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These arguments are all interesting but I think most relevant is that the best nutrition science we have to date shows that a proper plant based diet is optimal

These arguments are all interesting but I think most relevant is that the best nutrition science we have to date shows that a proper plant based diet is optimal for health & longevity. The plants and animals we eat now are radically different than the ones we were exposed to through most of our evolution so paleo proponents are chasing a lost world.

chrisco255 7y ago
There is no such clinical evidence. For example, the Sami of North Scandinavia have a 40% lower cancer rate than Swedish people do (who are pretty healthy by Western standards), despite getting the bulk of their calories from reindeer meat. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19186763/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19186763/ The modern cow is not fundamentally different from the ancient Aurochs, or reindeer or bison that used to be consumed in large quantities. Sure cows have been selectively bred for docile behavior and varying amounts of lean and fattyness but genetically speaking they're extremely similar. Meat doesn't vary a great deal (which is why a lot of things taste like chicken).
- cageface 7y ago
  Diet has relatively little influence on cancer. Diseases much more closely correlated with diet like diabetes and atherosclerosis are most effectively prevented with a plant based diet. Tribes like Inuit and Masai that eat mostly wild meats show advanced atherosclerosis at early ages and suffer from short lifespans. Of course if you're eating supermarket meat then your diet is nothing like any kind of ancestral hunter.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    I'd love to see your clinical research cited sources. Meanwhile meat has not changed much at the cellular level in tens of millions of years. The only fundamental difference between modern meat and ancient meat is that our ancestors ate the whole animal, organs and all, and that's relatively rare in modern American diet.
ianai 7y ago
Actually, the representation of the ancestral diet being primarily meat is incorrect - outside of a few examples where there just weren’t many plants available. Largely, humans ate what they happened upon. Meat was a scarce byproduct of another predators meal. Ie we ate what the big cats left behind. Furthermore, the ultra refined and concentrated foods we now eat didn’t exist until very recently. The amount of sugar cane needed to produce a single can of soda isn’t something any human would sit down to eat. Edit-changed are to ate
- chrisco255 7y ago
  Humans evolved during the ice age. There were no vegetables in large enough quantities to feed the human brain's massive growth over the past million years. Every single paleolithic cave art depicts animals and hunting techniques. Fossil evidence from millions of years ago show bone scrapes on zebra and reindeer bones in human caves. We evolved to hunt wooly mammoths twice the size of elephants for goodness sake. We decimated whole populations of megafauna. You would have to go back 4-6 million years ago to find scavenger ancestors.
  - cageface 7y ago
    Cooking is very likely the reason humans suddenly had access to far more calories to support a larger brain. The idea that an organ like the brain that feeds directly on glucose was supported by animal fat and protein just doesn’t hold up to serious scrutiny.
    - chrisco255 7y ago
      The brain is incidentally 60% fat. And all the glucose the brain requires can be synthesized from lactic acid. There are entire societies that live off of 99% meat. They live their entire lives with almost no vegetable intake whatsoever, and their brains develop and function perfectly normal. In contrast, consuming too much glucose can wreak all sorts of havoc on the brain, spurring excessive consumption, type 2 diabetes, and has been linked with Alzheimer's. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577529/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577529/ https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/higher-brain-glucose-levels-may-mean-more-severe-alzheimers https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/higher-brain-g...

chrisco255 7y ago

There is no such clinical evidence. For example, the Sami of North Scandinavia have a 40% lower cancer rate than Swedish people do (who are pretty healthy by Western standards), despite getting the bulk of their calories from reindeer meat. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19186763/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19186763/ The modern cow is not fundamentally different from the ancient Aurochs, or reindeer or bison that used to be consumed in large quantities. Sure cows have been selectively bred for docile behavior and varying amounts of lean and fattyness but genetically speaking they're extremely similar. Meat doesn't vary a great deal (which is why a lot of things taste like chicken).

cageface 7y ago
Diet has relatively little influence on cancer. Diseases much more closely correlated with diet like diabetes and atherosclerosis are most effectively prevented with a plant based diet. Tribes like Inuit and Masai that eat mostly wild meats show advanced atherosclerosis at early ages and suffer from short lifespans. Of course if you're eating supermarket meat then your diet is nothing like any kind of ancestral hunter.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  I'd love to see your clinical research cited sources. Meanwhile meat has not changed much at the cellular level in tens of millions of years. The only fundamental difference between modern meat and ancient meat is that our ancestors ate the whole animal, organs and all, and that's relatively rare in modern American diet.

ianai 7y ago

Actually, the representation of the ancestral diet being primarily meat is incorrect - outside of a few examples where there just weren’t many plants available. Largely, humans ate what they happened upon. Meat was a scarce byproduct of another predators meal. Ie we ate what the big cats left behind. Furthermore, the ultra refined and concentrated foods we now eat didn’t exist until very recently. The amount of sugar cane needed to produce a single can of soda isn’t something any human would sit down to eat. Edit-changed are to ate

chrisco255 7y ago
Humans evolved during the ice age. There were no vegetables in large enough quantities to feed the human brain's massive growth over the past million years. Every single paleolithic cave art depicts animals and hunting techniques. Fossil evidence from millions of years ago show bone scrapes on zebra and reindeer bones in human caves. We evolved to hunt wooly mammoths twice the size of elephants for goodness sake. We decimated whole populations of megafauna. You would have to go back 4-6 million years ago to find scavenger ancestors.
- cageface 7y ago
  Cooking is very likely the reason humans suddenly had access to far more calories to support a larger brain. The idea that an organ like the brain that feeds directly on glucose was supported by animal fat and protein just doesn’t hold up to serious scrutiny.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    The brain is incidentally 60% fat. And all the glucose the brain requires can be synthesized from lactic acid. There are entire societies that live off of 99% meat. They live their entire lives with almost no vegetable intake whatsoever, and their brains develop and function perfectly normal. In contrast, consuming too much glucose can wreak all sorts of havoc on the brain, spurring excessive consumption, type 2 diabetes, and has been linked with Alzheimer's. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577529/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577529/ https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/higher-brain-glucose-levels-may-mean-more-severe-alzheimers https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/higher-brain-g...