3 ms·

There are two things at work: Paleo diet works (not much disputed here) and Paleo diet works because it's like what we ate 10k years ago and we haven't adopted

There are two things at work: Paleo diet works (not much disputed here) and Paleo diet works because it's like what we ate 10k years ago and we haven't adopted to our "new food" yet (a lot of people dispute that).

VLM 14y ago
1+2 are good. Also: 3. Abundance. People didn't have to "limit themselves" 2000 years ago because they either were usually, or at best occasionally, starving back down to size, along with massive vitamin and mineral deficiencies (so you can eat 3000 calories per day as a sailor, but if you're also simultaneously dying of scurvy, they you don't have to worry so much about getting fat). In the shorter term, religious fasting seems to have died out although oddly enough we keep religious feast traditions alive pretty well. Also gluttony seems to have disappeared from the list of sins. Someone who wanted to eat until 400 pounds 2500 years ago could want all they want for free, but they simply aren't getting the food to do it, so... hungry and skinny even if their internal weight thermostat says 400 pounds is a great goal. No caloric intake limit for an entire lifetime in 2010s America. 4. Non-ag lifestyle beginning a century or so ago has lead to weird ideas about our diet, so "rediscovering" what farmers have always known seems new. So 98% of the population doesn't farm. People discover corn products can be yummy and start exploding waistlines. The 2% of the population who farm are like "duh, everyone knows corn is the best way to fatten up hogs and other mammal livestock, duh!" but we don't respect farming as a profession so we need scientists to "discover" hmm corn consumption seems to positively correlate with waistline, how curious I wonder if cutting back on corn would help obesity... naah the corn industry lobbiests would kill me if I said that... Pretty much if farmers slop the hogs with it to fatten them up, you probably don't want to eat that unless you need fattening up.
- Uchikoma 14y ago
  +1 "but we don't respect farming as a profession"

VLM 14y ago

1+2 are good. Also: 3. Abundance. People didn't have to "limit themselves" 2000 years ago because they either were usually, or at best occasionally, starving back down to size, along with massive vitamin and mineral deficiencies (so you can eat 3000 calories per day as a sailor, but if you're also simultaneously dying of scurvy, they you don't have to worry so much about getting fat). In the shorter term, religious fasting seems to have died out although oddly enough we keep religious feast traditions alive pretty well. Also gluttony seems to have disappeared from the list of sins. Someone who wanted to eat until 400 pounds 2500 years ago could want all they want for free, but they simply aren't getting the food to do it, so... hungry and skinny even if their internal weight thermostat says 400 pounds is a great goal. No caloric intake limit for an entire lifetime in 2010s America. 4. Non-ag lifestyle beginning a century or so ago has lead to weird ideas about our diet, so "rediscovering" what farmers have always known seems new. So 98% of the population doesn't farm. People discover corn products can be yummy and start exploding waistlines. The 2% of the population who farm are like "duh, everyone knows corn is the best way to fatten up hogs and other mammal livestock, duh!" but we don't respect farming as a profession so we need scientists to "discover" hmm corn consumption seems to positively correlate with waistline, how curious I wonder if cutting back on corn would help obesity... naah the corn industry lobbiests would kill me if I said that... Pretty much if farmers slop the hogs with it to fatten them up, you probably don't want to eat that unless you need fattening up.

Uchikoma 14y ago
+1 "but we don't respect farming as a profession"