The brain

Processed game meat is carcinogenic, like cigarettes, asbestos or arsenic, explains the World Health Organization (WHO).

Editorial Team Wild beim Wild — August 18, 2023

Time and again, claims are made from the hobby hunting community which, upon closer analysis, prove to be harebrained schemes, wild fantasies, hunting literature and similar unscientific sources.

This is primarily due to the often inadequate training in hunting examination courses, which are predominantly conducted by sometimes militant fanatics with cult-like ideologies and do not require any formal qualifications. After the training, the amateur hunter is left only within the echo chamber of the hunting press, which constantly repeats its distorted and often inaccurate portrayals.

Within hunting clubs, members reinforce each other's existing views. This has created a closed-off sect that is hardly open to new information. The fatal flaw is that the local press and politicians still believe that expertise resides among hunters and consult the local hobby hunter on all nature-related matters. In this way, these problematic hobby-hunting sects also contaminate public discourse.

Meat consumption played a crucial role in human evolution. Meat proteins were essential for brain growth. This is a frequently cited argument, for example, by recreational hunters.

However, this doesn't explain why other, purely carnivorous animals didn't develop larger brains. Dogs, cats, and other predators clearly don't have the largest brains.

However, current science now knows that vegetarians live longer and that if vegetarian animals are fed meat, mental illnesses such as BSE can develop.

Genetically, humans are primarily foragers, gathering nuts, vegetables, fruits, legumes, and roots—in other words, herbivores, not carnivores. Of course, civilized humans can eat anything, but they are not garbage disposals. Our ancestors' gathering activities were generally more important than hunting and covered the majority of their raw material and calorie needs. The situation is similar for chimpanzees.

The Indian physicist and philosopher Vandana Shiva reminds us that humanity would not have survived if the productivity of the male hunter had been the basis of its livelihood. Men's contribution to survival amounted to approximately 20% of food intake. Women, as gatherers and herders in hunter-gatherer societies, accounted for over 80% of total food production.

Traces of ancient bacteria on Neanderthal teeth suggest that our ancestors consumed carbohydrate-rich plant foods at least 600,000 years ago to meet the energy needs of their increasingly larger brains. This is the conclusion of apublished study by a research team including anthropologists from Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena.

Modern science still knows little about the evolution of the brain. Researchers practically produce new theories about it every year.

The size or weight of the brain has nothing to do with intelligence quotient. Intelligence arises from neuronal connections in the brain. A man's brain is larger than a woman's, but on average, both have the same number of neuronal connections; in men, these connections are simply longer.

The evolutionarily driven growth of the human brain was much more likely related to the discovery of fire, which provided an abundance of newly available energy.

In recent decades, meat consumption has skyrocketed to unimaginable levels, yet the human brain and intelligence are not growing – as would be expected based on the theory of hobby hunters. Unlike chimpanzees, which generally have a vegetarian diet, current studies show that the human brain is actually shrinking, and intelligence is also declining. This is happening at a time when meat consumption is dominant. The brain also constricts, for example, in cases of prolonged depression.

From a neuroscientific perspective, it's interesting that violent acts like hunting alter the brain. The balance between intellectual abilities and base animal instincts is disrupted. Hobby hunters often lack respect for other living beings. Their inner demons react angrily to restrictions, advice, and criticism from the general public. Citizens can repeatedly observe this in conversations with hobby hunters when they open up about their experiences.

Damage is caused at the point where violence is unleashed, just as it is at the point at which it is directed. And this is conceivably concrete at the neuronal level.

Neuropsychologists confirm: The amygdala, the brain's emotional processing center, is noticeably underdeveloped or impaired in violent offenders such as hobby hunters and psychopaths. When this central part of the brain is defective, the feeling of disgust, among other things, is suppressed. The amygdala is also known as the almond-shaped nucleus.

If people hunted out of necessity, and cannibalistic hobby hunters now claim that meat was the essential food for the development and size of the brain, this is, given the nature of hobby hunters, simply a bit short-sighted.

Meat always contains a high proportion of toxins and makes one extremely susceptible to physical and mental illnesses. This doesn't change with the deceptive labeling practices of hobby hunters; they claim that game is organic or a refined natural product, etc. Game is by no means as natural and organic as hobby hunters would have the public believe. Game, in particular, is contaminated with residues of pesticides, herbicides, manure, antibiotics, etc., from the feed and water from the fields, in addition to the potential heavy metal contamination from ammunition particles used by hobby hunters.

Liquid manure also contains high levels of heavy metals because animals in factory farming are fed feed containing zinc and copper. These heavy metals are found in the excrement, which enters the soil via the liquid manure. They inhibit plant growth and harm valuable microorganisms and important soil organisms such as earthworms.

It is essentially a form of assault and therefore a crime when hobby hunters persuade children in particular to consume meat.

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