Evolutionary psychology on the importance of - of all things - shopping

"Shopping is throwback to days of cavewomen: A woman's love of shopping is a throwback to her days in the caves, according to a new study," (UK Telegraph 25 Feb 2009), says Ben Leach:

Dr David Holmes, of Manchester Metropolitan University, said skills that were learnt as cavemen and women were now being used in shops. He said: "Gatherers sifted the useful from things that offered them no sustenance, warmth or comfort with a skill that would eventually lead to comfortable shopping malls and credit cards.

Look, I know women who love to shop. I also know women who hate to. shop

I am part of the latter crew. I can seldom find the groceries people here really eat. And no food is better than the stuff that was in the ground less than half an hour ago.

That thin layer of topsoil on the Earth is the detritus of what lived before us. The vegetables we grow draw on those life forms' preserved stores - the topsoil is their estate and we are their heirs.

If some people don't understand that, I am not here to start a fight. But ... shopping?

I bet, if we could raise the dead, more cave women would agree with me about the importance of fresh food than about the importance of shopping.