Feeling Upset? Look At Some Meat 155
Meshach writes "A study out of Canada claims that seeing meat actually calms a person down. From the article: 'Contrary to expectations, a McGill University researcher has discovered that seeing meat makes people significantly less aggressive. Frank Kachanoff, who studies evolution at the university’s department of psychology, had initially thought the presence of meat would provoke bloodlust, believing the response would have helped our primate ancestors hunt. But in fact, his research showed the reverse is true.'" I can see all the "Make Steak, Not War!" protest signs already.
Chill dude. It's Thanksgiving. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course. Why do you need to be "aggressive" when it's Thanksgiving? You've already got your kill and you are about to chow down. You and the rest of your extended family doesn't have to worry about starving for awhile. You can relax a little. This is about "being fat and happy" rather than "fight or flight". Of course "plenty" is going to be relaxing.
makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Yet Another Meaningless Research (Score:2, Insightful)
Basically, the researcher made a completely arbitrary "evolutionary" assumption that the view of meat provoked "blood lust", despite any evidence to that. And then he stood corrected after wasting funds on that largely irrelevant issue. Blood lust didn't help our ancestors hunt, hunger did. It would seem way more logical to most people - except to that researcher, obviously - that the view of meat would calm them, since it meant "dinner's (almost?) ready".
The view of meat could provoke anger with some people like veggie activists, but this has nothing to do with our ancestors hunting for food, IMO.
Re:I'd rather look at mammaries (Score:3, Insightful)
We're a cooperative species (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you can see MEAT, the hunt is over. Time to calm down and eat. Makes sense to me. We're not jackals, who fight for carrion; or lions who compete for who gets to eat the kill. We're a cooperative species, so once the hunt is done and the meat is out, time to stop producing adrenaline from the hunt and get to the business of sharing the meat out to the group.
Wrong images. (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't see the raw meat until after you've caught and killed the animal and are ready to eat. Bloodlust is not appropriate at that point. He needs to redo the experiment with images of prey animals running away.
Re:ironically (Score:2, Insightful)
I know plenty of people who claim this and it's for the same two or three reasons every time.
1: They smoke, and have done so for so long that they cannot taste much of anything.
2: They are the people who drown everything in salt, pepper or some other spice so that the natural flavor or the dish gets overwhelmed no matter what they are eating
3: Bad cooking, they grew up with a bad cook and never learned how to do it on their own so now they just ignore the flavor of what they eat without thinking about it.
Re:ironically (Score:3, Insightful)
I was raised a vegetarian and I was the last holdout when we all decided to actually start eating meat. I see where you are coming from.
But you are absolutely, completely wrong. Meat is an expansive world full of an incredible range of complex flavors.