MY SCIENCE-DRIVEN NUTRITIONAL PHILOSOPHY
"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."
Hippocrates, father of medicine 431 B.C.
So what has happened to create this tragic and sick state of affairs? Your United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), most doctors and other self-proclaimed health "gurus" would have you believe that it is your fault if you are overweight and/or obese because you are "slothful" and "gluttonous"; you eat too much, and you exercise too little.
It is an old trick, "Blame the victim", but the truth lies elsewhere.
EVOLUTIONARY FACTS:
Evolution of genes and adaptation for strong survival of any species of life, including humans, takes place NOT over hundreds, or thousands, or even tens of thousands, but, rather, over hundreds of thousands and millions of years. Beginning 4 million years ago with Australopithecus africanus humans were discovered to be "omnivorous", that is, they fed upon food of both plant and animal origin. This began the shift in hominid (human-like primate) diet to a higher dependence on protein and fat sources, rather than just vegetables and fruit. (Billings, Tom. HUMANITY'S EVOLUTIONARY PREHISTORIC DIET AND APE DIETS--continued, PART D)
Between 1.8 and 1.0 million years ago Homo erectus.has been found to have used many more stone-based tools fo their day-to-day survival tasks...many specifically designed for meat cutting. Animal bones from this period show human tooth marks as well as tool-cut gouges, revealing that humans were scavenging as well as actively hunting meat. This emphasizes the increasing role and importance of meat for food in early society.
The "Expensive Tissue Hypothesis" is the current most widely accepted theory which states that an increase of meat-eating by humans caused our "gut" to be able toreduce in size, and more energy able to be shunted to increase brain size. Increase in meat intake and increase in brain size went hand-in-hand. (www.scielo.br), (Shipman,Pat. SCAVENGER HUNT. Nutritional Anthropology. 2000).
Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals) lived approximately 350,000 to 130,00 years ago in Europe and parts of West Asia and became extinct about 25000 years ago. These people were more powerful and hearty than their Homo sapien counterparts, and it is suggested by research that the two interbred at some points. (Hayes, Jacqui. Humans and Neanderthals interbred. Cosmos online. Nov. 2006.)
Based on evidence from the bones of Neanderthals, their diet had a heavy emphasis on fatty meats and vegetables. Isotope analysis shows that they were extremely dependent on meat, and suggests that Neanderthals were not scavengers, but, instead, predominantly hunters, and famous for their obvious skill. (Richards, Michael, et al. Neanderthal Diet at Vindija and Neanderthl Predation: The evidence fro stable isotopes. PNAS, June 2000.) Neanderthals' skeletons display the results of the vast importance of meat, generating their size and imposing strength. (Wikipedia: Neanderthals, 2007.)
Approximately 200,000 years ago came the origination of Homo sapiens, our direct and most similar ancestors. From then until about 10,000 years ago, their [ our ] diet was that of the hunter-gatherer, identical to Neanderthals, consisting of wild game, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts. (Dr. Cummings, Marjorie. Anthro 2AN3: Anthropology of Food and Nutrition. McMaster University, Hamilton, On.)
Native populations of the world who did not adopt organised agricultural practices are still mainly omnivorous, carnivorous, or fruitarian. Bushmen of Kalahari consumed an omnivorous diet of vegetables, nuts and about 20 percent game. Ratios of the macronutrients were about equal at 33 percent each, protein, fat and carbohydrate. (No grain, no dairy.) Native Americans and Eskimos still ate a diet of 4 - 50 percent animal fat, and a mostly high-protein, high-fat diet. (Fallon, Sally and Enig, Mary. Guts and Grease: The Diet of Native Americans. The Weston Price Foundation).
However ... 10,000 years ago The "Agricultural Revolution" began, making it possible for populations to settle in one area and not need to travel to find game or plants, but instead farm and grow crops, domesticate animals, introduce, grow and process wild grains, and to produce dairy products. Cultures and cities were born, and the advances of "civilization" developed rapidly ... but so, indeed, did the diseases of civilization, and the undesirable dependence on single crops. Our "assets" began to become our "liabilities". Two million years, and, more specifically, the physical, intellectual and emotional results of 200 thousand years of Homo sapien evolutionary adaptation has been asked to adapt in a virtual "blink" of an eye of a mere 10 thousand years to a completely new feeding and survival behavior.
Folks...it just does NOT happen that quickly ... in a health-promoting way.
Yes ... Commodification of our food began 10 thousand years ago, and has continued to the present day ... especially over the last 200 years, and most disastrously over the last 118 years!
Up until the Industrial Revolution which began about 200 years ago, due to the introduction to their diet of indigestible grains and dairy products, Homo sapiens ' physical health deteriorated. Stature was reduced and dental caries became [ and remains! ] prolific along with other health-damaging phenomena which I will get to later. Humans became the only species on earth who, on purpose, consume the milk of another animal. For two million years, after weaning, humans drank no more milk. In fact, most lose the enzyme to digest milk (lactase) at around age five or six, with 70 percent of the world's now 8 billion Homo sapiens being lactose-intolerant. (https://ghr.nim.nih.gov).
The Industrial Revolution brought more and faster "advances" in the ways in which food could be distorted from its natural form. And now, over the last 100 years or so, an even more intense and calamitous "feeding experiment" has been perpetrated upon humanity., the resultsof which I only partially described in the "FIRST, SOME FACTS"section above.
SINCE 1900
As if the departure, 10,000 years ago, from our genome-generating, hunter-gatherer lifestyle was not damaging enough, from 1900, throughout the past 118 years, the food consumed by humans, especially in America, is a far cry even from that indulged in during and after the Agricultural Revolution.
I believe you can observe from the above history of "Man's" nutritional development just what the basis of human nutrition should look like. The changes begun during the Agricultural Revolution created the downward spiral of human health, and those since 1900 have not only perpetuated that decline, but, have also incredibly magnified it.
From the aspects of nutrition, evolutionary biology and human physiology, the changes that have precipitated the human health damage of our general population include, but are not limited to:
- Consumption of grain carbohydrates... especially the highly-processed ones. (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ba07/b6e9f3cb6e77239d0e81de9aee8173595403.pdf .... L. Cordain. 1999)
- Increased use of refined sugar never before observed in human evolutiionary history. (Willet et al. Glycemic Index, glycemic load, and risk of Type II diabetes. Harvard School of Public Health. 2002. PubMed.)
NOTE; Both of the above changes have had incredibly significant deleterious effects, one of the worst being the above-mentioned skyrocketing of Type II diabetes.
- The vilification and resulting decrease in the use of necessary fats, including saturated fat. (Fallon, Sally and Enig, Mary. Guts and Grease: The Diet of native Americans. The Weston Price Foundation.)
- General reduced consumption of vegetables and fruits with accompanying increase in excess processed food use.
- Farming of animals in Contained Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO's) resulting in an inadequacy of vegetable nourishment in consumed meats, and due to animals being fed corn, offal, animal by-products and other unnatural items instead of the food nature evolved them to need, like nutritious and diverse vegetable diets.
- The use of artificially-obtained hormones and antibiotics in foods and animal feed. (https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/safer-food-healthier-you#1)
- The use in food production, of chemical, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, not only poisoning human cells but decreasing soil quality and reducing nutrient capacity of crops. (Worthington, Virginia. Nutritional Quality of Organic Versus Conventional Fruits, vegetables and Grains. 2001. )
- Attempting to standardize nutrition guidelines on the basis of political influence rather than upon a basis of current, scientific research. (https://www.nutritioncoalition.us/there-is-concern-about-the-dietary-guidelines/ )
- More pollution in the atmosphere at all levels.
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