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I hope you realize that starch has fed the world only in a post agricultural world. That may be thousands of years, but we spent hundreds of thousands of years

I hope you realize that starch has fed the world only in a post agricultural world. That may be thousands of years, but we spent hundreds of thousands of years living without agriculture. That argument does not hold water. Secondly, eating fruit and eating sugar are two very different things. Fruit has things like nutrients and fiber that is lost in processing, which is likely the root of the disorder. The fiber, for example, slows down the absorption of sugars. The modern world is full of highly refined sugars that are missing the goodness found in nature (that our bodies adapted to).

dogma1138 10y ago
I think you should go learn history to understand when we started agriculture. And even so how starch and simpler sugars played in our diets for the past 150,000 years. The fruits that primates eat are "processed" they let them ferment this is one of the reasons why like alcohol so much because amongst other things we used it to tell us when the fruit is ready to eat and it's at it's highest caloric value. We have been refining sugar for about 10,000 years if not longer, we have been using fermentation and other processes to process complex carbs into sugars for even longer.
- toasterlovin 10y ago
  I'm pretty skeptical of your claims that starch and simple sugars played an important part in human diets for the past 150,000 years. Here's why: 1) Throughout most of the world, fruit is generally only available during an extremely limited window in any given year. And it spoils in a matter of days. 2) The big agricultural revolution was the domestication of grains. Grains are important because they keep for a long time and can therefore provide a stable year-round supply of calories even if they can only be harvested once per year. According to this wikipedia page[1], grains weren't domesticated until 11,000 years ago. Do you have a link that provides documentation for the importance of carbohydrates in the pre-agricultural human diet? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication
  - luketych 10y ago
    We evolved near the equator. There are more sweet things there year-round. Don't forget about honey. Fiber, fiber, fiber. Sugar seems to be okay when it is packaged together with its copartner, fiber.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Also starchy tubers. You can get a 5 pound yam out of the ground with a stick. Given a few thousand years, fire using apes are going to look at what is under most plants that they see day to day.
      - luketych 10y ago
        Very correct. Cooking also breaks down starches into sugars. And we are the cooking species. It helped drive our evolution forward. It all seems to be about balance.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    I don't know what you are skeptical about but you seem to have very poor understanding of history. Starch and sugars are a staple of the primate diet to the point where it is and was our main source of calories for ever. Grain has been domesticated for over 12,000 years ago, wild grain has been as early as around 30,000 BCE. Grain isn't the only source of starch, in fact for most of our history including our recent one it never was, starchy tubers and roots were. Fermentation is still practiced today by primates and other species and not only passive one some animals actively collect fruits and ferment them. We have been fermenting food since before we even speciated. Sugar from fruits and honey has been distilled as early as humans have been able to create tools, early pottery was used for 2 things fermentation and sugar distillation which is basically the same thing. You also have some skewed views on hunting vs gathering, hunting is just as seasonal as picking fruit and it's even more, it's also considerably more dangerous and calorie intensive and overall only been massively practiced when humans started to form large communities. So overall your paleo diet would have looked considerably different in reality, replace the jerky with trail mix, sugary syrup and some fermented goop mainly wild grains, nuts, and various berries we cannot digest otherwise and you get your paleo diet, meat was a luxury.

dogma1138 10y ago

I think you should go learn history to understand when we started agriculture. And even so how starch and simpler sugars played in our diets for the past 150,000 years. The fruits that primates eat are "processed" they let them ferment this is one of the reasons why like alcohol so much because amongst other things we used it to tell us when the fruit is ready to eat and it's at it's highest caloric value. We have been refining sugar for about 10,000 years if not longer, we have been using fermentation and other processes to process complex carbs into sugars for even longer.

toasterlovin 10y ago
I'm pretty skeptical of your claims that starch and simple sugars played an important part in human diets for the past 150,000 years. Here's why: 1) Throughout most of the world, fruit is generally only available during an extremely limited window in any given year. And it spoils in a matter of days. 2) The big agricultural revolution was the domestication of grains. Grains are important because they keep for a long time and can therefore provide a stable year-round supply of calories even if they can only be harvested once per year. According to this wikipedia page[1], grains weren't domesticated until 11,000 years ago. Do you have a link that provides documentation for the importance of carbohydrates in the pre-agricultural human diet? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication
- luketych 10y ago
  We evolved near the equator. There are more sweet things there year-round. Don't forget about honey. Fiber, fiber, fiber. Sugar seems to be okay when it is packaged together with its copartner, fiber.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Also starchy tubers. You can get a 5 pound yam out of the ground with a stick. Given a few thousand years, fire using apes are going to look at what is under most plants that they see day to day.
    - luketych 10y ago
      Very correct. Cooking also breaks down starches into sugars. And we are the cooking species. It helped drive our evolution forward. It all seems to be about balance.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  I don't know what you are skeptical about but you seem to have very poor understanding of history. Starch and sugars are a staple of the primate diet to the point where it is and was our main source of calories for ever. Grain has been domesticated for over 12,000 years ago, wild grain has been as early as around 30,000 BCE. Grain isn't the only source of starch, in fact for most of our history including our recent one it never was, starchy tubers and roots were. Fermentation is still practiced today by primates and other species and not only passive one some animals actively collect fruits and ferment them. We have been fermenting food since before we even speciated. Sugar from fruits and honey has been distilled as early as humans have been able to create tools, early pottery was used for 2 things fermentation and sugar distillation which is basically the same thing. You also have some skewed views on hunting vs gathering, hunting is just as seasonal as picking fruit and it's even more, it's also considerably more dangerous and calorie intensive and overall only been massively practiced when humans started to form large communities. So overall your paleo diet would have looked considerably different in reality, replace the jerky with trail mix, sugary syrup and some fermented goop mainly wild grains, nuts, and various berries we cannot digest otherwise and you get your paleo diet, meat was a luxury.