Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: zaida on August 01, 2009, 11:12:50 am
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I am sure you have all discussed this at one point and I am still making my way through the old topics but I wanted to get some of your thoughts on a couple things.
I have been looking to find the most natural diet for humans and what we were designed to eat.
Raw definitely makes sense to me wether it be fruit or meat but I am struggling on a few points.
1. Our teeth. Why is it that we were given the teeth structure that we have if we were meant to be carnivores? Compared to a dog or cats teeth ours are vastly different. It seems we are equipped to eat meat however is that we were designed to have as the majority of our diet or should we be consuming something in nature perhaps that is not available in grocery stores? We also seem to have a longer digestive system than most carnivores so would that suggest a diet consisting of some plant mater?
2. The hunt. To hunt a deer or other animal in this day and age is easy. We have gun power, traps and knives. What about at the beginning of humanity? Without those things how would we have been able to take these fast moving creatures down often enough to survive? Or were we scavengers and ate off the remains of carcasses from other animals such as lions and tigers? I know at one point we would have figured out how to make bow and arrows and spears but what about before that? I am not that knowledgeable on history and would love to hear other ideas out there.
thanks in advance for any insight!
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I just saw that two topics down it talks about man the scavenger lol. I will have to read that to get some insight as well.
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most native peoples hunted without long range weapons pretty often. they would get a few guys together and herd deer into traps. they can then corner a few and kill them with clubs or spears. another technique to get bison was to herd them over a cliff. there are many ways to hunt if you have a group of people to hunt with. but yes, it would have been pretty difficult to hunt alone i would think. but then again i've heard of indians hiding in trees and then jumping on to passing deer.
as for the teeth: because humans had tools to cut meat we probably didnt need to adapt a more carnivorous looking set of teeth that could tear and rip apart flesh. the tools did it for us
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meat doesn't need to be chewed. Fangs are merely a weapon not part of the digestive process. The structure of our teeth and how to maintain them is the however same as cats and dogs.
the digestive system is longer than a cats but not nearly as long as a herbivore. The digestive system of a human and a cat is virtually the same. A throat, one stomach and intestines. Like carnivores human digestion takes place in the small intestine with the large intestine remaining largely inactive.
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Why is it that we were given the teeth structure that we have if we were meant to be carnivores?
Humans are true omnivores.
Humans can survive on a wide range of food.
Omnivory is partly the reason why humans probably inherited the earth.
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Similarly to what invisible said, it seems to me that hands and knives are a replacement for big incisors. Chimps use their hands and tools to cut up their meat.
The hunt - again, we are the tool making species. We have probably had spears since before we were human - Neanderthals have decent stone weapons for example, and chimps use sticks to fight and other tools. And we are cooperative hunters so it's not about one human bringing down one mammoth. Probably just dig a hole and drive the mammoth into it.
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Similarly to what invisible said, it seems to me that hands and knives are a replacement for big incisors. Chimps use their hands and tools to cut up their meat.
The hunt - again, we are the tool making species. We have probably had spears since before we were human - Neanderthals have decent stone weapons for example, and chimps use sticks to fight and other tools. And we are cooperative hunters so it's not about one human bringing down one mammoth. Probably just dig a hole and drive the mammoth into it.
Current evidence indicates strongly that nets/traps/bows and arrows and similiar technology only got invented c.60,000 years ago , towards the tail-end of the Palaeolithic era. That seems to imply that the scavenger theory is far more likely than the hunter theory, up till 60,000 years ago, when hunting started to predominate.
Re hands/knives:- Irrelevant, really. Since humans have herbivore teeth as well as carnivore teeth, it becomes clear that hominids were omnivorous, not carnivorous or herbivorous. Same goes for digestive system which is a mix between carnivorous and herbivorous.
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thanks for the info guys, something to really think about. seems as though we as humans were created to adapt to the environment and situations we are in. I remember seeing a old jaw bone picture somewhere on the net and the teeth on it were worn right down and rounded almost, as though they were used for heavy chewing. Would we have chewed on small bones maybe years ago? Cats and dogs do not have flat molars like we do at the backs of our mouths as they only need to rip the meat and swallow. Is it merely connivence that we have the ability to eat a variety of raw foods or is there and underlying reason we have yet to find out. I know that there are some of you that are on a purely carnivores diet here.... do you ever get any cravings for something either than what your eating?
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thanks for the info guys, something to really think about. seems as though we as humans were created to adapt to the environment and situations we are in. I remember seeing a old jaw bone picture somewhere on the net and the teeth on it were worn right down and rounded almost, as though they were used for heavy chewing. Would we have chewed on small bones maybe years ago? Cats and dogs do not have flat molars like we do at the backs of our mouths as they only need to rip the meat and swallow. Is it merely connivence that we have the ability to eat a variety of raw foods or is there and underlying reason we have yet to find out. I know that there are some of you that are on a purely carnivores diet here.... do you ever get any cravings for something either than what your eating?
I would put it the other way: seems as though we as humans were created to adapt the environment and situations we are in to us.
This is what the big brain and hands are for.
As for the worn teeth, I'm guessing that was neolithic, and also maybe more likely from someone who had no access to the right stone for making cutting/pounding/sawing tools. For instance recent traditional Inuit.
No recent cravings. I have daydreams of the perfect hamburger - the masterpiece of North American cuisine - but I think that's more the artistic urge than appetite.
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thanks for the info guys, something to really think about. seems as though we as humans were created to adapt to the environment and situations we are in. I remember seeing a old jaw bone picture somewhere on the net and the teeth on it were worn right down and rounded almost, as though they were used for heavy chewing. Would we have chewed on small bones maybe years ago? Cats and dogs do not have flat molars like we do at the backs of our mouths as they only need to rip the meat and swallow. Is it merely connivence that we have the ability to eat a variety of raw foods or is there and underlying reason we have yet to find out. I know that there are some of you that are on a purely carnivores diet here.... do you ever get any cravings for something either than what your eating?
Zaida, beware of the people and books proclaiming their diet as being "paleo" and trying to tell you that it doesn't involve mostly carbohydrates. There was hardly a single time in the entirity of human evolution that man was mainly carnivore...
Fruit is the food of choice for nearly all primates and it is the most nutritious as well. Luckily fruit has been selected generation upon generation according to human tastebuds.... ie. more healthy. Yes because humans are always drawn to the most healthy food as it's the one that tastes the nicest.... only with cooking and processing does this rule not apply. It's also a myth that modern fruit has more sugar than wild fruit... the fruit I like best doesn't have the most sugar... nobody picks their fruit like that. Just like our eyes evolved to give us sight, our taste evolved to give us the healthiest things to eat. Ever wonder why you're attracted to the darkest fruit for ones such as grapes or plums? Because it's sweetest right? Right, and the most nutritious by far, but it does NOT have more sugar.
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You'll have to find out for yourself. Many have learned how addictive sugar in any form can be, and when consuming in even moderate quantities, how difficult it becomes for your body to become a fat burner, or a body that can efficiently use fat for fuel. Something someone said onetime online was, that fruit eaters, (not just an occasional fruit eater, as in a piece of fruit like one would have a piece of candy for desert) would rather fail in health than give up their fruit. I was that way, and then I read that line and it hit right in the face. He was talking about me. That's when I gave it up. Now it tastes sooo sweet, so artificial. I am not saying that my experience is truth for everyone. But when I did give it up, I practically laid on the couch for several days until my body could start producing energy from fat sources. Most will never go the distance to find out what it trully feels like to burn fat instead of sugar for energy. When we're young we can take the rise and fall of blood sugar and insulin responses over and over. But a little bit of reading will enlighten one on the aging effects of excessive insulin exposure. There is a lot of emerging research daily. And then we can read all about the benefits of fruit, it's antioxidents etc.... and feel good about continuing eating it. But for me, I only really knew when I put the stake in the ground and said 'I am going to see if what others are writing about is true". And for the me my body stays so much more in balance by not giving it the swings that good amounts of fruit and or sugar put it through.
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Van please don't think I'm attempting to pick apart your post or anything when I quote you multiple times. It's only because I think it's an intelligent post that I'm replying to it in a lengthy way.
You'll have to find out for yourself.
I agree, the best way each person can find his/her best diet is by experimentation and sticking with what they like.
Many have learned how addictive sugar in any form can be,
err... but fish/eggs/peanuts are just as if not MORE addictive. There's nothing inherently wrong with being addictive anyway.
and when consuming in even moderate quantities, how difficult it becomes for your body to become a fat burner, or a body that can efficiently use fat for fuel.
I don't want to burn fat, I'm at my ideal weight. Hilariously, if I ever want to add a few cheap calories... I eat lots of peanuts or fish. Fat and protein are not natural fuels, that's why the body hates using them for energy and tries to avoid it as much as possible. Honestly guys, I don't know what you "very little carb" guys are doing to yourselves, but it could range from disasterous long-term ruination of your health or perhaps you will end up about the same as SAD diet.
Something someone said onetime online was, that fruit eaters, (not just an occasional fruit eater, as in a piece of fruit like one would have a piece of candy for desert) would rather fail in health than give up their fruit.
If it feels good then it's good for you. The only thing that obfuscates this is processed food.
I was that way, and then I read that line and it hit right in the face. He was talking about me. That's when I gave it up. Now it tastes sooo sweet, so artificial. I am not saying that my experience is truth for everyone. But when I did give it up, I practically laid on the couch for several days until my body could start producing energy from fat sources. Most will never go the distance to find out what it trully feels like to burn fat instead of sugar for energy. When we're young we can take the rise and fall of blood sugar and insulin responses over and over.
Frankly, I very much doubt that you were high fruitarian for very long. I bet it was the chocolate chip cookies and ice-cream etc. that you ate along with your banana that made you fat. Otherwise you wouldn't be fat. Let me go on record as saying that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be fat if you eat nothing but fresh fruit. I can't say I'm 60 years old and been pure fruitarian for the past 20 years and I'm in wonderful health, but there are some who can say things similar to that.
But a little bit of reading will enlighten one
Read up on evolution, NOT the latest faddist nonsense to come out of a lab. Do you realise that the more they hypothesize, the more "breakthroughs" they're said to have found the more money and eminence they gain? Nutritional science in a lab is basically a religion these days, not everyone buys into it.
The whole point of this board is "raw paleo forum".... ie. what PALEO man ate, NOT some clinical findings in a lab.
on the aging effects of excessive insulin exposure. There is a lot of emerging research daily. And then we can read all about the benefits of fruit, it's antioxidents etc.... and feel good about continuing eating it. But for me, I only really knew when I put the stake in the ground and said 'I am going to see if what others are writing about is true". And for the me my body stays so much more in balance by not giving it the swings that good amounts of fruit and or sugar put it through.
Okay fine. Let me just throw you a thought though. And you might find this a strange idea at first, but please give it a chance: When I first heard of the idea of "metabolic syndrome", my first thought was the same as most others "yeah, they're probably eating too much and not exercising and had a lower metabolism to begin with, sucks". Now I absolutely believe that it is a biochemical transformation that occurs at earliest in your 30s or 40s and is as a result of constant abuse of insulin over and over when the person was younger. NOT little pulses of insulin, but extreme insulin load many times what it would ever rise to with fruit. Sort of like diabetes-lite.... a horrible disease that you get that limits the amount of sugar you can take. Maybe you have that, hell maybe a very high protein diet could be necessary for a while to try to reverse it or maybe there is no reversing. So maybe the diet really is best for YOU, but a person eating fruit their whole lives isn't going to get into the territory of eating 20 times the fruit they're eating, which would be what was necessary to get that horrible condition or diabetes. That's what could also cause such a high-protein phenomenon, have a think about that and if you don't like the idea fine, but just remember that it's definitely not rawpaleo to eat 90%+ non-fruit.... and that's what this particular forum is supposed to be for.
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I think no matter what everyone should have their own diet that is best for their body and we must all journey and search to find what works best for us as and individual.
Van- I find sugar to be very addictive, I notice it most the next day as well. Also when eating sugar contained foods I find I can keep eating even past the point of being full which feels very unnatural. I still am eating fruit at them moment and don't think I will ever completely cut it out but I would like to lower the amount greatly in the next year. I tried to be on a mainly raw fruit and veg diet and found I was never satisfied.
SuperInfinity- Its always great to hear other opinions and thoughts. One thing I do wonder about though is if the fruit we eat in our generation and age can be considered Paleo. A Paleo man would have eaten fruit that was wild and pure. Looking at the fruits available in cities today I do not beleive that it mimics the fruit a Paleo man would have eaten at all. We are mass producing them in fields time and time again. These fields cannot hold the minerals and nutrients that the wild would have long ago where Paleo man would have been getting his fruit. Most wild berries are sour and tart rather than sweet. As well as wild fruit tends to be smaller which means you would have to eat a lot more to get your fill. If you were a larger group this would be very hard unless you were living in the right terrain.
As far as being able to survive without carbs what about the eskimos? They do not have readily available fruits to eat but they seem to survive just fine - with stunningly white teeth ;)
I never really though of fish as a fattening protein. I would think beef or lamb would be better but I am not certain on this.
I think when van was talking about using being a fat burner he was trying to describe more the way the body takes the fat we consume and turn it into energy therefor using it as fuel and not to burn your own fat on your body. At least that is what I think he meant.
To say that no carb guys may end up the same as if on a SAD diet is a bit harsh.
I have read many testimonials on this site about people being on pure fruitarian diets and not feeling well or healthy on them at all and when switching to raw meats and fats felt a lot better. If you are wanting to discuss pure fruit diets you may be better off finding a forum that is actually about that. I think we should look at history and what Paleo man has eaten but also we must look at the present and use technology to try and better understand human digestion and health. What comes out of this technology and science may not all be perfectly correct but we should really always keep an open mind and be ready for new ideas. Now that we are more advance than ever I would think we would be able to learn more about nutrition. I think the main thing however that scientist are missing and will end up leading them to improper results is the fact that our foods should be taken raw. To do a study on cooked meat and cooked fat will give results no where near to what you would get with raw meats and raw fats. Unfortunately the majority (almost all!) of the world eats cooked fats and cooked meats so that is what they will run their test and get their facts on.
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Most of today's "research" needs a funding mechanism.
raw paleo diet has no funding mechanism.
So we are roughly on our own.
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I don't know what you "very little carb" guys are doing to yourselves, but it could range from disasterous long-term ruination of your health or perhaps you will end up about the same as SAD diet.
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Unfortunactely you have no evidence to bak this up. Yet plenty supports no negatives from doing it.
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Fat and protein are not natural fuels, that's why the body hates using them for energy and tries to avoid it as much as possible.
The body stores excess energy regardless of where it comes from as fat, it does not avoid using fat. It chooses to have most of its energy reserves as fat so how did you draw such a conclusion?
The body burns the least important things for fuel first i.e. Sugar. Then turns to fat, muscle and finally organs.
A lion will burn sugar for energy before fat if it eats carbohydrates (which it of course can, in fact cats fed carbohydrate based diets such as pets, suffer all the health problems that plague humans eating SAD - no coincidence)
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Current evidence indicates strongly that nets/traps/bows and arrows and similiar technology only got invented c.60,000 years ago , towards the tail-end of the Palaeolithic era. That seems to imply that the scavenger theory is far more likely than the hunter theory, up till 60,000 years ago, when hunting started to predominate.
Hi Tyler.
I don't know the details of the scavenger vs hunter theory, but to me it doesn't seem to follow that because there were no nets/traps/bows and arrows that hunting didn't take place. Some aborigines didn't have these things, but they could bring down kangaroos with a spear. It doesn't have to be exclusively scavenging or hunting does it?
In fact, do you not think that neanderthals hunted large game? They didn't have advanced technology. Ok, they were bigger than us, but not that bigger. This study found that Nea and modern human hunting tactics were similar.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/250525/neanderthal_hunting_practices_pg2.html?cat=37
Would a pit for hunting mammoths leave evidence?
Regarding teeth, I think you've taken my point the wrong way. This thread seems to have become meat vs fruitarian or something, whereas I took the OP to mean 'how could we eat a lot of meat if we have no fangs' and I was saying that we could use tools or hands rather than tearing with big incisors.
I'm sure you're right that we have omnivorous teeth...I think it's hard to know exactly what the balance was as there are no paleo humans and would be very hard to prove anything with studies.
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Neanderthals were, until recently, supposed to have only hunted large gamewhich was cited as a reason for their extinction when big game became scarce), but recent studies have shown their diet was much wider including plant food small mammals and even seafood and probably fowl. Like humans, Neanderthals didn't have the luxury of plentiful food-supplies so had to just take whatever food they found.
1 problem with large mammals is that they are more dangerous, being able to kill hunters quite easily so that smaller mammals are an easier option for prey.
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Cool. That is food for thought. I have to say that when I first started this, the idea of chicken, rabbits etc was quite repellent, but now I quite fancy it. I might try some from the market.
I suppose it's easy to create a 'just so' story to fit any of our own prejudices. In the end, none of us really know we can only say what's working for us. I don't see myself being able to eat as much fruit as some people, but maybe that could change.
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I think no matter what everyone should have their own diet that is best for their body and we must all journey and search to find what works best for us as and individual. ....
Brilliant post Zaida! You are wise to think and investigate yourself rather than adhere to the dogma of any diet guru or group.
Regarding your questions...
TEETH
The physiology of human teeth is actually one of the best arguments for NOT following vegetarianism. As I've posted elsewhere, the carnivorous aspects of our omnivorous teeth tend to be ignored by vegetarians. The teeth of all carnivores and of humans consist of canine and brachydont (low-crowned) teeth. Brachydont teeth erupt once and do not grow or get replaced and they have a continuous, fairly uniform enamel that coats the external surface of the crown of brachydont teeth.
Herbivores' teeth tend to have rough surfaces spiked with ridges of enamel (lophs), better enabling grinding. Strict herbivores have aradicular (without roots) hypsodont (high-crowned) molars that grow continuously, which prevents their disappearance as they are worn down by the frequent grinding. Most of the enamel in hypsodont teeth lies beneath a layer of cementum. Even omnivores whose diets are plant-heavy, such as rodents, have hypsodont teeth, whereas we have none.
If humans are really designed to be 100% plant eaters, why do humans have none of the hypsodont teeth that herbivores and omnivores with plant-heavy diets have?
HUNTING
Regarding hunting, big game hunting is not the only kind of hunting. Unless we are to believe that small animals like insects, lizards, fish, birds and small mammals are plants, then ALL primates hunt, and of course all primates eat at least some nonplant foods. On this subject of hunting and consumption of fauna by primates I devoted a thread and supplied much evidence.
Check out my avatar--it shows a chimp who fashioned his own small spear and used it to hunt bushbabies with vigorous, killing stabs and eat them. Are we really to believe that chimps can hunt but early humans could not?
Besides, as regards the question of whether humans should become 100% vegetarians and whether our physiology is that of a 100% herbivore or frugivore, as many fanatical vegetarians and fruitarians claim, what difference does it make whether humans scavenged or hunted their meat? Either way they ate some meat and their physiology apparently enabled this.
Here is an excellent counter to the ridiculous claims that early humans were 100% plant eaters or maybe just did a little scavenging on the side: "Excerpts from The Protein Power Lifeplan by Drs. Michael & Mary Eades (http://drbass.com/eades.html#3)."
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I'm sure you're right that we have omnivorous teeth...I think it's hard to know exactly what the balance was as there are no paleo humans and would be very hard to prove anything with studies.
How about Gary Taubes' GCBC, where he presents studies that show that zero carb or very low carb is the way to health, and there is the experience of members here.
Humans are paleo by design, so the studies are relevant.
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Thanks for the info on teeth! I always thought teeth didn't do much to explain how we evolved, but that helped.
I noticed people asking about weapons, hunting, and such. These are just my thoughts on the subject. First, I've noticed if a place gets little enough human contact, some animals won't really recognize us as predators. Also, you don't need bows, atl-atls, or traps to hunt. With a little sneakiness, you can get within spear range of even some large game (did this 3 nights ago to some sleeping deer, I live in the boonies), or they can be ran down.
Also, most people assume group hunting. Has anyone done any research on this? My best hunting has always been alone or with one other person, and large groups always seem as worthless as their clumsiest, stupidest member. I also think I'd rather share my kill with mate/children first, not a group.
I've never really thought of us as scavengers, because that means the best parts of the animal are gone, but it would make the job easier, and in the absence of wolves or lions, I can see this being a good survival strategy. Plus, there's a lot less work to do.
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Thanks for the info everyone. As for our teeth I feel as though they are versatile but mainly made for meat. We have a jaw action of both up and down as well as sideways while herbivores I believe only have a side to side action (e.g horse) and carnivores tend to have a up and down action (e.g alligator). Don't quote me on that though as those are just my thoughts and may not be fact. As far as fruit and teeth I would think that if fruit were to be eaten by humans in large quantity it wouldn't have the harming effect that they do on our teeth such as causing more sensitive teeth and wearing off the enamel from the acids in fruit. I have heard of strawberries to whiten teeth but you end up weakening your teeth and causing them to be more sensitive. Never tried it though.
As far as hunting I feel we hunted from the beginning. Wether we did it with nets, holes or spears I do not know but one way or another I do believe we were intelligent enough to figure out that we can get more energy out of eating animals than plants. As far as eating any plants at all I am still not certain of this however when the time is right I will experiment with it and listen to what my body tells me. Maybe plants are just meant to be eaten occasionally by themselves as a cleanse? I have read about juices being a cleanse well one idea could be every so often humans would gorge on plants to clean out their digestive systems?
I feel we need to try and emulate what our ancestors at but just because they did eat something doesn't mean that we should eat it as well as just because they didn't eat it doesn't meant that we shouldn't. Just because they lived long ago in good health doesn't mean they had the 'perfect' diet however I think they were a lot closer to it that most of the world nowadays will ever be.
Another thought is how did they store their meat once they caught a large animal? They didn't have fridges or freezers back then. Would they just allow their meat to age naturally or would they process it in some way or store specially?
Few ideas I had were:
burying in the ground to get it at colder temp
smoking (if their was fire)
dehydrating.... not sure how they would have accomplished this though.
When meat is left out flies tend to swarm it and lay their eggs. We all know the result of this however is the meat considered unfit when there are maggots on it? I know my cats wont eat it but my dogs are always more than willing. I understand that maggots are a source of protein as well however the quality of it I am unsure. Do any of you ever leave their meat out in the open air for more than a hour or so?
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As for our teeth I feel as though they are versatile but mainly made for meat.
Noooo... no no, you're not right there. Teeth made mainly for meat are shaped totally differently. Now you may have quibbles with the practical implications of MODERN teeth and FRUIT, but not vegetable eating. I do think it's worth looking more at the shape than the alleged implications because noone can really prove the implications or what their real cause is from. From the shape human teeth are mainly herbivore, with the slightest of canines as seen on omnivorous but mostly herbivore teeth.
To the guy who said that commercial fruit is so different: it is not. As I have tirelessly explained before the fruit you buy in the stores is NOT selected by higher sugar, higher sugar fruit is NOT more appealing to humans, the sweetest fruit is NOT from the highest sugar it is from the most nutritious. Fruit has been artificially selected to give the most nutritious fruit possible while unhealthy apples etc. are thrown away. Our taste evolved over millions of years to be drawn towards the most NUTRITIOUS foods, just like our eyes evolved.... yes it may be hard for us to imagine such a complex thing at first. It has NOTHING to do with the sugar in a fruit. Please stop being blind and think about things for a change, think about whether the fruit you like most has more sugar or not... look up what fruit online has the most sugar. It has ZERO to do with how good it tastes and has EVERYTHING to do with bitter and twisted and deranged fat sugar-haters who fall back on bad foods and get fat(ter) over and over again. Open your eyes and see for yourself instead of just reading someone else's word.
The physiology of human teeth is actually one of the best arguments for NOT following vegetarianism.
Definitely, it is the best argument. But PaleoPhil, our teeth may be ruined by early food exposure and never have developed properly.
As I've posted elsewhere, the carnivorous aspects of our omnivorous teeth tend to be ignored by vegetarians. The teeth of all carnivores and of humans consist of canine and brachydont (low-crowned) teeth. Brachydont teeth erupt once and do not grow or get replaced and they have a continuous, fairly uniform enamel that coats the external surface of the crown of brachydont teeth.
So what if "the teeth of all carnivores and of humans consist of canine and low-crowned teeth"? You can equally say the teeth of all herbivores and of humans consist of wisdom teeth and incisors. Omnivores can have them both.
Herbivores' teeth tend to have rough surfaces spiked with ridges of enamel (lophs), better enabling grinding. Strict herbivores have aradicular (without roots) hypsodont (high-crowned) molars that grow continuously, which prevents their disappearance as they are worn down by the frequent grinding. Most of the enamel in hypsodont teeth lies beneath a layer of cementum. Even omnivores whose diets are plant-heavy, such as rodents, have hypsodont teeth, whereas we have none.
If humans are really designed to be 100% plant eaters, why do humans have none of the hypsodont teeth that herbivores and omnivores with plant-heavy diets have?
You mention rodents... well rodents have no canines and yet are sometimes carnivorous and YET their incisors are continually growing right throughout their lives, and I'm sure there are other examples as well.
I could just as equally say: If humans are really designed to be 100% meat eaters then why do humans have no growing canine/incisors teeth that many carnivores have. And remember, I'm NOT saying that we're designed to be 100% vegetarians!!!! I have never stated that.
HUNTING
Regarding hunting, big game hunting is not the only kind of hunting. Unless we are to believe that small animals like insects, lizards, fish, birds and small mammals are plants, then ALL primates hunt, and of course all primates eat at least some nonplant foods. On this subject of hunting and consumption of fauna by primates I devoted a thread and supplied much evidence.
Nice try PaleoPhil, trying to sort of merge "hunting" in with all kinds of gathering of animal protein. I suggest you look the word "hunting" up in a dictionary. ;) You RAFists are so taken with the romantic idea of man going out hunting it's ridiculous. Only in very recent history has man really taken to hunting and even then... most modern tribes, the vast majority get the most of their food by far from meat.
The old fables and fairytales of people's living on animal blood and cow's milk are clearly made-up exaggerated nonsense. People always tell lies and exaggerate. Considering some of those tribes will tell you of how the village founder fought off twenty lions and four pythons to save a baby there, and kill you and eat you for disrespecting one of their Gods... I wouldn't believe everything they say. Maybe the Inuit can exist well on a NEARLY all RAF diet... Inuit look hugely different from us, so much that you might say they're a subspecies.... you have to accept that they are more developed for RAF than we are... otherwise you're creating a contradiction because they only split from us a short time ago and yet we are supposed to have evolved to have a high RAF a short time ago..... ANYWAY....).
You know how in those nature documentaries there are lions that guilefully and skillfully and tactfully come in for the kill? Oh how majestic they are in hunting their prey, how beautifully they track down and hunt their prey... really, I'm serious they are! A beauty and wonder of nature to behold... then the camera pans out a little and you see a couple of sneaky, surreptitious, weasely-looking, lamer couple of hyenas and vultures around waiting for the the lions to have their fill so they can move in on the remains... now it's not that I'm not saying the humans are in the latter group.... not at all. The humans, when times were bad and they were very hungry, were actually out of the picture behind the hyenas and vultures! The scavengers of scavengers.... as hyenas and vulutures could rip a human apart no problem. A little before they resorted to eating dirt/bark etc. the humans would be waiting for THOSE guys to have their fill and THEN after all of that move in for their little bits of meat.
Look at this place. You start off as a forager, move on to egg-poacher or whatever.... it's a JOKE! The smartest, most skillful, most brainy humans were the FORAGERS!!!! Those who regard hunting as being somehow "superior" are making a big mistake. You're very possibly ruining your health over a kind of religion or imagery of hunters as being such great indviduals.... perhaps they were with regards to RANK, after all hunting shows off prowess but NOT with regard to HEALTHY EATING! Why would it take more brains to hunt than to forage??? It doesn't! That's why Orangutans, who are basically frugivores are the second smartest species on the planet.... they need to know the locations and behaviour of all nuts, fruit, etc. all around them. What are good to eat and when etc.
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Another thought is how did they store their meat once they caught a large animal? They didn't have fridges or freezers back then. Would they just allow their meat to age naturally or would they process it in some way or store specially?
Few ideas I had were:
burying in the ground to get it at colder temp
smoking (if their was fire)
dehydrating.... not sure how they would have accomplished this though.
When meat is left out flies tend to swarm it and lay their eggs. We all know the result of this however is the meat considered unfit when there are maggots on it? I know my cats wont eat it but my dogs are always more than willing. I understand that maggots are a source of protein as well however the quality of it I am unsure. Do any of you ever leave their meat out in the open air for more than a hour or so?
They dried it, mostly, and a smudge fire keeps the flies away. That's all the smoke was for.
Tastes better than raw to me.
I bet they made pemmican.
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To the guy who said that commercial fruit is so different: it is not. As I have tirelessly explained before the fruit you buy in the stores is NOT selected by higher sugar, higher sugar fruit is NOT more appealing to humans, the sweetest fruit is NOT from the highest sugar it is from the most nutritious. Fruit has been artificially selected to give the most nutritious fruit possible while unhealthy apples etc. are thrown away.
This may have happened up to the early 20th century. When pesticides and large scale commercial farming came into the picture, only money mattered.
I went through my fruitarian phase and I live in an abundant fruit growing country and I can tell you I avoid commercially grown fruit because they suck in so many ways! For example:
CAVENDISH BANANAS - mono farming, all forms of pesticides, herbicides, etc., chemically washed, picked too early, ripened artificially, chemically washed, irradiated for export. And besides, these are the worst bananas, us natives do not eat it and feed it to the pigs. We feel foreigners are dummies wanting to eat these bananas because they look "perfect" but we natives view "perfect" looking fruit with suspicion as WEIRD. Only grown by big multinational corporations.
YELLOW CARABAO MANGOES - sprayed and sprayed with chemicals to flower and bear fruit. Picked too early. Artificially ripened with "kalburo" - a toxic foul smelling chemical in gun powder, which is illegal, but is an industry practice. The farmers who grow carabao mangoes set aside a couple of trees for their PERSONAL / FAMILY consumption which they do not put chemicals on because they know the rest of their produce is toxic.
Many of our other fruits are wildcrafted, merely planted and the farmers just watch over it so nobody steals the fruit, no intervention whatsoever.
Fruitarians have good arguments but the results show NOTHING. Many teeth have been harmed in their trying fruitarian. I gave up fruitarian after 2 months. There is no CURE TOOTH DECAY program in the fruitarian way. In fact, cure tooth decay protocols usually require lots of raw animal foods. See the book www.curetoothdecay.com
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If you're going to argue that we are meant to not eat meat, or only eat a very little bit, then you should at least be eating insects. 80% of the worlds population still purposefully eats insects. Insects naturally occur in fruit anyways, plus they have nutrients that fruit does not.
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Super Infinity, I am sorry if you got the wrong idea but this topic was suppose to discuss hunting and methods that would have been used in more primitive days, not how we didn't hunt. There is tons of ancient evidence that suggest hunting long ago. Every thing from ancient spears to wall paintings.
As far as the teeth issue, it is not something we should dwell on. As far as how we don't have teeth like other carnivores I strongly now believe that we do not need to. We have hands that are very versatile as well as brains for creating weapons to kill and cut our meat. For other carnivores such as a lion or a dog they need a special set of teeth on their own as they do not have the skills to make weapons and traps to hunt their prey with. I do not state that this is how it is but instead I state that this is what I personally believe. Everyone has their right to freedom of belief however it is not polite to tell someone they are wrong without having sufficient evidence to back up the claim. Our jaws have gotten smaller over time thus we now need to take out our wisdom teeth because even though our jaws are getting smaller our number of teeth are not. Do we know the real reason why this is happening? No but it is enjoyable to discuss reasons and to hear others thoughts.
As Goodsamaritan pointed out commercial fruit is nowhere near what Paleo man would have eaten. Try going yourself into the wild one day without any farmers fields and you will see yourself wild fruit and veggies is vastly different in both appearance and taste (and most notably nutrition) than what you will ever buy from a grocery store. And unhealthy apples do not get thrown away, people are too greedy and ready to make a quick buck for that. Those unhealthy apples are most likely taken and used to make apple sauce or put in the apple pies at Mcdonalds.
Super Infinity I really think you need to open your mind up to other possibilities as we are discovering new things every day. To have your mind set so hard in one direction will not allow you to grow but rather it will end up hindering you. To have your own set of views and beliefs is great but you should not push them on to others. From what I have seen the majority of people here on this forum eat mainly meat. If you are not willing to accept the fact that they will not change that then you would be best off taking your conversations to a more fruit and veg orientated forum.
William - I will have to try a smudge fire in my backyard next time I am cutting up a animal for my dogs! the flies are always bothering me and I was going to resort to trying to screen a area in. Or would my neighbors get cranky about a smudge fire? How do you make one? They are great about not making a fuss about what I do in my backyard. Once I decided to slaughter 12 roosters myself in my backyard ( I definitely would not recommend doing this in the city) and one got away on me and was running up and down my back lane. My neighbors still crack jokes about it. Never caught the rooster either... not sure what happened to him but I know I wont be trying that again!
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Thanks for the info everyone. As for our teeth I feel as though they are versatile but mainly made for meat. We have a jaw action of both up and down as well as sideways while herbivores I believe only have a side to side action (e.g horse) and carnivores tend to have a up and down action (e.g alligator).
Quite correct. I have more info on this, but I didn't want to make a really long post and bore people, especially since it seems everyone but a troll recognizes that we have omnivorous teeth that have more carnivorous features than most omnivores. In other words, we seem to be designed to be opportunistic carnivores that eat mainly flesh foods, with small amounts of plant foods, particularly during times that flesh--especially animal fat--is scarce.
Isn't it interesting how animals are leanest in the spring, around the same time that plants in Africa and other warm climes are fresh, young, sprouting and most succulent? It works out well for omnivores, who are well adapted to the cycles of nature.
My guess is that Stone Agers also discarded some lean meat during the lean spring months, and killed more animals to get enough marrow, brains and perinephric fat. This unfortunately might have contributed to the extinction of the megafauna, but I can only speculate at this point.
As far as fruit and teeth I would think that if fruit were to be eaten by humans in large quantity it wouldn't have the harming effect that they do on our teeth such as causing more sensitive teeth and wearing off the enamel from the acids in fruit. I have heard of strawberries to whiten teeth but you end up weakening your teeth and causing them to be more sensitive. Never tried it though.
My teeth are noticeably whiter and healthier on a ZC diet. The teeth of carnivores also tend to be white and healthy... (http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1370/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1370-447.jpg), unlike the teeth of those of the chimps I reported on before who eat too many sweet fruits and don't get enough of the special tree bark that helps kill off the cavity-causing bacteria that even wild fruits promote. It's rare to find human fruitarians who have been on the diet for more than a few months who don't have dental problems or don't have to take extraordinary measures to keep their teeth and gums healthy (electric toothbrushes, water picks, extensive flossing, etc.).
Maybe plants are just meant to be eaten occasionally by themselves as a cleanse?
That is one of the reasons that aboriginal peoples eat plants, especially particular plants, and clays, charcoal, and ash are also used to deal with GI issues, yes. I think that plants were eaten for more reasons than that, though. However, if Stone Agers had easy access to year-round plentiful animal fat like most of us do today, I think they would have eaten even more meat & fat than they did.
Another thought is how did they store their meat once they caught a large animal? They didn't have fridges or freezers back then.
Sun drying, aging and smoking were probably the most common methods and still seem pretty common in Africa today from the travel shows, cooking shows and documentaries I've seen. Mother nature does provide freezers in cold climates during the winter. I have stored frozen foods on a dorm window balcony here in Vermont in the past.
Few ideas I had were:
burying in the ground to get it at colder temp
smoking (if their was fire)
Yup
dehydrating.... not sure how they would have accomplished this though.
Through sun drying
When meat is left out flies tend to swarm it and lay their eggs. We all know the result of this however is the meat considered unfit when there are maggots on it? I know my cats wont eat it but my dogs are always more than willing. I understand that maggots are a source of protein as well however the quality of it I am unsure. Do any of you ever leave their meat out in the open air for more than a hour or so?
I'm guessing that they normally dried meat near or above a fire, so that the smoke would help keep bugs away. On the other hand, in a San Bushmen video it shows them just hanging the meat in a tree overnight so it would be lighter to carry back to the camp the next day.
If meat is only hung for a few hours, then maggots do not have a chance to hatch. This apparently is commonly done in less developed countries and the people don't seem to mind that there are flies on the meat, from the videos I've seen. A gourmet American chef on a TV show even sampled some of the raw goat meat that had been hanging and fly-covered at an Ethiopian butcher shop, so apparently there isn't much risk. He even joked about it.
I think we North Americans are far more squeamish than most people in the world, and I think it is partly because we are so far removed from the entire food production process and indeed the whole human life cycle. The birth and death of both animals and humans is now hidden away. Almost everything has been sanitized and packaged. We need to step back into the circle of life and death and embrace it all, as Joseph Campbell, Paul Shepard, Lierre Keith, and others have argued and as all the remaining traditional peoples of the world take for granted.
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Our jaws have gotten smaller over time thus we now need to take out our wisdom teeth because even though our jaws are getting smaller our number of teeth are not. Do we know the real reason why this is happening? No but it is enjoyable to discuss reasons and to hear others thoughts.
This is explained by Weston Price as genetic expression from not enough nutrients in our diets. If Zaida is on raw paleo long enough and gives birth to a raw paleo baby and that baby grows up raw paleo, he or she will be able to express his genes to the maximum and have a larger jaw, better teeth, etc. So on with the next generations.
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When meat is left out flies tend to swarm it and lay their eggs. We all know the result of this however is the meat considered unfit when there are maggots on it? I know my cats wont eat it but my dogs are always more than willing. I understand that maggots are a source of protein as well however the quality of it I am unsure. Do any of you ever leave their meat out in the open air for more than a hour or so?
My cats are getting better about that. I'm fermenting meat at room temperature, and the older pickier cat actually is starting to like it, she eats it pretty quick now. It doesn't have maggots, yet. Maybe I should refrigerate it now finally. It's getting really 'juicy'. Anyone familiar with this? I am eating it. It still seems fine. Actually I think it's detoxing me a little as opposed to regular RAF, but subtly.
I have many times let meat sit out in open air over night. The next day it goes down just as well as fresh, but the texture is a little drier, it doesn't bother either way. It is good. When I let fat sit out in open air, I can't bring myself to eat much of that, it doesn't feel right to eat more than a bite or two.
I haven't tried eating maggots, but I have tried rubbing them on my skin, and my skin got like a (healthy) baby's.
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This is explained by Weston Price as genetic expression from not enough nutrients in our diets. If Zaida is on raw paleo long enough and gives birth to a raw paleo baby and that baby grows up raw paleo, he or she will be able to express his genes to the maximum and have a larger jaw, better teeth, etc. So on with the next generations.
There's another theory that suggests that smaller human jaw came about either as a result of cooking(eating softer cooked foods means one needs teeth much less with the idea being that as foods become ever more processed, humans will eventually lose all their teeth) or it is suggested that the developing human brain could only come about because of a reduction in size of the jaw(c. the time of asutralopithecus.
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How about Gary Taubes' GCBC, where he presents studies that show that zero carb or very low carb is the way to health, and there is the experience of members here.
Humans are paleo by design, so the studies are relevant.
I'd be interested to see those studies, and it's all relevant, but I don't think that we have anything that approaches conclusive scientific evidence for the best diet. It's just too complicated a subject, and for raw paleo worse, cause there just aren't that many long term raw paleo eaters in the world.
On this forum and other forums, highly intelligent people and leaders in their field don't agree on the simple basics of what's a good diet. 'High carb vs low carb', 'Are antioxidants a magic elixir or harmful', 'Should we eat green vegetables', 'Does fructose even cause a big insulin response'
I don't feel I can say anything for sure. I just have my own beliefs and an ongoing process of experimentation.
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William - I will have to try a smudge fire in my backyard next time I am cutting up a animal for my dogs! the flies are always bothering me and I was going to resort to trying to screen a area in. Or would my neighbors get cranky about a smudge fire? How do you make one? They are great about not making a fuss about what I do in my backyard. Once I decided to slaughter 12 roosters myself in my backyard ( I definitely would not recommend doing this in the city) and one got away on me and was running up and down my back lane. My neighbors still crack jokes about it. Never caught the rooster either... not sure what happened to him but I know I wont be trying that again!
The Yukon Indians would make a normal fire, let it burn to coals, then put on green branches of willow bush for smoke. That's the only time I saw, it but it should be the same everywhere. Deciduous stuff only, because evergreens make the wrong smoke for meat. Barbeque would probably do for coals for us.
I had a mental image of an adult trying to run down a chicken. Haha
That was my job when I was a child, we had chickens and I caught it, Father killed it. He didn't like the hatchet method because of the headless chicken's dance of death, or maybe it made the meat tough, so learned to use a knife in the brain.
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The old fables and fairytales of people's living on animal blood and cow's milk are clearly made-up exaggerated nonsense. People always tell lies and exaggerate. Considering some of those tribes will tell you of how the village founder fought off twenty lions and four pythons to save a baby there, and kill you and eat you for disrespecting one of their Gods... I wouldn't believe everything they say. Maybe the Inuit can exist well on a NEARLY all RAF diet... Inuit look hugely different from us, so much that you might say they're a subspecies.... you have to accept that they are more developed for RAF than we are... otherwise you're creating a contradiction because they only split from us a short time ago and yet we are supposed to have evolved to have a high RAF a short time ago..... ANYWAY....).
People DO lie a lot. That also includes people who say they are fruitarian vegans and still are healthy. They are either healthy (and not perfectly fruitarian), or they are unhealthy, and lying about that.
You can check online articles for the Masai diet. Weston Price and plenty of other people have confirmed their meat/blood/milk diet. I myself have lived with the Indianos in Costa Rica and noticed their beautiful straight teeth, large jaws, full cheekbones, and wide ribcages. I assure you, they are NOT vegans, nor do they eat much fruit.
Fruitarians generally need major dental work.
I like my teeth. I think I'll keep them. LOL
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http://www.youtube.com/v/LRnzzeKOivc&hl
There's possibly no other way for these people to live and we probably would never haver survived in their circumstances if we didn't do the same. I still would rather live on a meat based diet than blood based. The cow didn't seem to like it. It reminds me too much of factory farmed milk.
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In the province of Ilocos where my father in law comes from, he says there are people who drink fresh blood from goats just like the masai.
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...On this forum and other forums, highly intelligent people and leaders in their field don't agree on the simple basics of what's a good diet. 'High carb vs low carb', 'Are antioxidants a magic elixir or harmful', 'Should we eat green vegetables', 'Does fructose even cause a big insulin response'
I don't feel I can say anything for sure. I just have my own beliefs and an ongoing process of experimentation.
Excellent point and I agree. Which is why I think the key to Paleo diet is the underlying theoretical model first proposed in a peer-reviewed journal by Boyd Eaton: the model of Paleolithic nutrition based on the mechanism of biologically appropriate vs. biologically discordant diets. This field is very new, so there will be much disagreement and nit picking over exactly which foods are Paleo/appropriate.
The important thing is the underlying principle of biological discordance being a major contributor to the diseases of civilization. So, even though I disagree with much of Eaton's original dietary recommendations (and his own view has evolved), I acknowledge the importance of his theoretical model. (For those who don't believe that evolution or natural biology have as much to do with it, there is the biblical corollary of a Creator-designed diet vs. discordance with the Creator's design, what I sometimes call the Garden-of-Eden diet--so there is still much room for agreement.)
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Excellent point and I agree. Which is why I think the key to Paleo diet is the underlying theoretical model first proposed in a peer-reviewed journal by Boyd Eaton: the model of Paleolithic nutrition based on the mechanism of biologically appropriate vs. biologically discordant diets. This field is very new, so there will be much disagreement and nit picking over exactly which foods are Paleo/appropriate.
The important thing is the underlying principle of biological discordance being a major contributor to the diseases of civilization. So, even though I disagree with much of Eaton's original dietary recommendations (and his own view has evolved), I acknowledge the importance of his theoretical model. (For those who don't believe that evolution or natural biology have as much to do with it, there is the biblical corollary of a Creator-designed diet vs. discordance with the Creator's design, what I sometimes call the Garden-of-Eden diet--so there is still much room for agreement.)
Link to Boyd Eaton's journal?
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Link to Boyd Eaton's journal?
Forewarning: If you hate Eaton and/or Cordain, please skip to the warning and plea below.
It was the New England Journal of Medicine and it's what started the Paleo diet movement (there were precursors, but AFAIK none of them used the terms "Paleolithic diet/nutrition" or "Paleo diet" or proposed a theory of evolutionary nutrition and biological discordance in a scientific manner before this article, though some came close--but people can suggest others if they like). This article inspired Loren Cordain and influenced Ray Audette (author of NeanderThin). Audette influenced the Beyondveg.com folks and semi-popularized the movement, then Cordain's first book (The Paleo Diet) got the first substantial press and expanded the movement further, creating a small niche of the diet world. The movement is still mostly below-the-radar in the popular media and wider diet circles, but it is increasingly influential in the scientific community, generating more and more citations and inspiring an accumulating mountain of research and debate.
The abstract is no longer available online, so here it is:
Eaton, S. Boyd, and Konner, Melvin (1985) "Paleolithic nutrition: a consideration of its nature and current implications." (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/citation/312/5/283) The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 312, no. 5 (Jan. 31, 1985), pp. 283-289.
Abstract: A detailed literature survey reviews and discusses nutritional aspects of the diets of historical paleolithic societies and their nutritional adequacy in light of current nutritional knowledge. Topics include the evaluation of food consumption habits, ranging from hominids (about 24 to 5 million years ago), through the appearance of archaic homo sapiens (about 400,000 years ago), to the twentieth century; dietary habits of recent hunter-gatherer societies with respect to meat and vegetable consumption; the probable nutrient intakes of paleolithic humans for specific nutrients (energy; fat and fatty acids; cholesterol; sodium and potassium; calcium; ascorbic acid; fiber; and other nutrients), and evidence for nutrient shortages; and a comparison of the late paleolithic diet to the current U.S. diet and the current U.S. dietary recommendations.
The article is not accessible at the link, but it is interesting to see that Eaton's ground-breaking paper has already been cited about 50 times.
Here's an abstract of a later report in which his theory is spelled out more (emphases mine):
Origins and evolution of the Western diet: health implications for the 21st century. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15699220?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=5&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed)
Cordain L, Eaton SB, Sebastian A, Mann N, Lindeberg S, Watkins BA, O'Keefe JH, Brand-Miller J.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Feb;81(2):341-54.
"There is growing awareness that the profound changes in the environment (eg, in diet and other lifestyle conditions) that began with the introduction of agriculture and animal husbandry approximately 10000 y ago occurred too recently on an evolutionary time scale for the human genome to adjust. In conjunction with this discordance between our ancient, genetically determined biology and the nutritional, cultural, and activity patterns of contemporary Western populations, many of the so-called diseases of civilization have emerged. In particular, food staples and food-processing procedures introduced during the Neolithic and Industrial Periods have fundamentally altered 7 crucial nutritional characteristics of ancestral hominin diets: 1) glycemic load, 2) fatty acid composition, 3) macronutrient composition, 4) micronutrient density, 5) acid-base balance, 6) sodium-potassium ratio, and 7) fiber content. The evolutionary collision of our ancient genome with the nutritional qualities of recently introduced foods may underlie many of the chronic diseases of Western civilization."
Warning: don't read his stuff as a prescription on what to eat or bother debating his food recommendations--it's out-of-date and his own views on what foods to eat have changed and continue to evolve as more research is done. Eaton's writings are mainly important now for their historical contribution and for explanation of the basic theory and mechanism that underpins Paleolithic nutrition. It's the only nutritional model proposed in the scientific community with actual predictive value--which is what is important from a scientific perspective.
Loren Cordain is Boyd Eaton's protege and Cordain now leads an international team of scientists that is doing most of the research in this new field (though Phinney, Rosedale and others have also done very important research).
Plea for civility: Cordain tends to be hated on forums like this because of his emphasis on lean commercial meats instead of pasture-fed meats and fats (I recommend the latter), but I have never seen him respond with anything but politeness and reasonableness and he is doing more work to promote Paleo diet research than anyone in the world, so I hope people will refrain from using this as yet another opportunity for personal insults and instead focus on the science. I don't agree with him on some important issues too, but trash fests ruin productive threads like this one.
Thanks,
Phil
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To superinfinity, from a few pages back. Just so you can think twice. I am not fat, never have been. Didn't eat junk food inbetween my fruit meals. You could only hope to have eaten as much fruit without junk as I've had in my life. So the point here is I have experience eating fruit as much as probably anyone you'll meet. Went raw in the early seventies and stuck to it, and swore by eating fruit, dreamed of becoming a real fruitarian time and time again. Try to find one who doesn't cheat. And if you can, take a good look. He or she won't be something you will want to emulate. It's a mind trip many many people have fallen into and continue to do so. And when I say mind, I mean exactly that. The same mind that looks for perfection everywhere else but in the present, 'if I only can clean out my years of eating dead food, If I can only find the perfect fruit, I'll reach enlightenment, or perfect health, or live forever" Sound familiar? Fruit and veggies have been preached for decades and decades. There's nothing new in what they are saying. And all will forgive the high fructose content over and over because they like sugar and they want to believe in what they believe. When I mentioned fat burning, I meant being able to use fat a fuel source instead of carbs. A carb eater, when blood sugar drops will satisfy their blood sugar demands using muscle stores just as readily as fat stores. Fat burning individuals have trained their bodies to burn fat in lieu of muscle. You often point to one aspect of something and glom onto to it, making it your own reality. To see something bigger than you actually believe, you are going to have to pull back a bit and allow the inquisitive part of your mind to guide you. Maybe you could trust me on this point, you don't know as much as you think you do. What would it be like hanging out in the "I don't know region" for a while? Ask a few questions, experiment a little, read about hormonal upsets and their relation to insulin and sugar, carbs, or fructose, however you want to call it. Study Taubes, or Rosedale, and you'll discover info that isn't in any of the fruit books. I started when there really wasn't the internet, and thus my exposure was highly limited, so easy to be influenced. Even raw 'gurus' like Kulvininskus,( spelling), Clement, and Cousins all have given up on fruit. Good luck
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I'll have a think about your post and look over the things you're referring to and get back to you on it. But I'll warn you that I have basically ZERO respect for "studies" that give people pure fructose in an unnatural way, note a few hormonal changes, note a natural insulin response, and conclude that must mean it's terrible for you. And I mean ZERO, absolutely ZERO, not even a residual mark of respect for that type of study. Paleo is high fruit&veg, very low to high animal protein. I think any other diet is taking a TINY to none amount of tribes and not a very big portion of paleo time given that our brains only became bigger than the apes 700-odd thousand years ago. It's an exceptionally small window in the evolutionary scale... tacked on semi-carnivorous abilities aren't going to be as strong.
Just on one thing you said about muscle: I don't want muscle. Muscle is expensive to maintain and causes a higher metabolism because of it. My arms are as slender as twigs. The only muscles I really like (and I'll be honest that I like them a lot) are my calf muscles. But that's just a random aesthetic thing I like about muscles, I don't actually want muscles. You need proteins for muscles, if I ever become a body builder or decide that muscle is a great thing after all, I'll eat lots of protein.
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Forewarning: If you hate Eaton and/or Cordain, please skip to the warning and plea below.
Plea for civility: Cordain tends to be hated on forums like this because of his emphasis on lean commercial meats instead of pasture-fed meats and fats (I recommend the latter), but I have never seen him respond with anything but politeness and reasonableness and he is doing more work to promote Paleo diet research than anyone in the world, so I hope people will refrain from using this as yet another opportunity for personal insults and instead focus on the science. I don't agree with him on some important issues too, but trash fests ruin productive threads like this one.
On the contrary, I see Cordain as a troll because attempting his diet cost me more than ten years of fear, misery and terror. It did not cure the disease, namely the big one - ischemic heart disease.
The damage continued, so that I am now a cripple.
It was not until I tried Lex Rooker's recipe that the symptoms of the disease disappeared like a bad dream on waking.
As for theoretical, or really hypothetical models, Boyd & Cordain require consumption of things that did not exist in the paleolithic age and were not staples of recent known hunter-gatherer societies.
You can't get worse advice than that offered by those who write MD behind their names.
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I believe humans have evolved with tools. Chimps make and use tools. They have been found taking branches and stripping it to a spear like tool and jamming it into hollow trees to kill bush babies. So If we have been using and making tools since are ancestors were like chimps. We have had a lot of time to evolve with our tools. This has led us to be mainly carnivorous animals.
All humans do well with land mammals as a food source. Their are people who don't do well with fruit, nuts, veggies, eggs, fish, seafood, legumes, grains, dairy etc. We do horribly with dairy grains legumes because they have not been in the human diet long enough to fully adapt. Some do horrible with eggs fish because humans simply didn't eat a lot of these to adapt. Some do horrible with fruit, nuts, veggies because at some point (over a very long period of time) our ancestors ate less and less of these foods to the point where they didn't do so well with them.
Just try to eat everything a omnivorous animal like a chimp eats, you will probably die from plant toxins. Wild edible plants to us modern humans are scarce in the wild, during most times of the year even in the tropics edible raw plants will be hard to come by. Domesticated fruit and plants have gotten more and more different from wild plants the longer humans have domesticated them. But in modern times with advanced technology, people can change plant foods even more drastically at a faster pace.
A carnivorous diet takes time and motivation to adapt to when coming off of carbs as your main source of energy because a person is switching it up on the body to process a totally new fuel. Eating only red meat and fat is possible to adapt to for most people as long as they take the time.
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You can't get worse advice than that offered by those who write MD behind their names.
LOL, same experience here.
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I'll be honest with you guys... I'm actually eating muesli+water (it's meant to be a health cereal, has oats, grains, raisins, stuff like that, it should be raw, but unfortunately this has some whey and I think even brown sugar... even dried fruit is not very paleo anyway) for a bit (yesterday I started and I'm getting a very strong craving now I think I'll give in to, it's amazing the addiction these things can have!!!) until I see my dentist again. The reason is that my dentist isn't back until the 16th and I'm growing quite afraid about my teeth. My dentist warned me a lot about the fruit over six months back. I ate a bit of dry fruit as well today which I usually never do and am trying to eat more close-to-raw animal protein as well.
I am just concerned about my teeth, let's not forget that people on SAD diets often have their wisdom teeth whipped out before they've left highschool.... they stupidly don't even think of it as a big deal.
Doubt people care, I'd just feel a bit of a fraud not to mention it. Maybe I should have just eaten more nuts.... I do agree buying this cereal probably wasn't a good idea. After yesterday I vaguely decided I wouldn't eat any more of it, but I'm starting to almost get obsessive thoughts about eating it. I also got strong antieptic mouthwash I'm taking as much as possible (yes I know, antiseptic mouthwash isn't great)
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On the contrary, I see Cordain as a troll ...
Hi William,
I value your contribution here and didn't mean that people have to agree with or like any one of the living scientists or diet book authors--whether Cordain, Eaton, Audette, Groves, WAPF, Eades, Phinney, Rosedale, etc. I disagree with each of them on myself on some things and also suffered some permanent damage that could have been avoided if I had tried Lex's approach sooner. I was just trying to find a way to avoid getting sidetracked off the topic with complaints about them. After all, not everyone agrees with Lex's approach either and some people say they were harmed by trying ZC--should they call you and me trolls too?
So, since every one of the diet gurus and scientists is disliked by someone and not everyone seems to do equally well on the same exact foods, is there a way to cite anyone or any study or talk at all about the history of the movement without upsetting some people that you might suggest? I'm open to such suggestions. If not, can we try to move beyond the grousing and deal with the specific issues at hand, using point vs. counter-point supported by both personal experience and researched evidence?
Thanks,
Phil
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SuperInfinity, Since you eat fish, eggs and green veggies, why not eat those (cooked as little as you can handle; and maybe supplemented with cod liver oil or fish oil--cod liver oil is allegedly good for tooth remineralization) instead of cereal and fruits until your dental visit, if you're still not willing to eat raw land mammals? Sugary cereal with dried fruit may be even worse for your teeth than too much sweet and acidic fresh fruits.
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Sully, your looking fricken massive!
Taken your elephant spear out since you went rabbit hunting a year or so ago?
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So, since every one of the diet gurus and scientists is disliked by someone and not everyone seems to do equally well on the same exact foods, is there a way to cite anyone or any study or talk at all about the history of the movement without upsetting some people that you might suggest? I'm open to such suggestions. If not, can we try to move beyond the grousing and deal with the specific issues at hand, using point vs. counter-point supported by both personal experience and researched evidence?
The arguments for and against zero carb or very low carb are well presented in Gary Taubes' book.
The are other sources for raw, IIRC Howell's "Enzyme Nutrition", modern natural hygeine (www.healself.org), the works of Aajonus Vonderplanitz etc.
But without upsettin people? No.
Diet is personal and emotional, and as we know people would rather die than change. And do.
We are the very few who have the wit and will to do true science, "Seek and ye shall find, and the truth shall make you free".
We know what happens to those who tell the truth - JC, Johann Hus, whistleblowers, Ernst Zundel, Hal Turner and more.
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."
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Sully, your looking fricken massive!
Taken your elephant spear out since you went rabbit hunting a year or so ago?
no, but i got a bb gun i killed a squirrel and my friend got a rabbit with his gun, ive gone down hill a bit with diet and have been working my self back up this past month, eating more meat makes it easier to stay muscular, i have been lifting only twice a week and find that its easier to build muscle with more meat and fat, i would be lifting three days a week with twice as many reps and exercises and with more carbs and less meat and fat and barely make any progress, working my way towards zero carb and eating semi cooked, seared on outside and raw in the middle, no seasonings or salt, semi cooked doesn't seem to cause me to over eat, only heavy salt and seasonings
your one of the people (along with Lex) who has given me motivation to work my way back, thank you
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err... but fish/eggs/peanuts are just as if not MORE addictive. There's nothing inherently wrong with being addictive anyway.
peanuts are legumes...
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Went raw in the early seventies and stuck to it, and swore by eating fruit, dreamed of becoming a real fruitarian time and time again. Try to find one who doesn't cheat. And if you can, take a good look. He or she won't be something you will want to emulate. It's a mind trip many many people have fallen into and continue to do so. And when I say mind, I mean exactly that. The same mind that looks for perfection everywhere else but in the present, 'if I only can clean out my years of eating dead food, If I can only find the perfect fruit, I'll reach enlightenment, or perfect health, or live forever" Sound familiar? I started when there really wasn't the internet, and thus my exposure was highly limited, so easy to be influenced. Even raw 'gurus' like Kulvininskus,( spelling), Clement, and Cousins all have given up on fruit. Good luck
This is a very good post and echoes my experience. I consider myself a smart person and fell head first into the "if only I was a pure raw vegan/fruitarian" mindset for at least a couple of years. All it got me was spending tons of money and energy on food, having it be the central focus of my life, losing a lot of weight (muscle and fat) and denying myself foods for what I see now as a false reason. I would have been just as good, if not better, eating a semi-healthy version of SAD as I was trying to be a fruitarian or near fruitarian raw vegan.
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This is a very good post and echoes my experience. I consider myself a smart person and fell head first into the "if only I was a pure raw vegan/fruitarian" mindset for at least a couple of years. All it got me was spending tons of money and energy on food, having it be the central focus of my life, losing a lot of weight (muscle and fat) and denying myself foods for what I see now as a false reason. I would have been just as good, if not better, eating a semi-healthy version of SAD as I was trying to be a fruitarian or near fruitarian raw vegan.
I had much the same experience. I would go through numerous diets such as cooked palaeo or raw vegan/fruitarian and then primal diet, wondering if there was some perfect fruit or (cooked) wildgame meat that would help me overcome my health-problems. The trouble was that, at the time, info on diet, especially raw-meat-oriented, was virtually nonexistent online.
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Another thought is how did they store their meat once they caught a large animal? They didn't have fridges or freezers back then. Would they just allow their meat to age naturally or would they process it in some way or store specially?
Few ideas I had were:
burying in the ground to get it at colder temp
smoking (if their was fire)
dehydrating.... not sure how they would have accomplished this though.
When meat is left out flies tend to swarm it and lay their eggs. We all know the result of this however is the meat considered unfit when there are maggots on it? I know my cats wont eat it but my dogs are always more than willing. I understand that maggots are a source of protein as well however the quality of it I am unsure. Do any of you ever leave their meat out in the open air for more than a hour or so?
So, I'm thinking of burying some fish for bacteria and eating purposes, first time. Any tips?
Yes, plenty of times I left meat out overnight, sixteen hours, 24, went out came back and ate what was drying on a ceramic or glass plate. It's good.
Have you seen the latest primal diet newsletter from aajonus? He talks about preserving meat starting out by drying it this way, but different amount of hours, etc.
I've let raw grass fed milk sit out too long and intentionally eaten the resultant maggots. They were crunchy.