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It's crazy to me that 'counting calories' is something people routinely take for granted. It is a uniquely human trait. No other animal in this world has a need

It's crazy to me that 'counting calories' is something people routinely take for granted. It is a uniquely human trait. No other animal in this world has a need to do this. Humans up until a hundred years ago (or so) had no need to do it. What the hell has happened? My opinion - food processing and the agricultural revolution. A metabolic derangement caused by overly processed agricultural products.

Devilboy 14y ago
Our diets changed. If we revert to eating what humans ate 100,000 years ago we do NOT need to count calories and we do not get fat. What happened is we started cooking and eating things that could not be eaten raw, like grains, potatoes and so on. If you eat only stuff that can be eaten raw your body will do a pretty good job of maintaining your ideal weight without counting calories (assuming you don't have a thyroid problem or something of course)
- lwat 14y ago
  We got the 'food pyramid' which told everyone that eating loads of carbs is good for you and eating fat in any form is bad. It's gonna take decades to reverse this mistake.
- vacri 14y ago
  We will also end up being a lot shorter by eating the diet of ages past, which suggests that that is not the optimal diet either.
  - lwat 14y ago
    I've not heard about this, you got a source for me?
    - vacri 14y ago
      Looks like I am mistaken. We're taller than we have been for the past few hundred years, but there is evidence of some earlier humans having similar heights as modern humans. There is no mention of the cooked/raw status of those particular ancestors' diets, though. I don't have a particular reference, just piecing together the non-trash results of googling 'diet height' and 'history of human height'.
FrojoS 14y ago
> No other animal in this world has a need to do this. Have you never seen an obese dog or cat? Feeding to much of the wrong food will make any animal fat.
- mberning 14y ago
  Sure, I've seen an obese dog or cat, and I've also seen what these animals are fed. I guess my point was not clear enough. Feeding any animal an improper diet can lead to a metabolic problem where satiety and fat deposition do not work as intended. Animals in the wild eating their natural diet do not have a need to limit their consumption. They self regulate effectively.
  - infinite8s 14y ago
    It's not so much self-regulation as the lack of resources in the wild.
- joeblubaugh 14y ago
  Exactly. Most animals exist in a world of scarcity, near starvation for significant periods - often every year. Mammals that live in conditions of abundance usually get fat. We've evolved to do that and hedge against scarcity.
  - mberning 14y ago
    I don't buy it. When I go out into nature I don't see many emaciated animals. They may exist in a world of scarce resources, especially predators, but they are not constantly living on the edge of starvation.
    - joeblubaugh 14y ago
      "Historically, in Michigan the number of species diagnosed at the Laboratory as dying from malnutrition and starvation are second only to those dying from traumatic injuries." http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12150_12220-26946--,00.html http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12150_12220-2...
potatolicious 14y ago
What about Occam's Razor? > "Humans up until a hundred years ago (or so) had a need to do it." Actually, the aristocracy and nobility have all suffered from obesity since ancient times. Historical texts have many, many records of... robustly sized... monarchs, nobles, and the rich. Indeed, the image of the rich fat-cat is a lot older than merely the last century. > "My opinion - food processing and the agricultural revolution. A metabolic derangement caused by overly processed agricultural products." Or perhaps more simply, the majority of the population stopped doing hard physical labor day in day out. We started sitting behind desks for 8 hours a day instead of toiling in a field or factory for 12. I'm also willing to believe that we are simply eating more than we used to. In industrialized nations the ratio of food cost to income is almost laughably low - compared to agrarian nations where the cost of food can sometimes be up to half of a family's income. If you look at countries with smaller average serving sizes you will see a corresponding drop in obesity rates. Thankfully I think the country is starting to come around to the notion that no amount of sodium reduction, fat-reduction, or carb-reduction will work if you continue to shovel it into your mouth by the gobful. It's become vogue to blame every ill of society on industrialization, when instead the answer seems to be simpler and more obvious.
- natrius 14y ago
  "Thankfully I think the country is starting to come around to the notion that no amount of sodium reduction, fat-reduction, or carb-reduction will work if you continue to shovel it into your mouth by the gobful." The things I usually want to shovel in my mouth are carbohydrates, and insulin spikes explain at least part of that. I eat far less when I'm trying to keep my insulin low. Everyone knows you have to eat less to lose weight. The question is how. Some techniques are more successful than others.
  - mberning 14y ago
    Exactly. We are learning that certain things in the diet (sugar, grains) promote metabolic issues that fuel overconsumption. The ideal state of being, which everybody would like to enjoy, is being able to eat until you are full and then stop. That is not such a simple process from a hormonal standpoint.
jagira 14y ago
Seems like human beings have stopped moving their feet :-)
- mberning 14y ago
  This may be of interest to you http://news.yale.edu/2012/08/02/hunter-gatherers-expend-same-calories-average-americans http://news.yale.edu/2012/08/02/hunter-gatherers-expend-same... People researching modern hunter gatherer societies are finding that they expend roughly the same amount of calories as westerners.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    That does pose some interesting puzzles. Perhaps the fact of moving changes how the body partitions nutrients. Or handles hunger. Or some other factor. Or the specific modalities of exercise (brief, high-intensity vs. long, low-intensity) matter. The study appears to rule out one possible mechanism (total calories consumed). There's still the fact of bodyweight / body composition differences. If your test fails to account for observed differences in phenomena, then your test failed to identify the cause(s). Just as the sick man who goes to the doctor for a battery of diagnostics and is told "we can't find anything wrong". The problem isn't in the state of the man's health, it's in the state of the doctor's diagnostics.
  - Blara 14y ago
    "... they expend on average no more calories in a day than the adult population of the industrialized world." Did they take weight difference into account? is it per kg or per person? I find the article lacking in a few important details...
001sky 14y ago
One case to consider, in the modern era, might be performance. Like NASA expeditions, mountaineering, long-distance hiking. Anytime you need to carry the weight of your food (for 5+ days), under strenuous exercise. Calorie counting, weight/volume measurement, and nutrition labeling become essential.
awj 14y ago
> My opinion - food processing and the agricultural revolution. A metabolic derangement caused by overly processed agricultural products. It's simpler than that: dense food and lack of exercise. More people have access to more calories than at any other time in history. At the same time, we spend more time at work and at play sitting and expending minimal energy than at any other time in history.

Devilboy 14y ago

Our diets changed. If we revert to eating what humans ate 100,000 years ago we do NOT need to count calories and we do not get fat. What happened is we started cooking and eating things that could not be eaten raw, like grains, potatoes and so on. If you eat only stuff that can be eaten raw your body will do a pretty good job of maintaining your ideal weight without counting calories (assuming you don't have a thyroid problem or something of course)

lwat 14y ago
We got the 'food pyramid' which told everyone that eating loads of carbs is good for you and eating fat in any form is bad. It's gonna take decades to reverse this mistake.
vacri 14y ago
We will also end up being a lot shorter by eating the diet of ages past, which suggests that that is not the optimal diet either.
- lwat 14y ago
  I've not heard about this, you got a source for me?
  - vacri 14y ago
    Looks like I am mistaken. We're taller than we have been for the past few hundred years, but there is evidence of some earlier humans having similar heights as modern humans. There is no mention of the cooked/raw status of those particular ancestors' diets, though. I don't have a particular reference, just piecing together the non-trash results of googling 'diet height' and 'history of human height'.

FrojoS 14y ago

> No other animal in this world has a need to do this. Have you never seen an obese dog or cat? Feeding to much of the wrong food will make any animal fat.

mberning 14y ago
Sure, I've seen an obese dog or cat, and I've also seen what these animals are fed. I guess my point was not clear enough. Feeding any animal an improper diet can lead to a metabolic problem where satiety and fat deposition do not work as intended. Animals in the wild eating their natural diet do not have a need to limit their consumption. They self regulate effectively.
- infinite8s 14y ago
  It's not so much self-regulation as the lack of resources in the wild.
joeblubaugh 14y ago
Exactly. Most animals exist in a world of scarcity, near starvation for significant periods - often every year. Mammals that live in conditions of abundance usually get fat. We've evolved to do that and hedge against scarcity.
- mberning 14y ago
  I don't buy it. When I go out into nature I don't see many emaciated animals. They may exist in a world of scarce resources, especially predators, but they are not constantly living on the edge of starvation.
  - joeblubaugh 14y ago
    "Historically, in Michigan the number of species diagnosed at the Laboratory as dying from malnutrition and starvation are second only to those dying from traumatic injuries." http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12150_12220-26946--,00.html http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12150_12220-2...

potatolicious 14y ago

What about Occam's Razor? > "Humans up until a hundred years ago (or so) had a need to do it." Actually, the aristocracy and nobility have all suffered from obesity since ancient times. Historical texts have many, many records of... robustly sized... monarchs, nobles, and the rich. Indeed, the image of the rich fat-cat is a lot older than merely the last century. > "My opinion - food processing and the agricultural revolution. A metabolic derangement caused by overly processed agricultural products." Or perhaps more simply, the majority of the population stopped doing hard physical labor day in day out. We started sitting behind desks for 8 hours a day instead of toiling in a field or factory for 12. I'm also willing to believe that we are simply eating more than we used to. In industrialized nations the ratio of food cost to income is almost laughably low - compared to agrarian nations where the cost of food can sometimes be up to half of a family's income. If you look at countries with smaller average serving sizes you will see a corresponding drop in obesity rates. Thankfully I think the country is starting to come around to the notion that no amount of sodium reduction, fat-reduction, or carb-reduction will work if you continue to shovel it into your mouth by the gobful. It's become vogue to blame every ill of society on industrialization, when instead the answer seems to be simpler and more obvious.

natrius 14y ago
"Thankfully I think the country is starting to come around to the notion that no amount of sodium reduction, fat-reduction, or carb-reduction will work if you continue to shovel it into your mouth by the gobful." The things I usually want to shovel in my mouth are carbohydrates, and insulin spikes explain at least part of that. I eat far less when I'm trying to keep my insulin low. Everyone knows you have to eat less to lose weight. The question is how. Some techniques are more successful than others.
- mberning 14y ago
  Exactly. We are learning that certain things in the diet (sugar, grains) promote metabolic issues that fuel overconsumption. The ideal state of being, which everybody would like to enjoy, is being able to eat until you are full and then stop. That is not such a simple process from a hormonal standpoint.

jagira 14y ago

Seems like human beings have stopped moving their feet :-)

mberning 14y ago
This may be of interest to you http://news.yale.edu/2012/08/02/hunter-gatherers-expend-same-calories-average-americans http://news.yale.edu/2012/08/02/hunter-gatherers-expend-same... People researching modern hunter gatherer societies are finding that they expend roughly the same amount of calories as westerners.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  That does pose some interesting puzzles. Perhaps the fact of moving changes how the body partitions nutrients. Or handles hunger. Or some other factor. Or the specific modalities of exercise (brief, high-intensity vs. long, low-intensity) matter. The study appears to rule out one possible mechanism (total calories consumed). There's still the fact of bodyweight / body composition differences. If your test fails to account for observed differences in phenomena, then your test failed to identify the cause(s). Just as the sick man who goes to the doctor for a battery of diagnostics and is told "we can't find anything wrong". The problem isn't in the state of the man's health, it's in the state of the doctor's diagnostics.
- Blara 14y ago
  "... they expend on average no more calories in a day than the adult population of the industrialized world." Did they take weight difference into account? is it per kg or per person? I find the article lacking in a few important details...

001sky 14y ago

One case to consider, in the modern era, might be performance. Like NASA expeditions, mountaineering, long-distance hiking. Anytime you need to carry the weight of your food (for 5+ days), under strenuous exercise. Calorie counting, weight/volume measurement, and nutrition labeling become essential.

awj 14y ago

> My opinion - food processing and the agricultural revolution. A metabolic derangement caused by overly processed agricultural products. It's simpler than that: dense food and lack of exercise. More people have access to more calories than at any other time in history. At the same time, we spend more time at work and at play sitting and expending minimal energy than at any other time in history.