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Stress hormones in our diet may be a missing link between food and wellness

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Re: Stress hormones in our diet may be a missing link between food and wellness

#31

Post by viburnum »

macinjosh wrote: post #16

Are we supposed to believe that the wild animals our ancestors hunted were not consistently under stress? I think living in the food chain pretty much ensures experiences of stress. Both of hunger and the threat of being food for something else. Do some people think nature before modern human agriculture was a happy go lucky place where the creatures experienced little or no adversity? Hope not!

Based on what I read in anthropology classes, yeah, there actually wasn’t that much stress or food insecurity in small scale societies. Cooking was time-consuming but there wasn’t much else to do but hang out with your friends and mash yams anyway.

Re: Stress hormones in our diet may be a missing link between food and wellness

#32

Post by proverbialbunny »

ta999999171 wrote: post #30
heyoni wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution is really only concerned with procreation and not much else beyond that. It definitely doesn't care if you feel stressed or suffer some inflammation after a meal.

Fun fact for the reader at home - ANY meal produces an inflammatory response! A large part of the "eat smaller meals" belief, for many.

Some meals induce quite a bit more inflammation than others. Not including an autoimmune response, eg soy is a common cause of inflammation, inflammation is caused when what you eat falls behind the mucous layer in the stomach lining. So, if your diet provides the nutrients to have a healthy mucous layer or you have good genetics, you're far less likely to have an inflammation response when you eat. I believe eating mushrooms or yams has the nutrients that help the most.

Re: Stress hormones in our diet may be a missing link between food and wellness

#33

Post by pete762 »

macinjosh wrote: post #16

Are we supposed to believe that the wild animals our ancestors hunted were not consistently under stress? I think living in the food chain pretty much ensures experiences of stress. Both of hunger and the threat of being food for something else. Do some people think nature before modern human agriculture was a happy go lucky place where the creatures experienced little or no adversity? Hope not!

No, animals in the wild are not under constant stress, because that would completely nullify the effect of stress in the first place. Stress is a bodies' response to an 'unusual' situation, in which you have to act in an 'unusual' way. But the baseline that defines 'usual' and 'unusual' is the environment in which the animal evolved over thousands of years. In this environment their stress response is natural, e.g. spikes in case of danger or exceptional threat, otherwise normal.

If you now bring those in a completely new environment (factory farming), their stress levels go wild.

Re: Stress hormones in our diet may be a missing link between food and wellness

#34

Post by DraftDodger67 »

zasz wrote: post #25
macinjosh wrote: post #16

Are we supposed to believe that the wild animals our ancestors hunted were not consistently under stress? I think living in the food chain pretty much ensures experiences of stress. Both of hunger and the threat of being food for something else. Do some people think nature before modern human agriculture was a happy go lucky place where the creatures experienced little or no adversity? Hope not!

Yes, actually. Animals in the wild don't experience _chronic_ stress. I recommend Robert Sapolsky's book "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers."

Animals in the wild also aren't eating a diet of pure corn or soy. They're eating 'organic' grass, with a few critters thrown in.

Re: Stress hormones in our diet may be a missing link between food and wellness

#35

Post by codebolt »

elfexec wrote: post #28
the_jeremy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure being a wild animal means some level of stress. I'm also sure it is nothing compared to the deplorable conditions in which factory farm animals are raised. Your comparison feels like talking about soldiers with PTSD and then saying "all humans have jobs and deadlines and they depend on these for their livelihood! All humans have stress, how are soldiers different?" I have no desire to look for images of how…

> Your comparison feels like talking about soldiers with PTSD and then saying "all humans have jobs and deadlines and they depend on these for their livelihood! All humans have stress, how are soldiers different?" Wouldn't the animals in nature be more like soldiers with PTSD and livestock be more like humans? > I have no desire to look for images of how disgusting the living conditions and lives of these animals are…

Pigs in particular have it pretty bad, in factory farms in general. Ever heard of a gestation crate? Imagine being stuck in a box on a concrete floor forced to look straight ahead for months on end. That's the life of the average pig in today's world.
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