What food is “natural” for humans?
Discussion
Thesprucegoose said:
People diets were restricted by what was around. It is nonsenical to think there was a universal diet, it varied massively by location.
The human body can adapt pretty well to most foods. You just end up with people thinking their latest fad diet is the best, so shove it down peoples throat , in any thread to do with diets.
This is it. We are successful because we are very adaptable. You can stick a human in the Kalahari or in a rain forest or inside the Arctic circle or on a Ryanair flight to somewhere outside Madrid and they'll find enough food to keep functioning. We can do this largely because we can come up with theories about our immediate environment that are sufficient to help us plan how to get that next meal successfully. The threshold for an adequate theory is pretty low ... as demonstrated frequently in these here parts.The human body can adapt pretty well to most foods. You just end up with people thinking their latest fad diet is the best, so shove it down peoples throat , in any thread to do with diets.
ATG said:
Thesprucegoose said:
People diets were restricted by what was around. It is nonsenical to think there was a universal diet, it varied massively by location.
The human body can adapt pretty well to most foods. You just end up with people thinking their latest fad diet is the best, so shove it down peoples throat , in any thread to do with diets.
This is it. We are successful because we are very adaptable. You can stick a human in the Kalahari or in a rain forest or inside the Arctic circle or on a Ryanair flight to somewhere outside Madrid and they'll find enough food to keep functioning. We can do this largely because we can come up with theories about our immediate environment that are sufficient to help us plan how to get that next meal successfully. The threshold for an adequate theory is pretty low ... as demonstrated frequently in these here parts.The human body can adapt pretty well to most foods. You just end up with people thinking their latest fad diet is the best, so shove it down peoples throat , in any thread to do with diets.
Did you know you can run a petrol car on 50% paint thinners/petrol and it'll work just fine? It's cheaper than petrol. Are you going to do it? Of course not, because whilst you may get away with it for a while you know deep down it wasn't designed to do this and at some point something will possibly go wrong. Or will it?
Food is exactly the same, whilst we can get by on eating crap, it isn't the best way for our long term health.
Have you ever heard of meat intolerance? Of vegetable intolerance? I never have, but i'm sure they exist and are relatively rare cases. Yet i've heard of ISB, lactose intolerance, diabetes and bowel cancer and so have you because they are common complaints. They are all connected to things which we shouldn't be eating much of.
Some people are possibly tolerant of eating garbage, but how do you know that is you until it's too late? It's in your genes, if you want to walk that fine line then do it, but don't tell us it's correct.
If I had known I was susceptible to T2D and not had the diet that I did for all those years I wouldn't be suffering from it now that's for sure.
Some can eat processed meat daily and not get bowel cancer, yet the two are inextricably linked.
Were cavemen ever lactose intolerant? No, wonder why....
The perfect diet for your health is green veg, fresh meat, fish and water; end of story. It isn't a fad, it's a correct diet.
Anything else CAN go in too, but must be kept to a minimum.
It's quite simple, the further away you stray from a correct diet, the more chance you have of getting ill from the other things you push in your mouth.
ATG said:
You've completely missed the point of what we were saying. We were not saying you can eat anything and be healthy. We were talking about the way people THINK about diet and history.
Quite.I started the thread and was wondering what was originally and what is now the most “natural food” for humans to eat considering whether we need tools or to prepare it first (by cooking) and looking at our physiology and teeth intestines etc.
Obviously as humans evolved and moved to new areas of the planet, what is most natural will change.
It’s been interesting for me anyway discussing whether humans started by eating raw meat as part of a mixed diet and then started cooking it to aid digestion and kill bacteria etc or did we only start eating meat once we had fire.
Could or did we prosper without eating meat and started doing it later or has meat always been a natural part of our (humans) diet.
I was told to go paleo/natural to lose some weight
Fresh lean meat, chicken, venison, lean beef, fish etc…
Lots of bacon and eggs, but no sausages
Veg of all description, especially root veg, as much as you can eat, stir fried in butter!
Nuts, berries, herbs in abundance
Low sugar fruits only
No spuds, pasta, processed wheat, bread, biscuits, pastries etc… brown rice only
No tea, coffee or booze, just mineral water
Nothing from a tin or a packet if possible
Stuffed my face, felt great, lost 41 pounds in 3 months. I’ll be back on it after Christmas.
Fresh lean meat, chicken, venison, lean beef, fish etc…
Lots of bacon and eggs, but no sausages
Veg of all description, especially root veg, as much as you can eat, stir fried in butter!
Nuts, berries, herbs in abundance
Low sugar fruits only
No spuds, pasta, processed wheat, bread, biscuits, pastries etc… brown rice only
No tea, coffee or booze, just mineral water
Nothing from a tin or a packet if possible
Stuffed my face, felt great, lost 41 pounds in 3 months. I’ll be back on it after Christmas.
soupdragon1 said:
kurokawa said:
El stovey said:
Another, perhaps more philosophical argument, I heard was someone saying that if we look at an orange or a strawberry etc we want to eat it but if we look at a cow or sheep then our natural instinct probably isn’t to think of it as food. I kind of agreed with this but maybe others think it’s bo
This I could never agree with. I believe it is how people consider “life”, seeing animal have life while disregard plant also have life or just seeing plant as a lower life form.I don’t really have any empathy for a coconut or think it looks tasty in its natural form but if I see a cow, I definitely don’t think it looks tasty alive or dead and cut up and wouldn’t like to kill it or see it get killed.
El stovey said:
soupdragon1 said:
kurokawa said:
El stovey said:
Another, perhaps more philosophical argument, I heard was someone saying that if we look at an orange or a strawberry etc we want to eat it but if we look at a cow or sheep then our natural instinct probably isn’t to think of it as food. I kind of agreed with this but maybe others think it’s bo
This I could never agree with. I believe it is how people consider “life”, seeing animal have life while disregard plant also have life or just seeing plant as a lower life form.I don’t really have any empathy for a coconut or think it looks tasty in its natural form but if I see a cow, I definitely don’t think it looks tasty alive or dead and cut up and wouldn’t like to kill it or see it get killed.
bucksmanuk said:
I was told to go paleo/natural to lose some weight
Fresh lean meat, chicken, venison, lean beef, fish etc…
Lots of bacon and eggs, but no sausages
Veg of all description, especially root veg, as much as you can eat, stir fried in butter!
Nuts, berries, herbs in abundance
Low sugar fruits only
No spuds, pasta, processed wheat, bread, biscuits, pastries etc… brown rice only
No tea, coffee or booze, just mineral water
Nothing from a tin or a packet if possible
Stuffed my face, felt great, lost 41 pounds in 3 months. I’ll be back on it after Christmas.
Well done for losing the weight. That also sounds like it contains sensible things to eat.Fresh lean meat, chicken, venison, lean beef, fish etc…
Lots of bacon and eggs, but no sausages
Veg of all description, especially root veg, as much as you can eat, stir fried in butter!
Nuts, berries, herbs in abundance
Low sugar fruits only
No spuds, pasta, processed wheat, bread, biscuits, pastries etc… brown rice only
No tea, coffee or booze, just mineral water
Nothing from a tin or a packet if possible
Stuffed my face, felt great, lost 41 pounds in 3 months. I’ll be back on it after Christmas.
My quibbles would be calling it "paleo" or "natural" and that some of the rules aren't very logical. "Processed" is meaningless, and clearly "in a tin" and "in a packet" are irrelevant. Bacon but not sausage is pretty silly given you can choose to buy sausages that are effectively partially pre-chewed bacon. No tea on the basis that it isn't natural or paleo would also be a bit of a stretch.
Dr Jekyll said:
Evoluzione said:
Were cavemen ever lactose intolerant? No, wonder why....
Yes, they were, in fact most of them were.. Lactose tolerance has only evolved in the last few thousand years.They would have increased their chances of getting bowel cancer from eating too much processed food as well. Yet they didn't, because as we weren't drinking milk, we didn't have sausages either.
Thesprucegoose said:
We have processed food for millennia, salted, smoked, dried etc. Again there was not this Eden paradise when food was plenty, we ate to survive, whatever we could get find. People lived short lives.
They lived short lives for different reasons, they weren't being killed by the food they were eating. Unless it killed them before they got their hands on it 
ATG said:
You've completely missed the point of what we were saying. We were not saying you can eat anything and be healthy. We were talking about the way people THINK about diet and history.
No I haven't, there were several points made, one was that someone's diet is a 'fad diet', I'm contesting that.Also that we can eat anything, whilst we can, well.....
I would say being Vegan is a fad diet, others may disagree.
This whole "we ate what we could find" thing is precisely the point of how evolution works. Animals don't pop into existence and then go in search of the perfect diet. Their DNA optimises in symbiosis with whatever they consume - or "whatever they can find" - as they evolve. Animals are a product of their environment. If all we had been able to find as early humans was Marmite, we would now be optimised to live on Marmite. Alas this didn't happen.
Of course, we are omnivorous because we were able to consume a wide variety of foods. What's important is the food that we didn't eat because it didn't exist. Sucrose, bread, pasta etc. All foods that, on an evolutionary timescale, we invented yesterday.
The "natural" human diet is therefore whatever humans ate for the majority of their time on Earth. Calling things like paleo a "fad" is the ultimate irony. It attempts to emulate - as closely as possible - an evolutionarily consistent dietary lifestyle, whilst those poking fun from the sidelines are eating food that was prescribed by dodgy 1950's science. Science that was never agreed upon even then.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not prescribing any particular way of eating - that is personal choice. I am merely describing "natural" as it pertains to human evolution. People should of course eat whatever makes them happy and healthy. I suspect there will never be a broad consensus on the latter, but such is the way of things.
Live long and prosper
Of course, we are omnivorous because we were able to consume a wide variety of foods. What's important is the food that we didn't eat because it didn't exist. Sucrose, bread, pasta etc. All foods that, on an evolutionary timescale, we invented yesterday.
The "natural" human diet is therefore whatever humans ate for the majority of their time on Earth. Calling things like paleo a "fad" is the ultimate irony. It attempts to emulate - as closely as possible - an evolutionarily consistent dietary lifestyle, whilst those poking fun from the sidelines are eating food that was prescribed by dodgy 1950's science. Science that was never agreed upon even then.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not prescribing any particular way of eating - that is personal choice. I am merely describing "natural" as it pertains to human evolution. People should of course eat whatever makes them happy and healthy. I suspect there will never be a broad consensus on the latter, but such is the way of things.
Live long and prosper
Humans are where they are because of nature, we're the top dogs- there's nothing unnatural we could eat you could say- how could there be? Even if humans invent it, it's natural, we're part of nature.
Depends on your definition. Is it what was natural when we first appeared, or when we started small scale agriculture, or now? All semantics. Just because something wasn't available at some point during evolution, doesn't mean it's a bad thing it's available now too.
Same rules apply- if you eat crappy foods, you'll pay the price with your health- true today as it was a million years ago. We've just more options to f
k ourselves up nowadays.
Depends on your definition. Is it what was natural when we first appeared, or when we started small scale agriculture, or now? All semantics. Just because something wasn't available at some point during evolution, doesn't mean it's a bad thing it's available now too.
Same rules apply- if you eat crappy foods, you'll pay the price with your health- true today as it was a million years ago. We've just more options to f
k ourselves up nowadays. Evoluzione said:
ATG said:
You've completely missed the point of what we were saying. We were not saying you can eat anything and be healthy. We were talking about the way people THINK about diet and history.
No I haven't, there were several points made, one was that someone's diet is a 'fad diet', I'm contesting that.Also that we can eat anything, whilst we can, well.....
I would say being Vegan is a fad diet, others may disagree.
Evoluzione said:
They lived short lives for different reasons, they weren't being killed by the food they were eating. Unless it killed them before they got their hands on it
They needed strong immune systems. A good diet would have provided this, and they were more active than us so you think that would have a impact. But for 100s of thousands of years the average age was 25-30, yet the paleo diet, which is absurd in it's context, for various reasons is touted as the saviour of mankind..Something doesn't add up..Gassing Station | Health Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff