Re: Hobbits and shellfish - a note.


"VtSkier" <vtskier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1246917816.483548@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Paul Crowley wrote:
VtSkier wrote:

I would suggest that only cultures that had a
need to preserve meat would have LEARNED to
like salted food. I would suggest that
cultures that hunt and gather on a regular
basis and do not preserve and store meat have
not not learned to salt their food and
therefore have not learned to like salted
food.

Nice theory, but quite wrong.

Well maybe. But you snipped the original
poster's comments who strongly suggested
that humans ate ONLY salted food. This is
the argument that I was rebutting.

All humans love salt, and will
pay good money (or exchange items
of value) for it. 'Salary' comes
from the Latin for 'salt'. If people
(such as the Romans) could have
done without it, they would have.

All true but all cultural. This is
what I am saying.

Do Inuit peoples salt their food? I don't
know. Do 'kung people salt their food? I also
don't know but I suspect that neither do so.
Did people who followed an archaic lifestyle
salt their food? Again I don't know but I'd
like to hear from some who might.

Salting food is neither here nor there.
It is a relatively recent technology.

Also true. And this fact supports what
I was saying.

We don't need a whole lot of salt in our diet
and there are some conditions where salt is
downright dangerous.

Humans sweat. They exude salts
in sweat in a similar ratio to its
presence in the bloodstream.
Most other animals don't sweat,
and most have kidneys which have
evolved to be highly efficient at
retaining salt.

Carnivores generally get
enough salt from their prey. Herbivores need
salt licks because usually their diet does not
provide salt.

This can only apply to herbivores
which range. Those holding territories
usually have to get by without a salt-
lick within it.

Up until a few years ago (maybe 100) the only
practical way to preserve meat was to salt
(cure) it. Salt starts the lactic acid
fermentation process which is the real
preservative. Drying was the only other
method of meat preservation available to
early humans. We learned to like salted meat
and other foods because that's all there was.
We cook with recipes which mimic in many ways
the need to cook with salted food.

Anyway, my thesis is that eating salted food
is learned.

Humans are highly territorial. Their
hominid ancestors certainly were. They could only have evolved in a
habitat where salt was in plentiful
supply. Standard PA has not begun
to cope with any of this -- i.e. it
has yet to absorb the concepts of
niche, habitat and territoriality. Most PA types would probably
vaguely go along with something
like the absurd theory you outline.

Absurd? Not really. Even if hominid
ancestors evolved in a habitat where salt
was plentiful, humans are such wonderful
opportunists that they have surely
colonized places where salt is not
particularly plentiful and have survived
very nicely.

You have also made two statements in your
rebuttal which are mutually exclusive.

You have said that herbivores which are
territorial must sometimes get along in
areas where salt sources are not available.
Then you say that humans are 'highly'
territorial. I am making the statement
that humans have colonized almost every
terrestrial ecological niche available
except the very driest deserts, the most
sterile islands and Antarctica. Surely some
of these areas will cause humans to sometimes
get along in areas where salt sources are
not available.


Paul.

Salt is needed by all mammals. Some will eat tool handles to get it.

Salt licks were used by animals as well as people and some elephants have even dug caves with their tusks seeking the vital mineral.


.

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