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Letter: The importance of early chefs, or of seafood

Published 7 December 2016

From Bob Lister, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, UK

Lawton mentions the thesis that cooking supplied critical nutrients for brain development. Chief among these is a ready supply of fatty acids, particularly omega -3, rather than calories. These are readily supplied by a marine diet that can be eaten raw and without cooking and does not require powerful chewing.

David Attenborough revisited the “Waterside Ape” hypothesis in . He cited recent evidence from the Pinnacle Point caves in Mossel Bay (Mussel Bay in English), South Africa.

From about 160,000 years ago people there enjoyed a diet of seafood, including molluscs, crustacea and algae.

Issue no. 3103 published 10 December 2016

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