[ExI] Paleo/Primal health [Was: Re: Technology, specialization, and diebacks...Re: I love the world. =)]

[Dave Sill]

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:
> Dave Sill wrote
>>
>> Do you really think it's likely that the diet of our ancient ancestors is
>> better than anything we can come with today with our vastly deeper knowledge
>> of biology and nutrition?
>
> I did not say that.

No, but you're not advocating a modern diet that's designed for our
bodies and incorporating knowledge about what our ancestors ate but
also taking into account what we know about nutrition to further
minimize undesirable foodstuffs and ensure that sufficient quantities
of micro and macro nutrients are present. Or, if you are, then calling
it "paleolithic" is misleading--or marketing (is there a difference?).

> The way you ask this seems quite odd: it seems to ignore
> the whole rationale for the paleo diet, which is essentially that we evolved
> to eat certain foods over very long periods of time and have not evolved to
> eat other foods. How much knowledge paleolithic people had is completely
> irrelevant.

But I do think it's relevant to apply what we now know when designing
a diet for modern man. I'm sure lots of paleolithic people ate
perfectly paleolithic diets that were lacking important nutrients
because they weren't readily, locally available. But we do know about
them and they are available, so a proper modern diet should ensure
that they're included.

> I don't get the impression that you've read any of the sources I already
> provided, so I'm not going to go into any detail.

That's unnecessarily condescending. This is a casual conversation. If
we were talking on a subway would stop talking until I'd read a few
books?
I'm talking to you because I'm interested in this topic. If you didn't
mean to discuss it with people who haven't studied the subject, you
should have made that clear up front.

> The paleo diet allows for
> *some* nuts and seeds, but not in large quantities (again, different
> proponents have differing views on this). Seeds are different from wheat,
> rice, barley, millet, and other grains. Rice may not be as bad as wheat,
> especially wild rice.

Wild rice isn't really rice. In what way are wheat berries and
barleycorns different from seeds?

> It's not really helpful, though narrowly technically correct, to dismiss
> what I said by saying that "grains are seeds". By grains, I'm talking about
> the domesticated grasses in the gramineae family.

And you don't think pre-agricultural people ate grass seed? Where do
you think they got the desire to cultivate them? Grass seed has been
found  in dinosaur coprolites.

>> And, if so, do you really think it's a good fit for a modern lifestyle?
>
> Perhaps you should consider changing the modern lifestyle to work better
> with our genes (until we can reliably alter them).

I already exercise regularly to counteract my otherwise relatively
sedentary lifestyle. I'm not quite ready to start living off the land,
give up electricity, ...

> What exactly do you mean by the modern lifestyle?

I mean "where and how modern people live". It just seems to me that
one's diet should be lifestyle-appropriate. Paleoliths might have
eaten 3000-4000 calories a day, but *I* certainly don't need that.
They might have also gone through periods of malnourishment and
starvation, but I'm probably not going to emulate that without
compelling evidence of its necessity. They also didn't have
refrigeration and probably ate a lot of spoiled food.

>> I think one problem with the modern diet is too many refined grains. But
>> whole grains are loaded with nutrition and are absolutely not a problem *in
>> moderation*.
>
> Are you sure whole grains are "loaded with nutrition"?

Yes, whole grains are good sources of carbohydrates, protein, fiber,
photochemicals, vitamins, minerals, etc.

> From what I've seen
> (using numbers from the USDA nutrient database, that's not the case. For a
> given number of calories, whole grains are nutritionally poor compared to
> lean meats (I was very surprised by how nutrient-rich these are), seafood,
> vegetables, and fruit (plus they contain several "anti-nutrients").

I didn't say anything about nutrients vs. calories. Grains may compare
unfavorably to lean meat, but an acre of wheat produces a lot more
food than an acre of pasture. Since more than half of all calories
currently consumed come from grains, there have to be serious issues
involved with phasing them out completely.

> Too bad
> I can't show you p. 271 of The Paleo Solution by Wolff which consists of a
> table comparing mean nutrient density of various food groups. As to them
> absolutely not being a problem in moderation: individuals clearly vary
> greatly in their tolerance for the anti-nutrients in whole grains. From what
> I've read, they absolutely are a problem even in moderation for many people.
> Even when there are no obvious problems, they may be doing slow damage and
> raising insulin levels.

Clearly we need to learn more about these anti-nutrients. Even the
paleo diet isn't completely free of them, and some may have benefits
that outweigh their nutritional costs.

The bottom line is that I'm not opposed to learning from the diets of
our ancestors to design an optimal modern diet, I just don't think
it's the best we can do. And I don't think it's particularly Extropian
not to apply science and technology to our diets.

-Dave