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About 30 years ago, I had the privilege to witness a pair of lions take down a lactating wildebeest in Tanzania from a distance of about 50 yards. After one of the lions had the animal's neck locked in it's jaws, the other went immediately for its mammaries. We spent several hours watching the lions. They dragged the remains several yards away in the process and hyenas came by to strip the remains and spent a lot of time sniffing and licking, even eating milk soaked dirt.
The idea the animals reject the milk of other species is just wrong in my opinion. if they can get it, they crave it. Ever seen a dog or cat's reaction to cow's milk? They will drink it before blood.
Like I mentioned in the other thread, Kevin Ferriss basically took the Paleo system, simplified it, added a bunch of his own kooky non sense into it and then tried to pass it off as his own. If you've read Paleo, you don't need the 4 hour body book.
This is from a doctor who can provide scientific references to back up his claims and notice how he makes no mention of The Paleo Diet.
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Originally Posted by Woozle
Food fads are a very American thing. As are silly justifications for such fads. Ooh, grain and milk are bad because our paleolithic ancestors did not eat them. Ooh, meat is bad because we're natural herbivores, our teeth prove that. Ooh, carbs are bad because SOME hunter-gatherers subsist mostly on walrus fat and such..
Look, there's pretty much NO evidence that ANY diet - as long as the diet is not deficient in necessary nutrients - can make a substantial positive effect on health. Yes. There's simply no such thing as a healthy diet. Shocking, I know. But that's what happens when fad diet peddlers - high-fat, zero-fat, zero-meat, all-meat - inspire numerous clinical studies. The end result is invariably that the diet composition does not matter - we're good at digesting just about anything natural, and it's never diet composition that is responsible for improved health markers, but general things such as losing excess fat.
I love how people are quick to dismiss something that defies conventional thinking as a fad. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the way we've been eating for thousands of years is the real fad? You say that there's no such thing as a healthy diet. Well if that's true, then you shouldn't be afraid to question even conventional thinking. If someone says dairy is part of a healthy diet or whole grains are part of a healthy diet, shouldn't you question that claim? Or should you just blindly accept it because that's how humans have been eating for thousands of years? Following tradition is a dumb reason to do anything.
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Originally Posted by ogre
First, I would question the assumption that we have not evolved beyond our adaptation to hunter-gatherer diets. All that's needed to realize that human beings are still evolving physicallay is to consider the world's varied racial groups. As I understand it, variations in skin color are largely the result of adaptation to the amount and intensity of sunlight in different regions of the world. Different skin colors work best in different regions, for the purpose of striking the optimal balance between protection from the sun (darker skin) and efficient utilization of sunlight for the formation of vitamin D (fairer skin). The very apparent and visible differences in skin color between peoples from various regions makes it clear that the human body is still evolving. That raises the question of whether we're sure that our bodies have not evolved to adapt to changes in our diets over the thousands of years that agriculture has existed. This then raises the question about whether we can be sure that an assumption on which the paleo diet is predicated--that we have not evolved physically beyond the caveman diet--is correct. It's a question at least worth asking.
Another question worth considering is whether paleolithic humans were not at all adapted to consuming milk. As infants, early humans consumed their mothers' milk, so it's obvious that their bodies were made to digest milk without difficulty at least at the earliest stage of life. It's a leap to assume that just because the milk of wild animals was seldom available to paleolithic humans that their bodies somehow lost the tolerance for milk that existed in infancy.
I'd also raise the question of whether we're sure that adult cavemen absoulutely never consumed milk. It probably did not happen often, but there may have been times when prehistoric hunter-gatherers hunted and killed lactating female animals. Most likely, these hunter-gatherers made the most of the effort expended in hunting animals for food, by consuming anything edible on hunted game, which might well have included milk found inside any lactating female animal they happened to kill. It's a possibility worth at least considering before completely dismissing the possibility that cavemen ever consumed milk after infancy.
It's also worth considering the possibility that these paleo hunter-gatherers may have been adapted to consume something similar to modern grains. As early humans foraged for whatever food was available, it seems possible that they may have sometimes consumed the seeds from various grasses, perhaps including grasses that were the ancestors of today's cultivated grains.
First of all, evolution doesn't proceed at the pace you seem to be implying. Yes, humans developed different skin colors, but there's very little difference between my genetic makeup and some guy's from Africa or Japan. Second, if milk were meant to be consumed by adults, then why would human mothers ween their children off their milk? Wouldn't it make sense to continue feeding those children instead of having to roam around for food all day? And third, grains in their raw form aren't suitable for consumption. They do have to undergo a certain amount of processing before we can eat them. The fact that we have to process them first suggests that we probably shouldn't be eating them.
A lot of people I know have claimed to have benefited from a Paleo-style diet. I personally feel like it can be pretty tough to implement living in modern society. I don't have an informed opinion on its effectiveness for preventing diseases prevalent in developed nations.
A lot of people I know have claimed to have benefited from a Paleo-style diet. I personally feel like it can be pretty tough to implement living in modern society. I don't have an informed opinion on its effectiveness for preventing diseases prevalent in developed nations.
It is VERY tough. There are lot of foods I used to eat that I miss. I still eat them every now and then, but not nearly as much as I used to. The hardest part is when you're in a social setting or at a restaurant. I can't go to a friend's place for dinner and refuse to eat what they make cause that would be impolite. So at times like that, I just eat it even though I know it's bad for me. Likewise, you might be in a restaurant and discover there aren't any choices that really adhere to the Paleo way of eating. So again, you just do the best you can, even if it means eating a meal where part of it is bad for you. No one expects you to eat like this 100% of the time. I certainly don't. I still have dessert once a week, 1-2 glasses of wine per week, salt, coffee, and a sandwich once in a blue moon. A good rule I follow is the 80/20 rule. Get things 80% right and the 20% you get wrong won't be so terrible.
In terms of preventing diseases, think about today's leading causes of illness. Heart disease, cancer, etc. Then go back and see just how recent these things are.
"First of all, evolution doesn't proceed at the pace you seem to be implying. Yes, humans developed different skin colors, but there's very little difference between my genetic makeup and some guy's from Africa or Japan. Second, if milk were meant to be consumed by adults, then why would human mothers ween their children off their milk? Wouldn't it make sense to continue feeding those children instead of having to roam around for food all day? And third, grains in their raw form aren't suitable for consumption. They do have to undergo a certain amount of processing before we can eat them. The fact that we have to process them first suggests that we probably shouldn't be eating them."[/quote], DennyCrane
As I said in my earlier post, I'm not criticizing people for adopting this diet. If it works for someone, more power to that person. However, I do question one assertion that seems to be part of the basis for recommending the paleo diet, which is the assertion that primitive humans did not consume milk or grains, so therefore it must be true that our bodies are not made to process these foods. My best guess would be that people living the marginal existence of primitive man, where not all foods were always available in abundance, at times probably ate anything they could get their hands on. Milk and grains might not have been the foods they consumed most frequently, but it makes sense to think that they would at times eat foods that might not have been staples of their diets if eating these foods would prevent them from going hungry when the staples weren't available.
Regarding the pace of evolution, it's pointless to discuss the question of whether truly fundamental changes--of the sort that might mean a new species has developed--are necessary for the process of natural selection to qualify as evolution. Whether or not such superficial adaptations as skin color are significant enough to be considered evolutionary changes is irrelevant. What counts here is simply the fact that such changes do take place in a few tens of thousands of years in response to changes in environment. Why would it not be possible to have similar minor but noticeable changes in the digestive system, so that humans could adapt to changes in their diets over this same period of a few deca-millennia.
Now, about that question of why mothers wean their children if it's healthful for us to consume milk as adults. Um, do I want to go there? Well . . . it does conjure up some discomfiting images to think of people continuing to consume their mothers' milk past infancy, or very early childhood at the latest. Aside from that, it's not practical. People were weaned from their mothers' milk at early ages because Mum wasn't going to be there following Junior around while Junior was out hunting wildebeest or whatever, and eventually Mum wouldn't be alive anymore. It was a practical matter to facilitate Junior's independence for Junior to lose the dependence on Mum's milk. But since people subsist on milk in infancy, clearly at some point in our lives our digestive tracts can handle milk, so what reason is there to think that our bodies would change so as to be harmed by milk just because we stop consuming it exclusively after infancy?
I don't know much about the processing grains undergo before we consume them. I think I've heard something, with wheat at least, about an outer husk of some sort surrounding the kernel. This husk is inedible and is removed in order for us to consume the kernel, or something like that. If that's an accurate picture, this seems little different from removing the shell from a nut in order to consume the edible substance inside. Rather than assuming that the fact that grains undergo some processing before we eat them indicates that they must be bad for us, I would suggest that it never would have occurred to people to include grains among the plants they chose to cultivate when they developed agriculture, unless they had already been eating grains.
Again, if the paleo diet works for you, great. I'm just having a difficult time buying the claims that primitive man did not consume milk or grains, so that obviously we are not built to consume these foods. This premise does not hold up well under close consideration.
However, I do question one assertion that seems to be part of the basis for recommending the paleo diet, which is the assertion that primitive humans did not consume milk or grains, so therefore it must be true that our bodies are not made to process these foods. My best guess would be that people living the marginal existence of primitive man, where not all foods were always available in abundance, at times probably ate anything they could get their hands on. Milk and grains might not have been the foods they consumed most frequently, but it makes sense to think that they would at times eat foods that might not have been staples of their diets if eating these foods would prevent them from going hungry when the staples weren't available.
People will often make the argument you just did, that we have no evidence that ancient man didn't consume grains so therefore we can't conclude that our bodies weren't meant to process them. But you could apply that reasoning to just about everything. I have no evidence that ancient man didn't eat tree bark, for example. Does that mean it would be OK for me to eat it? That's why I think it makes more sense to start with a blank slate. Approach every food as if you've never seen it before. Ask yourself what is this, is it food, and how do I feel after eating it? If I had never seen bread before, I'm not sure I would recognize it as something that occurs in nature. After all, I never saw it growing on a tree or walking on land.
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Originally Posted by ogre
Regarding the pace of evolution, it's pointless to discuss the question of whether truly fundamental changes--of the sort that might mean a new species has developed--are necessary for the process of natural selection to qualify as evolution. Whether or not such superficial adaptations as skin color are significant enough to be considered evolutionary changes is irrelevant. What counts here is simply the fact that such changes do take place in a few tens of thousands of years in response to changes in environment. Why would it not be possible to have similar minor but noticeable changes in the digestive system, so that humans could adapt to changes in their diets over this same period of a few deca-millennia.
It may be possible that the digestive system has changed over time, but where's the evidence for it? At least with skin color, you have the evidence of change right there in front of you. Unless you have proof that the digestive system has evolved, it's far safer to assume that it hasn't.
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Originally Posted by ogre
But since people subsist on milk in infancy, clearly at some point in our lives our digestive tracts can handle milk, so what reason is there to think that our bodies would change so as to be harmed by milk just because we stop consuming it exclusively after infancy?
The fact that we stop drinking milk exclusively after infancy is not what I cite as evidence to prove that it's unhealthy. I merely offer that to illustrate that we don't need to be consuming it beyond a certain age now that our digestive systems have developed to handle more complex foods. As for why I do believe it's harmful, see the link I posted earlier in this thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ogre
Rather than assuming that the fact that grains undergo some processing before we eat them indicates that they must be bad for us, I would suggest that it never would have occurred to people to include grains among the plants they chose to cultivate when they developed agriculture, unless they had already been eating grains.
If we follow this line of reasoning, then every food that humans have mass produced must have been consumed prior. And even if they had, that still doesn't prove that it was necessarily good for us. Let's remember that what we produce is often done just for the sake of providing for a large population and not because it's something we should be eating. In this country, we mass produce sugar because it's a cheap way to feed the masses. But sugar is nutritionally void. If there's nothing else to eat and I'm starving, I'll probably eat it. That doesn't mean it's good for me. Same with grains.
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