4 ms·
> our body can't adapt to a new pattern--evolution is a slow process that requires many thousands of years. Humans have many adaptations to the 'modern' diet,
by jly 8y ago
> our body can't adapt to a new pattern--evolution is a slow process that requires many thousands of years.
Humans have many adaptations to the 'modern' diet, consisting of large quantities of farmed animals products and cereal grains. Lactose tolerance is one of several well-known examples. In some cases these have only come about in the last 200-300 generations. The point is that evolution of large, complex polygenic adaptations may be slow but adaptive phenotypic change can occur very rapidly and it has likely accelerated in humans over the last 10k or so years.
> A human body during 200K years of evolution was not prepared to eating a lot.
We can't go back and ask detailed dieting questions of hunter-gatherer humans 200k years ago, but I'd guess the basic mechanisms of eating were similar to us: they ate when they were hungry and when food was available. For some groups, it seems likely that could often be several times per day.
What we do know about pre-agricultural humans is that there is no such thing as a 'typical' diet, and what was eaten and when could vary significantly by geography. Humans have thrived in every region and ecosystem on earth, and our body is highly adaptable and not designed to subsist on a single, perfect diet or eating cycle.
Pre-modern humans did one thing very differently to what we do today: when they wanted to eat, they had to move and work to get their food. It could very well be that the 'what' and 'when' of our modern eating is less of an issue compared to the high caloric intake and sedentary lifestyle.
- coldtea 8y ago>our body can't adapt to a new pattern--evolution is a slow process that requires many thousands of years. Humans have many adaptations to the 'modern' diet, consisting of large quantities of farmed animals products and cereal grains. Lactose tolerance is one of several well-known examples. In some cases these have only come about in the last 200-300 generations. 200-300 is 6000 years (assuming 30 years per generation), so that's already consistent with the parent's "many thousands of years". Besides that, we've changed our nutrition and its ingredients more in the last 50 years that we had in the last 20000 years. Adaptation takes much more than that (if it's not even harder to adapt to an ever changing list of factory-produced BS substances that weren't ever co-evolved along with humans, but on some food chemist's and big food corporation's whim). >Pre-modern humans did one thing very differently to what we do today: when they wanted to eat, they had to move and work to get their food. Not really. Hunter gatherers are said to have been able to gather food for several days in a few hours in a single day.
- Mikho 8y agoEven the agrarian revolution that happened 10K years ago resulted in health decline since a human body for 190K years before that evolved with a different diet. It is after the agrarian revolution that we faced many diseases connected to suboptimal diet and food. Even the last 10K years didn't change that. Humans had an absolutely different diet and evolution finetuned our bodies to survive in different conditions and with different food than we have now: "When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: the height and health of the people declined." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615094514.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615094514.h...