Paleolithic nutrition + small quiz
Here's a link on nutrition: http://www.nutritionreporter.com/stone_age_diet.html
So most of us have heard we need to eat more fruits and vegetables. The reason for this, from the article, is that humans had evolved to eat mostly growing stuff (but not as much grains as other things) and some meat. Meat is good, but our sedentary lifestyle can't accommodate the amount we eat now, and plants provide a lot of the nutrients that our species had evolved to require.
It seems a good article, though of course I can't really vouch for some of the numbers in there. I'd need to be a chemist or something. I also used to think that the stone age isn't a perfect example of what we need, because we died so damn much, but I don't know how much of it was caused by deficiency. Was scurvy common? Beriberi? Only certain times, certain places? Did agriculture not really allow us to become better-nourished? Or did we receive the wrong nourishment from innovations in storing/baking grains and exploiting milk? I always thought that our ability to start doing the above things was what allowed us to survive better. Or maybe it was just a partial good thing, in that it far better ensured we had something to eat more than the hunting-gathering life did, but the foods weren't as good for us as leaves, roots, and game.
Hey, you've all seen the cycle of evolution drawing, right? Where a man evolves from four legs to taller on two legs, then evolves into crunching in front of the computer screen.
I guess that contains more truth than I thought. Maybe my sitting here blogging will eventually be caught up with in my descendants' dietary requirements.
Also I used to think that our requirements were more like what our closer ancestors are used to. I thought I was better suited to riding horses and drinking mare's milk. But I guess a few hundred or thousand years doesn't mean much for evolutionary changes. Still, it must mean something: some peoples (including mine) have become at least partially lactose tolerant in that small amount of time.
Also how long I can survive chained to a bunk bed with a raptor:
Created by Oatmeal
So most of us have heard we need to eat more fruits and vegetables. The reason for this, from the article, is that humans had evolved to eat mostly growing stuff (but not as much grains as other things) and some meat. Meat is good, but our sedentary lifestyle can't accommodate the amount we eat now, and plants provide a lot of the nutrients that our species had evolved to require.
It seems a good article, though of course I can't really vouch for some of the numbers in there. I'd need to be a chemist or something. I also used to think that the stone age isn't a perfect example of what we need, because we died so damn much, but I don't know how much of it was caused by deficiency. Was scurvy common? Beriberi? Only certain times, certain places? Did agriculture not really allow us to become better-nourished? Or did we receive the wrong nourishment from innovations in storing/baking grains and exploiting milk? I always thought that our ability to start doing the above things was what allowed us to survive better. Or maybe it was just a partial good thing, in that it far better ensured we had something to eat more than the hunting-gathering life did, but the foods weren't as good for us as leaves, roots, and game.
Hey, you've all seen the cycle of evolution drawing, right? Where a man evolves from four legs to taller on two legs, then evolves into crunching in front of the computer screen.
I guess that contains more truth than I thought. Maybe my sitting here blogging will eventually be caught up with in my descendants' dietary requirements.
Also I used to think that our requirements were more like what our closer ancestors are used to. I thought I was better suited to riding horses and drinking mare's milk. But I guess a few hundred or thousand years doesn't mean much for evolutionary changes. Still, it must mean something: some peoples (including mine) have become at least partially lactose tolerant in that small amount of time.
Also how long I can survive chained to a bunk bed with a raptor:
Created by Oatmeal