants edible to other animals creating a new ecology of vermin (p. 124). On the other hand the technique of cooking makes foods available only to humans.

One of the more startling observations made by Allport, who really has a keen eye for connections, is this on page 60. She is discussing the differentiation of sex cells, the female stationary and energy-rich, the male mobile and without nutritive value. She quotes biologist Robert Trivers as saying, "An undifferentiated system of sex cells seems highly unstable." She concludes, "So as soon as selection favored those that invested their sex cells with nutritious substances, it also favored those that cheated the system and became adept at numbers and mobility instead. As soon as selection favored eggs, it also favored sperm. And there you have it: the origin of the sexes."

This is startling because biologists are still in a quandary about how sex began. The main and latest idea has been that sexuality developed as a result of the arms race between the organism and its microbial predators (see Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan. Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality (1991) or Matt Ridley's The Red Queen (1993) for examples of this argument). Here however Allport suggests that one of those predators may have been another cell bent not on consumption, per se, but on reproduction! And so they formed a symbiosis...

I am pleased to note that although Allport doesn't mince words when it comes to pointing out male maleficence--apt and hard-hitting is her discussion of how in many cultures males manufacture food taboos that limit the foods females can eat, saving the biggest and best portions for themselves--she plays fair throughout, and at no time gets bogged down in the sexism that preoccupies some writers. On page 190, for example, she states quite directly that females shape male behavior by their reproductive choices, thereby implying that females are also responsible for the male violence that we post-moderns so wisely abhor.

Allport appropriately ends the book with a plea that we not turn the planet into "a giant McDonald's dispensing Happy Meals" to "Homo Sapiens alone," and that we not overuse the world's resources. Amen to that, and kudos to Susan Allport for writing such an interesting and wisdom-filled book.

Rating:
Summary: A multi-dimensional look at food and how it has shaped us
Review: Allport sees herself as a forager, a creature with a drive to look for food. She attributes this drive to her ancestors who spent much of their time searching the forests and savannas for food. From this personal observation, keenly felt, Allport branches out to thoughts about food and eating, from the habits of the deer and squirrels near her home to the proclivities of the chimpanzees of Africa. Primary among her concerns is how these behaviors relate to human food consumption, and how the search for food and what we eat has shaped our social structure and psychology.

This is a very interesting read, graceful written and full of intriguing bits of information. Did you know, for example, that virtually all common spices, oregano, thyme, cinnamon, rosemary, etc. have "powerful antibacterial and antifungal effects" (p. 118)? Or that there is a beeswax-eating bird used by the Hadza people of Tanzania that leads them to bee hives? The bird loves beeswax but is unable to open a hive, but is rewarded when people do. This "honey guide" is thought to be human kind's "oldest surviving partner in predation, much older than the dog or the falcon" (p. 148). Or that corn treated with an alkali (tortillas are made with lime) frees the otherwise unavailable essential amino acid tryptophan from the corn so that those who depend heavily upon corn in their diet will not develop pellagra, an often-fatal dietary disease? This is just one example of an eating technique developed through trial and error and happenstance that allows a people to live on an otherwise incomplete diet--a "cuisine" altered only at considerable risk.

Allport also goes from observation to speculate on such things as the origins of tool use, the sexual differentiation of hunting and gathering, and the use of food for social and sexual advantage. Generally she follows the well-documented and successful path of evolutionary biology and psychology, noting along the way where earlier ideas have proven wrong or incomplete (Raymond Dart's mistaken belief that Australopithecus was largely a meat-eater (p. 157) is a case in point.) She is insightful and presents her arguments well so that we tend to agree with what she says. Her idea that tool use began with females and then later spread to males, as presented in Chapter Twelve "The Nature of Food," is persuasive. Particularly interesting to me is the material on the nature of omnivores and how food choices dictate physiology and vice versa. For example, primates with their big brains that require large amounts of energy rich foods cannot subsist on leaves and other foods requiring long intestinal tracts and a slow-motion life style. Or, reverse that and observe that creatures that have the ability to find and consume energy rich foods can grow big, energy-demanding brains, while those who eat leaves and other foods that require a lot of digestion can't afford to grow a big brain.

Also interesting is the chapter on food and cooking aptly entitled, "The Only Cooks on the Planet." Cooking and other processing techniques such as leeching and preserving freed up many foods for our consumption not available to other creatures. In this connection, Allport makes the astute observation that the technique of cultivation, that of agriculturally engineering energy-rich and less toxic foods, made these plants edible to other animals creating a new ecology of vermin (p. 124). On the other hand the technique of cooking makes foods available only to humans.

One of the more startling observations made by Allport, who really has a keen eye for connections, is this on page 60. She is discussing the differentiation of sex cells, the female stationary and energy-rich, the male mobile and without nutritive value. She quotes biologist Robert Trivers as saying, "An undifferentiated system of sex cells seems highly unstable." She concludes, "So as soon as selection favored those that invested their sex cells with nutritious substances, it also favored those that cheated the system and became adept at numbers and mobility instead. As soon as selection favored eggs, it also favored sperm. And there you have it: the origin of the sexes."

This is startling because biologists are still in a quandary about how sex began. The main and latest idea has been that sexuality developed as a result of the arms race between the organism and its microbial predators (see Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan. Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality (1991) or Matt Ridley's The Red Queen (1993) for examples of this argument). Here however Allport suggests that one of those predators may have been another cell bent not on consumption, per se, but on reproduction! And so they formed a symbiosis...

I am pleased to note that although Allport doesn't mince words when it comes to pointing out male maleficence--apt and hard-hitting is her discussion of how in many cultures males manufacture food taboos that limit the foods females can eat, saving the biggest and best portions for themselves--she plays fair throughout, and at no time gets bogged down in the sexism that preoccupies some writers. On page 190, for example, she states quite directly that females shape male behavior by their reproductive choices, thereby implying that females are also responsible for the male violence that we post-moderns so wisely abhor.

Allport appropriately ends the book with a plea that we not turn the planet into "a giant McDonald's dispensing Happy Meals" to "Homo Sapiens alone," and that we not overuse the world's resources. Amen to that, and kudos to Susan Allport for writing such an interesting and wisdom-filled book.

Rating:
Summary: A delicious new book
Review: Reading this book is like having a conversation over tea with a fascinating raconteur who jumps around from topic to topic without making a single point stick.

I was utterly unconvinced of the argument that there are fundamental and irrevocable differences between men and women--relating to food. The author does not prove her point and I found my attention wandering, though occasionally there were little factoids scattered through the book like currants in a bun that served to keep me mildly interested.

Nothing in this book is particularly new and all of the interesting information can probably be accessed elsewhere. This was a real disappointment to me.

Rating:
Summary: A great complement to the "sex" Books
Review: Susan Allport combines facts, theory and speculation from many fields of research to present an entirely unique view on the evolution of mankind. I could not put this book down and have since gotten my mate to start reading it as well. It has so much information that it will provide topics for conversation for weeks. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Psychology, anthropology, nutrition and evolution. WOW!
Review: Susan Allport combines facts, theory and speculation from many fields of research to present an entirely unique view on the evolution of mankind. I could not put this book down and have since gotten my mate to start reading it as well. It has so much information that it will provide topics for conversation for weeks. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: A great complement to the "sex" Books
Review: Zoners and Atkins fanatics beware, this book provides strong arguments against your folly!

Allport's Primal Feast takes on the role of food in the evolutionary pschychology of human nature. This is a much-needed populalization of ideas that helps to balance the field's more alluring obsession with sex. I was most taken with her discussions of macronutrients in the human diet and how these shape culture and nature, and with her discussions about diet variety, foraging instincts, and the interesting ideas she has about the evolution of handedness--very intriguing!

However the book feels a little bit incomplete to me. It's "thin" on the subject of eating disorders and sexual competition and I thought she could have gone much further in discussing Hurtado's and Hawkes's work in hunter-gatherer cultures. Surely, food-sharing and caching are at least as important in shaping human nature as sex and status-seeking. Still what is here is a great introduction to the work of these two important anthropologists.

Cultural versus true evolutionary forces are also not well distingusihed in this book and Allport slips too easily from one to the other and back. It would have been more interesting to see how these are independent and how they are interdependent. She is far stronger on the science and evolution than she is with the cultural anthroplogy.

Allport's previous book The Natural History of Parenting has many excellent sections that seem to "complete" this book, in particalur the sections on breastfeeding and feeding children. It is important to note that in both her science books, Allport is profoundly influenced by Robert Trivers thinking on parent-child genetic conflict.

This book is also a bit too "anecdotal" for my taste. While I enjoy most of her personal stories, I found some of the writing over the top. The worst of it is over by chapter 2 and then she settles down to some serious writing.

An EXCELLENT bibliography with many good leads for further reading in a rather diffuse area of evolutionary psychology.