Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago Sandy
The reason certain African and indigenous S. American peoples thrive on vegan, grain-and-legume-dominant diets is probably genetic (and I wouldn’t be surprised if their starch intake came from uncultivated sources that they simply gather). Same thing, I suspect, for the “French paradox” of staying cardiovascularly fit and lean despite drinking a half-bottle of wine and eating half a baguette or more, plus a full complement of animal fats and proteins, a day. Humankind has not been agrarian long enough for our genes to evolve sufficiently for our bodies to process cultivated grains in an optimally healthy manner. To the extent that we are naturally omnivorous rather than strictly carnivorous, it’s because our earliest ancestors supplemented the meat and fish in their diets with leaves, roots, berries, seeds and the occasional fallen fruits (the latter to ensure a source of calories to turn into body fat for survival in case--often frequent--of famine). Thanks to predators, childbirth complications and infections, ancient humans didn’t live long enough to develop diseases of overconsumption such as Type 2 diabetes or on the opposite end of the continuum, gout or atherosclerosis,
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Thanks Sandy. Do you have any evidence of the claim that our bodies aren't evolved enough to process grains? It sounds intuitive but I have never found any science that suggests or confirms this.
Regarding paleo diets, what most people who look at this understand is that they were wildly variable. I think I mentioned in my first post about this. In northern climes where vegetation was scarce, a larger portion of the diet was probably fish and game. Lean game, not fattened, drugged up livestock. But in many cases, humans and pre-humans existed on plants, nuts and berries and occasionally supplemented this with game (hard to catch) and eggs as they could. Meat increased in the diet as hunting and tools became more sophisticated, or so the current thinking goes. Anyway, the idea that a paleolithic diet is focused primarily on meat or that it was one kind of diet seems at least in question.
Another assumption is that a "paleo" diet was healthy, but as you mention we think folks didn't live long enough for it to matter. Worth a read:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...l-vegetarians/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...er-really-eat/
And it's not clear at all that this diet would engender the kind of results many are looking for.
As you mention, diet is part of an overall cultural profile, which may or may not include large amounts of daily exercise. This certainly has great effect on our overall health.
What is clear is that eating whole foods and lean meats or fish in moderation has been proven to result in better health and longevity across multiple studies.