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The Primal Feast: Food, Sex, Foraging, and Love
Science writer and naturalist Susan Allport takes readers on a passionate investigation of how the quest for food shapes our destinies and how our preferences for food were formed. In an engaging mix of in-depth research and personal anecdotes, the author of A Natural History of Parenting presents a delightful feast of facts and reflections on how food affects the lives of every creature, from forest animal to dining room gourmet. How does the gray squirrel find the nuts it buried months earlier? How do Inuit hunters outwit ever-vigilant seals? How do animals manage to consume a healthy mix of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats? What is the connection between food and love, food and intelligence, food and sexuality?
Chronicling habits of collecting, storing, and consuming food, in parts of the world as different as the Arctic and her own wooded backyard, Allport untangles the links of the food chain, explains how animals learn which plants and animals are safe to eat, and probes connections between food sharing and human evolution, and between food and reproduction. Along the way she examines the habits of chimpanzees, howler monkeys, hummingbirds, and koalas, among a host of other mammals, insects, and birds.
By exploring food as both sustenance and power in societies of hunter-gatherers, Susan Allport reveals important aspects of the human experience that affect us every day. In doing so, she reminds us that food is more than just It is a key to understanding the biological universe and a fundamental and essential part of the quality of our existence.
Chronicling habits of collecting, storing, and consuming food, in parts of the world as different as the Arctic and her own wooded backyard, Allport untangles the links of the food chain, explains how animals learn which plants and animals are safe to eat, and probes connections between food sharing and human evolution, and between food and reproduction. Along the way she examines the habits of chimpanzees, howler monkeys, hummingbirds, and koalas, among a host of other mammals, insects, and birds.
By exploring food as both sustenance and power in societies of hunter-gatherers, Susan Allport reveals important aspects of the human experience that affect us every day. In doing so, she reminds us that food is more than just It is a key to understanding the biological universe and a fundamental and essential part of the quality of our existence.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published March 7, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 9, 2019
A multi-dimensional look at food and how it has shaped us
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.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
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.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
March 19, 2008
interesting cultural study cum behavioral science piece on the evolution of eating trends amongst both humans and animals... parallels are made between the two. developments of interest? the history of tofu & the ability of corn tortillas to provide sustenance via the gradual addition of lime, through lineage & over time...
August 9, 2011
I'm not really sure what I was expecting The Primal Feast to be, but I wasn't expecting a popular science book that aggregates zoological, anthropological, and nutritional science work into a series of musing on the human relationship to food. I was pleased that that was what I got, though.
Allport does a nice job of weaving the research she reviews into a larger narrative without overstating the conclusions of the research. The book runs the risk of meandering aimlessly - it has no thesis, only a theme. Yet as Allport moves from optimal foraging theory and ecological niche-making to gendered division of labor in food gathering to the ecology of the emergence of agriculture, a clear narrative and order emerges from the seemingly unconnected bits of knowledge. While there is no thesis, Allport consistently draws on the knowledge in previous chapters to interpret the knowledge found in later chapters.
Some of the interesting ideas presented within:
While agriculture is vulnerable to pests and weeds primarily because it resists the natural succession cycle and because it seeks to draw a large bundle of energy outside the bounds of the ecosystem, the pest problem is also in part a result of breeding - plants have developed a myriad of chemical defenses to protect themselves from predators, but in some cases we have found these chemicals undesirable (because they're poisonous or unpalatable) and thus bred strains that didn't produce them. Without their own chemical defenses, those plants must then be defended by humans, whether that be with fences, row cover, or artificially produced chemicals.
Animals must find a diet that allows them to extract sufficient energy and nutrients to survive. Allport suggests that two main strategies emerged among primates to accomplish this. Either a primate is a slow-moving, dull-witted animal that eats a lot of low-energy density leaves, relying on an extensive gut to extract what it needs from them, or it is a fast-moving, smarter animal that ranges a large territory and exploits a large variety of rarer but more nutritionally dense foods like fruits, nuts, insects, etc.
While there are a few food specialists that can be genetically "programmed" to find and consume only one or a few foods, the vast majority of animals must, to some extent, confront the problem of "What should I eat?" Omnivores, of course, face a particularly nasty form of this problem, called by some the "omnivore's dilemma." Omnivores must eat a variety of foods to obtain a nutritionally balanced diet, and must be willing to try new things in order to survive scarce periods and to expand into new territory. Yet eating many things will result in sickness, and omnivores are particularly prone to associating a food with illness and never eating it again.
Humans, of course, are among the animals that rely on a variety of rarer but denser foods, and are of course also omnivores. Thus begins both our intelligence and our complex, troubled and joyous relationship with food. But it gets more interesting, of course (we are not just like ravens or bears).
As modern humans emerged, it is believed food sharing, to a degree unprecedented among other animals, was a hallmark and often a necessary trait in our ecological lifestyle. Today, food sharing is the only way indigenous groups in ecological marginal areas (deserts like the Kalahari and the Arctic) can survive - it's simply not assured that individuals can find enough food for their families, on their own, consistently. In other places, however, the environment provided an abundance that allowed food sharing to enable a greater degree of social differentiation.
One of the most interesting parts of the book was Allport's interview with Clark Larsen on the emergence of agriculture. Larsen reviews truths known to me from Jared Diamond's essay, http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake..., including the negative effects agricultural diets have on human health and lifestyles. He introduces the idea (not his) that agriculture emerged as a consequence of overpopulation and resource stress - that, as Allport frames it, hunting and gathering was such a good way to make a living that humans were doing it everywhere there was solid ground, pretty much. At this point, people were living at the carrying capacity of their way of life, and in typical resourceful omnivore fashion, some switched to less accessible, desirable food sources, like seeds.
While the nutrition provided by such a diet was impoverished, it enabled a shift to greater population density, and eventually enabled agricultural peoples to expand across most of the planet. The vagaries of an agricultural lifestyle - malnutrition, famine, inequality, war, etc - have defined our fate ever since. The sharing of a dense food crop - even if it wasn't all that could be desired nutritionally - enabled much greater extremes of stratification, division of labor, and general inequality than ever before. And, unfortunately, most places were unsuited to agriculture and have suffered greatly from its presence - the Nile valley is the only civilization that has persisted for more than 1,000 years in one place.
Thus, Allport connects the dots between a bunch of basic research and draws a picture that reveals the deep ecological, historic, and evolutionary resonance in our superficially prosaic relationship with food.
Allport does a nice job of weaving the research she reviews into a larger narrative without overstating the conclusions of the research. The book runs the risk of meandering aimlessly - it has no thesis, only a theme. Yet as Allport moves from optimal foraging theory and ecological niche-making to gendered division of labor in food gathering to the ecology of the emergence of agriculture, a clear narrative and order emerges from the seemingly unconnected bits of knowledge. While there is no thesis, Allport consistently draws on the knowledge in previous chapters to interpret the knowledge found in later chapters.
Some of the interesting ideas presented within:
While agriculture is vulnerable to pests and weeds primarily because it resists the natural succession cycle and because it seeks to draw a large bundle of energy outside the bounds of the ecosystem, the pest problem is also in part a result of breeding - plants have developed a myriad of chemical defenses to protect themselves from predators, but in some cases we have found these chemicals undesirable (because they're poisonous or unpalatable) and thus bred strains that didn't produce them. Without their own chemical defenses, those plants must then be defended by humans, whether that be with fences, row cover, or artificially produced chemicals.
Animals must find a diet that allows them to extract sufficient energy and nutrients to survive. Allport suggests that two main strategies emerged among primates to accomplish this. Either a primate is a slow-moving, dull-witted animal that eats a lot of low-energy density leaves, relying on an extensive gut to extract what it needs from them, or it is a fast-moving, smarter animal that ranges a large territory and exploits a large variety of rarer but more nutritionally dense foods like fruits, nuts, insects, etc.
While there are a few food specialists that can be genetically "programmed" to find and consume only one or a few foods, the vast majority of animals must, to some extent, confront the problem of "What should I eat?" Omnivores, of course, face a particularly nasty form of this problem, called by some the "omnivore's dilemma." Omnivores must eat a variety of foods to obtain a nutritionally balanced diet, and must be willing to try new things in order to survive scarce periods and to expand into new territory. Yet eating many things will result in sickness, and omnivores are particularly prone to associating a food with illness and never eating it again.
Humans, of course, are among the animals that rely on a variety of rarer but denser foods, and are of course also omnivores. Thus begins both our intelligence and our complex, troubled and joyous relationship with food. But it gets more interesting, of course (we are not just like ravens or bears).
As modern humans emerged, it is believed food sharing, to a degree unprecedented among other animals, was a hallmark and often a necessary trait in our ecological lifestyle. Today, food sharing is the only way indigenous groups in ecological marginal areas (deserts like the Kalahari and the Arctic) can survive - it's simply not assured that individuals can find enough food for their families, on their own, consistently. In other places, however, the environment provided an abundance that allowed food sharing to enable a greater degree of social differentiation.
One of the most interesting parts of the book was Allport's interview with Clark Larsen on the emergence of agriculture. Larsen reviews truths known to me from Jared Diamond's essay, http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake..., including the negative effects agricultural diets have on human health and lifestyles. He introduces the idea (not his) that agriculture emerged as a consequence of overpopulation and resource stress - that, as Allport frames it, hunting and gathering was such a good way to make a living that humans were doing it everywhere there was solid ground, pretty much. At this point, people were living at the carrying capacity of their way of life, and in typical resourceful omnivore fashion, some switched to less accessible, desirable food sources, like seeds.
While the nutrition provided by such a diet was impoverished, it enabled a shift to greater population density, and eventually enabled agricultural peoples to expand across most of the planet. The vagaries of an agricultural lifestyle - malnutrition, famine, inequality, war, etc - have defined our fate ever since. The sharing of a dense food crop - even if it wasn't all that could be desired nutritionally - enabled much greater extremes of stratification, division of labor, and general inequality than ever before. And, unfortunately, most places were unsuited to agriculture and have suffered greatly from its presence - the Nile valley is the only civilization that has persisted for more than 1,000 years in one place.
Thus, Allport connects the dots between a bunch of basic research and draws a picture that reveals the deep ecological, historic, and evolutionary resonance in our superficially prosaic relationship with food.
June 2, 2015
A very fun book on optimal feeding theory, human interaction, and personality.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews