Food Hygiene Essentials

The Connection between food hygiene, safe food, control of environment and human evolution.

In nature food and water are the main driving force that motivate all living organisms. When food is freshly available animals invest little thought into the whereabouts of alternative food sources but when food becomes scarce or inferior in quality, animals have an amazingly strong and instinctive drive to find new and fresh food sources. The following article intends to portray how the search for nutrtious and uncontaminated food determined the evolutionary course of the primate that eventually became who we are today.

The earliest ancestors of mankind originated from the forests of Africa, They, like other primates browsed the trees and forest floor for food. Their diet was primarily a vegetarian one which may well have been supplemented with some animal protein. They may have searched for termites and other sorts of insects in trees and on the forest floor. They may even have hunted other smaller mammals such as monkeys whenever the opportunity arose.

Our ancestors walked on all fours because their body was suited for climbing trees. They moved around much the same as chimpanzees or gorillas. In time environments changed and much of the forest floor became submerged under water for most of the year. The water brought with it silt and seeds of plants that were new to the forest environment. A whole new source of food now emerged in the water. Much of this vegetation was edible and to our ancestors this abundance was too good an opportunity to pass up on.

Much of the time that our ancestors had formerly spent in the trees was now spent on the forest floor wading waist to chest high in water. In order to wade effectively in the water early man had to adopt a new posture, an upright one. If the water was deep our ancestors would have walked with his hands above his head. This meant that all the pressure of movement was now on the legs, feet and pelvis. The boyancy of the water would have helped to make this process less tiring. Over a period of time this form of locomotion caused the shape of the pelvis to change. The point at which the femur attached to the pelvis moved from the side to a point at which the femur was more or less perpendicular to the floor.

The feet also took on a modified shape. Once designed to grip tree trunks and branches the feet were now more suited to pushing off against the ground. Hands that were designed for swinging safely from branch to branch now became adapted to searching for plant roots, water invertebrates and fish. The hands became more sensitive and the position of the thumb aligned with the palm of the hand in order to increase the range of functions the hand could perform. Early man could now catch small prey in a pincer like motion and he could wrap all his digits around almost any object he found in the water.

This new found sensitivity of the hands would have helped early man to form an image of what he was feeling underwater in his minds eye. This ability to picture what the hands were feeling without the participation of any of the other senses probably caused early man to develop a larger brain.

Eventually the water that covered the forest floor receded and early man was left with a dilemma. No longer was he suited for life in the trees and the sources of food upon which he had relied for many hundreds or thousands of years were getting increasingly difficult to rely upon. This new situation only meant one thing, early man now had to improvise. Improvisation, in many cases means scavenging and that’s exactly what early man did. He became a browser gatherer and a scavenger.

Bush now became the habitat in which early man lived. Man avoided open ground to lessen the chance of being spotted by predators. Both his upright posture and living in a social group were a definite advatages in looking out for danger but also made him stand out in the landscape. Food was scarce and competition was great and man was at the lowest end of the pecking order. Man needed a quick and reliable solution, he had to find a way to suppliment his low calorie, low protein diet if he was to stand a chance of surviving as a species.

It was then that man discovered a breakthrough that was to become a turning point in human evolution. Our prehistoric ancestors discovered that the bones of dead animals left by carnivores contained an energy and protein rich source of food. It was bone marrow. If man could find enough predator kill sites he could find enough energy to survive.

Living in the natural world and being tuned into nature, early man, as is the case with other animal species, would have been quick to pick up upon signs of kill sites such as circling vultures. Vultures however do not circle during the night and it is during the night that most hunts take place. Here too there is a give away that can lead a scavenger to kill sites. The animal which discloses the location of kill sites is the Black Backed Jackal. This small canine is a very clever scavenger. Being too small to ever hope to drive off lions, hyenas, cheetas or African hunting dogs the black backed jackal bar in full knowledge that his bark will attract a competing species to the kill site. Early man would have heard the jackals call as well and would have waited on the wings for his opportunity to move in to claim his share.

Man would collect the bones and smash them open on rocks to get at the food source within. Eventually, by the arrival of homo erectus man was cracking bones open more effectively with specially designed flint tools. Collecting bones was sometimes a game of trial and error. Man might have had difficulty knowing for sure whether the bone marrow within the bones was still fresh enough to eat. From a food hygiene standpoint this was a risky business. Man had to develop a new strategy to ensure that the bones he was collecting were no more than a few hours old. By observing carnivore and scavenger habits man could arrive close to the scene of a kill when the carnivore was no longer very hungry. This meant that the level of aggression that the carnivore displayed was lower and the chances of being attacked considerably lessened.

The distance that man would have maintained between himself and the feasting predator would have coincided with the fight or flight response. This is the distance which animals in nature maintain when they want to observe the intentions of carnivores. It allows them to get a head start if they need to escape and it allows them time to launch a counter attack before the carnivore has got himself sorted out.

An indication of this distance can be seen in the Asiatic lion. This sub species will tolerate the presence of man at a distance of about fifty yards. This suggests that the lion was accustomed to man’s presence and provided he maintained this distance he was not under threat, generally speaking.

When a carnivore such as a lion finished his meal and moved on, the competition for the spoils would have been great. Jackals, hyena, vulture and other animals would have been waiting to stake their claim to the spoils. Man’s drive to get at the bones before the bone marrow spoiled became increasingly strong. Eventually man decided to take matters into his own hands and launch an offensive on the other animals trying to get at the carcass by throwing stones, sticks (or spears) and bones at any creature that dared to come near the remains. This could well have been the stage of evolution in which many animal species developed their inherent fear of man.

Over time early man would have become aware that it was less risky to follow some types of carnivores than it was to follow others. Canines also roamed the African planes. Following canines had a distinct advantage over following large felines. One such advantage is that canines preferred to hunt in places where felines and hyena were not present. Also, canines ate their kill very fast wolfing as much meat into their bellies in the shortest time possible to minimize the risk of being discovered by stronger predators and to take the partially digested food home to the cubs and aunties who were guarding the den.

In this situation man had the chance to move in on the carcass quickly, ensuring that the bone marrow inside the bones was still fresh. From a food hygiene standpoint this was an opportunity not to be missed. However, Canines in no way clean a carcass completely. They took only what they could carry in their stomachs. The meat was still left on the carcass would have presented man with the opportunity to feast upon meat which was tastier than bone marrow.

Canines leave meat on a carcass to keep other carnivores occupied long enough for them to get back to their den. The last thing they want is unwanted visitors.

As times progressed man’s intelligence and weapons arsenal increased. Man would have noticed that every hunt created confusion and panic. Where there is panic there are opportunities for opportunists. Some animals my have fallen or become entangled in undergrowth. It is quite possible that man, by knowing the lay of the land man could predict where animals were likely to encounter problems and, if he were in the right place at the right time he could easily take advantage of such opportunities. By using the potential of his big brain man could even have made such accidents more likely to happen by setting traps snares and other types of obstacles. By killing his own quarry man became increasingly less and less reliant on scavenging for food killed by others.

We all know that canines have a pecking order. The strongest always eat first. Lower ranking canines would have to wait their turn and if they got impatient they were often savagely reprimanded to remind them of their position in the pack’s pecking order.

The fact that man had a kill not far away would not have gone unnoticed by the canines. To my mind it is not inconceivable and quite likely that lower ranking individuals would have wandered over to the human camp to beg for an easy meal. Being in a state of elation after the hunt and knowing that the only reason they had a kill was because of the pack, man may have entertained himself by throwing less favored parts of the kill to the visitors. Could scenarios such as this have provided the conditions for the development of the unique relationship that developed between man and canine. On the one hand the dog was assured of it’s share of the kill without having to fight for it and risk physical harm and on the other hand man was assured of fresh food hunted down by the dogs.

In many parts of the world we can still see evidence of this prehistoric alliance between canine and man.

Could it be that the development of man’s relationship with canine species (the wolf) provided a key step in the advance of human evolution?