# How can calorie restriction even make sense?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-calorie-restriction-even-make-sense/518628>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 23, 2009, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-calorie-restriction-even-make-sense/518628 "2009-11-23T13:12:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-calorie-restriction-even-make-sense/518628/21 "2009-11-25T16:38:15Z")

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> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> Except that humans are not (evolutionarily speaking) apex predators; we’re foragers/scroungers (like the other great apes) which have learned to hunt opportunistically, and within the last twelve thousand years.  
> Stranger

Humans have been much more than opportunistic hunters for far longer than the last 12 000 years, or since the end of the last Ice Age and the beginnings of food production. By that time, most habitable land on Earth was already populated by us, largely on the spoils of big game hunting.

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**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-calorie-restriction-even-make-sense/518628/22 "2009-11-25T17:05:15Z")

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> [@Toxylon](#):
>
> Humans have been much more than opportunistic hunters for far longer than the last 12 000 years, or since the end of the last Ice Age and the beginnings of food production. By that time, most habitable land on Earth was already populated by us, largely on the spoils of big game hunting.

Sorry, something seems to have gotten cut out of there; what I intended to write was "we’re foragers/scroungers (like the other great apes) which have learned to hunt opportunistically, and _have only enjoyed regular consumption of meat and animal products_ within the last twelve thousand years. You are correct that humans have been opportunistic hunters for a long time; indeed, longer than we’ve actually been human; and the availability of meat protein is thought to be one of the precursors to the development of intelligence and the more complex social interaction that the human species enjoys.

Stranger

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