Real Raw Food Topic

[Dogdoctor]

Sure. There's a branch of anthropology that studies such things, called "medical anthropology". In fact, there's a specialization in medical anthropology -- evolutionary medicine -- that even more specifically deals with such stuff.

So there is a branch of science studying this stuff. Some of the names mentioned are Melvin Konner, Marjorie Shostak, George Armelagos (all anthropologists) and a physician by the name of Boyd Eaton (I mean, these are the folks listed in the sidebar in my text book that talks about evolutionary medicine).

Please bear in mind that I am not saying that we all need to go back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, or that there is no value whatsoever to modern methods of plant & animal husbandry, farming techniques, cookery, medicine, etc. I'm simply saying that there's something to be said for doing a systematic study of such paleoanthropological information (where it can be found accurately, of course), and that I suspect that some answers to problems we have with modern diets can be found, or at least, suggested there.



Oh, no doubt there. I'm not disputing the studies. But they don't attempt to answer the question "why" -- they are simply presenting cause and effect relationships. If you can get some data as to understanding the "why" of these things -- why are high-fat diets correlated to cancer, why do high-sugar diets lead to dental problems (and diabetes), and so forth -- then you can start making futher connections and plans as to figuring out how to have a balanced, moderate diet (and possibly also predict what new food products might be prone to causing dietary problems).

P.S. Let me add, just as a sidebar, that one of the arguments made in my Anthro book is that the development of culture has been one of humanity's most significant discoveries/developments. Culture -- as a means of social, economic, and technologic organization -- has allowed us to expand into areas in which we normally couldn't live, in numbers the land normally couldn't support. In other words, it allows us to bypass the rather lengthy process of evolution -- instead of having to wait millions of years to adapt to a cold climate, for example, we figure out a way to make clothing (and we discover fire), and through our shared culture, this idea ramifies through a large number of people and presto! you've got humans living in cold climates in practically no time at all. So that's what the book is talking about when they say things like "rates of cultural change exceed the rates of biological change."

So there is people studying it. That hardly amounts to having any science behind your ideas. The ideas exist, they are studying it, but have no proof of any validity to the idea that somehow studying prehistoric diet will lead to better health. Or is there something more to it than speculation?

 

[g4macdad]

So there is people studying it. That hardly amounts to having any science behind your ideas. The ideas exist, they are studying it, but have no proof of any validity to the idea that somehow studying prehistoric diet will lead to better health. Or is there something more to it than speculation?

"Science" tells us to eat something different every year. What about their evidence? I can use "science" as well as the next guy. So please!

 

[Hellbound]

So there is people studying it. That hardly amounts to having any science behind your ideas. The ideas exist, they are studying it, but have no proof of any validity to the idea that somehow studying prehistoric diet will lead to better health. Or is there something more to it than speculation?

I think you're misunderstanding what's being said, to a degree at least.

By studying the diets of our ancestors, it can help explain some question about the trends in diet today, and why certain types of diet cause problems. For example, it can help explain why we seem to have a taste for sugars and fats, even though an excess of these substances is harmful. Sugars and fats tended to be rarer/harder to get, and sugars specifically were usually in the form of fruits, which also were harder to get (limited growing times during the year, high compitetion, etc). These were high-energy foods, so when food is hard to get they're good choices. Evolution, though, adapted our taste for these things to the situation we were in back then (they were harder to aquire). Today, with the relative ease of getting sugars and fats, that works against us.

I don't think Jackalgirl is arguing that the raw food diet is a good thing; I believe she's jsut arguing against your earlier claim that it doesn't matter what our ancestors used to eat. The diet we had in ages past, and the environmental situation(s) that developed that diet and certain tastes in our biology, can help answer questions about our diet and tastes today.

 

[Hellbound]

"Science" tells us to eat something different every year. What about their evidence? I can use "science" as well as the next guy. So please!

No, the media reporting what they call science tells you something different every year. If you bothered to understand science, instead of commercials, newspaper articles, and 2-minute clips on the news, you'd know that.

Give us some examples of these changes, why don't you?

The problem is that the media reports results often after single, intial tests, and overstates the results far beyond validity. Science is based on repeatability: a number of scientists can perform the same type of test, under varying conditions and in various locales, and get results that agree. This process, however, takes time. When something has been studied long enough to have reasonable certainty, it's no longer news. When it's new and shiny, it's uncertain.

Of course, you've already amply demonstrated a lack of understanding in science, so I shouldn't be suprised.

 

[Jackalgirl]

I don't think Jackalgirl is arguing that the raw food diet is a good thing; I believe she's jsut arguing against your earlier claim that it doesn't matter what our ancestors used to eat. The diet we had in ages past, and the environmental situation(s) that developed that diet and certain tastes in our biology, can help answer questions about our diet and tastes today.

Thank you, Huntsman -- that is in fact exactly what I was trying to say. I'm sorry I couldn't come across as clearly as you!

 

[g4macdad]

No, the media reporting what they call science tells you something different every year. If you bothered to understand science, instead of commercials, newspaper articles, and 2-minute clips on the news, you'd know that.

Give us some examples of these changes, why don't you?

The problem is that the media reports results often after single, intial tests, and overstates the results far beyond validity. Science is based on repeatability: a number of scientists can perform the same type of test, under varying conditions and in various locales, and get results that agree. This process, however, takes time. When something has been studied long enough to have reasonable certainty, it's no longer news. When it's new and shiny, it's uncertain.

Of course, you've already amply demonstrated a lack of understanding in science, so I shouldn't be suprised.

Oh! One who is incapable of doing scientific experiments on their own will still be able to discern the bad science from the good. I see a fundamental flaw in your reasoning.

Don't shoot the observer.

 

[Dogdoctor]

I think you're misunderstanding what's being said, to a degree at least.

By studying the diets of our ancestors, it can help explain some question about the trends in diet today, and why certain types of diet cause problems. For example, it can help explain why we seem to have a taste for sugars and fats, even though an excess of these substances is harmful. Sugars and fats tended to be rarer/harder to get, and sugars specifically were usually in the form of fruits, which also were harder to get (limited growing times during the year, high compitetion, etc). These were high-energy foods, so when food is hard to get they're good choices. Evolution, though, adapted our taste for these things to the situation we were in back then (they were harder to aquire). Today, with the relative ease of getting sugars and fats, that works against us.

I don't think Jackalgirl is arguing that the raw food diet is a good thing; I believe she's jsut arguing against your earlier claim that it doesn't matter what our ancestors used to eat. The diet we had in ages past, and the environmental situation(s) that developed that diet and certain tastes in our biology, can help answer questions about our diet and tastes today.

Is there evidence that studying primitive diet will show us anything useful about what we should eat or why we have problems? From my perspective it seems like it won't. So my question is "is there any scientific reason to believe that it will?" Apparently the answer is no.
eta: I think the idea that evolution has lead us to eat right as in eat the best diet for us is wrong. I don't see any reason to beleive that based on what I know of evolution. I don't see why studying diets of our ancestors will give us any clue about us today. Show me why that would be.