3 ms·

See http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-read-about-nutrition/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-... for a bit

See http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-read-about-nutrition/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-... for a bit more serious coverage. OT, it's always surprised me with the diversity of pets people buy that these animals can generally eat the same thing for every meal, while humans can't.

rjbwork 9y ago
We could, but food is basically a defining characteristic of human culture. Food comes in such an amazingly varied myriad of flavors, textures, temperatures, methods, spices, etc. I think at this point we've evolved such that for some 99.9...9n% of us, we literally can't eat the same thing every day. It would suck one of the simple joys of life out of our lives.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  We do not even know if we feed the pets a healthy diet because nobody cares. Some think they know what constitutes a healthy diet for humans but there is very scarce and conflicting evidence except the grandma advice of "eat your greens". And not with big effect sizes either. Not "be vegan or vegetarian" mind you. The fun part is that humans are likely much more adaptable in terms of diet than other animals.
  - gaius 9y ago
    We do not even know if we feed the pets a healthy diet because nobody cares I think people care more about their pets diet than their own
  - Ma8ee 9y ago
    I think we know a lot more about what to feed animals. There are several reasons for that: It is not considered unethical to do large scale experimental studies on animals. Most domestic animals have much shorter lifespan than humans, so it is possible to study the effect of different diets through a full life cycle. Finally, there are strong economic incentives to produce the meat with desired qualities, the most amount of milk or the highest quality of fur with the most cost effective diet possible. For example pig farmers have known forever that if you want to have fat pigs you feed them grains, and if you desire lean meat you feed them high protein fodder.

rjbwork 9y ago

We could, but food is basically a defining characteristic of human culture. Food comes in such an amazingly varied myriad of flavors, textures, temperatures, methods, spices, etc. I think at this point we've evolved such that for some 99.9...9n% of us, we literally can't eat the same thing every day. It would suck one of the simple joys of life out of our lives.

AstralStorm 9y ago
We do not even know if we feed the pets a healthy diet because nobody cares. Some think they know what constitutes a healthy diet for humans but there is very scarce and conflicting evidence except the grandma advice of "eat your greens". And not with big effect sizes either. Not "be vegan or vegetarian" mind you. The fun part is that humans are likely much more adaptable in terms of diet than other animals.
- gaius 9y ago
  We do not even know if we feed the pets a healthy diet because nobody cares I think people care more about their pets diet than their own
- Ma8ee 9y ago
  I think we know a lot more about what to feed animals. There are several reasons for that: It is not considered unethical to do large scale experimental studies on animals. Most domestic animals have much shorter lifespan than humans, so it is possible to study the effect of different diets through a full life cycle. Finally, there are strong economic incentives to produce the meat with desired qualities, the most amount of milk or the highest quality of fur with the most cost effective diet possible. For example pig farmers have known forever that if you want to have fat pigs you feed them grains, and if you desire lean meat you feed them high protein fodder.