Vegetarian Diet Actually WORSE for the Environment per Calorie Than Consuming Meat

Contrary to recent headlines -- and a talk by actor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference -- eating a vegetarian diet could contribute to climate change.

In fact, according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University, following the USDA recommendations to consume more fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood is more harmful to the environment because those foods have relatively high resource uses and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per calorie. Published in Environment Systems and Decisions, the study measured the changes in energy use, blue water footprint and GHG emissions associated with U.S. food consumption patterns.

"Eating lettuce is over three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon," said Paul Fischbeck, professor of social and decisions sciences and engineering and public policy. "Lots of common vegetables require more resources per calorie than you would think. Eggplant, celery and cucumbers look particularly bad when compared to pork or chicken."

[...]

However, eating the recommended "healthier" foods -- a mix of fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood -- increased the environmental impact in all three categories: Energy use went up by 38 percent, water use by 10 percent and GHG emissions by 6 percent.

"There's a complex relationship between diet and the environment," Tom said. "What is good for us health-wise isn't always what's best for the environment. That's important for public officials to know and for them to be cognizant of these tradeoffs as they develop or continue to develop dietary guidelines in the future."

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The Incorporation of C4 Plants Into Hominin and Baboon Diets During the Early Pliocene Neogene

Dietary change among hominins and cercopithecids in Ethiopia during the early Pliocene

Authors:

Levin et al

Abstract:

The incorporation of C4 resources into hominin diet signifies increased dietary breadth within hominins and divergence from the dietary patterns of other great apes. Morphological evidence indicates that hominin diet became increasingly diverse by 4.2 million years ago but may not have included large proportions of C4 foods until 800 thousand years later, given the available isotopic evidence. Here we use carbon isotope data from early to mid Pliocene hominin and cercopithecid fossils from Woranso-Mille (central Afar, Ethiopia) to constrain the timing of this dietary change and its ecological context. We show that both hominins and some papionins expanded their diets to include C4 resources as early as 3.76 Ma. Among hominins, this dietary expansion postdates the major dentognathic morphological changes that distinguish Australopithecus from Ardipithecus, but it occurs amid a continuum of adaptations to diets of tougher, harder foods and to committed terrestrial bipedality. In contrast, carbon isotope data from cercopithecids indicate that C4-dominated diets of the earliest members of the Theropithecus oswaldi lineage preceded the dental specialization for grazing but occurred after they were fully terrestrial. The combined data indicate that the inclusion of C4 foods in hominin diet occurred as part of broader ecological changes in African primate communities.

Fructose & Glucose Effect Appetite Differently

Differential effects of fructose versus glucose on brain and appetitive responses to food cues and decisions for food rewards

Authors:

Luo et al

Abstract:

Prior studies suggest that fructose compared with glucose may be a weaker suppressor of appetite, and neuroimaging research shows that food cues trigger greater brain reward responses in a fasted relative to a fed state. We sought to determine the effects of ingesting fructose versus glucose on brain, hormone, and appetitive responses to food cues and food-approach behavior. Twenty-four healthy volunteers underwent two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sessions with ingestion of either fructose or glucose in a double-blinded, random-order cross-over design. fMRI was performed while participants viewed images of high-calorie foods and nonfood items using a block design. After each block, participants rated hunger and desire for food. Participants also performed a decision task in which they chose between immediate food rewards and delayed monetary bonuses. Hormones were measured at baseline and 30 and 60 min after drink ingestion. Ingestion of fructose relative to glucose resulted in smaller increases in plasma insulin levels and greater brain reactivity to food cues in the visual cortex (in whole-brain analysis) and left orbital frontal cortex (in region-of-interest analysis). Parallel to the neuroimaging findings, fructose versus glucose led to greater hunger and desire for food and a greater willingness to give up long-term monetary rewards to obtain immediate high-calorie foods. These findings suggest that ingestion of fructose relative to glucose results in greater activation of brain regions involved in attention and reward processing and may promote feeding behavior.

How to Tell What Proboscideans (Elephants and Paleo Relatives) ate Based on Tooth Wear

A new tooth wear-based dietary analysis method for Proboscidea (Mammalia)

Authors:

Saarinen et al

Abstract:

Dietary analyses of herbivorous mammals are important for paleoecological reconstruction. Several methods applicable to fossil teeth have been developed lately. The mesowear method based on wear-induced occlusal shape and relief of ungulate molars has proven to be a robust method for dietary analysis. In its original form it can only be used for selenodont, plagiolophodont, and ectolophodont ungulate molars, but the principle can be extended to other kinds of tooth morphology. We introduce a new method of dietary analysis for proboscideans similar to the mesowear method, based on angle measurements from worn dentin valleys reflecting the relief of enamel ridges. The enamel ridges should be heavily worn when the abrasiveness of diet increases, resulting in lower occlusal relief and larger angles. For testing this, we compared the mesowear angles with stable carbon isotope values from dental enamel from populations of extant and fossil species from localities from Kenya and India. This enables us to compare diet and tooth wear in proboscideans, because the stable carbon isotope ratios in tropical environments provide a reliable standard for assessing the relative amounts of C4 and C3 plants in diet, and most of the C4 plants are grasses, which should be reflected in the mesowear signal.

The Diet of the PreColumbian Peruvian Mummies of the Paracas Necropolis

Paleodiet in the Paracas Necropolis of Wari Kayan: carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of keratin samples from the south coast of Peru

Authors:

Knudson et al

Abstract:

Despite being one of the most famous archaeological cemeteries in Peru, many questions remain about the people who were buried at the Paracas Necropolis of Wari Kayan, which was first excavated by Julio C. Tello in 1925. Here, we use bioarchaeology and biogeochemistry to elucidate the lives of individuals buried at Wari Kayan. More specifically, we present 90 new δ13Ckeratin and δ15Nkeratin values from 14 individuals buried at Wari Kayan and two artifacts made of human hair (mean δ13Ckeratin (VPDB) = −15.3 ± 0.9‰ (1σ, n = 90) and mean δ15Nkeratin (AIR) = +15.5 ± 1.2‰ (1σ, n = 90)). We interpret these light stable isotope data from archaeological human hair samples from the Paracas Necropolis of Wari Kayan as evidence for a mixed diet of C4 and C3 foods as dietary carbon sources and marine products as dietary nitrogen sources. Sequential hair samples from the same individuals do not exhibit large isotopic differences in hair that formed at different times before death. In addition to elucidating paleodiet at this important site, we interpret sequential isotopic hair data as evidence of a population whose diet was predominately coastal in the last weeks or months of life, either remaining on the coast or consuming coastal products in the highlands. These data elucidate paleodiet as well as the utility of applying newer isotopic methods to archaeological human remains from older museum collections to gain a better understanding of the past.

The Diet of the People of Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis at Neolithic Çatalhöyük: Evidence for human and animal diet and their relationship to households

Authors:

Pearson et al

Abstract:

The long-term excavation at Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic site in central Turkey, have uncovered over 100 houses, which have been associated with at least 400 human skeletons and one million recorded animal bones. This large assemblage has enabled an extensive programme of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis, which was designed to explore animal hunting and herding practices and how human diet varied according to age, sex, burial practice, location and over time. The isotope values for sheep and cattle show how both were herded in a range of locations which consisted of pure C3 and also mixed C3/C4 plant locations. We sampled animals from middens adjacent to the buildings where people were buried to provide house-by-house diet reconstruction. However, very few of the people buried in the houses demonstrate a clear dietary relationship to these associated middens. Similarly, people buried in the same house seem to have had different diets to one another. We argue that these data suggest diet at Neolithic Çatalhöyük was a carefully structured, long-lived and repetitious process and that houses may not have functioned as the simple domestic units that they are often assumed to be.

Maize Consumption in pre-Hispanic Andes

Maize consumption in pre-Hispanic south-central Andes: chemical and microscopic evidence from organic residues in archaeological pottery from western Tinogasta (Catamarca, Argentina)

Authors:

Lantos et al

Abstract:

Pre-Hispanic Andean societies depended economically on the cultivation of maize (Zea mays), the main staple food crop in the region after its introduction from highland Mexico. Here we report new data from residue analysis of potsherds recovered in archaeological sites in western Tinogasta, Catamarca province, Argentina, ca. 3rd to 16th centuries AD. Molecular and isotopic (δ13C values) compositions of fatty acids and microscopically identified maize starch granules from organic residues absorbed in archaeological potsherds were compared with Andean ingredients and food residues obtained from experimental replica pots, where traditional recipes were cooked. Complex mixtures of lipids and starch remains observed in archaeological cooking pots indicated combinations of Andean ingredients such as llama, beans, algarroba, and maize, and suggest continuity in the domestic foodways through time. The distribution and δ13C values of lipids preserved in vessels used for alcoholic beverage preparation, storage and transport in Inka sites suggested the possible consumption of two drinks with distinct patterns: traditional Andean maize beer (chicha) and a local fermented drink made from algarroba flour (aloja). This is potential evidence for consumption practices in festive contexts sponsored by the Inka state.

Feeding Biomechanics and Dietary Ecology of Paranthropus boisei

The Feeding Biomechanics and Dietary Ecology of Paranthropus boisei

Authors:

Smith et al

Abstract:

The African Plio-Pleistocene hominins known as australopiths evolved derived craniodental features frequently interpreted as adaptations for feeding on either hard, or compliant/tough foods. Among australopiths, Paranthropus boisei is the most robust form, exhibiting traits traditionally hypothesized to produce high bite forces efficiently and strengthen the face against feeding stresses. However, recent mechanical analyses imply that P. boisei may not have been an efficient producer of bite force and that robust morphology in primates is not necessarily strong. Here we use an engineering method, finite element analysis, to show that the facial skeleton of P. boisei is structurally strong, exhibits a strain pattern different from that in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Australopithecus africanus, and efficiently produces high bite force. It has been suggested that P. boisei consumed a diet of compliant/tough foods like grass blades and sedge pith. However, the blunt occlusal topography of this and other species suggests that australopiths are adapted to consume hard foods, perhaps including grass and sedge seeds. A consideration of evolutionary trends in morphology relating to feeding mechanics suggests that food processing behaviors in gracile australopiths evidently were disrupted by environmental change, perhaps contributing to the eventual evolution of Homo and Paranthropus.

There was More Than One PaleoDiet: Ancestors Changed and Focused on Just Surviving, not Balanced Nutrition

The Paleolithic diet, or caveman diet, a weight-loss craze in which people emulate the diet of plants and animals eaten by early humans during the Stone Age, gives modern calorie-counters great freedom because those ancestral diets likely differed substantially over time and space, according to researchers at Georgia State University and Kent State University.

Their findings are published in The Quarterly Review of Biology.

"Based on evidence that's been gathered over many decades, there's very little evidence that any early hominids had very specialized diets or there were specific food categories that seemed particularly important, with only a few possible exceptions," said Dr. Ken Sayers, a postdoctoral researcher at the Language Research Center of Georgia State. "Some earlier workers had suggested that the diets of bears and pigs--which have an omnivorous, eclectic feeding strategy that varies greatly based on local conditions--share much in common with those of our early ancestors. The data tend to support this view."

The co-author on the paper, Dr. C. Owen Lovejoy, is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Kent State University, well known for his reconstructions of the socioecology and locomotor behavior of early hominids such as "Ardi" (Ardipithecus ramidus, 4.4 million years old) and "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis, 3.2 million years old).

The study examines anatomical, paleoenvironmental and chemical evidence, as well as the feeding behavior of living animals. While early hominids were not great hunters, and their dentition was not great for exploiting many specific categories of plant food, they were most likely dietary "jacks-of-all-trades."

The review paper covers earliest hominid evolution, from about 6 to 1.6 million years ago. This touches on the beginning of the Paleolithic era, which spans from 2.6 million to roughly 10,000 years ago, but Sayers suggests that the conclusions hold in force for later human evolution as well.

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Using Dental Plaque to Determine the Paleodiet of Easter Islanders

A University of Otago, New Zealand, PhD student analysing dental calculus (hardened plaque) from ancient teeth is helping resolve the question of what plant foods Easter Islanders relied on before European contact.

Known to its Polynesian inhabitants as Rapa Nui, Easter Island is thought to have been colonized around the 13th Century and is famed for its mysterious large stone statues or moai.

Otago Anatomy PhD student Monica Tromp and Idaho State University's Dr John Dudgeon have just published new research clearing up their previous puzzling finding that suggested palm may have been a staple plant food for Rapa Nui's population over several centuries.

However, no other line of archaeological or ethnohistoric evidence supports palm having a dietary role on Easter Island; in fact evidence points to the palm becoming extinct soon after colonization.

Nevertheless, the researchers had found that the vast majority of phytoliths (plant microfossils) embedded within the calculus were from palm trees.

The teeth were from burials excavated in the early 1980s from multiple coastal archaeological sites around the island.

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Greenland Norse "the Farm Beneath the Sand" did NOT Have Bear or Muskox Hair Remains

Ancient DNA unravels the truth behind the controversial GUS Greenlandic Norse fur samples: the bison was a horse, and the muskox and bears were goats

Authors:

Sinding et al

Abstract:

The Norse Greenlandic archaeological site known as ‘the Farm Beneath the Sand’ (GUS) has sourced many well-preserved and unique archaeological artefacts. Some of the most controversial finds are tufts of hair, which previous morphological-based examination concluded derive from bison, black bear, brown bear and muskox, all species whose natural presence in South Greenland is unlikely. If true, the consequences are potentially significant, as they could imply Viking trading with, or hunting within, North America. To validate these previous findings, we genetically profiled the samples, through mitochondrial 16S DNA analysis. The results revealed that the putative bison was, in fact horse, while the bears and muskox were goat. The results demonstrate the importance of using genetic analyses to validate results derived from morphological analyses on hair, in particular where such studies lead to sensational claims.

Neandertals ate Pigeons

The earliest pigeon fanciers

Authors:

Blasco et al

Abstract:

Feral Pigeons have colonised all corners of the Earth, having developed a close association with humans and their activities. The wild ancestor of the Feral Pigeon, the Rock Dove, is a species of rocky habitats, nesting typically on cliff ledges and at the entrance to large caves. This habit would have brought them into close contact with cave-dwelling humans, a relationship usually linked to the development of dwellings in the Neolithic. We show that the association between humans and Rock Doves is an ancient one with its roots in the Palaeolithic and predates the arrival of modern humans into Europe. At Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar, the Neanderthals exploited Rock Doves for food for a period of over 40 thousand years, the earliest evidence dating to at least 67 thousand years ago. We show that the exploitation was not casual or sporadic, having found repeated evidence of the practice in different, widely spaced, temporal contexts within the cave. Our results point to hitherto unappreciated capacities of the Neanderthals to exploit birds as food resources on a regular basis. More so, they were practising it long before the arrival of modern humans and had therefore invented it independently.

Checking Teeth Plaque for Clues to Diet

A new study may provide evidence that our prehistoric ancestors understood plant consumption and processing long before the development of agriculture, according to a study published July 16, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Stephen Buckley from University of York and colleagues.

Evidence of plant consumption before the adoption of agriculture is difficult to find; such evidence is meaningful for understanding how much prehistoric people knew about the ecology and potential therapeutic properties of plants. Scientists in this study extracted and analyzed chemical compounds and microfossils from dental calculus (calcified dental plaque) from ancient human teeth at Al Khiday, a pre-historic site on the White Nile in Central Sudan, Africa. One of the five sites at Al Khiday is predominantly a burial ground of pre-Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Later Meroitic age remains. As a multi-period cemetery, it can provide us with a useful long-term perspective on any materials recovered there.

The authors chemically analyzed dental calculus samples from 14 individuals in the three different periods and found that humans ingested a certain plant, purple nut sedge, for at least 7,000 years, during both pre-agricultural and agricultural periods. As a good source of carbohydrates with potential medicinal and aromatic qualities, purple nut sedge—today regarded as a nuisance and considered to be the world's most costly weed— formed an important part of the prehistoric diet. In addition, the ability of the plant to inhibit a certain type of Streptococcus may explain the unexpectedly low level of cavities found in the population. According to the authors, the research suggests that prehistoric people living in Central Sudan may have understood both the nutritional and medicinal qualities of purple nut sedge as well as other plants.

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Neandertals Loved Salmon

Were bears or lions involved in salmon accumulation in the Middle Palaeolithic of the Caucasus? An isotopic investigation in Kudaro 3 cave

Authors:

Bocherens et al

Abstract:

Bone fragments of large anadromous salmon in the Middle Palaeolithic archaeological layers of Kudaro 3 cave (Caucasus) suggested fish consumption by archaic Hominins, such as Neandertals. However, large carnivores such as Asiatic cave bears (Ursus kudarensis) and cave lions (Panthera spelaea) were also found in the cave and could have been responsible for such an accumulation. The diet of these carnivores was evaluated using carbon, nitrogen and sulphur isotopes in faunal bone collagen. The results suggest that anadromous fish were neither part of the diet of either cave bear (vegetarian) or cave lion (predators of herbivores from arid areas) and therefore provide indirect support to the idea that Middle Palaeolithic Hominins, probably Neandertals, were able to consume fish when it was available.

Diet in the Context of Sauropod Dinosaur Gigantism

Herbivory and Body Size: Allometries of Diet Quality and Gastrointestinal Physiology, and Implications for Herbivore Ecology and Dinosaur Gigantism

Authors:

Marcus Clauss, Patrick Steuer, Dennis W. H. Müller, Daryl Codron and Jürgen Hummel

Abstract:

Digestive physiology has played a prominent role in explanations for terrestrial herbivore body size evolution and size-driven diversification and niche differentiation. This is based on the association of increasing body mass (BM) with diets of lower quality, and with putative mechanisms by which a higher BM could translate into a higher digestive efficiency. Such concepts, however, often do not match empirical data. Here, we review concepts and data on terrestrial herbivore BM, diet quality, digestive physiology and metabolism, and in doing so give examples for problems in using allometric analyses and extrapolations. A digestive advantage of larger BM is not corroborated by conceptual or empirical approaches. We suggest that explanatory models should shift from physiological to ecological scenarios based on the association of forage quality and biomass availability, and the association between BM and feeding selectivity. These associations mostly (but not exclusively) allow large herbivores to use low quality forage only, whereas they allow small herbivores the use of any forage they can physically manage. Examples of small herbivores able to subsist on lower quality diets are rare but exist. We speculate that this could be explained by evolutionary adaptations to the ecological opportunity of selective feeding in smaller animals, rather than by a physiologic or metabolic necessity linked to BM. For gigantic herbivores such as sauropod dinosaurs, other factors than digestive physiology appear more promising candidates to explain evolutionary drives towards extreme BM.

The Story of European Lactase Persistence

In the 1970s, archaeologist Peter Bogucki was excavating a Stone Age site in the fertile plains of central Poland when he came across an assortment of odd artefacts. The people who had lived there around 7,000 years ago were among central Europe's first farmers, and they had left behind fragments of pottery dotted with tiny holes. It looked as though the coarse red clay had been baked while pierced with pieces of straw.

Looking back through the archaeological literature, Bogucki found other examples of ancient perforated pottery. “They were so unusual — people would almost always include them in publications,” says Bogucki, now at Princeton University in New Jersey. He had seen something similar at a friend's house that was used for straining cheese, so he speculated that the pottery might be connected with cheese-making. But he had no way to test his idea.

The mystery potsherds sat in storage until 2011, when Mélanie Roffet-Salque pulled them out and analysed fatty residues preserved in the clay. Roffet-Salque, a geochemist at the University of Bristol, UK, found signatures of abundant milk fats — evidence that the early farmers had used the pottery as sieves to separate fatty milk solids from liquid whey. That makes the Polish relics the oldest known evidence of cheese-making in the world.

Roffet-Salque's sleuthing is part of a wave of discoveries about the history of milk in Europe. Many of them have come from a €3.3-million (US$4.4-million) project that started in 2009 and has involved archaeologists, chemists and geneticists. The findings from this group illuminate the profound ways that dairy products have shaped human settlement on the continent.

I wonder what the Americas look like if they had been included on that map...

Debunking the Paleo Diet

Viking Colony in Greenland Loved Their Seal

"Our analysis shows that the Norse in Greenland ate lots of food from the sea, especially seals," says Jan Heinemeier, Institute of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University.

"Even though the Norse are traditionally thought of as farmers, they adapted quickly to the Arctic environment and the unique hunting opportunities. During the period they were in Greenland, the Norse ate gradually more seals. By the 14th century, seals made up between 50 and 80 per cent of their diet."

The Danish and Canadian researchers are studying the 80 Norse skeletons kept at the University of Copenhagen's Laboratory of Biological Anthropology in order to determine their dietary habits. From studying the ratio of the isotopes carbon-13 and carbon-15, the researchers determined that a large proportion of the Greenlandic Norse diet came from the sea, particularly from seals. Heinemeier measured the levels of carbon isotopes in the skeletons, Erle Nelson of Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, Canada, analysed the isotopes, while Niels Lynnerup of the University of Copenhagen, examined the skeletons.

"Nothing suggests that the Norse disappeared as a result of a natural disaster. If anything they might have become bored with eating seals out on the edge of the world. The skeletal evidence shows signs that they slowly left Greenland. For example, young women are underrepresented in the graves in the period toward the end of the Norse settlement. This indicates that the young in particular were leaving Greenland, and when the numbers of fertile women drops, the population cannot support itself," Lynnerup explains.

Not as "romantic" to be sure, but I think that the farming communities of the US have some sympathy with this.