Fig. 1

The food epitope hypothesis. Epitope space [68] of food consumed by humans before (a), after (b) the Neolithic revolution, and the modern phase of agricultural genetics (c). All parameters of shape space are compressed into the X-axis. The Y-axis is a frequency distribution. a In the pre-Neolithic phase of our species, we were hunter-gatherers. The food that we ate was maximally (for our species) dispersed in the living world and we were exposed to more dietary epitopes. The variation in epitopes of each food source was based on the allelic variance within plant and animal populations [69]. Each food source was population based containing the genetic and allelic diversity that implies [70]. b The Neolithic revolution, i.e., the advent of agriculture and domestication of both plant and animal food sources. The epitope classes and their dietary distribution became relatively restricted. Most previous food sources were no longer consumed but a few made up the majority of the diet. Within these food sources, the amount of variation was also constrained because even in early agriculture, artificial selection limits the allelic and by implication the epitope diversity in food [71]. c The modern agricultural era of the last ca. 50 years has led to human food becoming more genetically uniform within each species of plants and livestock [72]. The associated distribution of food epitopes in shape space has become punctate