Human Hatred of Sprouts 'Evolutionary Mystery'
Who likes sprouts? Thought not, and now it seems we've got a solid excuse for our parents when they try to force the fetid, vile veg down our throats - we've been programmed to hate them since we were Neanderthals! A new study by the Spanish National Research Council claims to have debunked a mystery of evolution this week, by discovering a gene which makes us dislike a bitter taste common in some food. The gene, which causes an adverse reaction to phenylthiocarbamite - or PTC as it's mercifully known - has been present in hominids for nearly 50,000 years. The findings follow the sequencing of 48,000 year-old Neanderthal bones at El Sidron, northern Spain. The researchers claim the gene is there to prevent us from eating other toxic plants which contain PTC, but they are mystified as to why the Neanderthals they studied possessed a recessive variant - meaning they wouldn't have been able to detect the taste.
Prehistoric man may not have enjoyed sprouts, but he did enjoy a spot of cannibalism.
"This indicates that variation in bitter taste perception predates the divergence of the lineages leading to Neanderthals and modern humans," says the team's report, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. "The sense of bitter taste protects us from ingesting toxic substances." The recessive gene, however, has the team stumped: "This feature ... is a mystery of evolution," the report adds. "These (bitter) compounds can be toxic if ingested in large quantities, and it is therefore difficult to understand the evolutionary existence of individuals who cannot detect them." The report gives modern man a unique look into his prehistoric past. And on a personal note it's nice to think of Neanderthals spitting out sprouts in disgust, echoing the scene at Christmas dinner tables all over the world. There have been, however, some subtle changes in human diets over the years - only 9,000 years ago prehistoric Britons were tucking into succulent cuts of their own kind and a recent discovery on the Isle of Man suggests hazelnuts played an vital role in the diets of these cannibals' contemporaries. Still, human and nuts or sprouts? Close call.
Image by Jane Hudson.
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Aren't the Greek and Roman cultures the start of civilisation? Then so are sprouts: Forerunners to modern Brussels sprouts were likely cultivated in ancient Rome. Brussels sprouts as we now know them were grown possibly as early as the 1200s in what is now Belgium!!
Brussel sprouts are good for you, cannibalism is not, do remember that. And really, all that spicy food all of you in the office are able to much - a torture you even seem to enjoy - is not a sign of 'something went terribly wrong' in evolution?
Leave the sprouts alone! They are innocent and tasty!
It seems that besides that they 'digg sprouts', Neanderthalers had a less diverse diet than the Homo Sapiens:
Chemical signatures locked into bone suggest the Neanderthals got the bulk of their protein from large game, such as mammoths, bison and reindeer. The anatomically modern humans that were living alongside them had more diverse tastes. As well as big game, they also had a liking for smaller mammals, fish and seafood.
"It seems modern humans had a much broader diet, in terms of using fish or aquatic birds, which Neanderthals didn't seem to do," says Michael Richards, a biological anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and the University of British Columbia in Canada.
They say that although this wasn't true for all Neanderthals - some have been .. err.. caught fishing, especially more towards the South of the Europe region - this difference in diet might have given the 'modern humans' an advantage: as both species were hunting for large game, when that stock disappeared, then at least the modern humans could switch to fish and seafood, where as the Neanderthals would stay hungry (except for the sprouts). Full article at the New Scientist.
Like I said the other day, I'd be pretty upset if I was from Brussels, and all a lot of the world knew about my home city was that it was the birthplace for the worst food on earth!
Well, then maybe the rest of the world is just to ignorant? :D It might not be called 'Brussels Beer' but their 'Kriek' (cherry beer) directly from tap is awesome! They also host the European Parliament 6 months a year and part of the NATO. The city gave life to some of the most awesome 'comic book figures' ever, they sell great chocolate, you don't get woken up by police sirens every night, and public transport does not cost 99£ a month for not getting anywhere. We're not accepting criticism anymore on our - healthy - vegetables from a nation which national dish is greasy fish in newspaper (ink included)!
(This sounds familiar. Did I say this before? :D)
I agree, I like Brussels - I've even been there a couple of times. I'd dispute our national dish being fish and chips though, what about the shepherd's pie? Or the scone? Or the roast dinner? Or pie and mash? Or toad in the hole? I guess it goes both ways: I'd be annoyed most people thought of fish and chips when they mention Britain, and you're annoyed most people think of sprouts when they think of Belgium. But they do.
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