The food we evolved for(a matter of needless disease and death, and avoiding it)

http://www.staffanlindeberg.com/OurResearch.html

by etiam • 16 years ago

10 18 16 years ago

aconbere4• 16 years ago

2) plants protect themselves with bioactive substances directly aimed at animals, substances which may have untoward effects on long-term human health.

Does anyone have a reputable journal article that supports this theory? The authors own list doesn't seem to include any. And my own litter paleo research found almost no support for this in research. (most often I found article that suggested that the levels of anti-nutrients in cooked beans and grains were too low to have any real effect.

There's a ton of great research to support a hypoglycemic diet. I would love to see that much research applied to the second claim.

awolf6• 16 years ago

Checkout this research paper. Starts talking about anti-nutrients in cereal grains around page 42:

http://www.direct-ms.org/pdf/EvolutionPaleolithic/Cereal%20S...

aconbere4• 16 years ago

This is awesome. Seriously. I think you just sealed up my Saturday morning.

araneae• 16 years ago

I don't know how that statement even supports their claim. The point of plant defense is to make whatever's eating them ill. That includes humans. Generally animals, including humans, avoid those plants unless they've found some way to either avoid the poison or use it to their advantage (i.e. the moth Utetheisa ornatrix uses poison it extracts from Crotalaria plants to defend itself.)

awolf6• 16 years ago

The plants this statement is referring to are cereal grains.

Eight cereal grains: wheat, maize, rice, barley, sorghum, oats, rye and millet provide 56% of the food energy and 50% of the protein consumed on Earth.

albemuth• 16 years ago

A lot of the stuff we eat would make us ill if we didn't cook it, I believe that's part of the point.

aconbere4• 16 years ago

So when discussing the nutritional benefits of a legume. Should we be more focused on it in its raw form or the form that people eat it in (almost certainly cooked). Cooking is absolutely part of the point. Which is why any article you read about lectin in grains and legumes should discuss the effect of cooking on lectins.

awolf6• 16 years ago

I've been living Paleo for a month an a half. I'm now down to a healthy weight for my height after losing 22 lbs. I feel great and have much more energy. Most importantly, as a type 1 diabetic with remaining beta cell function, I am no longer dependent on insulin.

jared314• 16 years ago

What did you use to determine the healthy weight for your height?

tomjen3• 16 years ago

Are you sure about that? Type 1 diabetes means you shouldn't be able to produce insulin at all.

awolf6• 16 years ago

Not so. Type 1 diabetes is simply classified as a chronic lifelong condition in which your body does not produce enough insulin for normal bodily function. This condition comes about when a persons immune system attacks the pancreas' insulin producing beta cells. Type 1 diabetes is different than type 2 diabetes which is where a person's body produces enough insulin but the rest of the cells in the body become resistant to the insulin.

In my case I think are/were aspects of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes at play. Type 1 because while I had an auto immune response that destroyed permanently most of my beta cells, I was left with partial insulin production. Type 2 because I have been slightly insulin resistant for the past 10 years and therefore not getting the mileage out of the insulin I was to produce naturally.

pyre• 16 years ago

  > No signs of cardiovascular disease in a non-western population

Seems to conflict with:

  > The working hypothesis is that a Paleolithic diet (the Paleolithic
  > is the time period 2,000,000-10,000 years BP), basically meat,
  > fish, vegetables, fruit and nuts, has benefits even compared with
  > prudent diets based on whole-grain cereals and low-fat milk.

Isn't Southeast Asia considered 'non-Western'? Hasn't rice been a staple food there for a long time?

jganetsk• 16 years ago

When they said "a non-western population", they didn't mean "all non-western populations".

Rice has been a staple for a long time historically speaking. But on the evolutionary time scale, rice's cultivation is insignificant.

The food we evolved for(a matter of needless disease and death, and avoiding it)

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