Posted on 10/22/2025 4:14:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Long before their teeth evolved to handle tough, fibrous plants, early humans were already digging up and eating grasses, sedges, and starchy underground foods.
A new fossil-tooth isotope study shows this behavior began about 700,000 years before longer molars emerged -- revealing that behavioral innovation, not anatomy, drove the change...
As early humans moved from the dense forests of Africa into open grasslands, they began relying on quick, reliable sources of energy. This shift in habitat led them to favor grassy plants, especially grains and the starchy tissues stored underground.
A new study led by Dartmouth researchers reveals that hominins started eating these carbohydrate-rich foods long before they had the dental structures best suited for them. The research offers the first fossil evidence of what scientists call "behavioral drive," in which survival-boosting behaviors emerge before the physical traits that make them easier. The team reports their findings in Science...
Researchers examined fossilized hominin teeth for carbon and oxygen isotopes left behind by eating graminoids, a group that includes grasses and sedges. Their analysis showed that ancient humans began consuming these plants far earlier than their teeth evolved to process them effectively...
Nathaniel Dominy, the Charles Hansen Professor of Anthropology and senior author of the study, says isotope analysis overcomes the enduring challenge of identifying the factors that caused the emergence of new behaviors -- behavior doesn't fossilize.
(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...
My backyard is covered in nutsedge. Have at it.
I love ‘em. Oddly, they don’t contain grapes or nuts.
Costco. Big bag.
Thanks DW!
The trick was to pour lots of milk on them and let them soak for about 30 minutes.
A lawyer was driving in the countryside and he saw a man in the field eating grass. He stopped and asked the man what was going on. The poor man said he was out of work and had no options left, so he was eating grass to stay alive. The lawyer told the man to get in the car and come with him back to the city and he’d be taken care of. The homeless man said he had a wife and family grazing over the hill and he couldn’t leave them so the lawyer took the whole family in his car and headed back to the city.
The homeless man expressed his gratitude to the lawyer for his offer of support for the whole family.
The lawyer said, ‘It is my pleasure. You’ll like my place. My grass is over a foot tall!’
I love Grape Nuts, and I am not generally a fan of crunchy things.
Per the headline - what’s “shocking” about them eating the only stuff that was available to eat?
“Ever eat a pine tree? Euell Gibbons”
Yes in Scouts. It will prevent scurvy as will pine needles tea.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2009_ostland_l001.pdf
100% this.
[The cambium is a thin, nutrient-rich layer between the outer bark and the wood that is high in vitamins (A and C), fiber, and carbohydrates. It can be eaten raw, dried, ground into flour, or boiled to be added to soups or fried like bacon. ]
You can also eat the cotton tail tuber, and new shoots too. Dandelion tap roots, leaves too.
[Edible sedges
Yellow nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus): The most well-known edible sedge, this plant produces small, almond-flavored tubers called tiger nuts. They can be eaten raw, roasted, or dried and ground into a flour. In Spain, they are used to make the milky beverage horchata de chufa.
Purple nutsedge (Cyperus rotundus): A relative of the yellow nutsedge, its tubers are also edible but often described as having a stronger, more bitter or menthol-like flavor when fresh. The flavor mellows after drying.
Northwest Territory Sedge (Carex utriculata): Native to the Pacific Northwest, this sedge has edible roots, stems, and seeds.
Straw-colored flatsedge (Cyperus strigosus): This sedge produces an edible bulb-like base with a nutty flavor, though some describe it as tasting like menthol. ]
[Edible grass rhizomes
Quackgrass (Couch grass):
Preparation: Dried and ground into a flour to add to bread, or roasted to make a coffee substitute.
Other uses: Can be boiled to create a sweet syrup, or the young shoots can be eaten raw.
Bear Grass:
Preparation: The rhizomes can be roasted or boiled to reduce bitterness.
Other uses: The seed pods are also edible before they open.
Yerba Mansa:
Preparation: The aromatic roots are chopped and used in salads or cooked with fish.
Lalang Grass:
Preparation: The rhizomes have been used as a survival food, particularly in parts of East Asia. ]
Anyone who has survived pun intended the C level SERE school can attest to there are many roots you can eat. A good indicator is look for wild boar sign , where they root you eat.
There is always more kcals in gathering food just sitting there waiting for you to eat it vs chasing down and tying to kill a game animal. It’s fantasy to think otherwise. Again you learn this absolute fact in survival school. Snares, traps and dead falls are a separate part of any course. Let the kcals come to you.
[Cows eat grass.
I eat cows.
So I eat grass, in a roundabout sort of way.]
The feed conversion ratio for feedlot cattle is 10 to 1 of hanging carcass mass of which 40-60% of that is edible meat. The mass ratio is closer to 50:1 for cellulose feeds. Cows are the worse feed conversion of any animal regularly eaten. Their only redemption is that normally humans cannot eat cellulose as our stomach and GI track lack the bacterial symbiosis to break cellulose to acetic acid like rumens can. Modern tech has solved that issue we can CRISPR DNA edit the genes for cellulose hydrolysis into human gut symbiotes namely our ever present e.coli and other gram neg bacterial fauna. This let’s those break cellulose into 6 carbon sugars which is glucose. The methane produced...well that’s a side effect ha.
The other way is to use enzymes or supercritical water or HCL acid to hydrolysis cellulose into glucose which humans can eat. Every cell in your body runs on glucose the whole human GI track is tasked with putting mono or poly saccharides into your bloodstream for your mitochondrial factories to turn into yup glucose.
Course you could also feed hydrolysis products to yeast, bacteria or algae and have them make all 9 essential amino acid complete proteins, lipids and starches otherwise known as food. There is no technical or biological reason to have to eat cellulose processed through a ruminant there exists at least a dozen ways to hover directly from cellulose to what humans can eat.
We ate anything that didn’t eat us first............
I think it’s ok but you better check with the HOA president
And sometimes the other way around.😁
My food eats grass................
When early European explorers arrived in Canada suffering from scurvy, the Indians showed them how to use pine needles for a rapid cure. I want to plant some Arbor Vitae (tree of life) shrubs at my country place for survival medicine.
I have seen instructions from our Great Depression saying one can use powdered grass mixed with flour for bread and baking. I don’t remember the exact figure, but it was somewhere between 10 and 25%. Lambs quarters (plant) and sorel (somewhat lemony flavor) are 2 plants I have used in salad or to cook.
Given that our hominid ancestors were not fuss budgets, I imagine they enjoyed the grain and grass, partially digested, contents of animal stomachs and intestines. Thus plenty of time for larger molars to evolve. In early phases they might have been eatinb the entire contents of rabbits, and other small mammals. As they became larger and more skilled they would have been killing larger animals like antelope, pigs, and eventually bovines and mammoths, still eating digestive contents.
Good call!
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