Episode 4: A Brief History of Meat

Along The Backbone

Many of us enjoy eating meat, but few of us pause to think about how important its pre-meal form, skeletal muscle, is for vertebrate life. Or why you eat different parts of fish and tetrapods for that matter.

Podcast Teaser: I don’t know about you, but I enjoy a good steak, especially fillet minion. In fact, many of us enjoy eating meat, but few of us pause to think about how important its pre-meal form, skeletal muscle, is for vertebrate life. Unless you injure your skeletal muscles, you barely notice them – of course, if you’re a body builder, you probably notice them a lot more. But the contractions of skeletal muscles across the joints in your skeleton do everything from keeping you upright to preventing nasty falls. Believe it or not, meat is so universal among vertebrate animals that muscles in one area in a fish do very similar things in the same area in your body. This is because, long ago and 540 million years away, our common ancestor developed two important traits …

• Along the Backbone – Episode 4: A Brief History of Meat

References / Further Information

• Liem, K., et al. 2001. Functional Anatomy of the Vertebrates, 3rd Edition. Thomson-Brooks/Cole Publishers.
• Gilbert, S.F. 2010. Developmental Biology, 9th Edition. Sinauer Associates, Inc.

Transcript Available Upon Request.