4 ms·

"Were the people who foraged for these wild foods healthier than we are today? They did not live nearly as long as we do, but growing evidence suggests that the

"Were the people who foraged for these wild foods healthier than we are today? They did not live nearly as long as we do, but growing evidence suggests that they were much less likely to die from degenerative diseases, even the minority who lived 70 years and more. The primary cause of death for most adults, according to anthropologists, was injury and infections." There are two ways to interpret this "growing evidence". One approach, favored by this author, is to say their old wild diet was healthier and therefor those eating in such a fashion were less likely to get degenerative diseases. The other approach is to say they died too young from injury, starvation, or infections. Had they lived longer they too might have contracted more of our degenerative diseases. I strongly suspect lifestyle may have played more of a role than diet alone. The modern sedentary lifestyle with enormous quantities of extra calories at our fingertips is quite a recent invention of humanity. Getting more nutrients back into our food is good. So too would be to increase the variety of foods we eat (monoculture seems to not be healthy for the environment or our bodies). But I suspect the biggest gains in well-being will come from rethinking how we apportion our days and incorporate more physical activity and leisure time into them.

harshreality 11y ago
I mostly agree, except... > The other approach is to say they died too young from injury, starvation, or infections. Had they lived longer they too might have contracted more of our degenerative diseases. This is a stretch. Those people who were lucky enough not to die of communicable diseases or predators just happened to be the ones genetically superior in the sense that they didn't suffer as much from degenerative diseases? I doubt it. The lifestyle (plenty of exercise, and not eating too much, or too much processed/extracted foods like sugar and hydrogenated oils in everything) theory is much stronger. I don't doubt, though, that some nutrients have been bred out of crops inadvertently while domesticating them (making them easier to grow, breeding variants that produce more food, making the color or taste more appealing). And some less common varieties of crops are probably closer to the pre-domesticated varieties and are therefore healthier.
- ZeroFries 11y ago
  You misunderstood him. You can't die from alzheimer's at 80 if you died from malaria at 72, is what he's saying.
  - Retric 11y ago
    Assuming early death was fairly random then the number of people living to 70+ may have been much smaller, but the survivors would probably not differ significantly from the overall population. However, I don't think we can find a lot of actual evidence to support one interpretation over another. PS: It should be noted that due to low human birth rates disease and accidental death really can't kill over that high a % of the population each year. 90% survival change per year = 28% of people reaching 12 years old which is far from sustainable. 95% survival chance = 54% live to 12 which is at the edge of sustainable. ~.95 ^ 75 = 2% which would suggest 2+% of the population should hit 75 assuming a steady rate of accidental / disease related deaths. (Which is unlikely) Granted, real world death rates do increase after puberty, but even still a significant portion of preindustrial society was likely over 70. Barring a strong exponential population growth rate.
primroot 11y ago
> The modern sedentary lifestyle with enormous quantities of extra calories at our fingertips is quite a recent invention of humanity. Some people have concluded otherwise. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/debunking-the-hunter-gatherer-workout.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/debunking-t... Also we can blame caloric intake, but we should also look at the nutritional quality of the sources of calories and whatever other elements might negatively affect the capacity to become satiated. Living in a tropical country (Panama) I'm always bemused at people's conception of apples as a staple of a healthy diet, when at the same time we can easily find Bromelia Pinguin growing wild in the driest regions of the country, a fruit containing at least 10 times as much vitamin C.

harshreality 11y ago

I mostly agree, except... > The other approach is to say they died too young from injury, starvation, or infections. Had they lived longer they too might have contracted more of our degenerative diseases. This is a stretch. Those people who were lucky enough not to die of communicable diseases or predators just happened to be the ones genetically superior in the sense that they didn't suffer as much from degenerative diseases? I doubt it. The lifestyle (plenty of exercise, and not eating too much, or too much processed/extracted foods like sugar and hydrogenated oils in everything) theory is much stronger. I don't doubt, though, that some nutrients have been bred out of crops inadvertently while domesticating them (making them easier to grow, breeding variants that produce more food, making the color or taste more appealing). And some less common varieties of crops are probably closer to the pre-domesticated varieties and are therefore healthier.

ZeroFries 11y ago
You misunderstood him. You can't die from alzheimer's at 80 if you died from malaria at 72, is what he's saying.
- Retric 11y ago
  Assuming early death was fairly random then the number of people living to 70+ may have been much smaller, but the survivors would probably not differ significantly from the overall population. However, I don't think we can find a lot of actual evidence to support one interpretation over another. PS: It should be noted that due to low human birth rates disease and accidental death really can't kill over that high a % of the population each year. 90% survival change per year = 28% of people reaching 12 years old which is far from sustainable. 95% survival chance = 54% live to 12 which is at the edge of sustainable. ~.95 ^ 75 = 2% which would suggest 2+% of the population should hit 75 assuming a steady rate of accidental / disease related deaths. (Which is unlikely) Granted, real world death rates do increase after puberty, but even still a significant portion of preindustrial society was likely over 70. Barring a strong exponential population growth rate.

primroot 11y ago

> The modern sedentary lifestyle with enormous quantities of extra calories at our fingertips is quite a recent invention of humanity. Some people have concluded otherwise. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/debunking-the-hunter-gatherer-workout.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/debunking-t... Also we can blame caloric intake, but we should also look at the nutritional quality of the sources of calories and whatever other elements might negatively affect the capacity to become satiated. Living in a tropical country (Panama) I'm always bemused at people's conception of apples as a staple of a healthy diet, when at the same time we can easily find Bromelia Pinguin growing wild in the driest regions of the country, a fruit containing at least 10 times as much vitamin C.