Daniel Vitalis on cooked meat

[Raw Kyle]

" An alteration or adjustment in structure or habits, often hereditary, by which a species or individual improves its condition in relationship to its environment."

What does "condition" mean in this context? It means fitness ie the ability to reproduce. As long as a species is maintaining or increasing it's representation or domination of it's ecological niche, which humans have been doing regardless of diet since there have been humans, then the "condition" is good. Maybe horses would live longer and be healthier eating meat or dairy or fruits rather than grass. Does that mean they're adapted to that? Fitness, which is how adaptation is measured, doesn't care how well you feel or how long any individual member of a species lives. It only refers to the species reproductive success. Until world population starts dropping then humans are "adapted" to whatever it is they're doing by the biological term of adaptation. There are many other disciplines that use that word as well as the lay definition that mean more of what you're getting at.

[Raw Kyle]

I have seen flowers, sprout,bud,and  bloom in some of the most polluted and nutrient deficient soil. That in no way proves there is an adaption to pollution. All it proves is that life is resilient and will find a way to survive even in harsh environments. Though life does sprout and blossom in such harsh environments, it doesn't prove the adaptions that do take place to ensure survival are Ideal.

You guys are throwing around the word adaptation quite cavalierly. Pollution, if it makes an organism sick enough to not reproduce, would be adapted to if the organism came up with a way to reproduce still exposed to it. If it wasn't preventing it from reproducing in the first place then it wasn't necessary to adapt to. Adaptation is an ongoing process, as long as a species can A) die and B) reproduce with genetic fidelity then adaptation is happening. Adaptation isn't this magic change that takes an organism from being sickely to looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If an organism reproduces at rate X and within the same environmental conditions it's reproduction goes up to X+Y (both being positive numbers) then it is increasing it's adaptation to that environment. If the organism still has reproductive rate X but likes how it looks in the mirror more and has more energy to play with the kids that's great but it's still the same adaptation to it's environment.

[Raw Kyle]

Now, of course, cooked foods do not kill instantly, but that does not per se imply adaptation, just that cooked foods are only toxic to a limited extent, nothing more.

Everything is toxic at a certain amount! And guess what, the condition of being alive leads invariably to dying. Oxygen is one of the most potent toxins around and your cells are constantly making enzymes to render it inert. Living on earth or outside of earth is toxic to a limited or greater extent. None of these statements or yours above have anything to do with biological adaptation.

[TylerDurden]

What does "condition" mean in this context? It means fitness ie the ability to reproduce. As long as a species is maintaining or increasing it's representation or domination of it's ecological niche, which humans have been doing regardless of diet since there have been humans, then the "condition" is good. Maybe horses would live longer and be healthier eating meat or dairy or fruits rather than grass. Does that mean they're adapted to that? Fitness, which is how adaptation is measured, doesn't care how well you feel or how long any individual member of a species lives. It only refers to the species reproductive success.

  Not remotely valid. For example, many species of dogs are severely inbred and have all sorts of congenital health problems, but are still able to breed. The only reason they haven't completely died out due to natural selection is that humans protect them and feed them etc.

[TylerDurden]

RK, you are also overlooking one important point. The relevant concept we are discussing is not "Survival of the Fit" but "Survival of the Fittest".

 Being able to reproduce means nothing re fitness to survive. I mean, someone with a mental age of 2 could still reproduce, as can most of those with chronic, crippling genetic illnesses. All those can be propped up by technology, but that's all.

[PaleoPhil]

What does "condition" mean in this context? It means fitness ie the ability to reproduce.

You're changing the subject. Tyler didn't mention "fitness," he spoke of "full adaptation." Again, try to keep in mind why people eat raw Paleo diets in the first place. It's not to reproduce or to meet some theoretical ivory tower standard of evolutionary "fitness," it's to improve actual health. Sure, health is difficult to measure, but people know when their health improves. If the ivory tower scientists can't measure that, then too bad for them. They actually do have some metrics for health, such as CRP, HDL, blood pressure, ..., all of which do tend to be better among people eating hunter-gatherer type diets than modern processed diets. So both human individual experience and scientific metrics support eating more ancestral-style diets. Maybe rawness/less-cooking is one of the factors in that, who knows?

No one knows whether we are fully adapted, in the genetic and health sense that Cordain discussed, to cooking and anyone who claims that we are is speculating. It seems that Wrangham and his ilk want to believe that we are adapted to cooking and that it produces benefits. In no other species than humans is decreased jaw size and crowding of teeth regarded as an improvement. Wrangham also points to brain size increases, but he downplays the fact that brain size increase began BEFORE even his early estimate of cooking (before 1.9 million years ago).

[sabertooth]

You guys are throwing around the word adaptation quite cavalierly. Pollution, if it makes an organism sick enough to not reproduce, would be adapted to if the organism came up with a way to reproduce still exposed to it. If it wasn't preventing it from reproducing in the first place then it wasn't necessary to adapt to. Adaptation is an ongoing process, as long as a species can A) die and B) reproduce with genetic fidelity then adaptation is happening. Adaptation isn't this magic change that takes an organism from being sickly to looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If an organism reproduces at rate X and within the same environmental conditions it's reproduction goes up to X+Y (both being positive numbers) then it is increasing it's adaptation to that environment. If the organism still has reproductive rate X but likes how it looks in the mirror more and has more energy to play with the kids that's great but it's still the same adaptation to it's environment.

I don't think I am being too cavalier, if you consider that I have bought on  adamantly to the theory of epigenetics, as well as this notion that the DNA has the intelligent determination to survive built within its structure. The structure of life reacts to the environment wether or not the conditions prevent reproduction. Even within a single generation genes can be turned on and off in responce to environmental stimuli. There is a proactive drive that allows organisms to adapt to conditions that aren't necessarily extreme enough to disrupt reproduction. If all the raw materials are available for the optimal well being of the life form then the genetic code will not only adapt for survival , but it will adapt toward the optimal.

This is my new religion:  I believe that the structure of life held within the genetic code has the power to perceive and envision a more optimal design in accordance to the demands of the environment. There are mechanisms within the code of life that allow for the forging of a life form, that not only adapts to any circumstance, but thrives in any circumstance. Just look around planet earth and you will see for your self. Life forms extracting geothermal energy from volcanic vents, thieving at temperatures that are near boiling. Animals that fly, swim, burrow in the ground. Every niche on this earth has a life form that has been fitted to it. Survival of the fittest doesn't explain how thouroughly and quickly these adaptions have taken place. An intelligent determination to adapt must be at play.   

There is also the phenomenon of gene suppression where the genes that normally operate in order to provide the optimal mode of life are sacrificed( turned off) in order to ensure the survival of the organism in less than optimal conditions.

There is evidence within our evolution of genetic austerity in the face of adverse conditions. Our ancestors survived while other more robust species like cromagnon died out because we have special metabolic adaptions that allowed us to survive off of less calories, as well as the ability to extract nutrients from plant sources. While the more carnivorous hominids died out. Many of these survival adaptions have been passed onto modern man and explain how we can tolerate grains, legumes and starches.

Those adaptions that occurred during the extinction of the other great hominids made us human.We are a product of this genetic will to survive, and those changes that occurred during the end of the paleolithic era are responsible for us having smaller frames and brains than our cromagnon cousins.

No doubt that the process of genetic adaption continues to this day.

The question is a matter of quality, are the current conditions involved in human evolution creating a humanoid of higher quality?

Another question involves the idea of genetic suppression. In order to adapt to cooked foods, heat generated toxins, and other such toxic waste, are we somehow switching off the genes which would normally be active in the structuring of the optimal being of the organism. Are we being genetically gelded? If the preservation instinct of genetic code detects a problem it will switch into austerity mode and dedicate its life energy to survival. The end result will be to cull off the resources that would create a being with the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and use its energy to form a being with the ability to metabolize toxins as a Kieth Richards. Only when optimal resources are  made available to the organism will the DNA be able to engineer the optimal being.

After generations of harsh environmental changes the genetic changes due to environmental distress may not become an adaption, but insted a degeneration. A species may devolve before adaption becomes a survival necessity. Then only after a mass dieoff of those who failed to make the adaption occurs, will the adaption be carried over into a new species. This may not happen so neatly within the context of modern man because of technological interference. Then agin the spirit of life may call out in distress and be the beacon of hope for people like us who can use technology in a way that will return us to the optimal mode of living.

(only time will tell)

[goodsamaritan]

You're changing the subject. Tyler didn't mention "fitness," he spoke of "full adaptation." Again, try to keep in mind why people eat raw Paleo diets in the first place. It's not to reproduce or to meet some theoretical ivory tower standard of evolutionary "fitness," it's to improve actual health.

Some people are forced to eat a raw paleo diet because if they didn't they'd be miserably sick all throughout and probably die.

I count myself in this category.

[TylerDurden]

Sabtertooth, the Cro-Magnon were actually the ones who survived and passed on their DNA to modern Europeans. I know several people who share many of the same sort of physical characteristics the Cro-Magnon had, my own father being among them.

You clearly were thinking of the Neanderthals who people used to claim had died out. However, recent studies have shown this notion to be false, and that (most of us) humans have some sort of Neanderthal DNA in us.

[sabertooth]

There was DNA from multiple species of Homo-this and that spewing out from everywhere in those days( all type of freaky encounters must of occurred) , so it is probably true that Cro-magdon, Neanderthal , and the more recent migrant species out of Africa all interbred.

Evolution rarely happens along straight lines of direct descendants.

Whether Cro Magdon is our direct ancestor or are some deadend branch species on our family tree may be a matter of speculative interpretation . Whatever the truth is on that point, I still think  I am right about how they(our direct ancestors) were forced to adapt into less the robust type of modern humans due to austere environmental conditions. The species sacrificed brain size and physical power in order to survive famine conditions after the mega fauna were hunted to extinction. The raw materials that maintained the stronger form of our being were no longer available in abundance and so we were forced to downsize.

Perhaps other adaptions also occurred during this time of the great homogenization of the hominids, and even though brain size decreased, perhaps the structural complexity of the prefrontal cortex advanced in some way to compensate; giving us the ability to develop more cognitive function and language skills, etc.

Modern mans genetics may be undergoing a similar reduction of our more robust qualities due to the idiotic dietary practices of today's world. Who knows how our spices will adapt under such wild and unprecedented circumstances. With over 6 billion of us humans all living and interbreding now days there are countless directions and limitless possibilities.

TD; for my own research purposes
I would like to see your resources that prove that Cro Magnon are our direct ancestors.  I thought I read somewhere that they were not a direct ancestor to modern man, and  perhaps  they interbred with an other species of man that left Africa much later, which makes them  more like a cousin than a direct ancestor. I believe that there must of been some divergence within the bred at the time of the mass die offs of other hominid species. Different sub groups of Cro-magnon had to have existed at the same time, so it's hard to be sure exactly which sub group bred with each other and in what ways those subgroups interbred with other types of proto humans.

I have this idea
The features that made Cro-Magnon so much more powerful than modern man became a liability during hard times and the strongest of the species with the pure blooded Cro-magnon bloodlines died out. While the sub groups that interbred with the more dainty newcomers that arrived out of Africa much later, were better adapted to live on smaller game and fewer overall calories, so were able to survive in a world without the manna of the mammoth.

(This of course is all speculation, but if anyone has anymore evidence to the contrary. then enlighten me please)

[TylerDurden]

The info on the cro-magnons is all here, below. They were indeed the direct ancestors of Europeans, and did not die out:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-Magnon

[sabertooth]

That article is vague and does not conclusively prove that we are a direct descendant.

It only claims that cro magnon DNA is found among some modern humans.

It also says that there were more negroid like skeletons found and classified as cromagnon during the early discoveries. Skeletons of another out of Africa migrant species were also classified as cro magnon , so perhaps some of the data is based on  false assumptions that there was a direct line from cromagnon to modern man. Whereas I claim that the Cro magnon bred into another subspecies and our ancestors only possess a fraction of cro magdon DNA

[PaleoPhil]

If you're making that claim, Sabertooth, then why not provide evidence to support it? If you do, you might want to start a separate thread on it, as I'm not seeing what this Cro Magnon (please note that it's not spelled "Cro Magdon") tangent has to do with Daniel Vitalis' views on cooking meat.

[TylerDurden]

That article is vague and does not conclusively prove that we are a direct descendant.

It only claims that cro magnon DNA is found among some modern humans.

It also says that there were more negroid like skeletons found and classified as cromagnon during the early discoveries. Skeletons of another out of Africa migrant species were also classified as cro magnon , so perhaps some of the data is based on  false assumptions that there was a direct line from cromagnon to modern man. Whereas I claim that the Cro magnon bred into another subspecies and our ancestors only possess a fraction of cro magnon DNA

You have got it so wrong-headed. First of all, the negroid skeleton find appears to be somewhat vague, based on suspect evidence re grimaldi bones, and seemingly distinct from other Cro-Magnon bones, with multiple, widely different theories being put forward re them.

The point is that the Cro-Magnon are simply those early modern humans who were present in Europe from 35,000 to 20,000 years ago. They were no different from modern humans in Europe, with one exception, they had bigger skulls/brain-sizes than the latter.

I also really dislike this notion of "extinction" and "direct descendants". The fact that most humans, other than Sub-Saharans it seems, have some Neanderthal DNA in them means that these are direct descendants of the Neanderthals. More to the point, there is a quasi-Creationist view that suggests that hominid species just miraculously appeared and disappeared, one after the other, in and out of nowhere. In actual fact, I suspect that we are all, ultimately descendants, in various combinations, of Homo Neanderthalis, Homo Erectus and god knows what other types. I don't at any rate believe in the silly notions of earlier decades that the Neanderthals or other apemen were dumb, mute brutes, only to be swiftly followed by the vastly, superior homo sapiens.

Here's more:-

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-11/942782998.Ev.r.html

[Raw Kyle]

  Not remotely valid. For example, many species of dogs are severely inbred and have all sorts of congenital health problems, but are still able to breed. The only reason they haven't completely died out due to natural selection is that humans protect them and feed them etc.

Hence these dogs are adapted to their environment, which includes being taken care of by humans. If all humans decided they didn't want to take care of these dogs anymore then only the ones that could survive without that would be adapted to that new environment. Know how you could tell which ones those were? The ones that survive and reproduce in this new environment. I think you're just missing the semantic point of exactly the definition of these words. I understand what you're saying, but a lot of scientists would stop listening to you once you started using words the wrong way and showing a misunderstanding of the words underlying concepts.

[TylerDurden]

Hence these dogs are adapted to their environment, which includes being taken care of by humans. If all humans decided they didn't want to take care of these dogs anymore then only the ones that could survive without that would be adapted to that new environment. Know how you could tell which ones those were? The ones that survive and reproduce in this new environment. I think you're just missing the semantic point of exactly the definition of these words. I understand what you're saying, but a lot of scientists would stop listening to you once you started using words the wrong way and showing a misunderstanding of the words underlying concepts.

  The trouble is that the environment the dogs live in is the same, regardless. The human input which keeps them alive is not part of the natural environment, per se, it is just an artificial, non-natural, intervention that keeps them alive and breed. Remove the human intervention and you would find that all the changes wrought by humans on dogs would disappear, thus proving that those changes were not conducive to their survival. It has been pointed out that since dogs are direct descendants of wolves, that within a certain number of generations of dogs being left out in the wild without any human masters, that they would all quickly revert to resembling wolves, DNA, appearance and all.

[goodsamaritan]

We have a lot of stray dogs in the Philippines.
Maybe multiple generations.
We call them street dogs.
Their breed are seen as sturdier, healthier than those with named "breeds".

[PaleoPhil]

...they will just eat whatever they can get hold of - if the Inuit could only ever find plant foods in their habitat within reach, that's all they would eat etc.. That's why hunter-gatherers so often opt for tubers, despite the fact, as I showed to PP a long while back re refs, that they find the taste of tubers to be  the most repellent of all foods and the least nutritious....

Good to see that you've finally come round to acknowledging that tubers are "often" eaten by HGs instead of your past ridiculous claim that tubers were only eaten "in order to avoid starvation during times of famine" (http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/non-mutant-fruits-and-vegetables/msg61238/#msg61238). I commend you for adjusting your views to fit the facts rather than the reverse in this case.

You didn't show that HGs "find the taste of tubers to be  the most repellent of all foods," instead it looks like you may have misread the Hadza study. It didn't test all foods they ate, just most of their biggest staple foods, so you have no way of knowing whether the Hadza deemed it the most repellant of all foods, much less hunter gatherers in general or our ancient ancestors. Besides, even if that were true it wouldn't change the fact that it was the least seasonal and thus most available of all their staple plant foods and thus was a significant part of their diet. Nor would it change the fact that underground storage organs have been found in the diets of hominins going back to at least the Australopithecines and that even wild chimps eat them (obviously without cooking them) to this very day. Underground storage organs, including tubers that are edible raw (such as the five species commonly consumed by the Hadza (Sex Differences in Food Preferences of Hadza Hunter-Gatherers, http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP07601616.pdf), fit the requirements of being considered "Paleo" by the standards of both this site (http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/nutrition)--being low enough in antinutrient levels to be edible raw--and Ray Audette--being a food available to someone who is naked with nothing more than a sharp stick.


Rawkyle, you're still talking about partial adaptation, rather than the full adaptation that Tyler was talking about. Humans are partially adapted to all the foods they currently eat, including those of the SAD, that doesn't mean we are fully adapted to them, which is what Tyler was talking about and which is what Loren Cordain, Staffan Lindeberg and others have written about--the problems that arise from incomplete adaptation. If humans were fully adapted to all foods that we can eat and still reproduce, there would be no need for a "Paleo" diet at all and you wouldn't be here at this forum discussing it. Survival and reproduction are not the only factors in full adaptation. Have you read Cordain's The Paleo Diet or any of the writings of Lindeberg, Boyd Eaton, Ray Audette or any of the other Paleo diet writers? They discuss this at length. If Tyler's using the term "adaptation" the wrong way, then so are a lot of other scientists, including many more than the ones I mentioned.

[TylerDurden]

I'm afraid you are misrepresenting both what I and that study stated. I only made it clear, from the study, that the Hadza ate those tubers as a last resort to avoid famine(famine is , after all, a fairly frequent potential occurrence in HG societies given scarcity of foods). The study did indeed, contrary to your claims, make it very clear that the Hadza loathed the taste of the tubers and considered them the least nutritious of their foods, they simply picked them as they were, at various times of the year, somewhat more plentiful than their more preferred foods. Now, maybe they disliked one type of tuber more than the rest or some other quibble, but the fact remains that they loathed tubers as a food-group.

[PaleoPhil]

On the contrary, you misrepresented my views, whereas I quoted yours (and I've asked you before, and I ask you again, to please quote me instead of trying to represent my views with your own words, as you invariably fail miserably at the latter--if you can't be bothered to quote me then please don't refer to my views at all). As usual, your criticisms, of which you seem to have an inordinate supply, apply more to yourself than your target.

Where in the Hadza study does it say that they loathe tubers or turn to them only in famine instead of just saying that tubers were fallback foods least preferred of five staples but eaten throughout most of each year? What I recall from it is that they ranked them last of the five staple foods that were studied. It would be ridiculous to interpret that as meaning that they loathed them. Surely you wouldn't stoop to that level of exaggeration? If the tubers were loathsome, how would they get the youth to eat them, especially given that most HGs are widely reported to practice rather laissez faire parenting?

As for "least nutritious," only five foods were tested in the Hadza study, so it would be irresponsible and unscientific to assume that the Hadza regard tubers as the least nutritious of all their foods based on that study. I think we can safely guess that tubers were the least nutritious of the five foods studied, based on their taste preferences, but to go farther than that would be irresponsible.

[TylerDurden]

The fact that a food is found to be tasteless does not prevent them from eating it simply so as to avoid famine. So your point is illogical.

[PaleoPhil]

Where does it say that the Hazda in the study regarded tubers as "tasteless" or only ate tubers during famines? You could use the same ridiculous argument against meats, berries and baobab fruit, claiming that because they were lower rated than honey that they were only eaten to avoid famine. I'm not a big fan of tubers myself, but you're still using rather exaggerated language that undercuts the credibility of your argument. I notice that you failed to produce any evidence to support your extreme claims and your attacks on me. The Hadza study showed tubers to be a fallback food for the Hadza, not "loathsome." Loathsome is not even a term one would find in a scientific study. It's the language of fanatics.

[TylerDurden]

You clearly didn't even bother to check what the study's definition of a fallback food was, namely a food only eaten when a more popular food was not available, and tubers are mentioned in connection with using them during times of starvation/famine to ward off wasting etc. And those 5 categories of  foods more or less cover most of what the Hadza eat, according to the study:-

"The Hadza are hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. Their diet can be conveniently categorized into five main categories: tubers, berries, meat, baobab, and honey. We showed the Hadza photos of these foods and asked them to rank them in order of preference. Honey was ranked the highest. Tubers, as expected from their low caloric value, were ranked lowest. Given that tubers are least preferred, we used kilograms of tubers arriving in camp across the year as a minimum estimate of their availability. Tubers fit the definition of fallback foods because they are the most continuously available but least preferred foods. Tubers are more often taken when berries are least available. We examined the impact of all foods by assessing variation in adult body mass index (BMI) and percent body fat (%BF) in relation to amount of foods arriving in camp. We found, controlling for region and season, women of reproductive age had a higher %BF in camps where more meat was acquired and a lower %BF where more tubers were taken. We discuss the implications of these results for the Hadza. We also discuss the importance of tubers in human evolution. Am J Phys Anthropol 140:751–758, 2009. VVC 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Natural selection should favor exploitation of low-quality foods when they minimize wasting and starvation during hard times. The term ‘‘fallback foods’’ refers to these lower quality foods that are eaten when more preferred foods are not available. "

[PaleoPhil]

You clearly didn't even bother to check what the study's definition of a fallback food was, namely a food only eaten when a more popular food was not available

I did read that and understood that, but I don't see that as meaning "loathsome"--so I don't know where you are getting that extreme unscientific claim from.

"The Hadza are hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. Their diet can be conveniently categorized into five main categories: tubers, berries, meat, baobab, and honey. We showed the Hadza photos of these foods and asked them to rank them in order of preference. Honey was ranked the highest. Tubers, as expected from their low caloric value, were ranked lowest. Given that tubers are least preferred, we used kilograms of tubers arriving in camp across the year as a minimum estimate of their availability. Tubers fit the definition of fallback foods because they are the most continuously available but least preferred foods. Tubers are more often taken when berries are least available. We examined the impact of all foods by assessing variation in adult body mass index (BMI) and percent body fat (%BF) in relation to amount of foods arriving in camp. We found, controlling for region and season, women of reproductive age had a higher %BF in camps where more meat was acquired and a lower %BF where more tubers were taken. We discuss the implications of these results for the Hadza. We also discuss the importance of tubers in human evolution. Am J Phys Anthropol 140:751–758, 2009. VVC 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Natural selection should favor exploitation of low-quality foods when they minimize wasting and starvation during hard times. The term ‘‘fallback foods’’ refers to these lower quality foods that are eaten when more preferred foods are not available. "

All of this is what I have been saying from the beginning about tubers being fallback foods, but not necessarily "loathsome", and refutes your extreme claims. How do you see this as supporting your nonsense about tubers being regarded as "loathsome"? Again, where does the study say that tubers were seen as "loathsome"? If you had merely referred to tubers as fallback foods, I wouldn't have had the slightest quibble, but instead you went to the ridiculous extreme of saying they were loathsome. Why undercut your credibility in such an absurd way?

[TylerDurden]

This is just quibbling re wordage. The fact is that tubers are known to be rather tasteless,  often require some form of processing in order to make them properly edible, such as with cassavas etc., and are used to ward off famine when nothing better is available.