Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => Hot Topics => Topic started by: PaleoPhil on January 04, 2010, 12:35:02 am
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COMMON CRITICISMS DIRECTED AT PALEO DIET PROPONENTS
(in this case it's a cooked Paleo diet prononent, but these same criticisms have been directed at raw Paleo diet proponents)
Taken from the online comments on Paleolithic diet is so easy, cavemen actually did it
By Christina Ianzito
The Washington Post
Saturday, January 2, 2010; C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101611_pf.html
1. NASTY, BRUTISH AND SHORT: STONE AGERS ONLY LIVED TO BE 30-40, SO THEY COULDN'T HAVE BEEN HEALTHY
2. IT'S JUST ANOTHER FAD DIET
3. IT'S A BOGUS SCHEME DEVISED TO MAKE MONEY
4. THE PROPONENT DOESN'T LOOK HEALTH ENOUGH OR DOESN'T HAVE SUFFICIENT CREDENTIALS
5. COUNTING CALORIES (LIMITING PORTIONS) AND EXERCISE ARE ALL YOU NEED
6. PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY HAVE NEGATIVE REACTIONS TO FOODS ARE DELUDED BY MENTAL ILLNESS
7. EMOTIONAL, HATEFUL REACTIONS
8. PALEO FOODS CANNOT FEED THE PLANET
9. PARASITE AND BACTERIA FEARS (ESPECIALLY RAF PALEO)
Tyler, if you want to promote RPD more widely, these are the sorts of criticisms you'll need to overcome. I've included some sample comments that were posted. Most of these categories had multiple examples in the Post article comments, including more I didn't sample, some comments used more than one of the common criticisms, and I have seen all of them elsewhere before.
1. NASTY, BRUTISH AND SHORT: STONE AGERS ONLY LIVED TO BE 30-40, SO THEY COULDN'T HAVE BEEN HEALTHY
Jimani2 wrote:
The life of cavemen has been described in literature as "nasty, brutish and short." People in the early 1900s lived an average lifespan at least 20 years shorter than the average of today. Most people died before age 65, the age full Social Security benefits begin. A paleo diet might be healthy but others foods appear to be equally healthy.
1/2/2010 8:48:02 AM
Recommend (7)
pclement1 wrote:
"...most portrayals of the people who lived 12,000 years ago depict svelte folks baring rock-hard -- if hairy -- abs. What's their secret?"
Two secrets, they've got great publicists and second, they died young. Thirty, it seems, would be a ripe old age for Neanderthal or the earliest modern humans, Cro-Magnon.
As to the diet, I think Cro-Magnon would happily trade places with Ms. Voisin as to what's available, and live a lot longer for it.
When I think about my own life, if not for modern medicine I would have died being born. Since that time I would likely have gone totally blind in at least one eye, be toothless, and likely carrying around a lot of nasty parasites, untreated diseases and injuries, just like Cro-Magnon (but their publicists have been very good at keeping such information out of the popular press.)
1/1/2010 10:23:46 PM
Recommend (11)
cilp33 wrote:
People also only lived to 35 in the paleolithic era
1/2/2010 10:23:57 AM
Recommend (2)
JCM-51 wrote:
Those Paleo folks lived to be what, maybe 40 or so? Yeah, sign me up for what they ate.
1/2/2010 10:55:23 AM
Recommend (4)
2. IT'S JUST ANOTHER FAD DIET
farfalle44 wrote:
Ha Ha Ha! What a freaking joke this stupid a ss "caveman" diet is! Like these little twerps who advocate this new diet fad know what the cavemen ate, or that they all ate the same thing, wherever they were! GOD PEOPLE ARE DUMB AND GULLIBLE!
Agree S, this article WAS a complete waste of band-width! Post-suggestion-why don't you do a LEGITIMATE article on sensible weight-loss strategies, huh? Not sexy or stupid enough, unlike this "caveman" diet, sheesh! Save us god from the idiots!
1/3/2010 12:58:24 AM
Recommend (4)
rlalumiere wrote:
You know, it's really great how the Washington Post highlights the latest pseudoscientific fads of wealthy idiots. I mean, I really find these kinds of articles tremendously newsworthy and certainly deserving of the space in the paper and time wasted by the "reporter". (Can a person who writes such an article possibly be described as a "reporter"? Probably not.)
I cannot tell you how, with just a a little critical thinking, anyone with a brain could shoot a million holes into the "Paleolithic" diet. This is just too stupid to tolerate in the Post.
1/1/2010 9:45:09 PM
Recommend (15)
3. IT'S A BOGUS SCHEME DEVISED TO MAKE MONEY
Ilikemyprivacy wrote:
Unfortunately the research has clearly shown that this "paleo" diet is largely myth. Our ancestors ate wild grains and legumes and probably dairy. The people selling books on the "paleo" diet are every bit the same con artists that sold us the other diet fads. The purpose of these things is to sell products, not to promote your health. The fundamental problem with the American diet is simply that we eat too much and too many low nutrient foods. Add two cups of vegetables to every meal, eat them first and eat less of the other stuff. You'll be fine without resorting to extreme and without making diet and lifestyle gurus rich.
1/2/2010 12:37:12 PM
Recommend (3)
4. THE PROPONENT DOESN'T LOOK HEALTH ENOUGH OR DOESN'T HAVE SUFFICIENT CREDENTIALS
Wadsworth1 wrote:
She doesn't look overly healthy. Show me the diet that Adriana Lima eats.
1/1/2010 9:40:13 PM
Recommend (6)
schmetterlingtoo wrote:
OOOOH-I GOT DELETED....AGAIN! SOMEBODY'S FEELINGS WERE WEALLY WEALLY SENSITIVE HERE, WEREN'T THEY?
WELL, EFF YOU, POST, WHOEVER IT WAS THAT DELETED MY COMMENT AGAIN-I WILL RECOUNT IT IN FULL BELOW:
The woman in the picture doesn't look too healthy-someone should tell her that eating all that meat is very very bad for the kidneys-if she keeps it up, she could get kidney stones, or even more serious complications. But here she is A JEWELERY DESIGNER telling people to eat meat. Wow-a jewelry designer-some diet creds there, huh? What bright bulb at the Post decided to waste good band width to put this useless and utterly inane article in? Is the author Cristina a friend of one of the Post's editors, or something, is that it? THIS WAS THE MOST USELESS PIECE OF TRIPE ARTICLE I'VE SEEN IN A LONG LONG TIME, POST! Why instead of writing about some crazy diet fad, can't you do an article on some sensible weight-loss plans, huh, Post? IS IT BECAUSE SENSIBLE WEIGHT LOSS PLANS, AS OPPOSED TO THIS DUMB A SS "CAVEMAN" PLAN AREN'T SEXY OR STUPID ENOUGH TO WRITE ABOUT, SO YOU GET MISS CRISTINA HERE WRITING ABOUT CRAP TO BRING IN THE GULLIBLE AND NAIVE?
Sheesh, god! The IDEA that this diet is based on "cavemen"-god! As if these con artists who devised this plan actually knew what all cavemen ate, at any given time and at any given place-IT'S INSANELY ABSURD-BUT THAT'S WHY YOU PRINTED THIS CRAP, RIGHT POST?
1/3/2010 10:05:50 AM
Recommend (1)
5. COUNTING CALORIES (LIMITING PORTIONS) AND EXERCISE ARE ALL YOU NEED
clickums wrote:
This is one of the dumbest articles EVER. Just another fad diet. Try this on for size, get your fat @ss off the couch and cut back on your portions.
OH WAIT! That's a no-brainer and waaayyy too hard for the average American to do!
1/2/2010 9:12:30 AM
Recommend (9)
6. PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY HAVE NEGATIVE REACTIONS TO FOODS ARE DELUDED BY MENTAL ILLNESS
arlingtonresident wrote:
If she feels "physically ill" and "bloated" when she eats a nut or grain, something is wrong with her. More than mentally wrong, that is.
1/2/2010 10:06:14 AM
Recommend (4)
7. EMOTIONAL, HATEFUL REACTIONS
(My guess about what triggers such emotional, hateful responses is common mythology about the "nasty, brutish and short" nature of Paleolithic life and the Stone Age and modern hunter-gatherer peoples who tend to be portrayed as primitive, stupid, violent, ugly, etc. so this probably relates to #1)
PIA9 wrote:
She obviously has a need to be clubbed and carried off by her hair.
1/2/2010 4:17:31 AM
Recommend (5)
8. PALEO FOODS CANNOT FEED THE PLANET
jjc1 wrote:
The paleo diet isn't for everyone. Aside from the fact that we've evolved over the past ten thousand years to tolerate some of our modern foods (milk, for sure) the planet isn't big enough to supply its six-plus billion inhabitants with a paleo diet. That was for a time when the earth's population was a few million or less. The virtue of agriculture wasn't that it provided its inventors with a better diet. In fact, it produced an inferior diet, and smaller, less healthy people. But it produced enough food to allow populations to increase exponentially. Which they did. Now the only way to get everybody eating paleo again is to kill off most of us. Think I'll pass on that.
1/2/2010 11:22:11 AM
Recommend (2)
9. PARASITE AND BACTERIA FEARS (ESPECIALLY RAF PALEO)
dlkimura wrote:
I'm sure primitive man had multiple parasitic infections too. I look forward to eating raw carrion and bugs. What a stupid article.
1/1/2010 10:13:12 PM
Recommend (10)
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1- You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
2- Against stupidity
the Gods themselves
contend
in vain.
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I'll address this topic at a future date, I haven't the time now. Just want to say that any criticism of either raw or palaeo really needs to be put in the hot topics forum. I'd imagine, otherwise, newbies might be scared off eating a raw palaeo diet if in the general discussions main forum there are numerous speculative topics with titles like "the evolutionary benefits of cooking" or "dangers of bacteria". I don't mind such topics in the hot topics forum as that's the place where we can demolish any pro-cooking/antipalaeo etc. claims, but the latter forum is best placed for controversy.
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8. PALEO FOODS CANNOT FEED THE PLANET
jjc1 wrote:
The paleo diet isn't for everyone. Aside from the fact that we've evolved over the past ten thousand years to tolerate some of our modern foods (milk, for sure) the planet isn't big enough to supply its six-plus billion inhabitants with a paleo diet. That was for a time when the earth's population was a few million or less. The virtue of agriculture wasn't that it provided its inventors with a better diet. In fact, it produced an inferior diet, and smaller, less healthy people. But it produced enough food to allow populations to increase exponentially. Which they did. Now the only way to get everybody eating paleo again is to kill off most of us. Think I'll pass on that.
I am not into raw paleo diet because I want to heal the world or feed the world.
I got into raw paleo diet because I was sick. Call me selfish. Raw paleo diet is a ME thing. I'm well. I'm healthy. I finally got muscles.
Maybe my genes are the hold outs that DID NOT EVOLVE. And it is MY GENES that my children carry. Raw paleo diet is curative for me. Raw paleo diet is curative for my children as well.
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I'll address this topic at a future date, I haven't the time now. Just want to say that any criticism of either raw or palaeo really needs to be put in the hot topics forum. I'd imagine, otherwise, newbies might be scared off eating a raw palaeo diet if in the general discussions main forum there are numerous speculative topics with titles like "the evolutionary benefits of cooking" or "dangers of bacteria". I don't mind such topics in the hot topics forum as that's the place where we can demolish any pro-cooking/antipalaeo etc. claims, but the latter forum is best placed for controversy.
Makes sense, sorry for not thinking of that.
The article was admittedly somewhat amateurish, but I'm amazed at the vitriol it generated. I think that even if the author had done a perfect job she would still have been viciously attacked by these louts.
The general public seems to have a real aversion to anything to do with "cavemen" and "primitive" peoples. It makes sense, since modern societies basically exterminated or enslaved most of the remaining hunter-gatherers over the last 500+ years and are still at it even now. You've got to hate someone pretty badly to avoid psychological baggage from exterminating them (demonization of the enemy). To admit that a Paleo diet is good would require admitting that our recent ancestors murdered and enslaved a lot of good people who had knowledge we could have used ourselves and that we've been sold a partial bill-of-goods about "our way of life" being superior in every way to traditional ways. Taking the Paleo diet seriously could break the coping mechanisms for avoiding cognitive dissonance and cause people to start questioning a lot of assumptions. I doubt that most people, especially the authorities, want to deal with that. Some people may even see the wisdom of raw Paleo diets but tell themselves that it's nonsense, because it's too upsetting to deal with.
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I am not into raw paleo diet because I want to heal the world or feed the world.
I got into raw paleo diet because I was sick. Call me selfish. Raw paleo diet is a ME thing. I'm well. I'm healthy. I finally got muscles.
Maybe my genes are the hold outs that DID NOT EVOLVE. And it is MY GENES that my children carry. Raw paleo diet is curative for me. Raw paleo diet is curative for my children as well.
Raw paleo saves on shipping exotic vegan super foods or SAD supermarket foods and prescriptions, raw paleo saves on cooking fuel, raw paleo saves on heating bills as our bodies can tolerate cold and heat like indigenous people on their original diets ...
Me too, I got muscles in my back for the first time, my jaw got more spacious better than my average family members, my muscles show better where I had gotten cellulite from bad carb ratios, ... This diet is for me first just like a parent puts their oxygen mask on in a plane first, then we can think "well oxygenatedly" to help the world.
How can you help anyone when you can't see the world because your brain doesn't have sufficient oxygen and full spectrum of nutrients? People say "you are what you eat". People say "I'm flesh and blood" or "I'm flesh and bones". I don't see anyone going around saying "you are vegetable fiber" or "I am vegetable fiber". Words have meaning, even more meaning when not making excuses and able to hear what is said and accept the intelligence of the natural world.
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On the other hand, it's quite easily possible that tribes in the Palaeolithic era were constantly at each others' throats, slaughtering entire tribes at whim etc. That would certainly explain the speed of hominid evolution in the Palaeolithic as opposed to previous eras - it would also very conveniently explain the extinction of Homo Erectus, Neanderthal Man, Australopithecus etc. etc. Although, there are claims that they interbred to some extent with other hominids, such as the Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon interbreeding claims.
I used to have a utopian view of native tribes - that was until I read that most Native American tribes, for example, waged continuous wars against each other pre-1492 and were not the dances-with-wolves type of tribe as portrayed in the media:-
http://www.answers.com/topic/native-american-wars-wars-among-native-americans
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Re anti-palaeo claims:- 1 article could be put in rawpaleodiet.com rebutting those silly notions.
Anyway:- 1) " Low average lifespan in palaeo times":- Palaeos had a mean age of 35 for men, 30 for women. This didn't mean they all died at those ages, mostly, it merely showed that that was the mean average lifespan, and the statistics reflect a high infant mortality, so that people who survived past infancy would have mostly lived much longer than their thirties. Of course, the disadvantage of living in palaeo times was that one could easily die from a broken leg. However, proponents of palaeolithic diets do not want to wholly give up on the technology that humans have created since palaeo times, they just want to use it in a way that is not hamrful to them.
2) "Another fad diet":- A raw, palaeolithic diet is by definition the oldest diet there is, so is hardly fad. Plus, we have a pretty good idea of what NOT to eat(ie avoiding grains/dairy/cooked foods) so, by extension, are more likely to be healthy than those who purely pursue fad diets or SAD diet calorie-counting for weight-loss reasons.
3) "Bogus scheme designed to make money":- There's only 1 or 2 gurus making money from RVAF diets. And, since most diet gurus make their money via supplements, opportunities to make money for such gurus is limited given the lack of interest among rawpalaeos for most supplements.
4) "Proponent doesn't look healthy enough or doesn't have sufficient credentials":- Most doctors get very little nutritional info when doing their medical degrees, as Aajonus himself noted, so having a medical degree doesn't guarantee knowledge. Plus food-science is so new that merely quoting what little scientists already know about food and its processing isn't good enough re promoting health. As for healthy-looking, Aajonus looks good , IMO, compared to people his own age(would look better without dairy-consumption given certain characteristics on his face), then there's Loren Cordain who looks incredible. But, far more importantly, all diet gurus, if they have any sense, touch up their photos, using artificial lighting in order to make themselves look better, or use steroids if they're weight-lifting-oriented etc. So, it makes no sense whatsoever to base one's view of a diet on the superficial appearance of a particular diet-guru.
5) Re "counting calories is all you need ":- People on SAD diets routinely fail when doing starvation diets or counting calories as some foods, especially processed foods, help gain weight far more effectively than other kinds of foods. Plus, people should not solely do diets for weight-loss purposes but for health as well.
6) Re "PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY HAVE NEGATIVE REACTIONS TO FOODS ARE DELUDED BY MENTAL ILLNESS":- Yes, that's a common accusation levelled against raw food diets re mention of orthorexia etc.. The truth is, though, that mental illness can exist on cooked-food diets(re unhealthy addictions to chocolates/fast-food/alcohol/sweets etc.) and denying any negative reactions to a food is itself a mental illness(eg:- I remember a very grossly obese, short woman in France who clearly had mental issues because she refused to accept that her overeating was giving her a bodyweight something like 2-3 times higher than it should have been). And, besides, there are scientifically proven allergies etc. to foods to disprove the whole notion that negative reactions to foods exist solely in the mind.
7) Re "EMOTIONAL, HATEFUL REACTIONS":- I get the distinct impression that the comment mentioned re that claim was meant to be humorous rather than hateful. In other words, the poster was suggesting that perhaps men might , subconsciously, want to do a paleolithic diet mainly because they have a romantic view of Man The Hunter, while women following the diet might subconsciously want to get carried off in the arms of some swarthy caveman. Well, there are plenty of RVAFers who only follow a rawpalaeo diet solely because the other dairy-filled, cooked-food-containing diets didn't work for them. I'd say such idealism is rare in RVAF circles. Most just want to get healthy, though there is a minority who are more interested in New-Age Sprituality.
8 ) Re "PALEO FOODS CANNOT FEED THE PLANET":- That, of course, is quite wrong - as RawZi explained, rawpalaeo diets put an emphasis on eating locally-grown/raised/hunted foods. Then there's no energy wasted in cooking or processing the relevant foods(other than jerky, I suppose). Plus, huge areas of the planet are wasted on growing grains, not only for human consumption, but also to feed herbivorous animals which would be far healthier if raised on grass, grass not requiring as much effort to maintain than grains.
Plus, people who eat raw, healthy foods generally have less appetite given higher levels of nutrients found in raw foods, so would consume less(I remember how , when on SAD/cooked diets, I would have an endless appetite for sweets/mars bars and the like, and never know when to stop) .
9) Re :- "PARASITE AND BACTERIA FEARS (ESPECIALLY RAF PALEO)":- Again, reports of parasites/bacteria issues in the RVAF community are so few and far between(and invariably benign or negligible in terms of effect). If we are to believe that the parasite/bacteria claims made by many nutritonists were indeed true, then one would naturally expect raw-foodists to be continuously plagued by food-poisoning epidemics/parasite-related illnesses etc., which is clearly not the case.
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On the other hand, it's quite easily possible that tribes in the Palaeolithic era were constantly at each others' throats, slaughtering entire tribes at whim etc.
Most unlikely, there are no bones showing marks of war.
They had no reason for war, nothing to steal, too far to walk, etc.
That would certainly explain the speed of hominid evolution in the Palaeolithic as opposed to previous eras - it would also very conveniently explain the extinction of Homo Erectus, Neanderthal Man, Australopithecus etc. etc.
There was no evolution in the paleolithic. That's why we try to eat a paleo diet.
Nobody cares if or whether hominids (apes) evolved then.
I used to have a utopian view of native tribes - that was until I read that most Native American tribes, for example, waged continuous wars against each other pre-1492 and were not the dances-with-wolves type of tribe as portrayed in the media:-
They were not paleolithic.
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I'm afraid, William, that your Creationist comments are decidedly in the minority on this board. More to the point, the whole point of a palaeolithic diet is that it is firmly based on Darwinian human evolution(which involves, of necessity, natural selection via wars, wiping out former species etc.) Stating that evolution doesn't exist is de facto basically stating that it's OK to eat grains/dairy and various cooked junk food - which is ridiculous.
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Evolution is a hypothesis, not a postulate.
It certainly is possible that our form today is almost the same form as it was in paleolithic times.
This may explain why the paleo diet works so well with us.
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Evolution is a hypothesis, not a postulate.
It certainly is possible that our form today is almost the same form as it was in paleolithic times.
This may explain why the paleo diet works so well with us.
The point is not so much that we haven't changed since Palaeo times, but that for most of our evolutionary past ,as hominids, anyway, we were eating raw palaeolithic diets, with too little time for us to evolve(even if it's possible) to foods like graisn/dairy/cooked foods.
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I'm afraid, William, that your Creationist comments are decidedly in the minority on this board. More to the point, the whole point of a palaeolithic diet is that it is firmly based on Darwinian human evolution(which involves, of necessity, natural selection via wars, wiping out former species etc.) Stating that evolution doesn't exist is de facto basically stating that it's OK to eat grains/dairy and various cooked junk food - which is ridiculous.
TD, that whole post is so wrong that I will address only one part: Creationist requires faith, as does evolution.
I take the scientist's attitude, which requires evidence.
There is no evidence supporting human evolution.
If we had evolved from the paleolithic, then paleofood would be irrelevant and we should eat something else.
And I'd rather be right than popular. :D
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Honestly, your beliefs are so ridiculously contradictory, that I just despair. You're a man who promotes health but claims smoking is not harmful, a man who claims to favour raw diets yet promotes the consumption of toxic heated animal fats such as pemmican, and a man who claims to promote palaeolithic diets yet refuses to acknowledge human evolution despite the fact that palaeolithic diet concepts are inextricably intertwined with the whole concept of human evolution.
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Your faith is remarkable, but the scientific method is tried, tested and proven.
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Ummm... we are getting off topic....
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William, you say some crazy shit sometimes.. If you think that early man DIDNT run around killing other tribes you're crazy. Its as instinctual as eating meat. They had plenty to kill for.. Territory (and women probably). If you were a different tribe than I, and I liked where you lived, I would come and kill you and have a nice new place to live. I dont think they were 'nice' to strangers back then and found somewhere else. If they thought they could come and kick your ass and take your shit they would have.
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Evolution is a hypothesis, not a postulate.
It certainly is possible that our form today is almost the same form as it was in paleolithic times.
This may explain why the paleo diet works so well with us.
Evolution is neither a postulate, nor a hypothesis.
Evolution is just a fact that no serious scientist denies in 2010 whether William or others like it or not.
Darwinian natural selection is a theory that explains only a part of the evolution of the species. Evolution is the general result of the self-organization of the biosphere and fits into the more general theory of complex systems.
We do so well on RPD, not because we do not evolve, but merely because whatever our evolution we just cannot adapt seriously to a cooked neolithic diet, i.e. adapt to it to a degree that might be compared to our outstanding adaptation to RPD . There is absolutely no reason to believe that humans or other species can adapt to everything provided they are given a long enough period of time to do it. Many species disappear precisely because they can't adapt, never. The mean lifetime of a species is about 10 millions years, some last much longer as the sharks some much less.
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Warfare was probably the rule rather than the exception even for paleo HGs
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10278703
Hunter-gatherers
Noble or savage?
Dec 19th 2007
The era of the hunter-gatherer was not the social and environmental
Eden that some suggest
Hemis.fr
HUMAN beings have spent most of their time on the planet as
hunter-gatherers. From at least 85,000 years ago to the birth of
agriculture around 73,000 years later, they combined hunted meat with
gathered veg. Some people, such as those on North Sentinel Island in
the Andaman Sea, still do. The Sentinelese are the only
hunter-gatherers who still resist contact with the outside world.
Fine-looking specimens—strong, slim, fit, black and stark naked except
for a small plant-fibre belt round the waist—they are the very model
of the noble savage. Genetics suggests that indigenous Andaman
islanders have been isolated since the very first expansion out of
Africa more than 60,000 years ago.
About 12,000 years ago people embarked on an experiment called
agriculture and some say that they, and their planet, have never
recovered. Farming brought a population explosion, protein and vitamin
deficiency, new diseases and deforestation. Human height actually
shrank by nearly six inches after the first adoption of crops in the
Near East. So was agriculture "the worst mistake in the history of the
human race", as Jared Diamond, evolutionary biologist and professor of
geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, once called it?
Take a snapshot of the old world 15,000 years ago. Except for bits of
Siberia, it was full of a new and clever kind of people who had
originated in Africa and had colonised first their own continent, then
Asia, Australia and Europe, and were on the brink of populating the
Americas. They had spear throwers, boats, needles, adzes, nets. They
painted pictures, decorated their bodies and believed in spirits. They
traded foods, shells, raw materials and ideas. They sang songs, told
stories and prepared herbal medicines.
They were "hunter-gatherers". On the whole the men hunted and the
women gathered: a sexual division of labour is still universal among
non-farming people and was probably not shared by their Homo erectus
predecessors. This enabled them to eat both meat and veg, a clever
trick because it combines quality with reliability.
Why change? In the late 1970s Mark Cohen, an archaeologist, first
suggested that agriculture was born of desperation, rather than
inspiration. Evidence from the Fertile Crescent seems to support him.
Rising human population density, combined perhaps with a cooling,
drying climate, left the Natufian hunter-gatherers of the region short
of acorns, gazelles and wild grass seeds. Somebody started trying to
preserve and enhance a field of chickpeas or wheat-grass and soon
planting, weeding, reaping and threshing were born.
Quite independently, people took the same step in at least six other
parts of the world over the next few thousand years: the Yangzi
valley, the central valley of New Guinea, Mexico, the Andes, West
Africa and the Amazon basin. And it seems that Eden came to an end.
Not only had hunter-gatherers enjoyed plenty of protein, not much fat
and ample vitamins in their diet, but it also seems they did not have
to work very hard. The Hadza of Tanzania "work" about 14 hours a week,
the !Kung of Botswana not much more.
The first farmers were less healthy than the hunter-gatherers had been
in their heyday. Aside from their shorter stature, they had more
skeletal wear and tear from the hard work, their teeth rotted more,
they were short of protein and vitamins and they caught diseases from
domesticated animals: measles from cattle, flu from ducks, plague from
rats and worms from using their own excrement as fertiliser.
They also got a bad attack of inequality for the first time.
Hunter-gatherers' dependence on sharing each other's hunting and
gathering luck makes them remarkably egalitarian. A successful farmer,
however, can afford to buy the labour of others, and that makes him
more successful still, until eventually—especially in an irrigated
river valley, where he controls the water—he can become an emperor
imposing his despotic whim upon subjects. Friedrich Engels was
probably right to identify agriculture with a loss of political innocence.
Agriculture also stands accused of exacerbating sexual inequality. In
many peasant farming communities, men make women do much of the hard
work. Among hunter-gathering folk, men usually bring fewer calories
than women, and have a tiresome tendency to prefer catching big and
infrequent prey so they can show off, rather than small and frequent
catches that do not rot before they are eaten. But the men do at least
contribute.
Recently, though, anthropologists have subtly revised the view that
the invention of agriculture was a fall from grace. They have found
the serpent in hunter-gatherer Eden, the savage in the noble savage.
Maybe it was not an 80,000-year camping holiday after all.
Hemis.fr
In 2006 two Indian fishermen, in a drunken sleep aboard their little
boat, drifted over the reef and fetched up on the shore of North
Sentinel Island. They were promptly killed by the inhabitants. Their
bodies are still there: the helicopter that went to collect them was
driven away by a hail of arrows and spears. The Sentinelese do not
welcome trespassers. Only very occasionally have they been lured down
to the beach of their tiny island home by gifts of coconuts and only
once or twice have they taken these gifts without sending a shower of
arrows in return.
Several archaeologists and anthropologists now argue that violence was
much more pervasive in hunter-gatherer society than in more recent
eras. From the
!Kung in the Kalahari to the Inuit in the Arctic and the aborigines in
Australia, two-thirds of modern hunter-gatherers are in a state of
almost constant tribal warfare, and nearly 90% go to war at least once
a year. War is a big word for dawn raids, skirmishes and lots of
posturing, but death rates are high—usually around 25-30% of adult
males die from homicide. The warfare death rate of 0.5% of the
population per year that Lawrence Keeley of the University of Illinois
calculates as typical of hunter-gatherer societies would equate to 2
billion people dying during the 20th century.
At first, anthropologists were inclined to think this a modern
pathology. But it is increasingly looking as if it is the natural
state. Richard Wrangham of Harvard University says that chimpanzees
and human beings are the only animals in which males engage in
co-operative and systematic homicidal raids. The death rate is similar
in the two species. Steven LeBlanc, also of Harvard, says Rousseauian
wishful thinking has led academics to overlook evidence of constant
violence.
MEPL I know it's a drag Godric, but it's progress
Not so many women as men die in warfare, it is true. But that is
because they are often the object of the fighting. To be abducted as a
sexual prize was almost certainly a common female fate in
hunter-gatherer society. Forget the Garden of Eden; think Mad Max.
Constant warfare was necessary to keep population density down to one
person per square mile. Farmers can live at 100 times that density.
Hunter-gatherers may have been so lithe and healthy because the weak
were dead. The invention of agriculture and the advent of settled
society merely swapped high mortality for high morbidity, allowing
people some relief from chronic warfare so they could at least grind
out an existence, rather than being ground out of existence altogether.
Notice a close parallel with the industrial revolution. When rural
peasants swapped their hovels for the textile mills of Lancashire, did
it feel like an improvement? The Dickensian view is that factories
replaced a rural idyll with urban misery, poverty, pollution and
illness. Factories were indeed miserable and the urban poor were
overworked and underfed. But they had flocked to take the jobs in
factories often to get away from the cold, muddy, starving rural hell
of their birth.
Homo sapiens wrought havoc on many ecosystems as Homo erectus had not
Eighteenth-century rural England was a place where people starved each
spring as the winter stores ran out, where in bad years and poor
districts long hours of agricultural labour—if it could be got—barely
paid enough to keep body and soul together, and a place where the
"putting-out" system of textile manufacture at home drove workers
harder for lower pay than even the factories would. (Ask Zambians
today why they take ill-paid jobs in Chinese-managed mines, or
Vietnamese why they sew shirts in multinational-owned factories.) The
industrial revolution caused a population explosion because it enabled
more babies to survive—malnourished, perhaps, but at least alive.
Returning to hunter-gatherers, Mr LeBlanc argues (in his book
"Constant Battles") that all was not well in ecological terms, either.
Homo sapiens wrought havoc on many ecosystems as Homo erectus had not.
There is no longer much doubt that people were the cause of the
extinction of the megafauna in North America 11,000 years ago and
Australia 30,000 years before that. The mammoths and giant kangaroos
never stood a chance against co-ordinated ambush with stone-tipped
spears and relentless pursuit by endurance runners.
This was also true in Eurasia. The earliest of the great cave
painters, working at Chauvet in southern France, 32,000 years ago, was
obsessed with rhinoceroses. A later artist, working at Lascaux 15,000
years later, depicted mostly bison, bulls and horses—rhinoceroses must
have been driven close to extinction by then. At first, modern human
beings around the Mediterranean relied almost entirely on large
mammals for meat. They ate small game only if it was slow
moving—tortoises and limpets were popular. Then, gradually and
inexorably, starting in the Middle East, they switched their attention
to smaller animals, and especially to warm-blooded, fast-breeding
species, such as rabbits, hares, partridges and smaller gazelles. The
archaeological record tells this same story at sites in Israel, Turkey
and Italy.
Bridgeman Art Library Another fine environmental mess we've got
ourselves into
The reason for this shift, say Mary Stiner and Steven Kuhn of the
University of Arizona, was that human population densities were
growing too high for the slower-reproducing prey such as tortoises,
horses and rhinos. Only the fast-breeding rabbits, hares and
partridges, and for a while gazelles, could cope with such hunting
pressure. This trend accelerated about 15,000 years ago as large game
and tortoises disappeared from the Mediterranean diet
altogether—driven to the brink of extinction by human predation.
In times of prey scarcity, Homo erectus, like other predators, had
simply suffered local extinction; these new people could innovate
their way out of trouble—they could shift their niche. In response to
demographic pressure, they developed better weapons which enabled them
to catch smaller, faster prey, which in turn enabled them to survive
at high densities, though at the expense of extinguishing many larger
and slower-breeding prey. Under this theory, the atlatl or
spear-throwing stick was invented 18,000 years ago as a response to a
Malthusian crisis, not just because it seemed like a good idea.
Soon collecting wild grass seeds evolved into planting and reaping
crops, which meant fewer proteins and vitamins but ample calories
What's more, the famously "affluent society" of hunter-gatherers, with
plenty of time to gossip by the fire between hunts and gathers, turns
out to be a bit of a myth, or at least an artefact of modern life. The
measurements of time spent getting food by the !Kung omitted
food-processing time and travel time, partly because the
anthropologists gave their subjects lifts in their vehicles and lent
them metal knives to process food.
Agriculture was presumably just another response to demographic
pressure. A new threat of starvation—probably during the
millennium-long dry, cold "snap" known as the Younger Dryas about
13,000 years ago—prompted some hunter-gatherers in the Levant to turn
much more vegetarian. Soon collecting wild grass seeds evolved into
planting and reaping crops, which reduced people's intake of proteins
and vitamins, but brought ample calories, survival and fertility.
The fact that something similar happened six more times in human
history over the next few thousand years—in Asia, New Guinea, at least
three places in the Americas and one in Africa—supports the notion of
invention as a response to demographic pressure. In each case the
early farmers, though they might be short, sick and subjugated, could
at least survive and breed, enabling them eventually to overwhelm the
remaining hunter-gatherers of their respective continents.
It is irrelevant to ask whether we would have been better off to stay
as hunter-gatherers. Being a niche-shifting species, we could not help
moving on. Willingly or not, humanity had embarked 50,000 years ago on
the road called "progress" with constant change in habits driven by
invention mothered by necessity. Even 40,000 years ago, technology and
lifestyle were in a state of continuous change, especially in western
Eurasia. By 34,000 years ago people were making bone points for
spears, and by 26,000 years ago they were making needles. Harpoons and
other fishing tackle appear at 18,000 years ago, as do bone spear
throwers, or atlatls. String was almost certainly in use then—how do
you catch rabbits except in nets and snares?
Nor was this virtuosity confined to practicalities. A horse, carved
from mammoth-ivory and worn smooth by being used as a pendant, dates
from 32,000 years ago in Germany. By the time of Sungir, an open-air
settlement from 28,000 years ago at a spot near the city of Vladimir,
north-east of Moscow, people were being buried with thousands of
laboriously carved ivory beads and even little wheel-shaped bone
ornaments.
Incessant innovation is a characteristic of human beings. Agriculture,
the domestication of animals and plants, must be seen in the context
of this progressive change. It was just another step: hunter-gatherers
may have been using fire to encourage the growth of root plants in
southern Africa 80,000 years ago. At 15,000 years ago people first
domesticated another species—the wolf (though it was probably the
wolves that took the initiative). After 12,000 years ago came crops.
The internet and the mobile phone were in some vague sense almost
predestined 50,000 years ago to appear eventually.
There is a modern moral in this story. We have been creating
ecological crises for ourselves and our habitats for tens of thousands
of years. We have been solving them, too. Pessimists will point out
that each solution only brings us face to face with the next crisis,
optimists that no crisis has proved insoluble yet. Just as we
rebounded from the extinction of the megafauna and became even more
numerous by eating first rabbits then grass seeds, so in the early
20th century we faced starvation for lack of fertiliser when the
population was a billion people, but can now look forward with
confidence to feeding 10 billion on less land using synthetic
nitrogen, genetically high-yield crops and tractors. When we
eventually reverse the build-up in carbon dioxide, there will be
another issue waiting for us.
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Evolution of man is neither postulate nor hypothesis and it is certainly not a fact.
It is a belief, just like the big bang, black holes, man-made global warming, the virgin birth and other superstitions.
NASA still believes that comets are always little dirty snowballs, but they are not. So much for the beliefs of so-called scientists.
There still is no evidence that paleoman made war.
I tested pemmican without prejudice by eating it, and found that unlike raw beef it never caused a stop.
That is evidence.
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...denying any negative reactions to a food is itself a mental illness(eg:- I remember a very grossly obese, short woman in France who clearly had mental issues because she refused to accept that her overeating was giving her a bodyweight something like 2-3 times higher than it should have been).
I like how you turned that around, Tyler, and good job overall.
Most just want to get healthy, though there is a minority who are more interested in New-Age Sprituality.
Let's get an idea of how many: who here changed to a RPD diet because of New-Age spirituality or something similar? If you did, please speak up. I won't criticize. This will be just a survey. We could try an anonymous poll too if we don't get any answers.
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Evolution of man is neither postulate nor hypothesis and it is certainly not a fact.
I'm afraid you didn't examine by yourself seriously the evidence at hand. Prejudice in this matter is so powerful and so widespread.
Well, at any rate this would get us off topic and cannot be discussed seriously here.
It is a belief, just like the big bang, black holes, man-made global warming, the virgin birth and other superstitions.
NASA still believes that comets are always little dirty snowballs, but they are not. So much for the beliefs of so-called scientists.
What a funny and colored mixture, William.
Big bang and black holes are not beliefs just (very provisional) theoretical views among others. Of very little importance for the every day life of humans, anyway. Many serious scientists work on alternative theories. I'm afraid you have got a seriously distorted view of the way science works.
"Man-made global warming" is a matter of politics indeed and so can be considered as a belief. Yet there is actually no scientific consensus at all and most serious scientists know that the computer models involved in the IPCC "conclusions" are not reliable and so cannot predict anything or do good science. The observed changes in mean temperature are most likely essentially of natural astronomic (sun activity) origin but this conclusion happens to be "politically incorrect". So politicians and decision makers merely don't like it.
Virgin birth is religion and thus belief indeed.
There still is no evidence that paleoman made war.
There is, unfortunately. Though it wasn't war in the usual neolithic sense, with an army, generals, politicians...
I tested pemmican without prejudice by eating it, and found that unlike raw beef it never caused a stop.
That is evidence.
Personnally, I do not deny that pemmican is a much much much better food than cooked grains and legumes and processed plant oils.
Yet it's nevertheless definitely a second order food as compared to really raw meat and fat.
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I'm afraid you didn't examine by yourself seriously the evidence at hand. Prejudice in this matter is so powerful and so widespread.
Well, at any rate this would get us off topic and cannot be discussed seriously here.
What a funny and colored mixture, William.
Big bang and black holes are not beliefs just (very provisional) theoretical views among others. Of very little importance for the every day life of humans, anyway. Many serious scientists work on alternative theories. I'm afraid you have got a seriously distorted view of the way science works.
"Man-made global warming" is a matter of politics indeed and so can be considered as a belief. Yet there is actually no scientific consensus at all and most serious scientists know that the computer models involved in the IPCC "conclusions" are not reliable and so cannot predict anything or do good science. The observed changes in mean temperature are most likely essentially of natural astronomic (sun activity) origin but this conclusion happens to be "politically incorrect". So politicians and decision makers merely don't like it.
Virgin birth is religion and thus belief indeed.
There is, unfortunately. Though it wasn't war in the usual neolithic sense, with an army, generals, politicians...
Personnally, I do not deny that pemmican is a much much much better food than cooked grains and legumes and processed plant oils.
Yet it's nevertheless definitely a second order food as compared to really raw meat and fat.
We really, truly need to agree on a definition of science, because it's what I think that I am doing, while all I hear is "Word", none of which has been proven true, some of them have been disproven.
The stolen emails of the scammers who created man-made global warming are a good example, as they did not look at evidence; they looked at a model created from supposed evidence which they first hid and then "lost". This is not science, it is the way religion works.
If pemmican were worse than the raw fat meat I can get, my immune system would give me a stop when I eat it. This never happens.
You are implying that my immune system is so stupid that it knows not the difference between good and bad for me. I suggest that any immune system is wiser than you.
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stops can go away by blending, freezing, heating, juicing, mixing and to some extent dehydrating. A good share of Instincto Nutrition is based on stops.
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We really, truly need to agree on a definition of science, because it's what I think that I am doing, while all I hear is "Word", none of which has been proven true, some of them have been disproven.
The stolen emails of the scammers who created man-made global warming are a good example, as they did not look at evidence; they looked at a model created from supposed evidence which they first hid and then "lost". This is not science, it is the way religion works.
Things are not that simple, unfortunately. It's not so easy to do good science and come to safe conclusions in complex systems. I'm a physicist that has been working in the field of condensed matter physics and complex systems for almost 40 years now. The truth is that we just sometimes don't really know what the answer to a specific problem is because we do not understand it. Climate change is one of those problems and some controversy is just a normal thing for a while until things are better understood. Unfortunately, what is not a normal thing is that this controversy has become a matter of politics settled by politicians (rather than just scientists) under the influence of some ambitious politicians and environmental activists. Yet, please note that even if global warming is essentially a quite natural fluctuation, this does not mean that the man induced increase of carbon dioxide concentration in atmosphere has a priori no other effects or consequences. We just don't know yet.
If pemmican were worse than the raw fat meat I can get, my immune system would give me a stop when I eat it. This never happens.
You are implying that my immune system is so stupid that it knows not the difference between good and bad for me. I suggest that any immune system is wiser than you.
Did your "immune system" give you a stop when eating the crap of standard neolithic diet or SAD?
My "immune system" at least is so "stupid" that it didn't, unfortunately. Yet I certainly do not claim to be wiser than any "immune system" :)
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William, if it was entirely up to you, what would you feed your own kids knowing what you know today?
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Did your "immune system" give you a stop when eating the crap of standard neolithic diet or SAD?
Yes, it did, but not in the mouth. Violent and terrifying heart arrhythmia was the most obvious symptom.
AFAIK only raw eaters get stops in the mouth, I guess that everyone else is so messed up that that warning system does not work.
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William, if it was entirely up to you, what would you feed your own kids knowing what you know today?
Pemmican and access to other raw stuff - ideally in an unpolluted environment, they would learn to hunt mice, trap rabbits and other animals. Choice/free will is important.
Anything one might find tasty while "naked with a stick" as Ray Audette put it, although I believe that paleoman was a pack hunter.
Modern prejudice from our burden of cultural baggage is a big problem with this - "The un-examined life is not worth living" as some wise person put it - so it is difficult to know if things taste good because they are good, or because of cultural mental/emotional conditioning
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Yes, it did, but not in the mouth. Violent and terrifying heart arrhythmia was the most obvious symptom.
AFAIK only raw eaters get stops in the mouth, I guess that everyone else is so messed up that that warning system does not work.
I agree, William, in the sense you attribute to the word "stop" I undoubtedly got one too. The most obvious unforgettable symptom in my case was the terrible pain that accompanied the repeated eliminations of kidney stones over a period of more than 15 years. Lex Rooker, who went recently through a similar adventure, knows what I'm talking about.
This kind of violent "stop" comes however much too late when the damage to our health is already much too important. Unfortunately.
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I agree, William, in the sense you attribute to the word "stop" I undoubtedly got one too. The most obvious unforgettable symptom in my case was the terrible pain that accompanied the repeated eliminations of kidney stones over a period of more than 15 years. Lex Rooker, who went recently through a similar adventure, knows what I'm talking about. ...
Interesting. So the stones stopped after 15 years? How long have you been stone-free?
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....Yet, please note that even if global warming is essentially a quite natural fluctuation, this does not mean that the man induced increase of carbon dioxide concentration in atmosphere has a priori no other effects or consequences. We just don't know yet.
...
Bill O'Reilly said it well:
"There is global warming! Oh, you far right people? It's happening! Now, I don't know why it's happening, Al Gore doesn't know why, only the Deity knows. But I think if the Deity were here, He would say, or She, 'The less gook in the air, the better! I didn't create gook! When I created the earth, there was no gook in the air! You pinheads! You put it in there! Not Me. If I wanted gook, I woulda created it."
It seems to me that even if there is no global warming, why would we want to feck with a nature we don't fully understand by pouring enormous amounts of pollutants into it? Do we think we're smarter than nature/creator?
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Bill O'Reilly said it well:
"There is global warming! Oh, you far right people? It's happening! Now, I don't know why it's happening, Al Gore doesn't know why, only the Deity knows. But I think if the Deity were here, He would say, or She, 'The less gook in the air, the better! I didn't create gook! When I created the earth, there was no gook in the air! You pinheads! You put it in there! Not Me. If I wanted gook, I woulda created it."
It seems to me that even if there is no global warming, why would we want to feck with a nature we don't fully understand by pouring enormous amounts of pollutants into it? Do we think we're smarter than nature/creator?
Volcanoes produce many, many times more pollution than man. Nature apparently produces all kinds of pollution and yet life continues.
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Interesting. So the stones stopped after 15 years? How long have you been stone-free?
During the period 1984-1999 I've repeatedly expelled kidney stones and experienced numerous episodes of nephretic colics. As shown by regular scans ( every 6-12 months) new stones formed systematically...
The stones stopped in 1999 after I had changed my diet to raw paleo in december 1998. Six months after beginning raw paleo the scans showed that no new stones had formed for the first time after 15 years...
I'm stone-free ever since. :)
Very impressive
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Volcanoes produce many, many times more pollution than man. Nature apparently produces all kinds of pollution and yet life continues.
So more is better?
Impressive indeed Alphagruis.
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Volcanoes produce many, many times more pollution than man. Nature apparently produces all kinds of pollution and yet life continues.
That's just non-sense ! Volcanoes do not produces phtalates for instance or a lot of man-made chemicals that never existed in nature. Or much radioactivity. Or fertilizers that pollute groundwater. Or etc... Moreover even mercury pollution for instance comes largely from coal powerplants and much less from volcanoes. It is absurd to believe that we can just ignore the pollution produced by 6+ billions agrarians.
Sure life will continue but what kind of life? Are you aware that the most fragile forms of life on earth are precisely the multicellular organisms? And that we are one of them?
Yes lower forms of life such as bacteria or other microorganisms will certainly continue. No problem. Man ,I'm not so sure.
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During the period 1984-1999 I've repeatedly expelled kidney stones and experienced numerous episodes of nephretic colics. As shown by regular scans ( every 6-12 months) new stones formed systematically...
The stones stopped in 1999 after I had changed my diet to raw paleo in december 1998. Six months after beginning raw paleo the scans showed that no new stones had formed for the first time after 15 years...
I'm stone-free ever since. :)
Very impressive
I am so very interested in this personal achievement of yours Alphagruis. Do you have a prepared story / press release / article about your kidney stone cure with raw paleo diet?
What form of raw paleo diet did you start on and are doing now and for how long?
How much raw meat, how much raw fat, which animals, which vegetables, which fruits.
Please tell....
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I am so very interested in this personal achievement of yours Alphagruis. Do you have a prepared story / press release / article about your kidney stone cure with raw paleo diet?
What form of raw paleo diet did you start on and are doing now and for how long?
How much raw meat, how much raw fat, which animals, which vegetables, which fruits.
Please tell....
Well, Goodsamaritan, I'm afraid it's not a personal achievement, just one of those miracles RPD is capable to achieve. I had only to acknowledge the phenomenon and the fact that we don't really understand how or why it works, just to recognize that it works.
By the end of 1998 I was fairly desperate after so many years of terrible periodic suffering (nephretic colics typically once every year) and so I was willing to try anything once. It was instinctonutrition as developed by G-C Burger here in France.
Though I never actually followed the specific rules of instincto (eat only what smells and tastes best) I have been on RPD from december 1998 on and ever since. Strictly, with not a single "cooked" cheat since because I'm a physicist and wanted to do a meaningful experiment. Well after about 6 months on this diet the "kidney stones factory that my organism used to be had stopped it's production". That's it, after all what may I add?
Well some details about diet:
The kind of raw paleo diet I was on now for 11 years is basically omnivore with initially and on average about 40% fruit, berries and nuts, olives, avocados.. 20% weggies and 40% food of animal kingdom (meat and fat of boar- fatty ribs of boar is still my favorite-, lamb, beef and other game when available, eggs, crabs, shrimps, fatty fish, shellfish etc). Over the years the diet changed progressively to a larger proportion of animal food (around 70-80 % now) that replaced the fruits not because I wanted to do that for theoretical reasons but just because fruits and sweet taste became less and less attractive and fatty meats or fish became more attractive. I have also observed that I need now much less calories and food than initially without any loss of weight (BMI=22.3 stable). With respect to fruit I add that I have absolutely no history of diabetes, all tests normal, even when I was on standard neolithic diet. This might explain that I'm able to do fairly well with a substantial quantity of fruit.
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Oh wow! Thank you so much... brain food.... ahhh... satisfied.
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Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing your story Alphagruis. How did you first hear about instinctonutrition?
I have no history of diabetes, yet I still don't do well when eating substantial fruit for some reason. The problems manifest in other ways. If anything, my problem with blood sugar had been having it go too low to hypoglycemia before lunchtime, sometimes to the point of mild tremors in my left arm and hand. I don't get that any more, though I do still get moderately hungry during the day if I don't eat lunch.
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Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing your story Alphagruis. How did you first hear about instinctonutrition?
I have no history of diabetes, yet I still don't do well when eating substantial fruit for some reason. The problems manifest in other ways. If anything, my problem with blood sugar had been having it go too low to hypoglycemia before lunchtime, sometimes to the point of mild tremors in my left arm and hand. I don't get that any more, though I do still get moderately hungry during the day if I don't eat lunch.
I first read the book by Jean Seignalet "L'alimentation ou la troisième médecine" in 1997-1998. By then you may imagine that I read eagerly everything that could give me a clue to find out what was wrong with my kidneys. This book was published in the mid 90's and referred heavily to the original work and ideas of Burger. I subsequently read the book by Burger "Manger vrai". The overall sound reasoning in these books about neolithic foods and cooking striked me and I decided to try instincto.
As to blood sugar homeostasis I agree. Even in the absence of diabetes there may be serious less apparent damage. I neither suffered from diabetes nor other related ailments such as hypoglycemia. My friend Carnivore is another exemple of raw paleo dieter that does not well when he eats a substantial amount of fruit. These differences are certainly a matter of difference in genetics. Well fruit seems not indispensable in contrast to food of animal origin and so you can limit or exclude them. It is not unlikely that your tolerance of fruit may improve in the future.
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Most unlikely, there are no bones showing marks of war.
They had no reason for war, nothing to steal, too far to walk, etc.
There was no evolution in the paleolithic. That's why we try to eat a paleo diet.
Nobody cares if or whether hominids (apes) evolved then.
They were not paleolithic.
William makes some interesting points here, for example cavemen were generally unchanged for millions of years, being one of the main factors we thrive on raw meats
Also most tribes were peaceful, the only recorded & dated events were after european & other foreign factors interfered in their cultures, obviously wiped from our history books, for example europeans were visiting America, decades before columbus supposedly discovered america, most notably the templars & before them the romans
Also native americans dont have much to do with the paleo era
Also its a pity, people like alphagrius seem to have picked up the depopulation pollution nonsense
Modern industrial civilisation makes up a very small percentage of the total 6+ billion, a large portion of our civilisation is still very much rural & primitive & we still only occupy only about 8% of the total livable landmass on this planet
I'm not holding out though, i havent met any rational depopulation, pollution we're killing the world advocates yet lol
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I'm afraid you're mistaken. Tribes practised perpetual warfare in the palaeolithic era. And I've already provided adequate evidence to show that Native Americans practised constant warfare with each other pre-contact with Europeans.
I find such naive, noble-savage claims amusing as anyone with any real knowledge of history knows about the bloodthirsty Aztecs among others , indulging in human sacrifices etc.
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My whole point is, this pre contact nonsense is false, europeans & asians have always been in contact with primitives, america wasnt magically discovered by columbus
History & anthropology are purely political, & usually wildly inaccurate
You have to be pretty naive to quote those sources as being accurate lol
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The evidence is pretty good, I'm afraid. And it doesn't seem exactly likely that native americans suddenly started raiding each other constantly only after columbus arrived.
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So you prescribe to no one knowing about america before columbus? lol ... even though its been there for millions of years?
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So you prescribe to no one knowing about america before columbus? lol ... even though its been there for millions of years?
I didn't say that at all. I simply said that people had worked out what life was like before Columbus. Science isn't as flawed as you claim in this regard.