Food and human evolution

In relation to the environment, survival of the fittest has importantly influenced the 5-7 million-year evolution of structure and function in the hominin species, Homo sapiens, with food, as environment, undoubtedly playing a central role in that regard, given the absolute requirement for food consumption for survival, survival manifested as reproductive success, a sine qua non of evolution by means of natural selection.

Oxford University historian, Felipe Fernández-Armesto, adds an insightful relevant point when he writes:

Our most intimate contact with the natural environment occurs when we eat it (Felipe Fernández-Armesto, 2002).

An example of how diet might have greatly influenced hominin evolution:

It seems likely, for example, that hunting for vertebrates, increased meat consumption, and expanded tool use were implicated in the evolutionary processes that led to the expansion and reorganization of the australopithecine brain and to the development of Homo's unique capacities for consciousness and semantic universality. There is, at least, little doubt that, throughout most of the Pleistocene, the evolution of biological repertoires and the evolution of behavioral repertoires were closely intertwined and that diet is one domain where the intersection was particularly noteworthy (Harris and Ross 1987).

References

• Felipe Fernández-Armesto. (2002) Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780743227407. | Google Books preview.
  • Felipe Fernández-Armesto is Oxford University historian.

• Harris M, Ross EB. (1987) Food and evolution: toward a theory of human food habits. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 0877224358.