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“Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

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Re: “Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

#31

Post by a_bonobo »

wiredfool wrote: post #30
stcredzero wrote: post #14

> Cordain, who has a Ph.D in exercise physiology, assured Zuk that human beings had not had time to adapt to foods that only became staples with the advent of agriculture. “It’s only been ten thousand years,” he explained. Zuk’s response: “Plenty of time.” We have documented measurable evolution in large mammals in timespans of only several hundred years.

What's more, we have evidence that the lactose processing gene has become widespread in humans in the last 7000 years. Not to mention the genetic changes that have occurred in the foods over those times.

Here's my new favourite example for this recent evolution, a paper showing that when we domesticated dogs, their genetic makeup changed to accommodate for a starch-rich diet as shared with humans.

>The genomic signature of dog domestication reveals adaptation to a starch-rich diet [1]

>Nineteen of these regions contain genes important in brain function, eight of which belong to nervous system development pathways and potentially underlie behavioural changes central to dog domestication6. Ten genes with key roles in starch digestion and fat metabolism also show signals of selection.

[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...

Re: “Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

#32

Post by com2kid »

kleinsch wrote: post #19
bigiain wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a wide gap between a "paleo diet" and modern junk food. One of my local science broadcasters[1] often uses the phrase "don't eat too much of anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise as food" - and I suspect that's pretty much the same good advice as the paleo movement's, the marginal difference health-wise between eating common 1950/1960s food attempting to re-create some idea of paleo diet is almost cert…

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." is a Michael Pollan quote. Definitely recommend his books if you're interested in nutrition.

The funny part here being that with Paleo, this becomes

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly meat."

Re: “Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

#33

Post by brd »

jacalata wrote: post #25
brd wrote: post #9

The biggest problem I have with Zuk is that the entire premise of this book is based on a straw man argument. The "Paleo" in paleo diet comes from the fact that there was a clear dip in human health once we entered the neolithic era (i.e. started farming). We are not emulating a caveman's diet per se, we are simply trying to find and remove what caused that original dip in health. To anyone uninformed about the paleo…

google "The Paleo Diet", first result http://thepaleodiet.com/ : The Paleo Diet is based upon eating wholesome, contemporary foods from the food groups our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have thrived on during the Paleolithic era, the time period from about 2.6 million years ago to the beginning of the agricultural revolution, about 10,000 years ago. These foods include fresh meats (preferably grass-produced or free…

If you take a very black and white approach to it I'd concede that you are correct and that there is a genuine argument being presented that you should eat like a caveman and that Zuk has a point.

However, what you are copying/pasting here is marketing copy. Diets tend to fail because people fail to adhere to them. People fail to adhere to them because they are complicated. These sites are trying to convert visitors by providing a simple, palatable message.

When you get past the sales pitch there is real science behind the paleo diet. The paleo diet started out as a hypothesis based on a paleolithic diet but the paleo diet is well supported by modern nutritional concepts and is advocated for those reasons, not simply because a caveman ate it.

edit: if the paleo diet were simply based on the premise "a caveman ate it" it would be nothing more than a fad diet that died out in the 70s.

Re: “Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

#34

Post by awolf »

jacalata wrote: post #29
awolf wrote: post #22

Zuk is attacking a straw man here. Thinking about our diets from an evolutionary perspective gives us a framework in which to form educated hypotheses. The way an intelligent person applies paleo-based thinking is by forming theories, not by creating an absolutist belief system. Zuk does nothing to invalidate the application data we have about the past in a logical fashion. If Zuk's point is that some people are appl…

To repeat myself from earlier: If you object to people rebutting this 'straw man', then perhaps you should try and stop people from proposing it. You can't call something a straw man simply because it's not what you personally mean by the word.

Right, let me go do that. While I'm at it I'll make sure everyone who Googles "healthy diet" or for that matter "republican", all come away learning exactly the same meanings for those terms.

My point in the above post was: Zuk is positioning herself as if she were attacking Paleo as a concept, but all she's really attacking is the mis-application of information by some members in a larger group. I call that a straw man.

Re: “Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

#35

Post by [deleted] »

ellyagg wrote: post #23
brd wrote: post #9

The biggest problem I have with Zuk is that the entire premise of this book is based on a straw man argument. The "Paleo" in paleo diet comes from the fact that there was a clear dip in human health once we entered the neolithic era (i.e. started farming). We are not emulating a caveman's diet per se, we are simply trying to find and remove what caused that original dip in health. To anyone uninformed about the paleo…

Indeed, it's a review by someone with an axe to grind about a book by someone with an axe to grind. I'm not a "Paleo" person, but the hinting in this article that folks trying to infer better living patterns from the past are loons is faintly preposterous. We have just mounds of evidence (which doubters are free to research themselves) that many pre-Agricultural societies had (and have, actually) far lower rates of t…

[deleted]

Re: “Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

#38

Post by praccu »

graeme wrote: post #16
a_bonobo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds interesting! Do you have any proof for this statement: >there was a clear dip in human health once we entered the neolithic era This statement seems hard to prove seeing as we didn't keep any health-records between 10,000 BC and 2,000 BC (I can see, however, that we currently live quite unhealthy).

I do not know the literature well enough to cite anthropological studies. But as far as I understand it, this is a relatively uncontroversial claim within the field. Jared Diamond's article is a good introduction: http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html Edit: As others have mentioned below, the main evidence is a decline in the height, bone density and tooth health of skeletons of pre and post neolitic humans. Ave…

If you're seriously interested in the anthropology, this is your guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Nathan_Cohen

EDIT: He's quoted in the article you linked, actually.

Re: “Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

#39

Post by cromulent »

brd wrote: post #33
jacalata wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google "The Paleo Diet", first result http://thepaleodiet.com/ : The Paleo Diet is based upon eating wholesome, contemporary foods from the food groups our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have thrived on during the Paleolithic era, the time period from about 2.6 million years ago to the beginning of the agricultural revolution, about 10,000 years ago. These foods include fresh meats (preferably grass-produced or free…

If you take a very black and white approach to it I'd concede that you are correct and that there is a genuine argument being presented that you should eat like a caveman and that Zuk has a point. However, what you are copying/pasting here is marketing copy. Diets tend to fail because people fail to adhere to them. People fail to adhere to them because they are complicated. These sites are trying to convert visitors…

From the 2011 "Updated to include the latest guidelines and research" version of the canonical "The Paleo Diet" by the scientist Loren Courdain who started it all:

====

You'll be following the diet that every single person on the planet ate only 333 generations ago. ... Here are the ground rules:

1. All the lean meats...you can eat

2. All the fruits and non starchy vegetables you can eat

3. No cereals

4. No legumes

5. No dairy products

6. No processed foods

====

It seems like much more than a straw man or marketing copy.

http://books.google.fi/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d_lVB6HZJ4...

Page 23.

Re: “Paleofantasy”: Stone Age delusions

#40

Post by jacalata »

brd wrote: post #33
jacalata wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google "The Paleo Diet", first result http://thepaleodiet.com/ : The Paleo Diet is based upon eating wholesome, contemporary foods from the food groups our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have thrived on during the Paleolithic era, the time period from about 2.6 million years ago to the beginning of the agricultural revolution, about 10,000 years ago. These foods include fresh meats (preferably grass-produced or free…

If you take a very black and white approach to it I'd concede that you are correct and that there is a genuine argument being presented that you should eat like a caveman and that Zuk has a point. However, what you are copying/pasting here is marketing copy. Diets tend to fail because people fail to adhere to them. People fail to adhere to them because they are complicated. These sites are trying to convert visitors…

You said the entire premise of this book is based on a straw man argument. This means 'this book is trying to discredit claims about paleo diets that nobody actually makes'.

My point is that you are wrong that nobody makes those claims, here are some examples of people using exactly that description. Feel free to argue that it misrepresents the makeup of and the reasoning behind paleo diet, but don't argue they didn't say it. And if you've literally never heard someone arguing that they eat just meat and vegetables because our bodies evolved for it in the Stone Age and haven't had time to learn anything else, I envy you.

Here is a fun article about some people who self describe as being 'paleo', for an example of how this 'just marketing copy' is the same as the actual justification for paleo used by many people: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/fashion/10caveman.html?pag...

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