Richard W. Wrangham Quotes & Sayings

Brillat-Savarin claimed to have seen the vicar of Bregnier eat the following within forty-five minutes: a bowl of soup, two dishes of boiled beef, a leg of mutton, a handsome capon, a generous salad, a ninety-degree wedge from a good-sized white cheese, a bottle of wine, and a carafe of water. If Brillat-Savarin was not exaggerating, the amount of food eaten by the vicar in less than an hour would have provided enough calories for a day or more. It is hard to imagine a wild chimpanzee achieving such a feat. — Richard W. Wrangham

wild fruits are not nearly as rewarding as those domesticated fruits. The edible pulp of a forest fruit is often physically hard, and it may be protected by a skin, coat, or hairs that have to be removed. Most fruits have to be chewed for a long time before the pulp can be fully detached from the pieces of skin or seeds, and before the solid pieces are mashed enough to give up their valuable nutrients. — Richard W. Wrangham

Hadza men were close to the average, spending more than 4 hours a day hunting - about eighty times as long as an Ngogo chimpanzee. — Richard W. Wrangham

fish from the cache became "high" - in other words, smelly because they were partially rotten. Most people liked the strong taste. Jenness saw "a man take a bone from rotten caribou-meat cached more than a year before, crack it open and eat the marrow with evident relish although it swarmed with maggots. — Richard W. Wrangham

The proposal that the human household originated in competition over food presents a challenge to conventional thinking because it holds economics as primary and sexual relations as secondary. — Richard W. Wrangham

the idea that food enzymes contribute to digestion or cellular function in our bodies is nonsense because these molecules are themselves digested in our stomachs and small intestines. — Richard W. Wrangham

Phyllis Kaberry's description of an aborigine camp in western Australia is typical: "The Aborigines continually craved for meat, and any man was apt to declare, 'me hungry alonga bingy,' though he had had a good meal of yams and damper a few minutes before. The camp on such occasions became glum, lethargic, and unenthusiastic about dancing. — Richard W. Wrangham

Hunter-gatherer women are therefore not normally treated badly, and many ethnographers have concluded that, in comparison to most societies, married women lead lives of high status and considerable autonomy. — Richard W. Wrangham

Hundreds of different hunter-gatherer cultures have been described, and all obtained a substantial proportion of their diet from meat, often half their calories or more. — Richard W. Wrangham