Evolutionary explanation for food preferences Flashcards
Evolutionary explanation
Focuses on the adaptive nature of behaviour ; modern behaviours that evolved from challenges faced by distant ancestors which become widespread In the gene pool
EEA
The environment of evolutionary adaptation - the environment which our species first evolved
Early diets
Early humans were hunter - gatherers whose diet included animals + plants in their natural environment
Preferences for fatty food would have been adaptive for early humans as condition of the EEA meant energy resources were vital in order to stay alive
Preference for meat
A meat diet full of nutrients provided brain growth
Milton - without animals it is unlikely early humans could have secured enough nutrients from a vegetarian diet to evolve into active intelligent creatures
Preference for sweet foods
Taste of sweetness is associated with high concentration of quickly available sugar and calories ; fruit provided vitamins and minerals necessary for bodily function and growth which was practical for ancestors in the EEA
Therefore adaptive for early humans to evolve a preference for sweet tasting foods
Mennella
Found children who preferred sweet foods over salty ones tended to be tall for their age; makes sense as in the EEA children who gained more calories were more likely to grow and survive
Taste aversion
Learned response to eating toxic + poisonous foods which results in the animal avoiding eating the food that made it ill in the future
Garcia et al
Were the first to study taste aversion in a laboratory; rats who had been made ill through radiation shortly after eating saccharin developed an aversion to it and quickly associated their illness with it
Adaptive advantages
Taste aversion would of helped out ancestors to survive as if they stay alive after eating poisoned food they would not make the same mistake again ; once its learned its hard to shift - adaptive quality to keep out ancestors alive
Neophobia
Extreme dislike/ avoidance of anything that is new or unfamiliar
It is a natural occurring reaction that protects animals from the risk of being poisoned by consuming something potentially harmful ; survival strategy
Ratcliffe et al
Species that have a specialised diet , restricted to a few specific food sources do not display food neophobia whereas those that have a broad + varied diet do display it
Rats for example are extremely neophobic (Rozin)
Humans
In humans an individuals reluctance to consume new or unusual foods is based on culture and current diets ;they have expectations of how acceptable food should look + smell so reject any foods that do not fit into this criteria (Dovey)
Martins et al
In humans neophobia is especially strong in response to animal products rather than non animal ones ; maybe due to the greater illness threat posed (Fessler)
*Evaluation
Support for sweet foods preference
There are several documented cases of a culture such as the one in Northern Alaska that had no experience of sweet food/drinks + come into contact with cultures that regularly consume these
In none of these cases has the culture without sugar rejected the sugar containing foods of the other culture (Bell et al)
Real world application:
Taste aversion + chemotherapy
Some cancer treatments such as chemotherapy cause gastrointestinal illness ; paired with food consumption could cause taste aversion
Berstein+ Webster gave pps a novel tasting ice cream prior to chemo which patients acquired an aversion to ; Scapegoat technique
