Anthropologists have long presumed that hunter-gatherers have prized meat the most compared to other foods. The first study to actually ask members of a modern day foraging tribe finds that honey ranks at the top of the list.
The researchers, J. Colette Berbesque and Frank Marlowe of Florida State University, conducted their study with the Hadza of Tanzania, who live in an area inhabited by humans and their ancestors for at least three million years.
Also, there was a surprising sex difference in the rankings of other foods. Although men cited meat as the second choice, women only ranked meat fourth, after berries and baobab, a fruit with chalky pulp and seeds that are high in fat.
The established view is that men tend to hunt meat and women tend to gather vegetation in foraging populations because hunting is dangerous and incompatible with pregnancy and childcare. Yet the current study suggests that men and women may target different foods in part because of their food preferences.
The strong preference for honey may not be so surprising, given the contribution of sugary foods to the growing obesity epidemic in industrialized nations. Our cravings for sweet foods evolved in times before refined sugar, when sweet was scarce and sweet fruits provided valuable calories.
The study appears in the current issue of Evolutionary Psychology and is accessible at: http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP07331347.pdf