That’s not a monkey.
CHIMPANZEE THAT
The Great American Poisoning
11–20 of 43 posts
Re: The Great American Poisoning
#12> For a wild animal, the default state is health. In normal times, wild animals are an appropriate weight. In the wild, animals don’t become obese. They don’t become depressed or suicidal. They don’t exhibit behavioral disorders. Animals inhabiting their evolved, ancestral environment are healthy — by default.
I disagree, animals starve if there are too many due to overpopulation and will get fat if they find an easy source of food. They often die from infections, collect tons of diseases, have many parasites.
It's easy to see animals be sad and mourn the loss of a pack member or child in certain species.
Re: The Great American Poisoning
#13A typical mishmash of disproven nonsense and scary-sounding soundbites. With a typical tree-hugging nonsense of "Part 5: Health Is Simple and Natural".
Yeah, sure.
Re: The Great American Poisoning
#14Sans the typical HN quips about "default states" and whatnot, the article has a good point.
It's actually kind of funny that whenever I travel to Europe, like 90% of the junk foods I occasionally indulge in when home (like hot Cheetos for instance) are banned. The US supermarket really is a minefield. It's more important than ever to cook at home, imo.
Re: The Great American Poisoning
#15This started out interesting then went off the rails into an ad for paleo diet nonsense.
Well... you can move away from highly processed food without necessarily going to paleo. And it's probably healthier for you to do so. So if you don't like paleo, think it's a fad or whatever, that's fine, but Lucky Charms and Twinkies still aren't a diet that's going to make you healthy.
Re: The Great American Poisoning
#16A related conversation from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40650271
Basically: Polyunsaturated Fats are poisoning your Mitochondria, causing all sorts of metabolic illnesses.
Seed oils seem to be poisonous to humans. However, there is a global Trillion-dollar industry that depends on this not being true...
What could go wrong?
Re: The Great American Poisoning
#17> For a wild animal, the default state is health. the default state is “multiple parasitic infections and permanent semi-healed injuries”
Yeah. I'm into reptiles, and I help people who are way more into that hobby than I am.
Any wild-caught reptile basically needs rehabilitation: de-worming, mite treatments, and in many cases anti-fungal treatment.
Re: The Great American Poisoning
#18I see this type of thinking a lot - where someone assumes that 'in a good natural environment' all animals are just peacefully living their lives and thriving. And to some extent, sure, animals in a rain-forest are gonna thrive better than in an industrial wasteland.
People have a romantic view of nature. Nature is fucking _brutal_, unforgiving, and horrific. Starving to death, living with severe infections, broken limbs, chunks of flesh missing, and hopefully reproducing before you meet your fate - that's how most animals in nature live out their lives.
As humans, we've gained the unique ability to greatly control not only our environment, but also other living creatures' environments, and 'unnatural' is not inherently bad. Nature is, more often than not, extremely horrific for living things.
Could we live in a decent environment, where the food paste we eat tastes pretty good and keeps you at optimal health - somewhere between starving and overweight? certainly possible, some pet owners do this. But that's not natural, that's just 'optimal for long-term health' - which is only one input to life happiness.
Re: The Great American Poisoning
#19This started out interesting then went off the rails into an ad for paleo diet nonsense.
The author doesn't suggest for the readers to go on paleo. The author says:
> With food, the rule of thumb is to eat like your ancestors ate. Avoid ultra-processed foods, and avoid (or dramatically cut down on) the big 3: corn, soy, and wheat. These crops are in everything and are often the most processed, most pesticide-laden, and most fertilizer-intensive crops in our entire agricultural system.
Re: The Great American Poisoning
#20Survivor bias for wild animals… just sayin