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eat everything.

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t should be intuitively obvious that since the agrarians were concentrated in towns, infectious diseases could spread among them more readily. Duh. Also, their lower level of physical activity would result in fewer broken bones. Um, yeah.

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ORIGINAL: samboct
What they found was that as humans transitioned from hunter gatherers to a more agrarian existence- they got sicker based on skeletal analysis.  They document shrinking sizes, (the average human male decreased from 173 cm in 400 BCE to 166 cm in the 1600s) along with diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis, and all sorts of awful dental decay which was based on a more limited diet and one with more sugars.  The one advantage to living in towns was that they suffered less bone trauma- i.e. fewer broken bones, but living in towns definitely made people sicker.  In the Middle Ages, living on a farm led to taller individuals, generally a sign of better nutrition.  In town, if you weren't part of an elite, you were pretty sick.

My conclusions on this one- eating a restricted diet- including one heavy in grains, is not the healthiest thing to do.  Be an omnivore- eat everything.

Sam  (ducking and running...)

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ORIGINAL: sirsholly
ok...but it will be your fault when i end up with an ass the size of Rhode Island.

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ORIGINAL: lusciouslips19

The data shows that people have gotten bigger since the turn of the century not smaller. If you look at clothes, shoes, etc we have grown both weight wise and skeletally. The generations have gotten bigger and are living longer due to nutrician and medical advancements. At the turn of the century the average life span was 49 years. Now 72.

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ORIGINAL: samboct

Like many myths, the health effects of vegetarianism are well known.  It's much healthier to eat vegetarian than say, an omnivores diet which includes things like red meat- right?

Well, not so fast...in the May 1, 2009 edition of Science there's an article which reports on a meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (March 31- April 4 of this year) where some new data led to some surprising conclusions.  The study presented was the first large scale study of 11,000 human skeletal remains which where pooled from 72 researchers- a meta study if you will.  These European individuals lived from 3,000 years ago till about 200 years ago.  Note that most anthropological studies on humans have been done with relatively few skeletons from burial sites- often where the sick folks got buried.  Hence, they weren't very representative of the population as a whole, but this meta study is.

What they found was that as humans transitioned from hunter gatherers to a more agrarian existence- they got sicker based on skeletal analysis.  They document shrinking sizes, (the average human male decreased from 173 cm in 400 BCE to 166 cm in the 1600s) along with diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis, and all sorts of awful dental decay which was based on a more limited diet and one with more sugars.  The one advantage to living in towns was that they suffered less bone trauma- i.e. fewer broken bones, but living in towns definitely made people sicker.  In the Middle Ages, living on a farm led to taller individuals, generally a sign of better nutrition.  In town, if you weren't part of an elite, you were pretty sick.

My conclusions on this one- eating a restricted diet- including one heavy in grains, is not the healthiest thing to do.  Be an omnivore- eat everything.

In terms of modern day data, humans in the US are shrinking since the 1950s- coupled with increasing rates of obesity.  What does this suggest about our modern diet?   Much as I'd like to say that it shows the dangers of vegetarianism (I thought about putting this post in the politics and religion forum- it seems to me that proselytizing vegetarianism is indeed some form of religion.) I think it probably shows that modern day highly processed foods aren't a good idea either.  The data on vegetarianism is shown by the study on historical humans.  Food for thought? 


Sam  (ducking and running...)

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ORIGINAL: CallaFirestormBW

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ORIGINAL: lusciouslips19

The data shows that people have gotten bigger since the turn of the century not smaller. If you look at clothes, shoes, etc we have grown both weight wise and skeletally. The generations have gotten bigger and are living longer due to nutrician and medical advancements. At the turn of the century the average life span was 49 years. Now 72.

However, change in weight to height ratios are changing more dramatically than height alone in all populations, which is a trend that is undergoing a lot of scrutiny in the medical literature right now, along with some significant studies in publication showing that current trends on weight reduction are resulting in secondary life-span complications (including things like Vitamin D deficiency, etc.) I can also tell you that, while extraordinary measures have extended our lifespans, on the average, by 20-30 years, the quality of life in those individuals who live those extra 20 years has diminished substantially (that's one thing I do for a living, is prepare quality-of-life studies in the healthcare industry).

Where people used to die, they are now surviving, but they are surviving with increasing per-capita percentages of debilitating and productivity-compromising cardiovascular disease, insulin-resistance diabetes (as opposed to insulin-insufficiency diabetes, which is a completely different disease), single-onset and recurrent cancer, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, gout, colorectal disease (including fistulas, diverticulitis, diverticulosis, polyposis), chronic airway disease (including asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema), depression, disthesias, systemic lupus erythymatosis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsonism, and Altzheimer's. Many of these diseases are turning out to have dietary links that are directly related to our processed-food diet and our indoor, sedentary culture. While they've been around a while, current QOL research is tending to indicate that most people who live past 50 years old in our current culture will have at -least- three debilitating diseases, and, on the average, as many as five debilitating diseases concurrently or serially from 45 years of age till death. Most of these diseases will require medical care that will cost over 2 million dollars per person over the 30-40 years of treatment that they will require (this breaks down to about $57,000 a year per person in medical costs).

Frankly, it's pretty apparent that what we've -been- doing isn't working. Maybe it -is- time to look at other options, including returning to a less processed, less industrialized method of obtaining our food.

Dame Calla

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ORIGINAL: dmt

I think a lot of people tend to just get grossed out by animals that have slaughtered for their dining pleasure... they tend to over think the fact that whatever was put in front of them was bred for other than the purpose of assimilation to digestion, and deny the fact that they have eye teeth and canine teeth for a designed purpose...(note, I've seen the photos thrust in my face, and I've also seen the body's reaction to someone who is a carnivore try to stop meat intake all at once..) here's the thing, I will eat animal flesh as my body was designed to do. You...? do whatever the heck you want.