7 ms·
It's not carb-rich diets, it's processed carbohydrates. Every culture on earth eats predominately carbohydrates, with a very small few exceptions like Inuit or
by triyambakam 6y ago
It's not carb-rich diets, it's processed carbohydrates. Every culture on earth eats predominately carbohydrates, with a very small few exceptions like Inuit or some peoples in Africa. Asia has mostly rice, Africa various roots, South/North America it was corn, etc. Humans are (loosely) starch-ivores
- bsima 6y agoPrice observed that the great majority of traditional diets were high in animal fats. He theorized that vitamin K, which is mostly acquired from animal fat, was the key health-promoting factor. Humans are more likely facultative carnivores than grain-eaters.
- xyzzyz 6y agoTraditional to whom, to hunter gatherers? Early farmers living in tribes? Or people living under strong states that developed over past few thousands years?
- bsima 6y agoPrice observed the traditional cultures he had access to at the time, you can read the details for yourself here: http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/pricetoc.html http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/pricetoc....
- jungletime 6y agoBased on my visit to India, travels around middle east, and third world countries. Oils, and fats are the most affordable way to get a high enough amount of calories in a diet for the poor masses. So even if you're poor, and eating rice everyday. It will be typically with something oily and some spices to add flavour.
- chrisco255 6y agoI read the book, he travelled to multiple continents and generally this is pre- industrial diets, or prior to introduction of vegetable and seed oils, refined sugars, processed carbs, etc. Because he was able to do this research in the 20s, the industrial diet hadn't quite taken over. He also studied mummies in South America. They overwhelmingly had perfect teeth, prior to introduction of modern junk food.
- partyboat1586 6y agoI wonder how they survived berries. Because berries are not good for your teeth due to high (natural) sugar content.
- blaser-waffle 6y agoModern fruits have wayyy more sugar than wild plants, due to years and years of selective breeding. Even then you still have a lot of fiber and acid to slow down the release and absorption of sugars.
- novok 6y agoAlso berries are fairly seasonal AFAIK
- triyambakam 6y agoMostly acquired from animal fat if you're eating animals... Leafy greens (kale etc.) are a great source of plant vitamin K
- pstuart 6y agoK1 comes from veggies. K2 is almost exclusively from animal products (except for natto, yum!). Apparently our bodies can synthesize some K2 from K1 but my understanding is that's quite variable and should not assumed to be adequate. There's a fair amount of research linking arteriosclerosis to a deficiency of K2, so it's part of my supplement regimentation. It's definitely worth researching if you're interested in optimizing your health in a very lazy manner :-).
- ip26 6y agoI thought there was also a fair amount of research linking red meat consumption to arteriosclerosis, so something doesn't add up.
- bsima 6y agothe evidence for that was mostly based on Ancel Keys' work around the 1950s and it has been pretty clearly shown that he cherry picked the data in his observational study. When analyzed properly, the link between any kind of heart disease and red meat disappears. Look up Gary Taubes work for thorough references
- ip26 6y agoSource? You may actually be thinking of the lipid hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_hypothesis) that Ancel Keys developed. As I gather, we still believe that red meat consumption leads to heart disease, but we're becoming less sure of his hypothesis that the elevated cholesterol resulting from saturated fat (found in red meat) causes heart disease.
- nradov 6y ago
- bmikaili 6y agoWhat a load of b. We have herbivore teeth, all our closest primate ancestors are herbivore, we have a long, herbivore intestine, an appendix, etc. Feels like you have an agenda to push here.
- partyboat1586 6y agoWe have a short omnivore intestine and many of the plants our primate ancestors ate would give you a very bad stomach ache. We don't look like other predators because our main weapon is our brain and tools rather than claws and strength. We also cook our meat which means we need less powerful jaws and less sharp teeth. Keep in mind that you still have incisors and canines specifically for eating meat. You could even run your tongue along then right now and feel how sharp they are.
- bsima 6y agoThis is correct. The Expensive Tissue Hypothesis of brain/gut development pretty clearly shows that a switch to eating meat and hunting coincided with a shortening of our intestines and enlarging of our brain, making us human.
- commonoddity 6y agoIncorrect. ETH postulates that there could be a correlation between gut length and brain development, the paper explicitly states that there could be an alternative methodology for how we manage the metabolic requirements for our brains. Back to the point on humans having canines. Herbivores also have canines to tear through fibrous plant material see (gorilla, baboon and hippo).
- triyambakam 6y agoGorillas and hippos also have canines. It's not a good heuristic. Try tearing the flesh off an animal with your canines
- partyboat1586 6y ago
- johnkpaul 6y agoDo you have a source for the starch-ivore comment? Id like to do some research. Thanks.
- triyambakam 6y agoYes I first heard about it through the work of Nathianel Dominy [1] [2] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377015/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377015/ [2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=ufNEoLeVplc https://youtube.com/watch?v=ufNEoLeVplc
- na-- 6y agoThere's a very interesting and long 6-year old discussion in the comments of the YouTube video you posted. In it, Marcinmd1 makes a lot of very good points, against the premise of the video...
- vczf 6y agoWhat is a processed carbohydrate to you? Only refined wheat flower, white rice, and sucrose? These issues started with the shift to agriculture, and the cultures I believe you're describing are all agricultural. That's why civilization exists at all. Hunter gatherers ate all sorts of things. But starch and sugar was not easily accessible. Wild rice, for instance, would be painstaking to gather and consume in large amounts. Roots and tubers would be small and have lots of antinutrients, keeping you from eating a lot of them. Fruits were seasonal and generally tiny. If I were a hunter gatherer, in the absence of fresh hunted meat, I would get more nutritional value out of worms or larvae in the dirt than a handful of tubers that may give me a stomachache. Insects are animal protein (and fat).
- chrisco255 6y agoNo the people he studied were in the 1920s. Traditional diets vs newer modern industrial diets. Vast majority of cultures were agricultural since 5000BC. It's seed and vegetable oils (not used as dietary fat source until industrial methods made it possible in early 20th century), white bread, enriched flour, high fructose corn syrup, excessive sugar, etc.
- chrisco255 6y agoWhat does "predominantly" mean in the context of diet? Carbs, proteins, and fats all make a very statistically significant portion of most diets.
- triyambakam 6y agoMost industrial diets rather, but for traditional agricultural diets, complex carbohydrates are 70-80 percent of the diet.
- canjobear 6y agoEvery agricultural culture eats primarily carbs. And the onset of agriculture is associated with the onset of tooth decay (and many signs of malnutrition) in the archaeological record.
- elric 6y agoI thought that link between agriculture and tooth decay was due to the early "milling" techniques which introduced bits of stone into the food, causing mechanical wear? I don't remember where I got this from, however.
- cies 6y agoNon-human primates also eat predominantly carbs, but mostly from fruits (and not from grains, which are highly cultivated by humans). So I guess it's good to distinguish between sugars-from-fruit and starches-from-grains.
- odiroot 6y agoHumans farming is a very very recent development. People existed for millennia before they started farming crops.