What food is “natural” for humans?
Discussion
Kenny Powers said:
Sucrose, bread, pasta etc. All foods that, on an evolutionary timescale, we invented yesterday.
Sucrose is a natural product, found in fruits and nectars.Bread has been around for 14.5k years
They are not demon products the issue is we can just over eat them easily.
Kenny Powers said:
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, ...
It's been said a few times already, but this idea that there is a diet that humans have eaten through most of their evolutionary history is crazy. Groups living near the coast in a temperate zone will have been eating a radically different diet from groups living in a rain forest, for example.Even if the human population had spent 90% of its history living in a single, stable environment, thereby able to eat the same stuff, why would we assume that that diet would be optimal for us now given we live so much longer than our ancestors and that many diet-related illnesses emerge in old age?
Why look to the imagined past for the blueprint of a healthy diet when we can easily spec a healthy diet based on our understanding of human physiology?
Thesprucegoose said:
Sucrose is a natural product, found in fruits and nectars.
Bread has been around for 14.5k years
They are not demon products the issue is we can just over eat them easily.
Glucose and fructose are naturally occurring in fruit. But fruit also contains water and fibre. Pure, refined table sugar is not a natural product. Bread has been around for 14.5k years
They are not demon products the issue is we can just over eat them easily.
Edited by Kenny Powers on Wednesday 11th December 16:33
ATG said:
It's been said a few times already, but this idea that there is a diet that humans have eaten through most of their evolutionary history is crazy. Groups living near the coast in a temperate zone will have been eating a radically different diet from groups living in a rain forest, for example.
Even if the human population had spent 90% of its history living in a single, stable environment, thereby able to eat the same stuff, why would we assume that that diet would be optimal for us now given we live so much longer than our ancestors and that many diet-related illnesses emerge in old age?
Why look to the imagined past for the blueprint of a healthy diet when we can easily spec a healthy diet based on our understanding of human physiology?
Yes I agree, which is why a paleo diet is defined by what it doesn't include, rather than by what it does. Even if the human population had spent 90% of its history living in a single, stable environment, thereby able to eat the same stuff, why would we assume that that diet would be optimal for us now given we live so much longer than our ancestors and that many diet-related illnesses emerge in old age?
Why look to the imagined past for the blueprint of a healthy diet when we can easily spec a healthy diet based on our understanding of human physiology?
Kenny Powers said:
Glucose and fructose are naturally occurring in fruit. But fruit also contains water and fibre. Pure, refined table sugar is not a natural product.
sucrose is found in fruit and others things, all naturally occurring. As i said it is a natural product. Refined table sugar is not what you said though, you said sucrose.Table sugar is made from processing plants, usually sugar cane. This has been grown for over 6k years.
Sucrose is found in nectar, which is what bees use to make honey.
Thesprucegoose said:
sucrose is found in fruit and others things, all naturally occurring. As i said it is a natural product. Refined table sugar is not what you said though, you said sucrose.
Table sugar is made from processing plants, usually sugar cane. This has been grown for over 6k years.
Sucrose is found in nectar, which is what bees use to make honey.
Yes you are correct, replace "sucrose" with "refined table sugar". Table sugar is made from processing plants, usually sugar cane. This has been grown for over 6k years.
Sucrose is found in nectar, which is what bees use to make honey.
By there way, 6k years is about thirty seconds ago in evolutionary terms.
ATG said:
...
Why look to the imagined past for the blueprint of a healthy diet when we can easily spec a healthy diet based on our understanding of human physiology?
Do you realise that the "healthy diet based on our understanding of human physiology" as generally recommended for the past seventy years or so has been almost exactly wrong, but very profitable?Why look to the imagined past for the blueprint of a healthy diet when we can easily spec a healthy diet based on our understanding of human physiology?
Kenny Powers said:
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, ...
Evolutionary drivers finish once you've procreated. There's no way of knowing whether the paleo diet will extend or shorten your life.Bill said:
Kenny Powers said:
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, ...
Evolutionary drivers finish once you've procreated. There's no way of knowing whether the paleo diet will extend or shorten your life.Regardless, from a longevity standpoint I think it's largely immaterial. Our fundamental biochemistry doesn't alter after we successfully multiply. What makes us healthy keeps us healthy.
I can see the argument that community could help, but that's indirect at best and at the sort of ages we live to you'd be a burden on a hunter gatherer society. I'm more thinking of things like cancer that are related to old age. It could be that the 'paleo diet" particularly as it's interpreted by the caveman eat meat crowd could lead to more cancer.
It could lead to less of course, but you can't assume that.
It could lead to less of course, but you can't assume that.
Bill said:
I can see the argument that community could help, but that's indirect at best and at the sort of ages we live to you'd be a burden on a hunter gatherer society. I'm more thinking of things like cancer that are related to old age. It could be that the 'paleo diet" particularly as it's interpreted by the caveman eat meat crowd could lead to more cancer.
It could lead to less of course, but you can't assume that.
I think you are assuming a lot about the "ages we live to" and "being a burden". The evidence from paleoanthropology and modern hunter gatherers is that - if not killed - they enjoyed good health into old age. All our degenerations of "old age" and our "diseases of civilisation" - hunter gatherers didn't get them. They arrived with agriculture.It could lead to less of course, but you can't assume that.
grumbledoak said:
I think you are assuming a lot about the "ages we live to" and "being a burden". The evidence from paleoanthropology and modern hunter gatherers is that - if not killed - they enjoyed good health into old age. All our degenerations of "old age" and our "diseases of civilisation" - hunter gatherers didn't get them. They arrived with agriculture.
This is in line with my understanding.To my knowledge, anthropological record shows that ancient hunter gatherer humans were killed mostly by predators, murder, misadventure or communicable disease. Chronic, degenerative diseases of civilisation such as heart disease and cancer are first observed alongside the rise of intensive agriculture. I'm sure there is some nuance, but I don't think the above is very much disputed by anthropologists.
grumbledoak said:
I think you are assuming a lot about the "ages we live to" and "being a burden". The evidence from paleoanthropology and modern hunter gatherers is that - if not killed - they enjoyed good health into old age. All our degenerations of "old age" and our "diseases of civilisation" - hunter gatherers didn't get them. They arrived with agriculture.
You can never know if HG got cancer as well as other diet diseases. You can’t really distil 2 million years of diet into this eden paradise that caused no ill, it is all massive conjecture.A lot of our current issues our down to a very small gene pool bottleneck, most likely from either an single mass genocide event or low population numbers over a very long time or other cause.
Thesprucegoose said:
You can never know if HG got cancer as well as other diet diseases. You can’t really distil 2 million years of diet into this eden paradise that caused no ill, it is all massive conjecture
I wouldn't be so sure about all that. Paleoanthropology is apparently capable of revealing a great deal about health and diet from examining human remains. Right down to isotope analysis being able to reveal the meat/plant ratio of their diets. It's crazy stuff.not cancer though.
You have to remember the sample sizes are very small as well.
Been reading this very interesting aerticle about the Evolution of the human lifespan and diseases of aging: Roles of infection, inflammation, and nutrition.'
https://www.pnas.org/content/107/suppl_1/1718
For example the gene the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) alleles, apoE4,
''allele shortens lifespan by several years and accelerates degenerative changes in arteries and brain (2, 99, 100, 103, 104). ApoE4 carriers have modestly higher total blood cholesterol, more oxidized blood lipids, and greater risk of coronary heart disease (ca. 40%) and Alzheimer’s disease (depending on the population, E4/E4 homozygotes have >10-fold excess risk). ApoE4 carriers also have worse outcomes in traumatic brain injury and some neurological conditions''
So for these gene carriers, eating a diet in high in saturated fats would have an adverse effect on the person, they would be better off with a carb diet, high GI. Might lose weight but would be damaging their heath.
This why there is no simple blanket approach to which diets work. As much as certain fad diets are put as the saviour, they may work for some and not for others. We have various gene mutations that favour certain things.
You have to remember the sample sizes are very small as well.
Been reading this very interesting aerticle about the Evolution of the human lifespan and diseases of aging: Roles of infection, inflammation, and nutrition.'
https://www.pnas.org/content/107/suppl_1/1718
For example the gene the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) alleles, apoE4,
''allele shortens lifespan by several years and accelerates degenerative changes in arteries and brain (2, 99, 100, 103, 104). ApoE4 carriers have modestly higher total blood cholesterol, more oxidized blood lipids, and greater risk of coronary heart disease (ca. 40%) and Alzheimer’s disease (depending on the population, E4/E4 homozygotes have >10-fold excess risk). ApoE4 carriers also have worse outcomes in traumatic brain injury and some neurological conditions''
So for these gene carriers, eating a diet in high in saturated fats would have an adverse effect on the person, they would be better off with a carb diet, high GI. Might lose weight but would be damaging their heath.
This why there is no simple blanket approach to which diets work. As much as certain fad diets are put as the saviour, they may work for some and not for others. We have various gene mutations that favour certain things.
Edited by Thesprucegoose on Wednesday 11th December 21:32
Thesprucegoose said:
You can never know if HG got cancer as well as other diet diseases. You can’t really distil 2 million years of diet into this eden paradise that caused no ill, it is all massive conjecture.
A lot of our current issues our down to a very small gene pool bottleneck, most likely from either an single mass genocide event or low population numbers over a very long time or other cause.
No one is talking about an "eden paradise" except you. A lot of our current issues our down to a very small gene pool bottleneck, most likely from either an single mass genocide event or low population numbers over a very long time or other cause.
We took a big health hit when we switched to agriculture - paleoanthropologists can tell the skeletons of paleolithic hunter gatherer from those of early farmers from across the room. But we fed a lot more bodies, and that carried the day.
And we did study modern hunter gatherers in North America and in Africa, and we know they don't get arthritis, or alzheimers, or diabetes, or heart disease. We described the symptoms and asked them for their words for the diseases. They didn't know what we were talking about.
We are not as ignorant as you portray. Agriculture and the diet that came with it was a mixed blessing, but it was not good for our health.
grumbledoak said:
And we did study modern hunter gatherers in North America and in Africa, and we know they don't get arthritis, or alzheimers, or diabetes, or heart disease.
ks. Take certain types of arthritis for example, it occurs in wild animals and is related to the bodymass. Larger animals exhibit it due to various reasons. Such that 1/4 of bears and great apes get certain types. It is directly related to genetic makeup and bodymass. A diet will have mimimal impact if you have the susceptible genes.Edited by Thesprucegoose on Wednesday 11th December 22:05
grumbledoak said:
ATG said:
...
Why look to the imagined past for the blueprint of a healthy diet when we can easily spec a healthy diet based on our understanding of human physiology?
Do you realise that the "healthy diet based on our understanding of human physiology" as generally recommended for the past seventy years or so has been almost exactly wrong, but very profitable?Why look to the imagined past for the blueprint of a healthy diet when we can easily spec a healthy diet based on our understanding of human physiology?
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