At the moment I am reading The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins.
It’s a really great book. He touches on milk intolerance and wheat intolerance quite early on. To summarise he suggests that humans did not originally evolve to eat the seeds of grass. The seeds of grass, unlike fruit, did not evolve to take advantage of passing through a digestive tract of a mammal. Grasses do not need animals to eat their seed in order for their seed to be distributed.
So, for humans to be able to eat grasses (oats, wheat, rice etc) we have evolved slightly. In Dawkins’ words we have been ‘domesticated’ by our circumstanes in the same way as dogs (apparently all descended from wolves) have been domesticated.
So those of you who are able to eat wheat are, in simple terms, more evolved than me. I am a throwback!
October 10th, 2006 at 12:26 am
Richard Dawkins was on BBC 24 today plugging his new book, “The God Delusion”. It was a 5 minute slot, and I don’t remember ever seeing this channel promote a book before.
It struck me as strange, and I wondered if there was an agenda going on. Not that I would be particularly upset, I’m one of Dawkins’ greatest fans, and I can’t wait to read it. Even so, BBC 24 promoting a book???