1. Chimps and bonobos (our closest relatives) hunt for prey and eat meat, though less frequently than most humans do.

2. The invention of cooking meat was most probably an accidental invention, but we have an evolved capability to learn and apply behavioural invetions like that. Thus it non-accidentally became part of our culture. (There is also a huge literature on birds' capabilites to invent new ways of obtaining food.) Behavioral flexibility.

3. Cookig meat sterilizes it: it blocks a major route of pathogens' transfer into the human body. The same applies to boiling water before we drink it as tea. The culture of tea drinking roots in East and South Asia, where you find the greatest concentration of human beings even up to the present day.

Human first eats raw meat just as other animals. Simillar to discovery of fire, the burning of meat by human is probably initiated accidently. For instance, a forest fire burned animals that smell and taste good and inspired human to cook food with fire.

Accidental fire gave to human delicious meat food...now we are eating like barbecue. In fact, life learning leads by accidental activities in many cases.

I am no specialist but I think the fact it was an accidental discovery does not exclude the fact this discovery could have represented a crucial change on first human communities with significant evolutional consequences. Meat is a richer food than vegetables. One hypothesis is that this nutrition contributed to the development of brain, one of our organs with the highest energy requirment. This also probably lead human to leave Africa, switching from a prey to a predator, needing more space to encounter his new hunting needs. Then cooked meat conserves more than raw meat, allowing not to go for hunting every day, maybe to spend more time to social activities? I don't think evolutionary consequences of eating and heating meat would be hard to found and hypothesised, but harder to proove...

Chimpanzee and Human had a common ancestor, as per present theory. We are having more than 98% similarity in DNA with Chimpanzee.

Chimpanzee is basically vegetarian, but occasionally can eat non vegetarian foods also.

It was perhaps the condition of Human also. Then after the discovery of fire, we have learnt different cooking procedures.

1. Chimps and bonobos (our closest relatives) hunt for prey and eat meat, though less frequently than most humans do.

2. The invention of cooking meat was most probably an accidental invention, but we have an evolved capability to learn and apply behavioural invetions like that. Thus it non-accidentally became part of our culture. (There is also a huge literature on birds' capabilites to invent new ways of obtaining food.) Behavioral flexibility.

3. Cookig meat sterilizes it: it blocks a major route of pathogens' transfer into the human body. The same applies to boiling water before we drink it as tea. The culture of tea drinking roots in East and South Asia, where you find the greatest concentration of human beings even up to the present day.

One clue is in our dentition which suggests that we are omnivorous. Cooking meat makes some nutrients more readily digestible and probably played a major part in the evolution of our resource-hungry brains.

Dogs clearly cottoned on to that too and have adapted different digestions depending on where they evolved.Northern basal breeds have fewer starch receptors than those which evolved later in the fertile crescent for instance whch would match the type of diet available to both humans and dogs in the respective regions.

I'm not convinced the discovery of fire was accidental, at least not the discovery of how to make a fire. Smart folks huddled next to the warmth of a lightning-caused fire might well have embarked on a discussion of, "It would be convenient to create this stuff ourselves. How do you reckon we do that?" Some early scientist eventually figured it out.

The tribal cook noticed that bits of meat left in the sun dried and didn't rot. Thought, hmm, how can I replicate this ? Experimented with methods of drying leftover meat in the sun. Bad winter came with lots of snow and rain, not enough sun to dry meat. Someone huddled by the fire thought, hmm. Sun heat dries. Fire heat should dry, too. More experimentation. One day, someone left the drying meat over the fire too long and cooked it. Mom started yelling at negligent daughter, realized the burned stuff smelled pretty decent, and wondered what it would be like with a little A-1 Sauce.

Seriously, in assuming all great discoveries were accidental, we don't give ancient people enough credit for intelligence and scientific curiosity.

>> Or we needed to eat meat to get those essential ones

>> Or we grow into species that needed that

Causality is not necessarily unidirectional. As our ancestors consumed some meat+fish, they could develop smarter brains. As they got smarter brains, they could obtain even more meat+fish etc. This can be an autocatalytic process untill some other factor (e.g. an anatomical limitation) does not stop it.

Cheers, Lajos

Dear Dr. Griepink,

I know many persons in India who never took meat, fish or egg for several generations, but do not show any physical or mental abnormality and live like all other persons.

I think our body system have some power to control it.

What is your explanation?

Gathering wild plant food is a time-consuming process and it takes a lot of seeds to make a meal. Growing plant food takes months or years and a crop can be wiped out in a matter of minutes by hail, fire, or insects. In addition, local plant-based foods are scarce or non-existent during the winters in cold climates. The choice sometimes came down to hunt or starve.

Meat generally provides more calories per ounce than plant-based foods so perhaps would satisfy hunger quicker and longer. It also tastes pretty good and comes with extra perks like sinew for sewing thread and bow strings, bone for needles and awls, skins for clothing and bedding, bone marrow for a sort of butter, and horns and antlers for weapons and tools.

Chimps may hunt for the same reasons many people hunt: food, challenge, adventure, and a chance to get away from the wife and kids.

Oh, I wasn't going to mention exasperated wives looking at the guys and saying, "Don't you need to go kill a wooly mammoth or something? And take the kids with you."

Plant food has to be searched for or grown, both activities requiring caloric output equaling that of hunting. If one is searching for appropriate plant food, one eventually must go further and further from home to locate it as supplies near by diminish. Gathering some food stuffs, like roots, involves a fair amount of digging. Some hunts are conducted by chasing game down. Other hunts involve sitting in a tree along a known corridor waiting for the animal to walk by on its usual rounds. Following food, both plant and animal, was a big reason for nomadic lifestyles.