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Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

knowablemagazine.org

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Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#61

Post by fjabre »

crazygringo wrote: post #16
samatman wrote: post #4

I agree with the headline (and so would the "Paleo diet" people, in quotes because that's marketing, not a historical claim), but the Hadza aren't my ancestors, or particularly closely related to them. That's true of non sub-Saharan people generally. More importantly, no contemporary hunter-gatherers are a good model for pre-agricultural people (to call them hunter-gatherers at that time is to imply there were other…

> The remaining people practicing such a folkway live on marginal land, the harsh truth of human existence being that if it was rich enough for agriculture, or good for pastoralism, those lifestyles would have won out. That's a bit too harsh, and I spent a couple weeks living with the Hadza at one point. Even went honey-gathering with them up into a Baobab tree, although I was too scared to stick my hand in. They liv…

“They live in the African savannah, which is where humankind first evolved”

We have some evidence to suggest that early humans were there but it is a huge assumption and leap of faith to make a statement like this with certainty. This statement is more likely a religious statement than one a good scientist would make.

A good scientist would not make such a bold assumption without putting it in quotes or a star next to it. You cannot make this statement definitively.

Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#62

Post by hackerlight »

crazygringo wrote: post #16
samatman wrote: post #4

I agree with the headline (and so would the "Paleo diet" people, in quotes because that's marketing, not a historical claim), but the Hadza aren't my ancestors, or particularly closely related to them. That's true of non sub-Saharan people generally. More importantly, no contemporary hunter-gatherers are a good model for pre-agricultural people (to call them hunter-gatherers at that time is to imply there were other…

> The remaining people practicing such a folkway live on marginal land, the harsh truth of human existence being that if it was rich enough for agriculture, or good for pastoralism, those lifestyles would have won out. That's a bit too harsh, and I spent a couple weeks living with the Hadza at one point. Even went honey-gathering with them up into a Baobab tree, although I was too scared to stick my hand in. They liv…

  "If you're of European descent, for example, you share more with the Hadza than you do with those of East Asian descent -- as they also share more with the Hadza than they would with you."
How? Hadza would be about 3/1000th Neanderthal while both Europens and East Asians are about 20/1000th. Because home sapiens mated with them after leaving Africa and there wasn't much gene flow back into Africa. Even if that weren't the case I don't understand the reasoning behind your comment.

Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#63

Post by nradov »

crazygringo wrote: post #16
samatman wrote: post #4

I agree with the headline (and so would the "Paleo diet" people, in quotes because that's marketing, not a historical claim), but the Hadza aren't my ancestors, or particularly closely related to them. That's true of non sub-Saharan people generally. More importantly, no contemporary hunter-gatherers are a good model for pre-agricultural people (to call them hunter-gatherers at that time is to imply there were other…

> The remaining people practicing such a folkway live on marginal land, the harsh truth of human existence being that if it was rich enough for agriculture, or good for pastoralism, those lifestyles would have won out. That's a bit too harsh, and I spent a couple weeks living with the Hadza at one point. Even went honey-gathering with them up into a Baobab tree, although I was too scared to stick my hand in. They liv…

The climate and available foods near Olduvai Gorge were quite different when hominids evolved there. I suspect the current Hadza diet is substantially different from that of our ancient ancestors. Temporal distance matters as much as geographic distance.

Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#64

Post by guerrilla »

jbotz wrote: post #60
guerrilla wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the harsh truth of human existence being that if it was rich enough for agriculture, or good for pastoralism, those lifestyles would have won out. I don't buy this explanation at all. You could say the exact opposite: their land provides so well that they don't need to. I'm find with not knowing which, that's up to scientists who actually study that; not something that can be deduced a priori .

I think you're missing the point... agriculture allows for greater population density and specialization, which makes armies possible (not to mention technology leading to superior armaments), which in turn means that when the two enter into conflict, the militarized agricultural society wins. It's not a value judgement about which lifestyle is better, but if hunter-gatherers live on land that's good for agriculture,…

I think you're missing the point... the only reason you'd need any of that is if it were useful to you. If your environment provides everything you need, then it isn't. Everything you describe needs to be driven by needs. If those needs don't exist because all wants are satisfied in such a society, then there's no push or pull to do all of that. I think you're basing your comment on the assumption that they're missing out on something, but this is exactly what I'm challenging. If you wanted to convince me, you'd have to establish without a doubt that they do have the shit land and that they live in poverty and don't get what they need and are completely marginalized; however, that's far from what I've seen in documentations about them (ignoring notable exceptions.)

Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#65

Post by nradov »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #35
jiggywiggy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing it teaches us is that meat & animal products, especially fat, has been a central part of the diet for most of our ancestral tribal cultures. Since dairy, meat and animal fats are being vilified at the moment by the modern nutritional zeitgeist. It might be worth being skeptical of such a strong rejection of these food categories. Especially since we can't figure out the root causes of certain modern disease…

Having consumed something for a long time doesn’t mean that thing fits our health goals today. e.g. saturated fat contributes to heart disease but didn’t stop us from reproducing.

The best evidence we have now is that sugar consumption is a far worse risk factor for heart disease than saturated fat. The amount of saturated fat in your bloodstream has little relation to the amount you eat.

https://peterattiamd.com/donlayman/

Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#66

Post by brnaftr361 »

User23 wrote: post #26
hinkley wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that if it was rich enough for agriculture, or good for pastoralism, those lifestyles would have won out. Have you read Guns, Germs and Steel ? Agriculture and Colonialism went together, club and hand, not fork and hand. Agriculture didn’t win so much as it conquered the world at spear point. I’ve even read a few feminist things recently that tie sexism to agriculture, one even claims that the plow is the worst thi…

Guns, Germs, and Steel is thoroughly discredited pop science. And even then you’re misrepresenting its claims. Look to David Reich and his students for actual evidence based science on human migrations. And of course there are virtually no impartial contemporary works on the Age of Exploration, because the politics of our day require vilifying those civilizations. The objective reality is that the colonial period was…

Europe had a considerable population predating the Age of Exploration, while I won't commit to calling it causal, enclosure is attributed as one of the reasons for the AoE in texts. And enclosure was at least in part driven by agriculture. So you can call it what you may, but I would call socioeconomically driven violent ingress into previously occupied territories colonialism and not migration.

Reich's book was good.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-14395-4

Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#67

Post by r_hoods_ghost »

samatman wrote: post #4

I agree with the headline (and so would the "Paleo diet" people, in quotes because that's marketing, not a historical claim), but the Hadza aren't my ancestors, or particularly closely related to them. That's true of non sub-Saharan people generally. More importantly, no contemporary hunter-gatherers are a good model for pre-agricultural people (to call them hunter-gatherers at that time is to imply there were other…

"What no one ate as much of is grains, specifically ground grains."

From the article...

"Recently, there’s been some really cool work looking at the little bit of plaque and calculus stuck to the teeth in fossilized hominids. If you look at that, you’ll find remains of plants and starches. So we actually do have preserved evidence that early humans are eating lots of starchy vegetable foods. There’s even some evidence of a primitive flourlike substance that’s made out of grains. That kind of thing is anathema to most Paleo diets, which say that you can’t eat grains because grains are a farmed food."

Can't have evidence mucking up your belief system eh?

Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#68

Post by Slava_Propanei »

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #67
samatman wrote: post #4

I agree with the headline (and so would the "Paleo diet" people, in quotes because that's marketing, not a historical claim), but the Hadza aren't my ancestors, or particularly closely related to them. That's true of non sub-Saharan people generally. More importantly, no contemporary hunter-gatherers are a good model for pre-agricultural people (to call them hunter-gatherers at that time is to imply there were other…

"What no one ate as much of is grains, specifically ground grains." From the article... "Recently, there’s been some really cool work looking at the little bit of plaque and calculus stuck to the teeth in fossilized hominids. If you look at that, you’ll find remains of plants and starches. So we actually do have preserved evidence that early humans are eating lots of starchy vegetable foods. There’s even some evidenc…

Root vegetables are not grains.

Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#69

Post by hombre_fatal »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #47
stevebmark wrote: post #40

I’ve been into nutrition for a few years now, with my entry point originally being paleo. I have no medical training. Paleo has been shown to be off base, but eating a low carb diet and limiting gluten is a fine diet. Some of the nonsense in nutrition includes: - Carnivore, the dumbest diet ever created - Anti seed-oil people - Anti-soy people - People who say ketosis can cure anything (and I’m in ketosis)

Aggressive statements work better with sources, evidence or at the very least anecdotes. Otherwise, your comment is just as nonsensical as the state of nutritional science.

Those statements are in line with nutrition science so it’s unclear what sources you expect if you dismiss nutrition science.

Re: Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet and it had carbs

#70

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

mementomorti wrote: post #29
crazygringo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But honey and HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) ARE the same, for all practical purposes nutritionally. Honey is basically concentrated Coca-Cola. And HFCS is popularly demonized even more than sugar is... so I'm not sure what your point is.

What about other stuff in honey, such as microbiome content?

Genuinely confused here: honey has antimicrobial properties. What micro biome content??
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