Be Here Now - The Evolutionary Ethics of Slaughter

The ethics of eating meat are so unfathomably complex, so fraught with unknowable parameters - that the majority among us have retreated into a comfortable haze of collective ignorance on the matter. This need not be the case.

Fully admitting the complexity of the beast at hand, let us inspect just the fillet d’ ethique; the litmus test beyond which all other moral concerns of dietary selection are irrelevant; the issue of slaughter.

The essential and inescapable wrongness of taking an animal’s life for it’s flesh, especially in the profane name of base culinary desire, is a keystone argument against our dietary staple of interest. Animal protein proponents are quick to address the myriad web of ecological, nutritional, and even social concerns relentlessly dogging ‘the industry’. The rapid rise in the heroification of ‘happy meat’ farmers by alternative agriculture advocates, is evidence many consumers are literally hungry for ethical eats. Yet how can we possibly get passed this sin qua non moral stumbling block that meat really is murder?

Now, there are two approaches here. One can argue that it simply is wrong to take the life of another animal no matter what - that life has an inherent value regardless of what matters to “it”. Perhaps I am more farmer than philosopher, but this reeks of a little too much wavy-gravy grooviness for my liking. I am more inclined to agree with vegan animal liberationist, Peter Singer, that a utilitarian approach is in order. That, for an ethical quandary to arise, what happens to an organism must matter to that organism. It is here that Singer’s and my ethics align, and it is also here where they diverge. That we do agree on this significant point, however, would indicate that we are perhaps looking at different science to rightly determine what truly ‘matters’ to our domesticated dinners.

For it to matter to an animal that it will be slaughtered is to make the case, as a great many authors do, that the livestock “wants to live”. Singer himself, is an artful scholar of the evolutionary sciences, and it seems straightforward that in a very darwinian sense, survival for reproduction is the goaliest of goals. I submit, however, that to claim an animal “wants to live” is to make a claim of cognitive science that the data simply does not support.

Perhaps surprisingly, we can turn to a linguist for some novel insights. In Adam’s Tongue, Derek Bickerton makes a compelling argument connecting the origins of language to the hominin shift towards meat consumption. Not via the traditional reasoning that meat gave us bigger brains - but rather - that this dietary shift thrust our ancestors into a unique ecological niche - presenting novel challenges that only language could solve. We had a need - a need to recruit our clan mates across time and space to help butcher and transport the scavenged meat of paleolithic megafauna. We had to free ourselves from the here and nowness that, until this rise of language, had imprisoned all animals of even the highest cognitive ability.

What matters to animals is fear and pain; death is truly a concept beyond their temporal scope of interest. Only from this common understanding can we begin to discuss how animals are raised, and even how they are killed. We must first accept and understand that the slaughter itself, is not as innately wrong as it may emotively appear; and then work together to ensure that all creatures achieve the most fantastic of lives, and the most peaceful of deaths.

Repackaging Cultured Beef: Contextual Quality & Collective Action

Dr. Mark Post at the University of Maasstricht, inspecting
a proto-type culture of beef.

By the end of this year - Dr. Mark Post, and his team of researchers at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands claim they will offer a celebrity-chef taste testing of the world's first lab-grown beef - also known as cultured beef. Now, at a price tag of some $200,000 - the technology is not quite economical to assuage our global hunger for hamburger. Rest assured - the price will go the down, the quality will go up - and in spite of the obvious 'yuk factor' - a huge majority of the world will accept cultured meat as a tasty and nutritious status quo (for more on how and why that is possible - see this article I wrote back in 2010).

If you happen to be a beef farmer today - whether conventional, organic, or grass-fed - you might be thinking '"Not me - I'll stick with real meat, I'm simply not interested" - well, I've got news for you - get interested, because this game-changing technology will literally affect the actual quantifiable quality of YOUR product.

This might seem counter-intuitive. We might be tempted to think that meat quality is absolute and that we are capable of engineering desired qualities into the processes of the supply chain. Indeed - some elements of quality are this way - farmers can control what feeds, supplements and health care treatments are offered to their cattle. Processors can control the humanity of their slaughter methods, and the post-slaughter processing practices.  Indeed, even consumers can and do select the quality of their meats based on any number of 'absolute' criteria - organic or conventional, more processed or less. This absoluteness, however, when it comes to ecological and social dimensions of quality - is largely a mirage.

A rigorously holistic understanding of meat quality in today's globally connected economy reveals a vastly different picture. Far from being absolute, holistic meat quality is highly relative and contextual.

Consider this - if you are an advocate of grass-fed beef being slaughtered on-grass and on a small-scale, as indeed I am - perhaps you would like to see a law passed within the US banning feed lots and industrial slaughter houses? Sounds like a good idea -  right? Wrong! The results would be globally negligible if not disastrous. Overnight, producers around the world would jump on this sudden and overtly significant market opportunity, and like it or not, America's industrialised beef production really is vastly superior to industrialised beef anywhere else in the world. The Brazilian rainforest would be pillaged at unprecedented rates, and less feed-efficient cows in Australia, Europe and Asia would overcrowd feed lots to pick up the slack.

"Well - people just need to eat less meat" - the organic farmer is quick to reply....perhaps true - but what are we to do? Globally regulate and dictate the diets of every man, woman, and child? Personally, I would never ever want to have the government involved in regulating anyone's diet. To be sure, cultural changes will be important, but in an increasingly interconnected and free world - we have to realise that the ecological and social "qualities" embedded in meat (and non-meat) foods co-exist simultaneously in both a local and global context.

Cultured meat is about to change this context in ways we can only begin to imagine. In a world of abundant cultured meat - the moral high ground that high-production agriculture currently stands on will vanish. Laws to stop behaviour limiting farm practices such as gestation crates and overly maligned feed lot will suddenly seems much more justifiable and achievable.

What about alternative agriculture? Small-scale, organic, and grass-fed producers - won't they go out of business also? Well, many undoubtedly will, but those that do not will truly be a testament to the emerging ethical imperative of our evolving partnership with non-human animals. Grass won't stop growing on otherwise un-farmable land, and our ruminant friends - under our guiding hand - truly are the best in the world at managing this critical global resource. As well, we can, when we chose, offer animals the most peaceful of possible death options: on-grass (not just "on-farm") slaughter.

Here-in lies the challenge to all farmers everywhere, and one they must begin preparing for now. In an age of abundant cultured meat of almost limitless holistic quality enhancements - attention to the qualities of 'real meat' will reach levels of introspection we can only anticipate.

There will always be a critical role for traditional animal agriculture - this is, I believe, ethically inescapable, but how farmers evolve sustainability in this brave new context will be the challenge of the century - and it starts NOW!

----------------------------------------

For more info on Cultured Meat - check out the Ted Talk in the Emergent Technology playlist on the Mythic Meats YouTube Channel

Welcome to the Meat Tribes!

How do I possibly feel okay taking the
 life of  an animal? It's a good question, and
it has real answers!

"Nobody wants to have their science called bad, but of course, there is such a thing as bad science"

"The science is not always a good narrative, and a narrative is not always good science"

-David Sloan Wilson

I recently entered an essay contest, held by the New York Times - the challenge: to defend the ethics of meat eating in 600 words or less. The winners will be printed in an April edition of the Times.


Since the day the contest was announced - the tribalistic flags from all sides of the meat wars have been waving on high. Vegans, conventional, and alternative agriculturists have all been mightily quick to point out that they are, by point of fact, obviously correct in their respective ethical point of view. "Science", they each claim, "clearly supports OUR view".


Likewise, the vegan and conventional ag tribes - have apparently converged on an unheard of point of agreement regarding this contest - It's Stupid!


Michelle Simon, a public health attorney and contributor to the Huffington Post, derides the contest as "silly" - going on to claim:

"It saddens me that given all the pressing problems of our day, many of which caused by excessive meat eating (global warming, contaminated air and water, chronic disease, worker injury, and yes, animal suffering, just to name a few) the Times is promoting such a self-indulgent contest.

I am sure the meat industry is jumping for joy."

If Simon truly believes that meat is causing the atrocities she lists....why she would argue that proponents of carnivory shouldn't absolutely have to justify their actions,  is beyond any litmus test of reason or coherence. I do tend to find that vegans, of all the diversity amongst the meat tribes, are most often guilty of employing bad science to prove a point - and here again, Simon adds to my mountain of supporting evidence for such a claim. The meat industry is not only NOT 'jumping for joy' - I find most of them indignant if not outraged.

Enter the 'unconventional cattle woman',  Jesse Bussard. Yesterday she chose to stake her ground on the issue in ways I can't imagine anyone would want to stand behind. Bussard claims "why should I, or anyone else who chooses to consume meat for that matter, have to explain our ethics for doing so?". Well, okay, we live in a free country, and you shouldn't have to justify your actions to anybody - but - you should be able to. 

Conventional agriculture too often takes a stance akin to saying 'We're feeding the world so get out of our way' - and certainly it is far too easy for an overtly emotional public to cause real harm by over simplifying what are incredibly complex issues. Regardless of this fact - everyone should be reflective enough about their own actions so as to be able articulate why what they are doing is the right thing to do.

To be fair, Bussard does point out a concern I shared for a brief moment, that is, the heavy bias of the panel of judges:

"What [the NY Times] call 'a veritable murderer’s row of judges' is no less than just that.

The line-up features the father of animal rights himself, Peter Singer, along with Michael Pollan, Johnathan Safran Foer, Mark Bittman, and Andrew Light."

Which brings me to my point about the nature of science and the alarming levels of tribalism espoused by almost everyone passionate about the meat issue. 

The ethics of eating meat, or not eating meat for that matter, are unfathomably complex and touch upon almost all of humanities grand challenges. To capture this complexity in a 600 word essay is a truly torturous request for anyone who has done any quality thinking on the matter. Realising this, I crafted my entry around what I've called the fillet d' ethique, the sin non qua moral issue beyond which concerns of ecological, nutritional, or social impacts are null and void; 

Is it okay to KILL a sentient domesticated creature for food?

Now, I'm not going to answer that question here - it's my entry in the contest for crying out loud ;) Needless to say, I did answer it, I answered it affirmatively, and I answered it with quality science (I'll post the full essay here, after the contest ends). 

Briefly, I employed a blend of evolutionary psychology and animal cognition sciences to illuminate how this seemingly intransigent moral dilemma can be acceptably navigated. In doing so - I believe I've poked a hole of some significance into the utilitarian arguments that codify 'the father of the animal rights movement', Peter Singers' grounds for the moral rightitude of the vegan lifestyle. 

I won't lie - I entered this contest to win it - so was it a wise move to explicitly attack the extensive and impressive body of work of the most eminent and scholarly judge on the panel? 

Whether or not I win this contest - I actually have very strong faith that it was a wise move - and I have YouTube to thank for this. I'd never read Singer, and from what I'd heard, I imagined he was living in a tree somewhere plotting which 'factory farm' to blow up next, as indeed, the fringes of his readership occasionally do. As you can see for yourself on the Ethics & Carnivory playlist in the Mythic Meats YouTube Channel - Singer is, in fact, a world renowned Bioethicist at Princeton, and far more importantly - he's a pretty reasonable guy, and clearly someone who respects the scientific process. 

Yes, Jesse Bussard is correct in pointing out that the NY Times has selected quite a biased panel for this issue. If this panel was to solely decide what constitutes the ethics of eating meat - I would agree, we need far more balance. Instead - this 'veritable murderers row' is charged with a quite different task: they have to pick at least one winning essay, regardless of how essentially wrong they may feel meat, of any sort, may be.


In this context, I would argue that the Times' judgement is a remarkable exercise in trans-tribal diplomacy. Instead of the tired routine of staking our ground and waving our flags - these unlikely set of minds have to deeply explore what, for some of them, is the null hypothesis of their life. This is the scientific ideal.


The reason that carnivory and veganism have reached unheard of levels of ideology in recent times is not just fuelled by the general rising interest in food - it is representative of the most serious of scientific literacy issues  facing the world at large. Science is not a citation or an authority - it's a community process. Civil discourse - talking about the issues without throwing cheap shots, without hiding behind rights to freedom, without attachment to even your deepest held beliefs - this is the only route to progress.


The discourse around meat consumption is in perilous danger of becoming a drain on our cultural capital, unless we can collectively bring real science, and thus real discourse back to the table.


___________
UPDATE: 
Within an hour of posting this, Jesse Bussard got in touch with me, with a wonderful note, respectfully pointing to things I'd helped her think about, as well as pointing out that I was incorrect in characterising her as not being able to defend her ethical stance... 
"I am fully capable of defending my ethical choice to consume meat, but felt that the NYT contest given their panel of judges it was not worth my time or effort. I do not ask vegans or organic proponents, for example, to explain to me why they feel that their food choices are more ethical than mine, and therefore don't feel it's a publication or an individual's place to question mine. However, if the need did arise I would fully be able to state them."


I applaud Jesse for her reply - and hope all discussions around the complexity of meat ethics can be this civil and productive!

Abundance in an Age of Food Tribalism

For those who haven't heard yet - 2012 has gotten off to a highly optimistic start, in no small part due to the NY Times Best Seller, Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler.

No matter where you fall in the broad spectrum of the food and culture wars - it's well worth your reading. The subtitle kind of says it all, but within the pages of Abundance, Diamandis and Kotler yield some really counter-intuitive conclusions, based on an amazingly strong convergence of data. The book has done a pretty spectacular job convincing me, and a great many others, that we are in fact about to enter a new age of abundance. Not in a caddy materialistic sort way, but rather in terms of the very basic of human needs - water, energy, shelter - and yes - Food. How will we get there? The authors suggest it will be through the convergence of emergent technologies.... the idea is nothing completely new, and it's scope of controversy is beyond the reach of this posting, but needless to say - it can be something of a divisive issue.

Now, I've spent my entire academic career in educational institutions with explicit missions of promoting sustainability - most typically through a framework of "organic" agriculture. I've lived off-the grid in the backwoods of Maine, bred open-pollinated organic vegetable seeds, and spent the last 7 or so years focused intensively on grass-fed meat and milk production. So why, one might logically ask, WHY am I so excited about a book that so explicitly promotes the kind of transgenic crops, nano-technology, and synthetic biology I've been literally academically incubated to revile for over 12 years now? Have I lost my way? Did I drink the kool-aid of corporate techno-optimism? Hardly - I'll leave it to you to read the book, or at the very least, watch Peter's TED Talk embedded below to judge for yourself the validity of Abundance.... I've got a more pressing question for this post:

Where are the voices of protest and outrage from the Organic food movement around this book?

I've been scouring the digital ethers to find, what I had thought, would be a litany of outraged commentary from the local, organic, and slow food movements. This book, at first glance, is an academically rigorous assault on the incumbent scarcity posited by many of those preparing for the 'post-petroleum economy'. Where the alternative food movement is preparing for this inevitability by scaling down, Diamandis and Kotler insist we must - even more aggressively prepare - by scaling up. 

I am already well versed in the anticipated critiques - that technology has failed us in the past; that things are more complex than these authors admit; that we'll lose our humanity in the process. My point here is not to weigh in on the merits of these arguments - though I will say I think Abundance, combined with the works of Ray Kurzweil, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, and others offer significant food for thought on the matter.

My point is to consider this - why the digital silence? I've found a few, often barely coherent, criticisms hidden among the comment sections of the great many websites a-buzz with Abundance - but what I am not easily finding is a single well argued, professional, or citizen journalism piece really digging into the book from an alternative food perspective. As we all know - this kind of silence just does not happen with controversial issues on the Internet!

So what's going on? 

Is the organic movement dumbstruck into silence? Hardly. 

Do they actually agree with the book in it's entirety? I'm sure not. 

Are they too busy hand-crafting this summer's seedlings? Perhaps, and I would hardly judge anyone for that! 

My concern however, is that the real cause of this silence is a form of food tribalism. A fear that rather than possibly being a good scientific argument - that Abundance is perhaps seen as nothing more than a flag for the "other side". Paid for by Monsanto, packaged by the geeks of silicon valley, and sold to the ignorant and culturally depraved as the same sort of technological panacea we've seen since the rise of synthetic chemistry. Perhaps it is this type of sentiment that has caused an overwhelming majority of slow-foodies (among which I occasionally count myself) to simply miss this wonderful and thought provoking book. 

If this is the case, and I think it is somewhat fair to say that it likely is - this is a treacherous place for both organic food, and society as a whole to feel comfortable. When tribalism trumps science, and a lack of civil discourse becomes a roadblock to developing common vision - we are indeed, in a very undesirable spot.

I certainly don't agree with every single thing Diamandis and Kotler write - and I'll surely comment about these aspects in the future. Yet, where so much of what they say, truly is so pertinent, not only to those in alternative agriculture, but to all of us as human beings - I truly hope everyone who cares about food and our future will take the time to explore their message with an open and critical mind!

Meat Quality is Sustainability, Not Snobbery!

© MythicMeats.com

In the face of global hunger and malnutrition issues facing millions, it seems utterly elitist to concern oneself with meat quality - let alone "holistic" meat quality. Indeed - the exact opposite is true.

A rigorously holistic approach to understanding the qualities of meat has profound impacts on our understanding of this most central of foodstuffs. Real holism requires more than just multiplicity in thinking (though the 12 dimensions of meat quality are certainly foundational to the theory). Holism, here, also refers to examining the interconnections between quality dimensions, and exploring all such interconnected attributes across multiple scales (from the cow to the globe).

At first glance, the approach is nothing new. Proponents of  veganism, alternative agriculture, and conventional agriculture, all frequently discuss the issues in such terms. It is precisely because of this widespread, informal adoption of holistic arguments - that an ethical imperative emerges to better understand the framework.

How we measure and talk about meat quality has 

profound impact on  how we produce meat  

© MythicMeats.com

It simply can not be true, simultaneously, that veganism, alternative agriculture, and conventional agriculture each, respectively, represent the single best and most ethical option - as the more extreme advocates from all three camps frequently decry.

An evolutionary perspective can help us understand that, rather than searching for global panaceas, it is perhaps in our better interest to understand the diversity in ethical positions held globally, and identify the range of holistic meat (and non-meat) qualities that science best indicates are in alignment with a range of commonly held values.

When I reference a vision for building greater consensus on the ethics of meat and grazing - I am far from implying that more and more people should move toward any particular ideology. Instead it is that we can do vastly better at understanding and appreciating the diversity that exists. Building a common ground in this manner, appears so critical if we are to develop the levels of cooperation we need to address the coming exponential challenges for food production of all kinds.

© MythicMeats.com

I am the first to recognize that this is easier said than done - but we can still move forward. The food media has to end the false dichotomy of "good meat / bad meat" and instead focus on developing more rigorously science-based discourse on the diversity of holistic meat qualities we find around the world.

There is no such thing as "perfect meat" (or non-meat) - we will always be dealing with trade-offs among the quality dimensions (e.g. price vs. taste). Where such holistic qualities are so intrinsicly interconnected, it is the optimisation of all such quality dimensions, for all humans  that clearly becomes the only path to a sustainable, ethical future.

A Hidden Gem from the Origins of Consciousness

Reprinted from an Article I wrote for Evolution: This View Of Life

I was farming livestock for 8 years before my passion to probe the depths of evolutionary waters took me from a small beef operation in rural Pennsylvania, to a fascinating institute of Sustainable Agriculture - the University of Kassel in Witzenhausen, Germany. But how did I get here? Why did I drop everything to study applied evolution rather than a straight forward program in beef production?

Like so many of us in this cosmological  field - books are the primary, and most simple answer. I believe everyone has a sort of “tipping point” book - that jaw-dropping literature that burned the beauty of evolution into your mind. For many of course - this book would be Origin of the Species - I’m terribly embarrassed to admit - I have never actually read Darwin cover to cover (it’s on my list), and what I had read - was perhaps at too young a stage in my education to see the broader synthesis. A sad commentary on our educational system, indeed.

For me, the tipping point came  2 years ago - back at the grass-fed cattle farm, in the form of a dusty old book on my bosses shelf. It had been a long day of grazing, and as I was watching our herd of 100 thunder through the thickest of June grasses and on into the sun, I distinctly remember asking; “What was it like?” - what was it really like for evolving humanity to experience the ancient grazing of cattle and their bovid relatives. When I finished chores, I rushed back to the office and pulled out a book I’d earlier noticed, with a title of: The Origins of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - by one Julian Jaynes.

It was a classic book from the 1970’s, about to fall apart, heavily noted in the margins by my boss while he was studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. I dove in head first, I think I stayed up till 2am that night, and I finished it within days despite my heavy grazing duties. The eloquence and complexity of what Jayne’s argues was so convincing, and such a synthesis of everything I’d already understood - both specifically about human evolution, and within the more meta-level of emergent complexity - that I imagine my response was nothing less than the thrill that Darwin and his countless intellectual descendants describe when they truly “get it” (or at least - when we  think they get it!).

It was my pleasure to interview the founder of the Julian Jaynes Society, and editor of now two collections of Jayne’s work on Bicameral Mind Theory, Marcel Kuijsten.

Enjoy our interview, and explore the work of Julian Jaynes further. Through his original press, as well as the unpublished works, and highly reflective commentary by Kuijsten and peers.
all through the link below:

http://www.JulianJaynes.org

Sperm, Nipples, & Guts: Top 10 Stories from the Evolution of Beef (pt. 1 of 3)

Since I had the idea to shift this blog into a purely evolutionary perspective, I have been awash in a tidal wave of research and perspectives on the matter.....Where could I possibly start?
How about with the absolute Top Ten stories from my personal Beef files! 
These are the stories that got me hooked on thinking this way about meat and agriculture, and the stories that I hope will show you another universe within the world of the bovids.

The following short stories are in rough chronological order, not based on preference. They are a preview of whats to come, intended to offer a more comprehensive big-picture, a road map, before we dive deeper into these, and other stories from the real-world mythology of meats.
There are many questions and unkowns in the field of evolution, and while any of the details contained herein could shift or change with new evidence - one truth will remain absolutely eternal - that of the unbroken chain....


From story #1 about our spermoid-forefathers, to story #10 about our own very own personal experience of evolutionary Amazement; there is a direct and unbroken chain of cooperation and compassion, triumph and success.

1. Sperm

Sperm Cells 
from Wikipedia

Neocallimastix Fungi from a Bovid Gut 
by Daniel Wubah

Did you know the old "What came first- the Chicken or the Egg?" bit, is not actually a parable, but an entirely answerable question? The answer, of course, is Sperm! Mycologist, Paul Stamets is famous for describing humans as having descended from Fungi. Pointing to the relatively recent discovery of the Opistokonta Super-Kingdom. This new trunk on our global family tree links the kingdoms of Animal and Fungi as far more connected to each other than to any of the other known taxonomic kingdoms. More simply put, after the first emergence of life, bacteria appeared, than later plants developed off of this line. Eventually these "opistokonts" split-off from plants into a genetic line that would eventually come to form every living animal and fungi existent today - including you, me, and that swiss-mushroom cheeseburger I ate for dinner last night. So if we (and cattle as well) are related to Fungi- what was our Last Common Ancestor like? What features did we share in common with these original opistokonts? Odd as it may seem - the two things that can actually best help us understand this are Sperm cells & Cow Stomachs.... 


2. Nipples

Angus Cow Nursing her Calf - After 350 M years of Evolutionary Development

Photo ©MythicMeats.com

The first baby-bottle nipples were fashioned from the teat of a dairy cow. Milk itself seems to be a universal symbol for kindness & generosity - yet from where did these flowing udders emerge? For this shocking tale we have to travel back some 350 million years ago! Back to the time of the Synapsids, some of the very first land-roaming reptilian-like monsters to escape the darkness of the sea. No - these ancient lizzardesque synapsids did not sport the credentials to enter the biological dairy business. Rather, they offered their youth something much more fascinating at the time.....stinky butt sweat. While the bio-chemical and functional reasons are argued, scientists generally concur that the mammary glands and nipple structures in modern mammals (cows and humans alike!) developed over the eons through infantile preference for the exudates (sweat) from one or more sub-dermal glands in our most reptilian of grandparents (butt and stomach sweat). That is to say - there is a direct and unbroken chain between the calves and babies that suckle the teats of today, and the dietary choices of our deepest of reptilianoid ancestors. And then there's whole this part about the kangaroo baby......

3. Guts

The Chevrotain - a Primitive Ruminant
Photo: Wikipedia

Here's a chevrotain - a tiny "mouse deer", and member of the Tragulid family. While the chevrotain is a modern creature, she is as close as we might get to the most primitive last common ancestor of cows, sheep, goats, bison, and all their wild ruminant relatives. Yet the very first ruminants did not ruminate - that is - the most ancient of cattle ancestors were not yet able to digest grasses and chew a cud as their modern descendants do so gracefully.


How and what a cow decides to eat, has been shown be an incredibly complex decision. These daily decisions are made on a complex of biochemical and cultural feedback mechanisms (yes - animals have culture too). Yet, while you could say the same of humans, we seem to not be very good at picking our own diets anymore (at least many of us). Simply put - cattle and humans pick their foods through very different mechanisms. Humans now have fully cognitive, and ever more so, fully socio-political and economic systems for regulating and selecting our diets. So how did this happen? How exactly did we diverge from our last common ancestor with cattle- the mole-like boreoeutherians of some 100 mya? The "guts", or digestive systems of both cattle and humans form pivotal functions in the interwoven narrative of contemporary evolution - join me in future posts to see these complexities unfurled!