
The Evolution of Diet - sergeant3
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/
======
acconrad
The paleo dogma needs to stop.

Eating whole, unprocessed, natural foods is great, but the science behind the
paleo diet being “the one and only diet that ideally fits our genetic makeup”
- I mean if that literally doesn't sound like dogma, I don't know what does.

There is no "one and only" stone age diet - you ate what was around you! The
Inuit aren't eating oranges and spinach, that stuff doesn't grow in the
tundra. Similarly, you won't be eating deer and bison in Greece, but you will
be eating fish and olives.

There are societies across many geographic regions with long life
expectancies, and their diets vary wildly.

The Grecians eat lots of fruits, veggies, olive oil, fish, goat milk and wine.
The Japanese eat soybeans, sweet potatoes, white rice, seaweed, and fish.
Sardinians eat lots of game, goat cheese/milk, beans, and barley. Each is home
to peoples with the longest life expectancy on earth today, and each has at
least one staple that is not considered paleo friendly.

Alan Aragon did a great talk critiquing the paleo diet, which you can read
more about here[1].

[1]
[http://www.nsca.com/uploadedfiles/nsca/inactive_content/prog...](http://www.nsca.com/uploadedfiles/nsca/inactive_content/program_books/ptc_2013_program_book/aragon.pdf)

~~~
shard972
> Eating whole, unprocessed, natural foods is great, but the science behind
> the paleo diet being “the one and only diet that ideally fits our genetic
> makeup” - I mean if that literally doesn't sound like dogma, I don't know
> what does.

The paleo straw manning needs to stop. Most people I know that use paleo as a
standard to live by don't think it's the be all, end all. That if you eat
anything you couldn't get 60,000+ years it's automatically bad, that isn't how
people that actually follow paleo go about it.

> There is no "one and only" stone age diet - you ate what was around you! The
> Inuit aren't eating oranges and spinach, that stuff doesn't grow in the
> tundra. Similarly, you won't be eating deer and bison in Greece, but you
> will be eating fish and olives.

The fact that you put this out as an argument against further proves what im
saying, I really don't see how this applies to anyone but the hardcore strict
paleo which doens't really exist outside of the ones who write and sell books.

> There are societies across many geographic regions with long life
> expectancies, and their diets vary wildly.

Yes, these kind of conversations are the ones I find myself having with paleo-
minded people more often. About trying to work out what food our bodies work
better with, I really am stumped as to why you are seeing this is a knock on
paleo.

> The Grecians eat lots of fruits, veggies, olive oil, fish, goat milk and
> wine. The Japanese eat soybeans, sweet potatoes, white rice, seaweed, and
> fish. Sardinians eat lots of game, goat cheese/milk, beans, and barley. Each
> is home to peoples with the longest life expectancy on earth today, and each
> has at least one staple that is not considered paleo friendly.

If you read the book outliers you would also know that food isn't the only
contributing factor to life expectancy by a long shot. The example in the book
about the greek town who by any dietary standards was eating incredibly faty
and unhealthy foods had extraordinary high life expectancy, believed to be due
to their extremely high happiness due to their tight-knit social structure.

> Alan Aragon did a great talk critiquing the paleo diet, which you can read
> more about here

I don't see why I should even bother when you start off your comment talking
about the dogma needs to stop and you throw out a bunch of half assed
arguments which don't address paleo directly.

This dogma needs to stop.

~~~
austinjp
The point being that humans are generalists: diet, activity, everything. There
is no one perfect diet that works for everyone. The mess of evolution has left
us with intestines and behaviours that will generally keep us alive for as
long as possible under most circumstances.

"Eat food. Mainly plants. Not too much."

"Specialisation is for insects."

Both those quotes are trite and not without problems, but these are the
Occam's razors I'd take to most discussions of diet and lifestyle choices.

------
7Figures2Commas
> It’s this shift to processed foods, taking place all over the world, that’s
> contributing to a rising epidemic of obesity and related diseases. If most
> of the world ate more local fruits and vegetables, a little meat, fish, and
> some whole grains (as in the highly touted Mediterranean diet), and
> exercised an hour a day, that would be good news for our health—and for the
> planet.

I believe this is accurate, but the cynic in me says the obvious solutions by
in large aren't going to be adopted.

1\. The idea that a balanced diet that largely avoids processed foods is
likely to be most healthy is logical, but it's not very sexy. More extreme
Diets (note the captial "D") gain mainstream popularity because they are
usually based on a seemingly compelling narrative. Paleo, while hardly the
worst Diet that has been popularized in the last decade, is a good example of
this.

2\. The reality is that most people aren't going to exercise an hour a day
_and_ maintain a healthy diet[1]. There's also the issue of how the average
person exercises. While I wouldn't suggest that everybody jump into HIIT or
train like a professional athlete, a lot of what you see in a typical big box
gym is the fitness world's equivalent of processed foods: people aren't
getting a whole lot out of what they're doing. There's not enough intensity,
far too much emphasis is placed on isolated/non-functional exercises, etc.

[1]
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/15/t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/15/take-
off-that-fitbit-exercise-alone-wont-make-you-lose-weight/)

~~~
omegaham
This is a great point. My poison of choice is the rowing machine. A good erg
piece is _hard_. The correct pace makes you think, "Shit, I don't know if I
can do this" at the halfway point and makes you beg for a quick death at the
3/4 point.

I get weird stares from the folks who flounce around on the elliptical on the
lowest resistance setting for twenty minutes and wonder why they aren't losing
any weight. Like, I get "baby steps" and all that, and I get the fact that
doing _anything_ is better than nothing at all, but for me, the entire point
of getting in better shape is to push myself even harder. If you're not
pushing yourself to improve, why are you even showing up at the gym to begin
with?

I joke that I'm not even getting any fitter; I'm just increasing my capacity
for suffering.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
To elaborate on your comment: part of the challenge is that without
professional assistance, it can be difficult for the average person to develop
a fitness plan that will produce meaningful results in a safe fashion. Lots of
people are limited by existing injuries, and others create injury by jumping
in and pushing themselves too hard too fast.

Another challenge is that true fitness requires you to push yourself in
different ways. Far too many people work out in a one-dimensional fashion.
It's easy to jump on a treadmill or do the same free weight exercises day in
and day out. But there are real limits to what most people can achieve without
a well-rounded plan. One-dimensional workouts are why, for instance, you have
guys walking around with impressive biceps, pot belly stomachs and chicken
legs, and who can't do 10 minutes of moderate intensity steady state cardio
without huffing and puffing.

------
Terr_
> We have gotten so good at processing foods that for the first time in human
> evolution, many humans are getting more calories than they burn in a day.

Uhm... That statement seems a little odd/imprecise/unqualified.

I guarantee every single one of our ancestors was able to, on average, obtain
_more_ food-calories than they needed... for all of the days and years it took
them to grow up and procreate your next ancestor.

~~~
icanhackit
_every single one of our ancestors was able to, on average, obtain more food-
calories than they needed_

I think what's lost in the discussion when looking at food consumption from a
calorie-centric view is that non-processed foods require energy to process
them. This is due to sugars/carbohydrates being trapped in matrices of
cellulose, which require a lot of chewing and digesting to extract the maximum
amount of energy.

Processed foods on the other hand are just that, _processed_. A machine has
pre-chewed and pre-digested your food into a neat package. Now the energy
required to extract the maximum amount of value has been lowered
significantly, so you wind up with more energy than you need. But it gets
worse...

Glycaemic Index. When sugars/carbohydrates are slowly extracted from a thick
matrix of cellulose, they're delivered slowly but surely to your system.
Highly processed foods have done away with most of the cellulose or at the
very least broken it down significantly. Eating these processed foods you get
what's generally called a sugar _rush_. Your blood sugar spikes, insulin is
released to deal with this incredible spike however the spike only lasts for a
short period - now you're having a sugar _crash_.

You lose your temper easily, you can't think straight...you reach for another
soda, burger or fries. The cycle repeats.

This doesn't even touch on what happens to your digestive system when you
remove a significant amount of fiber from your diet by eating highly processed
foods. Not only does fiber clean your digestive system and keep things moving
smoothly, your gut-flora converts the fiber into short chain fatty acids,
which play a role in mitigating intestinal inflammation [0].

Don't eat food-machine excrement.

[0]
[https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=short+chain+fatty+ac...](https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=short+chain+fatty+acids+inflammation&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=iTJdVd2nFIPn8AWc_oGIBA&ved=0CBoQgQMwAA)

~~~
CuriouslyC
Not everything that has been processed is bad. Just like taking an aspirin
pill works much better than trying to get pain relief by eating white willow
bark, some processed foods are concentrated goodness. Whey protein, resistant
starches and partially defatted coconut flour are all absolutely amazing
ingredients that are significantly healthier than the whole foods they came
from.

