Evolutionary reasons behind flavors

smoked = cooked over an open fire = better than raw meat

you ate it and you liked it, that's why

>>9021849
What is the evolutionary reason for being so retarded OP?
What is the evolutionary reason for being unable to understand things?

>>9021849
>raw: bacterias n shiet
>cooked: no/fewer pathogens
So, obviously grut grut, who preferred eating cooked meat, lived longer than his comrades.

>>9021917

why does there have to be an evolutionary reason behind liking smokey flavour. It might be completely a product of culture and environment

>>9022209
And pure chemical coincidence.

>>9022209
>he is that one guy who is trying to convince everyone that the only reason people prefer steak over broccoli is social conditioning

>>9022228

no, appetitive behaviour is obviously innate and evolved in us but the specific preference for smoky flavour? If there is a reason, i guarantee its going to be nothing to do with "smokiness" but a preference which is vicarious (see >>9022211 ). I feel in general any evolutionary preference in food is going to be very generic as in the taste is a predictor of something your body needs. no more, no less. i cant conceive of smokey flavour being significant especially that its probably likely that our food preferences evolutionarily will probably be quite old. before we started smoking meat anyway.

>>9022211
I honestly think it's just this.

>>9021849
culture and nurture

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>evolutionary reason for smokey flavor
gently cooking meat breaks down the muscle proteins, allowing amino acid monomers to leak out. turns out that we use free amino acid content as a way to gauge how protein-rich something is, so converting more of the protein into single amino acids makes it taste like there's more of it.

>>9022209
because, with cultural standards aside, there is a biological reason that everything taste good or bad. Bitter, or just god awful: most poisons/things you shouldn't eat taste this way.

They taste this way because you shouldn't eat them, it isn't good for your biology.

People eat smokey things because there body craves them, and a culture grew up around this, not the other way around.

op here.

>>9022494

mind blown. this.

>>9022609

or maybe they crave meat like >>9022494
said.

>>9022683
well, then, Technically we're craving protein. So smokey flavor signals a higher protein density to the tastebuds, satisfying the bodies craving for protein (on a higher level.

Thanks everyone, I truly learned something today.

Thanks for the convo.

>>9022718

no, the guy didnt say that it has anything to do with smokey flavour, just that smoking breaks down proteins.

>>9022804
he literally said
>evolutionary reason for smokey flavor
the flavor of the meat comes well before your body realizes the amino acid chains are broken down.

so you are reacting to the flavor (just like with salt and sweets) before you receive the benefits.

so yeah, anyway, he said
>evolutionary reason for smokey flavor
so....

>>9022804
flavor IS the indicator for benefits.

Poison tastes bad and sour long before it kills you.
Sweet chocolate tastes good long before your body uses it's energy denseness.

We have evolved taste as a means to determine benefits, so i would argue that just the smokey flavor (this was the whole point of my post)... That the smokey flavor alone (even added to other foods artificially) signals benefits, and if so, which one.

He explained smokey flavor usually means broken down proteins, and therefore just the flavor alone triggers this perceived benefit.

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>>9022718
>>9022804
>>9023760
>>9023765
what if I told you that most of the rich flavor we associate with smoked meats isn't actually from the smoke, but rather from the cooking process?

it's like the smell of metal; the smell doesn't actually come from the metal itself, but rather from the reaction of skin oils with oxides on the surface of the metal. but because we only perceive that smell when we pick up something metal, we think "hey, that's a metallic smell".
the smell/taste of smoked meat is very different from the smell/taste of wood smoke. what we perceive as that smokey flavor isn't so much smoke as processes that operate when smoke is applied.

>>9023760
Not necessarily. And part of the flavour could be the broken down amino acids..

>>9023760
Pretty sure there wont be an evolutionary reason for liking smoky flavour that directly relates to the flavour of smokiness that cant be explained away ina more generic way

>>9026175
so then why is smoke as a flavor flavorful?

is it a secondary response? You are reacting to another stimuli and the smoke flavor just happens to be present?

Why does adding artificial smoke (purely as a flavor enhancer in other meals) work?

>>9022609
This specific question aside though, there isn't always a reason. It could just as likely be coincidence.

For example, lead tastes sweet so people used to add it to wine and children used to eat paint chips. Lead doesn't taste good because it benefited creatures to ever eat it - it just happens to be similar to the flavors we associate with sweetness, probably due to its structure.

Its the same reason a lot of drugs work - we don't have receptors that evolved for that chemical, but the chemical is similar enough to our own that it works.

>>9023765
Plenty of poisons/dangerous compounds have a good taste or smell, and many have none at all.

>>9026981
The preference for smoked flavor could also be learned. Many people not used to strong sweets fine the flavor aversive. Just ask anyone raised in rural asia.

>>9026981
We can taste or smell smoke flavour because our senses are designed to differentiate objects in our environment. Thats like asking why have we evolved to see chairs.

>>9026981
You can get preference effects purely as a result of environmental factors.