What is the evolutionary advantage of requiring variation in a diet?
March 31, 2010 by admin
Filed under Weight Loss Questions
I can understand that it’s an advantage to be able to live off one foodstuff exclusively, if it’s the only one that is abundantly present in your environment (like, as I understand, the panda bear’s diet consists of bamboo only).
I can also understand why it’s convenient for a carnivore to also be able to live off vegetation if the number of prey is temporarily limited.
But what is the advantage of requiring a lot of different foodstuffs to thrive, like humans do? If only one vitamin or mineral is missing, it’s detrimental to our health. Why have we evolved in a way that has made our health dependent on the weakest link in our food supply?
It’s not that we evolved in such a manner that makes us so susceptible to lack of nutrients, it’s that there is no selective pressure on humans to not depend on these nutrients. It’s not as though there is a lack of nutrients and that the human subspecies that is not dependent on the nutrients is surviving and out competing those humans dependent on the nutrients. The resource is available so we have no need to change and a species.
Also, our species evolved and survived by being the jack of all trades. By being able to satisfy our needs through a variety of sources, we would not starve and die if there was a shortage (take Australopithecus Bosei, for example).
It isn’t necessarily the advantage, but a result of.
For instance, your lawn needs water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen, iron and other trace elements. If you lawn could walk it would certainly get everything it needed in just the right proportions, and hence thrive.
Humans can survive off of bread and water. But since, unlike the lawn we can actually walk and talk, we insist upon getting the resources we need in exactly the right proportions.
Cool question!