The Omnivore's Dilemma

IS THAT FOOD?For some animals, they don't have dilemma at dinnertime, eg. The Koala eats eucalyptus leaves only, and the monarch butterfly eats milkweed only. For them, everything else in nature is not food and they got everything (nutrients) they need.But omnivores need a variety of foods to stay healthy – Vitamin C only found in plants and vitamin B-12 only found in animals. Our omnivore’s dilemma roots in our nature as human beings.The industrial food chain made our choices harder.THE MORDEN OMNIVOREOver thousands of years, human beings built a culture of food that helped us to figure out what to eat and what to avoid. They learned from their parents/ grandparents how to find and eat local foods. What they ate also depended on the season.THE OMNIVORE’S BRAIN + THE SWEET AND THE BITTEROur bodies have evolved to help us solve the dilemma – we have different teeth for different jobs, we can bite like a carnivore or chew like an herbivore. Our digestive tract is also good at digest different types of food.The omnivore’s dilemma is also one reason our brains are so large. The koala’s diet shrank, so did its brain. Unused organ tend to shrink over generations. To help make decisions, our brain developed taste preference. Our tastebuds divide food into 2 groups: • sweet foods that are good to eat – rich in carbohydrate energy (the built-in sweet tooth)• bitter food that might harm us – many plant toxins (poisons) are bitter. Eg. Pregnant women get sick of broccoli (mild toxins) ; but some of the bitterest plants contain valuable nutrients, even useful medicines, the bark of the willow tree contains active ingredients (pain relief) in Aspirin Disgust is an important feeling for omnivores – to keep us away from eating rotten meat or other items that carry disease or bacteria.Human beings also overcome bitterness of some plants by cooking. (Acrons by Native Americans, and Cassava in Africa)Primates (pre-human) leant to use fire and cook about 1.9 million years ago. That was around the same time the human brain grew larger and our teeth and jaw grew smaller.RATS!Rats solve omnivore’s dilemma by testing new food – it will nibble a very tiny bit and wait to see what happened. Most poisons in nature are not that strong. The knowledge retains for the rest of its life but can’t pass down to their children. Nevertheless, this ability to learn is what makes poisoning rats so difficult.Over thousands of years, people in every corner of the globe built a large body of food knowledge. Eg. What combinations of local foods made them healthy – Japanese sashimi （raw fish） + wasabi kills bacteria; Central America cook corn with lime and serve it with beans (the alkali in lime unlock the niacin in corn, eating corn and beans together supplies all the amino acids humans need.The culture of food didn’t only solve the omnivore’s dilemma. It was part of the identity of a tribe or a nation. People hold on to their national foods, even after they move to other countries.FOOD FADS + THE NO-FAD FRENCHDiet fads