Sex Differences in Food Preferences of Hadza Hunter-Gatherers

By J. Berbesque, F. Marlowe. 2009

85 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Food preferences are important for understanding foraging choices. In studying human foragers rather than other animals, we have the advantage of being able to ask them which foods they prefer. Yet surprisingly, no studies of systematically collected data exist on human forager food preferences. The Hadza of Tanzania are full-time foragers in an area where the hominin record extends back to 3-4 million years ago, so their diet is very relevant for understanding the paleo-diet. Here, we report on their food preferences, elicited with photographs of species within the five major food categories in their diet: honey, meat, berries, baobab, and tubers. There were sex differences in the ranks of two food categories: meat and berries. While male and female ranks agreed on the other three food categories, females ranked berries second and meat fourth, whereas males ranked meat second and berries fourth. Theses similarities and differences are interesting in light of the fact that the sexes target different foods. We discuss the implications of Hadza food preferences for the origin of the uniquely human sexual division of foraging labor.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Genetics, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/26d1efb624e28a6b624c70a3fe33abbe77ce4478

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

In Genetics

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Social Networks and Cooperation in Hunter-Gatherers (2012, methodology): “Subjects were endowed with four sticks of honey, the favourite food of the Hadz”