Sexual differences in the consumption of food by Homo sapiens: some speculations in archeogastronomy and the evolution of eating patterns

En las sociedades tradicionales, los hombres son más propensos aconsumir grandes cantidades de alimentos en unas pocas comidasdiarias, mientras que las mujeres tienden a consumir pequeñascantidades de comida, pero con más frecuencia durante el día. Aquípropongo la hipótesis de que este comportamiento tiene una basebiológica, porque en las sociedades de cazadores-recolectores, loshombres hacían la caza en grandes áreas y comían abundantementeal obtener una presa, mientras que las mujeres se movían en unazona más restringida, recolectaban y con frecuencia comían de lospequeños alimentos hallados. Sugiero que en el sentido gastronómico,la orientación del hombre es extra-territorial y la orientación de la mujeres predominantemente intra-territorial.ABSTRACT In traditional societies, men are more likely to consume substantialamounts of food in a few daily meals, whereas women tend to consumesmaller quantities of food but to do it more frequently during the day.Here I propose the hypothesis that this behavior has a biological basisbecause in hunting-gathering societies, it was the men who did thehunting over large areas and had to wait until a kill was made to eat(often a large amount of food in a single sitting), while women movedin a more restricted area, did the gathering and frequently ate some ofthe small pieces of food that they found. I suggest that in gastronomicand spatial terms, the orientation of the male is extra-territorial and theorientation of the female is predominantly intra-territorial.