3 ms·

Bread in the past contained stones and sand. As a result most people in the past had very poor teeth. The diet people had in the past lacked a lot of ingredient

Bread in the past contained stones and sand. As a result most people in the past had very poor teeth. The diet people had in the past lacked a lot of ingredients. As a result most people developed poorly. Processed food is not necessary bad. Its probably better than its ancient alternatives.

EdwardDiego 4y ago
Anecdote from NZ history - in areas where aruhe (the rhizome of the bracken fern) or shellfish were a staple food, a leading cause of death in Māori was septicaemia - blood poisoning from tooth abscesses caused by a diet high in materials that were damaging to teeth - the tough fibres in the aruhe, and the sand in the shellfish.
mandmandam 4y ago
"The past" is a very long, very large place to be compared like this. Many ancient skeletons show people far healthier, with far better teeth, than those of the recent past or today. Most of our longevity comes down to antibiotics and better childbirth. A huge amount of today's food is basically bland, over-processed, mass produced, Round-up soaked, hormone-addled, preservative-laden, antibiotic and micro-plastic filled sludge that uses fat, salt, sugar and colorants to pass as edible. Claiming this as superior to the local, artisanal, organic produce filled diets with a variety of meats from wildlife that hadn't been exploited to extinction is a very, very, very hot take.
chubot 4y ago
I'd say there was high variance in the past, like there is today But the diet that Americans eat today is worse than that of the past, adjusted for income i.e. we are > 1000x wealthier now, but eat poorer quality food than somebody with the same wealth 1000, 2000, or even 10,000 years ago. This is because the entire food industry has "scaled" and become economically optimized It's mistake to think we can't regress, or haven't regressed and forgotten valuable knowledge -- architecture is another good example

EdwardDiego 4y ago

Anecdote from NZ history - in areas where aruhe (the rhizome of the bracken fern) or shellfish were a staple food, a leading cause of death in Māori was septicaemia - blood poisoning from tooth abscesses caused by a diet high in materials that were damaging to teeth - the tough fibres in the aruhe, and the sand in the shellfish.

mandmandam 4y ago

"The past" is a very long, very large place to be compared like this. Many ancient skeletons show people far healthier, with far better teeth, than those of the recent past or today. Most of our longevity comes down to antibiotics and better childbirth. A huge amount of today's food is basically bland, over-processed, mass produced, Round-up soaked, hormone-addled, preservative-laden, antibiotic and micro-plastic filled sludge that uses fat, salt, sugar and colorants to pass as edible. Claiming this as superior to the local, artisanal, organic produce filled diets with a variety of meats from wildlife that hadn't been exploited to extinction is a very, very, very hot take.

chubot 4y ago

I'd say there was high variance in the past, like there is today But the diet that Americans eat today is worse than that of the past, adjusted for income i.e. we are > 1000x wealthier now, but eat poorer quality food than somebody with the same wealth 1000, 2000, or even 10,000 years ago. This is because the entire food industry has "scaled" and become economically optimized It's mistake to think we can't regress, or haven't regressed and forgotten valuable knowledge -- architecture is another good example