Anthropology P380: Prehistoric Diet and Nutrition
Lecture 3: Primate Taste
Primates (including humans) have inherited a number of physiological mechanisms to allow them to select foods that contain needed nutrients while at the same time avoiding "anti-nutrients" that would be poisonous or inhibit digestion.
Physiological "feedback" mechanisms affect intake (e.g. "satiety")
taste = ways of learning about the foods
- conditioned taste aversions/preferences (includes cultural)
- "Sweet tooth" = sensitive to sugars - rarely concentrated in nature.... but article on reserve summarizes some interesting variations in primate and human forager populations
- "4 basic tastes" is simplistic (sweet, sour, bitter, salty) + MSG, astringincy ...
- threshold responses: adaptations in particular environments to maximize energy intake (e.g. of sugars)
- sucrose taste response in primates varies between 2g / litre to 113 g / litre
- taste thresholds linked to body mass (the larger the species, the better taste acuity)
- humans: populations such as pygmies living in tropical forests have a relatively poor taste acuity
- avoid high concentrations of salts (e.g. among Inuit who drink lots of water with their high meat diet)
- interesting case of Aspartame !
- ultra-sweet proteins tasted by Old World Primates, but not New World Primates (split > 30 million years ago)
- sugar mimics = cheap strategy for seed dispersal
- "Bitter" = extremely sensitive to compounds common in toxins (e.g. alkaloids)
- PTC = phenylthiocarbamide: taster polymorphism
- pros: PTC related to naturally occurring compounds that inhibit iodine absorbtion (cyanogenic glycosides), necessary for thyroid function and normal growth/development (and cause goiter)
- cons: cyanogenic glycosides (e.g. occur in manioc) can inhibit development of malarial parasite... can prevent malaria
Culturally, we can acquire taste for some of these secondary compounds...
- Alkaloids like Caffeine and Quinine
- Tannins in leaves, bark... TEA, RED WINE
Culturally, we have also learned to PROCESS plants containing secondary compounds in ways that mitigate or eliminate the deleterious effects
- leaching tannins from acorns
- milk tea! (British vs Dutch hot beverage habits in 18th century affected cancer rates)
- shredding, soaking and boiling manioc tubers
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Last updated: 6 September, 1999
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Copyright 1998 Jeanne Sept
