3 ms·

It's nice to see an article that explains that too much animal protein can be bad for your health, without advocating a 100% plant-based/vegan diet. We humans a

It's nice to see an article that explains that too much animal protein can be bad for your health, without advocating a 100% plant-based/vegan diet. We humans are apes, and when you look at other apes, they eat mostly plants, but not always only plants. For example, chimpanzees eat small amounts of meat. I'm a bit skeptical to the claim that whole grains is a nearly perfect food, though. Think about it - we apes have not eaten huge amounts of grains for most of evolution. Also grains contain various anti-nutrients, otherwise they would have been eaten by insects. It does not seem inconceivable that some of these insect-harming anti-nutrients could also be harmful for humans. Many dietary studies are done with rodents, but I think (I'm not an expert here) rodents have eaten far more grains than apes during most of evolution. So studies with rodents showing that high-grain diets are healthy, are perhaps showing just that - that high-grain diets are healthy for rodents (and not necessarily apes).

Joof 11y ago
What? Looking at other apes is a poor indicator. What an animal eats has to do with it's environment and it's digestion mechanisms. Some apes largely ate grasses. Nutrients matters, but largely is solved by eating a varied diet. You might have noticed that we do something other species don't. Cooking! It's a pre-digestion mechanism that saves a lot of work. Combined with our omnivorous digestive system we can probably be considered radically distinct from our ape ancestors (in a good way).
- jensen123 11y ago
  So, I googled for grass eating apes and found this: https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=128106 https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=128106 Is this what you were thinking about? The evidence seems rather sketchy, though. From the article: "If early humans ate grass-eating insects or large grazing animals like zebras, wildebeest and buffalo, it also would appear they ate C4 grasses. If they ate fish that ate algae, it would give a false appearance of grass-eating because of the way algae takes up carbonate from water, Cerling says. If they ate small antelope and rhinos that browsed on C3 leaves, it would appear they ate C3 trees-shrubs." Seems more likely that they ate the animals, though. I mean, otherwise, shouldn't our teeth have been different by now?
  - Joof 11y ago
    Sorry for not finding a name, but there's an early hominid (divergent from us, but not an ancestor) that ate C4 grasses and had the jaw shape for it. They are now extinct. Point being that we can't extrapolate from other species (apes) even if we share an ancestor. Early humans were probably mostly scavengers anyway until fairly close to the agricultural period. Its unlikely they ate much meat.

Joof 11y ago

What? Looking at other apes is a poor indicator. What an animal eats has to do with it's environment and it's digestion mechanisms. Some apes largely ate grasses. Nutrients matters, but largely is solved by eating a varied diet. You might have noticed that we do something other species don't. Cooking! It's a pre-digestion mechanism that saves a lot of work. Combined with our omnivorous digestive system we can probably be considered radically distinct from our ape ancestors (in a good way).

jensen123 11y ago
So, I googled for grass eating apes and found this: https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=128106 https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=128106 Is this what you were thinking about? The evidence seems rather sketchy, though. From the article: "If early humans ate grass-eating insects or large grazing animals like zebras, wildebeest and buffalo, it also would appear they ate C4 grasses. If they ate fish that ate algae, it would give a false appearance of grass-eating because of the way algae takes up carbonate from water, Cerling says. If they ate small antelope and rhinos that browsed on C3 leaves, it would appear they ate C3 trees-shrubs." Seems more likely that they ate the animals, though. I mean, otherwise, shouldn't our teeth have been different by now?
- Joof 11y ago
  Sorry for not finding a name, but there's an early hominid (divergent from us, but not an ancestor) that ate C4 grasses and had the jaw shape for it. They are now extinct. Point being that we can't extrapolate from other species (apes) even if we share an ancestor. Early humans were probably mostly scavengers anyway until fairly close to the agricultural period. Its unlikely they ate much meat.