[HN Gopher] Excess protein enabled dog domestication during seve...
___________________________________________________________________
Excess protein enabled dog domestication during severe Ice Age
winters
Author : pseudolus
Score : 130 points
Date : 2021-01-08 14:50 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| sradman wrote:
| The paper _Excess protein enabled dog domestication during severe
| Ice Age winters_ [1]:
|
| > Humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet; human
| consumption of meat is limited by the liver's capacity to
| metabolize protein. Contrary to humans, wolves can thrive on lean
| meat for months. We present here data showing that all the
| Pleistocene archeological sites with dog or incipient dog remains
| are from areas that were analogous to subarctic and arctic
| environments. Our calculations show that during harsh winters,
| when game is lean and devoid of fat, Late Pleistocene hunters-
| gatherers in Eurasia would have a surplus of animal derived
| protein that could have been shared with incipient dogs.
|
| This is based on reference [2] _A review of issues of dietary
| protein intake in humans_ :
|
| > A suggested maximum protein intake based on bodily needs,
| weight control evidence, and avoiding protein toxicity would be
| approx. of 25% of energy requirements at approx. 2 to 2.5 g
| .cntdot. kg-1 .cntdot. d-1, corresponding to 176 g protein per
| day for an 80 kg individual on a 12,000kJ/d diet [~2800 Cal].
| This is well below the theor. maximum safe intake range for an 80
| kg person (285 to 365 g/d).
|
| [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78214-4
|
| [2] https://chemport.cas.org/cgi-
| bin/sdcgi?APP=ftslink&action=re...
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| _Contrary to humans, wolves can thrive on lean meat for months_
|
| Does that imply that you feed the dog lean meat and you get to
| eat a fat dog in return? What does the archaeological record
| have to say on dog bones?
| bsima wrote:
| it implies that the humans ate the fat and organs, while the
| lean meat was given to the dogs
| bjornsing wrote:
| > Tame canines can guard against predators and interlopers, carry
| supplies, pull sleds and provide warmth during cold nights. But
| those benefits only come following domestication. Despite more
| than a century of study, scientists have struggled to understand
| what triggered the domestication process in the first place.
|
| Is it so hard to believe that early humans could imagine the
| benefits and purposefully domesticated canines? I mean, we've
| gone to the freaking moon, for no immediate benefit at all...
| Humans do a lot of things for the hell of it.
| ekidd wrote:
| I once read an article by a man who raised an undomesticated
| wolf. It's a huge hassle and not exactly safe. But he wound up
| with a relatively loyal animal that disliked being separated
| from him. (And which routinely wrecked his house.)
|
| If you spend your life hunting game animals with a spear, then
| maybe a barely tamed wolf seems like a reasonable risk in
| comparison?
| wtetzner wrote:
| I imagine it would offer protection for nomadic hunter-
| gatherers.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| i'm reading the book 'Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking
| Dog' right now. it's about a man who befriends a wild dog and
| takes him home. he lets the dog live like a wild dog and gives
| the dog a door to his house so the dog can live as he pleases.
| the writer has a refreshing approach to caring for dogs. he also
| explores/refutes a lot of dog origin myths, while engaging with
| the scientific history of dog study.
|
| very much recommended if you're a dog owner or spend a lot of
| time outdoors. https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780156034500
| mc32 wrote:
| It's an interesting theory; on the other hand people domesticated
| birds of prey to assist with hunting as well (falconry).
| yesbabyyes wrote:
| My pet theory is that corvids and canines were best friends
| long before humans came around, and that we have hunted all
| three together, for mutual benefit.
| hirundo wrote:
| This has a strangely hostile anti-paleo spin given the core
| finding. Here's the title:
|
| > Dog Domestication May Have Begun because Paleo Humans Couldn't
| Stomach the Original Paleo Diet
|
| If they let the wolves eat the lean meat they didn't want,
| doesn't that mean too-much-lean-meat was _not_ a part of "the
| original paleo diet"? Does she imagine that we _had_ to eat it
| before we started to domesticate wolves with it?
|
| > "Because we humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet,
| we simply cannot digest protein very well," Lahtinen says. "It
| can be very fatal in a very short period of time."
|
| Yes, if you eat all lean meat you won't last long on that. But
| nobody thinks that was the paleo carnivore diet that we adapted
| to. Our ancestors, if current hunter gathers are a guide, ate
| nose to tail, prioritizing the fatty parts and eating the lean
| parts only as necessary, else it became scraps for scavengers.
|
| It's like saying we're not fully adapted to a plant-based diet
| because it's dangerous to eat too much (insert toxic plant food
| here). Well sure, but that just means we're better adapted to
| other plants or plant parts. Like we're better adapted to eating
| a nose-to-tail animal than just the lean meat.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| It's important to remember that "paleo" diets have little
| relationship to what our ancient ancestors actually ate and
| evolved with. We would have historically not avoided starchy,
| carb-filled tubers for example, which made up a major portion
| of the early AMH diet. Additionally, these sites are arctic and
| near-arctic, where the adapted behavior (and diet) is _very_
| different than what it is back in Africa.
| dkarl wrote:
| I had a similar reaction, not that it's necessarily
| specifically anti-paleo, but that there was some motivation to
| cast protein in a negative light. There's a paragraph in the
| article that seems intentionally designed to become nutritional
| misinformation, ending with this:
|
| > Indeed, if humans eat too much meat, diarrhea usually ensues.
| And within weeks, they can develop protein poisoning and even
| die. "Because we humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous
| diet, we simply cannot digest protein very well," Lahtinen
| says. "It can be very fatal in a very short period of time."
|
| The next paragraph makes a passing reference to available prey
| animals often being "nearly devoid of fat," but it doesn't
| explain that this near complete absence of fat in the diet is
| necessary to make protein "poisonous."
| Retric wrote:
| It's saying that our ancestors where actively avoiding ketosis
| which is the core of the Palio diet. Rabbit starvation doesn't
| mean we can't eat rabbits, it means we need to eat other things
| like fat, carbs while also eating rabbits. However, if your
| hunting rabbits you don't have a source of fat in hand.
| [deleted]
| radford-neal wrote:
| You need to eat either fat or carbohydrate to go with the
| protein. If you're eating fat with the protein (and no
| carbohydrates), you aren't going to avoid ketosis (and you'll
| be OK).
| terio wrote:
| >If you're eating fat with the protein (and no
| carbohydrates), you aren't going to avoid ketosis
|
| Actually, you would have to restrict your protein intake to
| small amounts to be in ketosis. It is very easy to get out
| of ketosis by eating a bit too much protein because it gets
| metabolized into glucose.
| Retric wrote:
| Clarified, my point. If you have a source of fat then you
| don't need to hunt rabbits. But, if you have a source of
| carbs then rabbits are a reasonable food source. Therefore
| if a hunter gather was eating rabbits they where also
| avoiding ketosis.
| [deleted]
| scythe wrote:
| >It's saying that our ancestors where actively avoiding
| ketosis which is the core of the Palio diet.
|
| Ketosis and rabbit starvation (ammonia toxicity) are
| completely different things. The reason that there was too
| much protein in the meat was that there was not enough fat;
| carbohydrates are simply not available in Siberian winters.
|
| Also, paleo diets don't aim for ketosis. Those are called
| _keto_ diets, and for most people they 're just a short-term
| rapid weight loss strategy (also useful long-term in epilepsy
| and possibly some autoimmune disorders). Paleo by contrast is
| supposed to be a long-term maintenance diet that usually
| doesn't aim for rapid weight loss.
|
| Also, the downsides of "too much protein" have been well-
| known in pretty much every paleo discussion community since
| forever, since it's a well-known fact of experience among
| many athletes. The idea that protein toxicity is a problem in
| practice for paleo is silly (it wouldn't even make the top
| ten if you listed the real flaws).
|
| I would not advise following paleo diets in the form they're
| commonly presented -- they place too much emphasis on the
| wrong things and contribute to the iconoclastic miasma that
| has been suffocating Western societies -- but the article's
| comparison is, nonetheless, completely off-base.
| Retric wrote:
| From what I have read, ammonia toxicity is believed to
| require a secondary issue rather than just be from an
| extreme protein diet. This area doesn't have a lot of
| research, but the reported symptoms from rabbit toxicity
| are noticeably different.
|
| You're absolutely correct that the Palio community tries to
| have sufficient carbs and fat to balance things out.
| However, I am basing this on what I observed people eating
| on Palio which while not correct likely does help the
| perception of effectiveness.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I can't speak to the nutritional aspect of it, but having
| attempted various high protein or protein/fat heavy keto diets in
| the past with varying levels of success I do have to say it
| doesn't take long before you just get sick of eating meat. The
| charm of it wears off. Our paleolithic ancestors would have
| craved and sought out any and all carbohydrate sources, and
| preserved summer fruits and berries as much as they could have.
| First nations here in Canada made/make pemmican, a mixture of
| animal products and berries from the summer, as a winter food,
| and I'm sure this practice goes back for a very long time.
|
| At a certain point, I'm sure being sick of meat (especially from
| fairly large and omnipresent megafauna), the services of a
| companion dog/wolf would have been worth the waste.
|
| Also many northern hunter gatherers eat the contents of the
| stomach of their kills as a way to get carbohydrates, trace
| nutrients and vitamins, etc. Between that and a source for furs,
| leathers, bones (for tool/structure making), one might make more
| kills than necessary and have excess meat.
| com2kid wrote:
| > I do have to say it doesn't take long before you just get
| sick of eating meat.
|
| I got tired of avocados first. After several years, I still
| can't stand them! But keto is a lot more than meat, it is nuts
| and berries, dairy[1], and lots of green leafy vegetables.
|
| The # of things I can't eat on keto comes down to bread,
| potatoes, rice, and super sugary fruits, but it isn't like the
| 170 grams of sugar (!!!!) in 1/2 a watermelon was ever good for
| me.
|
| [1] https://www.darigold.com/darigold-fit/
| chlodwig wrote:
| _I can 't speak to the nutritional aspect of it, but having
| attempted various high protein or protein/fat heavy keto diets
| in the past with varying levels of success I do have to say it
| doesn't take long before you just get sick of eating meat._
|
| What kind of meat were you eating and how was it cooked? I did
| a month of carnivore diet and never got sick of eating rare
| ribeye steak, lamb ribs, or lamb legs. I think I would get sick
| of chicken or pot roast or well-done ground beef. That said, I
| never stopped missing carby meals like mac 'n cheese or cookie
| dough ice cream.
| war1025 wrote:
| > never got sick of eating rare ribeye steak
|
| > I think I would get sick of chicken or pot roast or well-
| done ground beef
|
| Honest question, why do people seem to love rare meat so
| much? I agree that tough meat doesn't taste good, but I would
| argue a properly cooked pot roast is about the most tender
| cut of meat you can find.
|
| Having had what most "foodie" people would call a "properly
| cooked" just barely above rare steak, I always find it to be
| unsatisfying.
|
| What am I missing?
| Shorel wrote:
| It depends. Cow meat is better when rare, pork is better
| well roasted.
| sonotmyname wrote:
| > Cow meat is better when rare
|
| A few pitmasters in Texas would like to have a word with
| you about over-generalizing....
|
| Seriously though - a cow is a huge animal with many cuts.
| Some are better rare, some are sublime when cooked to a
| high enough heat to break down the collagen in it.
| com2kid wrote:
| Visit Japan sometime, health and sanitary standards are
| so high that you can have chicken ordered rare.
|
| It is a bit shocking and I know a few people who just
| couldn't do it, we are so conditioned in the west to
| "rare chicken will kill you".
|
| But, if you can manage it, very delicious. :)
| chlodwig wrote:
| _Honest question, why do people seem to love rare meat so
| much? I agree that tough meat doesn 't taste good, but I
| would argue a properly cooked pot roast is about the most
| tender cut of meat you can find._
|
| Ribeye, lamb ribs, and lamb leg are all relatively tender.
| Beyond a certain point, I don't need my meat to be that
| tender. Frankly, ribeye is probably too tender to be
| optimal for health and physique -- it would be better to
| develop that Chad-like jaw to eat something a more tough
| cut ...
|
| Rare meat is not only juicier, but too me it tastes a lot
| better. Rare meat tastes good, the denatured proteins of
| pot roast do not taste good. And while there is a
| tremendous amount of social conditioning and idiosyncrasies
| that determine people's tastes, I don't think is just me --
| most people eat their steaks plain, but almost everyone I
| know adds sauces and fixins to their pot roast and brisket
| and other meats that have been cooked forever. IMO, they
| ruin the meat with over cooking and then add in sugars and
| other flavorings to make it palatable.
| war1025 wrote:
| A well cooked pot roast is not that much different from
| the sous vide trend that's becoming so popular.
|
| You put the roast in a dutch oven coated in salt and
| pepper the same as you would with a steak and a bit of
| water, then you let it cook at ~200F for 4 - 8 hours.
|
| Usually you also slow roast some onions, carrots,
| potatoes, etc. along with it the last little while.
|
| Then make a gravy from the drippings.
|
| The gravy is good on the meat, but it's more for the
| vegetables. The meat is delicious in its own right.
| chlodwig wrote:
| With sous vide the collagen breaks down, but the internal
| temperature never gets high enough for the proteins to
| denature. Internal temp should not be higher than 135.
| The meat is still pink if you are doing it right. With
| pot roast, internal temp is going to 190 degrees or
| higher and the proteins denature (in addition to the
| collagen breaking down). I find that sous vide chuck
| roast taste better on its own than chuck roast, but it is
| worse than chuck roast seared and served rare. But the
| sous vide version is more tender than rare chuck roast,
| while being less tender than pot roast.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > With pot roast, _internal temp is going to 190 degrees
| or higher_ and the proteins denature (in addition to the
| collagen breaking down). [emphasis added]
|
| For a bad pot roast, maybe. I've never cooked a pot roast
| so hot that it would reach that internal temperature, and
| I've never known anyone else to either.
|
| EDIT: Looking up recipes now, apparently some recipes do
| call for taking pot roast to _much_ higher temps than I
| cook it to. Maybe that 's why fast food roasts are so
| bad, but also why I don't eat them.
| chlodwig wrote:
| What internal temp do you cook until? Do you cook the
| whole roast as one big 6 pound chunk, or cut it up into
| pieces before cooking it? When I've cooked brisket or pot
| roast, I cook it until it is fork tender, which I think
| is usually around 190 degrees.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I leave it solid. 160 or so because my wife won't eat
| meat if it's still pink and a roast is hard to cook two
| of (versus steaks). We still find it plenty tender, they
| maybe not _fork tender_ tender. But I 'll do a long slow
| cook to help it become tender versus heating it up more.
| sillycon-valley wrote:
| It's juicy. Some people's preference of "dry" varies.
|
| Some people can't fathom others liking well done, some
| can't fathom rare. Pink in the middle is preferred but at
| red it's too watery for me, to each their own.
| war1025 wrote:
| > It's juicy.
|
| Most of the juice in my experience comes from cooking the
| meat long enough to render the fat. I've had medium-rare
| steak before where the fat was all still solid. Didn't
| seem all that great to me even though all the others
| raved about it.
| curiousllama wrote:
| In terms of statistical preference, I'm not sure there's a
| actually huge difference. Some people like blue steaks,
| others like well done, most people are in between.
|
| I think people who like rare steaks just talk about it more
| because it's the "right" way to prepare the "best" cuts. A
| $200 steak is just going to be most flavorful when it's on
| the rarer side. But its just a signaling thing if you're
| talking about skirt or flank.
|
| Same question could be asked "why does everyone all the
| sudden love whiskey neat so much?" - they don't, its just
| that the whiskey folk talk about it conspicuously.
| war1025 wrote:
| > its just a signaling thing
|
| That makes a lot of sense.
|
| Also what on earth makes a steak worth $200? I bought a
| 1/4 beef this fall for something like $700, and that
| includes all the nice steaks and roasts along with like
| 50 lbs of ground beef.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Well, a nonlinear demand curve for luxury goods comes
| into play. Also, $200 steaks are typically prepared (at
| which point you're paying for restaurant ambiance and the
| chef's time). Raw steaks don't get up that high unless
| aged or pre-prepared in some way.
|
| But more generally, steaks just scale well to the high
| end. They keep getting better and better as cut,
| livestock, and preparation improves. That's not
| necessarily true for other foods. E.g., most pastas
| (while obviously delicious) will only get so good barring
| a virtuoso chef.
|
| I recommend a test. Find a friend who's really good at
| preparing steaks. Have them cook a good cut & a regular
| cut from your 1/4 beef, and you cook one of each too.
| You'll taste the difference from cut and preparation
| quality.
| war1025 wrote:
| Where would you suggest getting a "good" steak?
|
| In my experience direct from farmer beef is so superior
| to store bought beef that I avoid eating beef bought from
| a store.
| Afton wrote:
| My experience with buying quarters was 'so-so' enough
| that I stopped. Even when the meat was good enough, I
| found that I felt like I was being ripped off. There is
| just _so_ much opportunity between the farmer and butcher
| to cheat you, and you don 't have any insight. Maybe it's
| just me.
|
| I can really only imagining this working out consistently
| if you really developed those relationships, and for a
| purchase I'd make a few times a year at most, it didn't
| seem worth it.
| war1025 wrote:
| I guess, yea, do business with people you trust.
|
| I've found butchers and farmers to be generally
| upstanding people. I'm also in the heart of farm country.
| I would be a lot more leery of people targeting a more
| urban market.
| samatman wrote:
| A good compromise is an actual butcher, the kind who has
| a relationship with farmers and breaks down primal cuts.
|
| I live alone so a quarter beef would be a real challenge
| to finish off. Instead, I can go to the local butcher and
| get the usual cuts, and the unusual cuts, soup bones,
| hard fat for tallow, and so on.
|
| Where I live, at least, it's all local, beef, lamp, goat,
| chicken, doesn't matter.
| jdmichal wrote:
| In addition to what others have mentioned, a $200 steak
| is probably -- hopefully?! -- dry-aged. Something like
| 1/3 of the weight is evaporated away during dry-aging, so
| that 16oz steak was originally 24oz. There's also loss to
| trimming, which is required due to both a desiccated
| crust and fungal and mold growth on the surface. And it
| is typically a high-grade beef to start with. And it's
| time intensive.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_aging#Dry-aged_beef
| war1025 wrote:
| I know they aged the carcass for two weeks on my beef
| before they broke it down into cuts. I think the "dry
| aged" stuff is generally aged even further than that,
| right?
|
| I think I read somewhere that mass-market beef is
| generally not left to hang after slaughter, is that
| correct?
| chlodwig wrote:
| _I think people who like rare steaks just talk about it
| more because it 's the "right" way to prepare the "best"
| cuts. A $200 steak is just going to be most flavorful
| when it's on the rarer side. But its just a signaling
| thing if you're talking about skirt or flank._
|
| IMO, it does not have to be a $200 cut, a $9 ribeye from
| Walmart cooked rare is far better than a $9 pot roast
| sandwich from the local fast food joint.
|
| With at $4/lb chuck roast it's more of a trade-off. A
| chuck roast steak cooked rare is a little too tough for
| my liking. But it is far more juicy and tasteful than the
| same cut slow cooked and served as a pot roast
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Almost any steak will be better than a pot roast sandwich
| from probably any fast food place (there are a few
| exceptions I've been to). And Walmart groceries, contrary
| to popular belief, are actually pretty decent. Mostly on
| par with any other grocer in the areas I've lived.
| astrange wrote:
| Is there a technique to eating organs I don't know about? I
| assumed a stomach would be like eating vomit. Liver is still
| popular to this day, but maybe the animals whose organs we eat
| don't have as many metabolites in there as I thought.
| war1025 wrote:
| I think a lot of eating organ meat involves washing it or
| soaking it to get the more unpalatable flavors off.
|
| Not something I've really been adventurous enough to try
| though.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It really is cultural. Eating raw seal meat and the contents
| of the stomach was not considered disgusting by people who
| grew up with it.
| nkrisc wrote:
| I would guess much of it depends on the diet of the prey
| animal. Eating the contents of a carnivore's stomach would
| probably be awful, but that of an obligate herbivore is
| probably not as bad, comparatively, since it would mostly
| just be plant matter, perhaps slightly fermented.
|
| You only need to take a look at the difference between the
| feces of carnivore and herbivores. Cow dung or rabbit pellets
| really aren't all that bad. Wolf or otter feces, as two
| examples, is pretty vile stuff.
| [deleted]
| Jtsummers wrote:
| More a technique in preparing it. Just like anything else
| that may seem unappetizing on its own. Sweetbreads are pretty
| tasty, and tripe isn't the worst if it's prepared well.
| Intestine can get tough if not prepared properly, which is
| not pleasant to me (though my in-laws seem to like it that
| way).
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Far far more kills than was necessary for caloric content. This
| idea that early humans "took only what they needed from nature"
| is quaint. They took what they could use, which means basically
| whenever usefulness outweighed the risk of the hunt. I remember
| an early history class about a buffalo jump. Teacher told us
| that "all parts of the animal were used." Well, not that giant
| pile of bones. If the dogs were hungry, or one needed some
| fresh bones to carve a tool, some large herbavore was killed.
| Im sure that lots of useful meat was left to the elements, just
| as with hunters today.
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| That's probably dependent on the relative abundance. Massive
| herds of Buffalo don't require using everything.
|
| Living in the arctic where it's a lot more effort probably
| resulted in a more efficient use of the animal.
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| Linked below is a PDF of an interesting book about one of the
| famous buffalo jump sites Head-Smashed-In in Alberta Canada
|
| https://zerocarbzen.com/2015/05/01/imagining-head-smashed-
| in...
| Shivetya wrote:
| From my standpoint, I never understood why people focus on the
| meat side of this diet. I never eat more green vegetables than
| when I am on a keto type diet. They are everywhere and I even
| have slight variations into vegetables I do not normally
| consider.
|
| However one point most people miss, you don't have to cut out
| BBQ or other meat condiments. You would be amazed how far that
| tablespoon actually goes and you still stay way under your carb
| limit. Once I discovered this the dieting got immensely easier.
| Same goes for types of salad dressing; I tend to the mix it
| yourself variety from Good Seasons.
|
| I do not let myself slip into reasoning "just one slice of
| bread" is okay though. You do however need to look beyond foods
| you are used to. Eventually it became a game for me which made
| the whole process more fun
| chlodwig wrote:
| _From my standpoint, I never understood why people focus on
| the meat side of this diet. I never eat more green vegetables
| than when I am on a keto type diet._
|
| There is a growing group of people who believe in a carnivore
| diet, not just a keto diet. They have an active subreddit
| with introductory readings, a FAQ and wiki explaining their
| reasoning.
|
| http://www.empiri.ca/p/eat-meat-not-too-little-mostly-
| fat.ht...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/wiki/faq#wiki_2._isn.27t_t.
| ..
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/wiki/plants
|
| https://justmeat.co/
|
| The tldr is that they believe we evolved to primarily eat
| meat, we get the best most bioavailable nutrients from animal
| sources, and that most plants have various toxins in them to
| discourage animals from eating them, and that even when
| cooked these toxins aren't completely destroyed and a lot of
| people experience low-level inflammation and irritation from
| plant sources, without realizing it.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I highly recommend not getting your anthropology lessons
| from diet subs on reddit. The level of information you get
| is questionable at best and often informed by incorrect
| stereotypes with little basis in reality. A lot of the same
| is happening here, with people talking about specific cold-
| environment adaptations like high meat consumption as if
| they apply to all of human evolution.
|
| The current consensus is that groups outside the
| circumpolar regions typically ate large amounts of plant
| matter. In many groups it was even a majority of dietary
| calories, alongside things like honey and probably insects.
| This is archaeologically well-substantiated, even taking
| into account formation processes and preservation biases.
| chlodwig wrote:
| I get my anthropology lessons from actually reading the
| recommended primary sources from all-sides of the debate,
| and then using my own judgement about what makes the most
| sense and what is most convincing.
|
| What is one or two best primary sources supporting your
| view that our hominid ancestors of one million years ago
| would have been eating mostly plants?
| com2kid wrote:
| I'm hugely pro-keto, but, I have to say, assuming advice
| for one group in a given region is true for all people
| worldwide seems like bad logic.
|
| We already know that the gut biome between two modern
| Americans can differ so greatly that a diet that makes
| one person obese will have no negative health impacts on
| someone else.
|
| We know that obesity seems to be "inherited" to an
| extent, mediated by epigenetic effects.
|
| And there are examples of populations that can extract
| nutrients from foods, such as seaweed, that the general
| human populace can't.
|
| Heck a good friend of mine, if he follows exactly the
| same keto diet I do, felt physically sick and lethargic
| for 2 months before he gave up. Meanwhile I was out there
| doing 3 hour a day intense workouts.
|
| Trying to say there is "one diet to rule them all", well,
| it doesn't work. Any given diet subreddit is going to be
| full of people for whom that diet works really well, and
| a self-reinforcing community will form. Back when I was
| super active on /r/keto people would come in and ask why
| it wasn't working for them, and after going through the
| regular checklist, I'd add "and maybe this just isn't for
| you!" because sometimes that is true!
|
| I wish I had links to a study I saw where they worked to
| find an optimal diet for different people and were able
| to discover that different protein/fat/carb ratios worked
| well for different people. No one plan worked for
| everyone!
|
| There is a lot we don't know about human nutrition, and
| while we can learn from past populations, holding up any
| one group as having an ideal diet that'll work for
| anyone, meh.
|
| Heck I've seen people throw citations back and forth at
| each other for how good/bad cow milk is. Legit research,
| biochemical pathways explored and explained, and each
| side seemed to make some good points. None of which
| changed the fact that people people do GOMAD and put on
| insane muscle, while other people just get really
| bloated.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| You've fixated on a particular date (1 MYA) and
| understood "major component of diet" / "majority calories
| in some groups" to be "all of our ancestors ate mostly
| plants". Neither is what I said.
|
| First the date: 1 MYA was the time of H. erectus, not the
| AMH I was referencing. That's fine, but you'll probably
| be unsatisfied with the evidence from the period because
| it's notoriously thin. Regardless, by this time our
| ancestors had shifted to include megafaunal hunting and
| harder, diverse plant foods in their diet, so H. erectus
| populations were likely eating both. See [1]. For a good
| (slightly outdated) overview of the evidence problems,
| see [2]. In later periods, we can discuss things like
| dental microwear patterns, archaeobotany, optimal
| foraging models, and coprolite analysis as the
| evidentiary bases are so much better.
|
| Secondly, you have to understand the difference between
| "plants were a large component of the diet" and
| "carnivores". All the former means is that meat was only
| about 30-70% of the diet, not upwards of 90%. The exact
| amount would have varied hugely by group, environment,
| and even the season or year. The diversity of the plants
| eaten would also have varied for the same reasons. For
| instance, some groups in the Mediterranean basin in the
| later Upper Pleistocene were sedentary foragers who would
| transition to nomadic hunter-gatherers at other times.
|
| [1] http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1236828
|
| [2] http://doi.org/10.1086/666700
|
| edit: overview of the elements of "forager diets" and the
| various viewpoints. There's also a large body of
| literature on archaeobotany, especially from temperate
| regions.
|
| [3] http://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23148
| war1025 wrote:
| Notable members of that group are Jordan Peterson and his
| daughter Mikhaila.
|
| I personally find Jordan Peterson's content pretty
| interesting. His daughter on the other hand, she seems
| pretty scammy. Have a hard time taking that diet seriously.
| But I guess if it makes people happy, good for them.
| chlodwig wrote:
| Every diet has its grifters, scammers, and celebrities of
| questionable character attached to it. Actually, every
| human interest group or endeavour has grifters attached.
| The carnivore diet being more of a fringe diet, the
| associated grifters are more fringe characters. Whereas
| something like the big label on Honey Nut Cheerios
| indicating that it is good for your heart -- https://i5.w
| almartimages.com/asr/75ba3310-8be0-4e36-91e6-62f... -- is
| also a grift, and it is a grift that is supported by our
| biggest corporations and most prestigious institutions.
| war1025 wrote:
| Fair enough. I guess my assumption is that all diet
| advice is garbage and people should just figure out what
| works for them. The government and health system have
| obviously been of no help to people.
|
| I was surprised to learn when my kids were born that
| hospital food is just about as greasy and generally
| unhealthy as any fast food you're likely to come across.
| soperj wrote:
| Except pemmican was usually made without berries unless it was
| being used for ceremonial reasons. It would have been the way
| to preserve the meat from large game kills, since pemmican
| lasted for a very long time.
| k__ wrote:
| True.
|
| I did a low-carb diet once for three months and lost 10kg.
|
| Most of it because I just couldn't see eggs, cheese, and meat
| anymore.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Many vegetables and some fruits can still be consumed (though
| not necessarily much fruit) and maintain a low-carb diet. The
| other thing to do, or that I did, was to use a variety of
| spices and herbs. Most add nothing (or very little) with
| regard to carbs (certainly not the processed sugars low-carb
| diets aim to avoid) so don't impact the diet overall. And a
| well-stocked spice cabinet means you can have chicken for a
| week or even a month and never really have the same meal
| twice.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Many vegetables and some fruits can still be consumed
| (though not necessarily much fruit) and maintain a low-carb
| diet.
|
| The other thing people don't always realize is that the
| longer you've been on a low carb diet, the more carbs you
| can eat and stay ketosis.
|
| After 6 months or so, even an entire medium sized apple
| (19g of sugar) isn't likely to be a problem.
|
| This is even more true for people who work out, heck 40g of
| sugar from fruit followed by 1 hour of high intensity
| workout, probably not an issue.
|
| Starting out strict is needed to get on the keto train,
| but, but a low sugar ice cream with 10g a serving twice a
| week isn't going to kick most people out of Ketosis if
| they've been there for awhile.
| nafix wrote:
| Just an observation that I've noticed about myself:
|
| * During periods where I am trying to lose weight or not
| working out much, I tend to not crave meat very much. In fact,
| eating certain types of meats (for example, steak) would kind
| of make me experience mild nausea.
|
| * During periods where I am working out a lot (lots of running
| and heavy weight lifting), I have a strong desire to eat lots
| of meat and don't tire of it.
|
| For me, the "charm" of meat depends on the physical
| requirements of what I am doing in some period of time.
| ddorian43 wrote:
| Well you need a lot of protein to gain/maintain muscle mass
| which you can only get it from meat.
| (https://burnfatnotsugar.com/p2e/AboutP2E/image27o.JPG)
| NeutronStar wrote:
| Proteins are definitely not only in meats. Beans have more
| protein per weight than meats. Even your diagram suggest
| not only meats are high in nutrients.
| aszantu wrote:
| What about bio-availability of that protein?
| 1_player wrote:
| > it doesn't take long before you just get sick of eating meat.
| The charm of it wears off.
|
| Yes and no. Food stops becoming an enjoyable activity, and just
| becomes fuel. If you're hungry, in the true sense of the word,
| you'll have meat and fat and ask for seconds. Fat adaptation
| works because if you have fat around you, your hunger signals
| tends to fade as you're already carrying a significant amount
| of energy.
|
| The fact that carbs and sugar are so sought after is great when
| you're a paleolithic man, but is the cause of the modern
| obesity epidemic - it's an energy source than can be easily
| stored and accumulated around the body, so our taste buds have
| evolved to encourage us to eat plenty, because it was VERY
| scarce until recently.
| hinkley wrote:
| I think ultimately a lot of the traditional drive to
| celebrate the changing of the seasons boils down to the
| change of diet (either improved, or worsened) and the rituals
| that come after or have to be done before that time.
|
| Spring is here. Any day we can stop eating porridge!
| oblio wrote:
| > If you're hungry, in the true sense of the word, you'll
| have meat and fat and ask for seconds.
|
| If you're really hungry you're going to ask for seconds for
| everything.
|
| Source: Fussy 11 year old me stuck in a summer camp with
| awful food. The first morning there I refused to eat and
| after breakfast they took us hiking up some mountains for 4
| hours or so. For lunch I asked for seconds of their awful
| food and I enjoyed it :-)
| abfan1127 wrote:
| I think this is the source of most young picky eaters. They
| just aren't hungry. I know my kids are picky unless there
| are no snacks in the house, then suddenly they like
| everything!
| war1025 wrote:
| The trouble we run into is if you try to call their bluff
| and make them wait it out until they are actually hungry,
| suddenly it's bedtime and you have a kid who won't go to
| sleep because they didn't eat anything, and it stops
| being their problem and turns into a massive
| inconvenience for you.
|
| But probably the better idea would just be for us to
| ration snacks more closely throughout the middle of the
| day.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| This 100% the situation we have with our almost 4 year
| old daughter. My wife has a soft spot,so any cries would
| make her surrender in a second,so it's very easy for our
| daughter to just walk away from a really nice meal
| because it's not ' what she likes' and then keep coming
| back for all sorts of snacks or the food she really
| likes.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| we ration snacks and provide meals with lasting hunger
| satiation (no cereal!).
| adamc wrote:
| Nah. I watched a four-year-old nephew basically go 3+
| days without eating anything (long weekend in a cabin).
| There can be other things at play.
| feteru wrote:
| I think these habits are developed over more than a few
| days too. I bet the pickier you are, the longer it takes
| for your biology to tell you that it's time to eat. Also
| this is all dancing around wanting to call picky eaters
| spoiled brats lol.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| that's a special case, or he's a pantry cat burglar. I've
| known both. One case, the boy is autistic so once he
| heard he would get a specific food, he wouldn't eat until
| he got it. The other case the kid had a stash of snacks
| in his room and would break into the pantry when mom
| wasn't looking.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Monday: cat gets some porridge. It looks at it and says:
| screw it! And walks away.
|
| Tuesday: cat gets porridge again. It looks at it, sights
| and exclaims: porridge! And walks away.
|
| Wednesday: cat gets porridge again. It looks at it in a
| semi-curious way. Hmm, porridge.. And walks away.
|
| Sunday: cat gets porridge again. It looks at the porridge,
| its eyes fully focused on it. It smells it.. It walks
| around the plate trying to catch even more smell of it. And
| then it screams: porridge!!!!!!! And eats it all in just a
| few large bites.
| yourkin wrote:
| I have heard this recycled notion about carbs being scarce
| many times, but in this context it makes little sense. If fat
| adaptation is so efficient at converting food to energy and
| there is more fat around than carbs, why would the craving
| for carbs evolve even? I have also done keto a couple times
| and my experience is the same -- in a month I just can't
| stand anymore meat and bacon and going back to a balanced
| diet feels very good. I also can't stuff myself with carbs
| and start seeking both protein rich foods and fatty. Would
| question the whole ,,carbs where scarce, so we evolved to
| overfeed on them" dogma. Why would fruits be more scarce for
| a non predator (as where human ancestors), than meat? It
| feels like a whole lot is missing in the story.
| rudyfink wrote:
| Maybe, in essence, the bacteria that we host to help break
| down carbs start producing _something_ that makes us crave
| /prefer carbs?
|
| It seems like the bacteria would, in essence, be self
| interested and might have developed their own evolutionary
| mechanism to promote the supply of their food source?
|
| In other words, if we, essentially, keep internal bacteria
| colonies to help break down specific types of food, those
| colonies may encourage consumption of their specialized
| food source?
|
| We may also, symbiotically, encourage the
| preservation/maintenance of internal processing capability?
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Might be that fat was as scarce as carbs prehistorically.
| Have you ever eaten wild game? They are drastically leaner
| than farm animals. I imagine they were even leaner back
| when there were more wild creatures competing for the same
| food supply.
|
| It's not an accident that our palate has evolved to reward
| us for finding salts, fats, and sugars.
| yourkin wrote:
| Nor fat, nor carbs are an essential nutritional
| component. The body can not synthesize certain amino
| acids, but it can convert protein to both fat and
| carbohydrates by means of gluconeogenesis. If anything,
| we should have cravings for sources of protein, not
| sugars. One could argue that sugars provide the burst of
| energy for the metabolic pathway that could be make it or
| break it in cases where that burst gives an advantage.
| This, and not the scarceness argument, which seems just
| thin to me, although mainstream opinion.
| 1_player wrote:
| Fat is an essential nutritional component. As an example,
| cholesterol is necessary to produce hormones such as
| testosterone, estrogen and cortisol. Thankfully, it's
| pretty much impossible to avoid if you eat meat.
|
| Carbs are not essential. You can live on zero total grams
| of carbs.
|
| Also gluconeogenesis only converts proteins to glucose,
| not fat, at least not directly.
| jsky_goog wrote:
| There was a good talk at Carnivore Con in 2019 here (http
| s://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH7JGM7K-Lc&list=PLluvR68gTT.
| ..) about this.
|
| The very rough gist is that there is historical evidence
| of pre agrarian humans starving to death with stomachs
| full of lean meat. In a nomadic lifestyle where they
| chase down prey protein costs too much energy to digest
| and convert into usable energy.
| com2kid wrote:
| > in a month I just can't stand anymore meat and bacon and
| going back to a balanced diet feels very good.
|
| 90% of curries are keto friendly, Thai food that doesn't
| involve noodles or rice, a-ok, tons of Chinese dishes are
| also 100% keto!
|
| Going on any sort of restricted diet is going to involve
| learning how to improve your cooking game, but after years
| of Keto I can put together meals for large groups of people
| that are 100% keto and people _won 't even notice_, and
| that is including the hazelnut cookies with chocolate
| ganache for dessert!
|
| > Would question the whole ,,carbs where scarce, so we
| evolved to overfeed on them" dogma
|
| I agree historical evidence may be lacking, but a large
| percent of the population[1] do overfeed on carbs and a mix
| of carbs+fat, in a way that is has dramatic health
| consequences.
|
| The way I always like to put it is, between a stuffed baked
| potato, and a steak, what will people at more calories of
| when given a chance? I know for me it is the potatoes, I
| can easily go through 2 entire potatoes, stuffed with sour
| cream, chive, shrimp, and cheese. (and I know the shrimp
| sounds super weird in there, but trust me, try it, it is
| amazing!)
|
| That is 800 calories, and after that I'm going to wait 15
| minutes and resume the rest of my dinner for yet more
| calories!
|
| But if I start with 8oz of steak and some well prepared
| kale, well, I'm done for the night. ~700 calories total for
| the entire meal, rather than starting with 800 and working
| my way up from there!
|
| The thing that changed my mind was realizing that _skipping
| the bread_ at dinner didn 't make me any less full.
|
| [1] Such unhealthy habits are spreading world wide!
| 1_player wrote:
| Calorie counting is illuminating. I've been able to eat
| 4000 kcal of mostly carbs in one sitting and perhaps up
| to 7000 kcal in one day, and I need some effort to eat
| 2000 kcal of meat/fat in one sitting (about 1kg of
| steak).
|
| In general I tend to overeat carbs and go above my daily
| calorie intake if I were to eat until satiety, whereas I
| tend to eat at or under my TDEE of meat/fat and have to
| sometimes force myself to reach my daily requirements.
| undersuit wrote:
| >Why would fruits be more scarce for a non predator (as
| where human ancestors), than meat?
|
| Because there exist more competitors for the fruits. There
| are more plants than there are herbivores than there are
| carnivores.
| yourkin wrote:
| On the contrary, there are orders of magnitude less
| megafauna than plankton. And there's a diminishing range
| in between. It's easier to get berries for dinner, than
| boar. Of course, things could be the opposite during Ice
| Ages, but that's just a glimpse in geological time, not
| convinced that metabolism would change entirely during
| that period.
| losteric wrote:
| > Why would fruits be more scarce for a non predator (as
| where human ancestors), than meat?
|
| Seasons change?
|
| Meat is available year-round but can be dangerous to
| acquire and prepare safely.
|
| Fruits/veggies are easy but seasonal food sources that
| store poorly, and with vast competition.
|
| Grains and tubers are difficult to transport, spoil, and
| are of limited supply determined by the growing season
| (especially without agriculture).
|
| Our hunt & gather ancestors followed the seasons far closer
| than farmers. At least on gut check, it seems fat
| adaptation would be strongly selected for as well as a
| strong taste for carbs as available
| 1_player wrote:
| Also not to forget that modern fruits and vegetables are
| nothing like the ones we've spent much of our evolution
| with. I would guess honey would have been the most sugary
| thing available, and still guarded by a swarm of angry
| bees.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Carbs and protein are water soluble while fats are lipid
| soluble, and your cells preferentially burn water soluble
| molecules before lipid soluble. There can be tons of energy
| in the form of fat available, but to access it you will
| first burn up your available protein. This protein is
| necessary for things like cellular repair, muscle growth,
| etc. You need to sacrifice this to access your energy
| stored in fat - an acceptable tradeoff when you're freezing
| in the middle of winter, but certainly suboptimal. Carbs on
| the other hand will burn preferentially before proteins, so
| you can have your cake and eat it too. Carbs can't be
| stored for very long, but they can be readily converted to
| fats for storage.
|
| In the past, it wasn't so much that carbs were rare as
| calories in general were rare, and carbs were merely the
| most desirable. If you're an athletic hunter gatherer, you
| want as many carbs as possible for fuel so you don't have
| to switch over to your small reserve of fat and give up
| your proteins along the way. On the other hand in the
| modern day it's easy to get more carbs than we can burn in
| a short period of time so we have a lot of excess calories
| that get added to our emergency supply. Since we actually
| have to go through a good bit of effort to starve in the
| modern world, we never switch over to our emergency supply
| and thus it never depletes (ie we get and stay fat).
|
| Of course you crave carbs after eating mostly proteins and
| fat - as far as your caveman brain is concerned, you are
| starving and need real food. It's just an unfortunate
| reality of our modern civilization that most of us don't
| have the metabolism to support a caveman's diet.
| nabla9 wrote:
| This seems to support self-domestication hypothesis
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-domestication
|
| Scarps left by humans generated differential survival environment
| where less aggressive, more cooperating individuals were able to
| get closer and closer humans and get the best bits. At some point
| most domesticated individuals could form bonds and cooperate with
| humans. Eventually humans could take over and use selective
| breeding to finalize the process.
| aszantu wrote:
| in the past, dogs were also used as a food source, with the
| excess protein from big game, they might have fattened up the
| dogs they would eat?
| kogens wrote:
| It's an interesting take, but wouldn't it be more favourable for
| the humans to simply dry the meat and save it, e.g. for summer
| where there are enough other food sources to mix it and avoid the
| protein overconsumption?
|
| Cold, dry areas are ideal for drying meats, like they do with
| Norwegian stockfish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish
| benglish11 wrote:
| If a dog is useful it may be a better use of the excess
| protein, especially for nomadic peoples. The dog will carry
| around all of that extra meat and provide a service.
| Drying/storing the meat may also attract predators.
| xwdv wrote:
| Depends, you want to get fucked up by bears?
| [deleted]
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| If you watch Werner Herzog's "Happy People" documentary about
| trappers in the Siberian Taiga, and see the relationship
| between dog and man there, it's easy to see how this
| relationship could have played out. A bit of frozen fish or
| meat for the dog, but not too much, means protection and
| assistance on the trap line, and a companion through the
| winter.
|
| EDIT: My border collie currently lying behind me on a bed is
| anxiously and steadily watching me because what she really
| wants me to do is put on my skis and go for a hike in the woods
| with her. She won't really be happy until I do that.
| m45t3r wrote:
| Did they known how to dry meat though?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Yes, foraging groups in dry climates are quite sophisticated
| at short-term meat preservation. I know the Hadza for
| instance regularly dry meat on nearby tree branches or cook
| it over a fire.
| adamc wrote:
| This made me laugh. Admittedly, I don't eat much meat, because I
| get sick of it so easily. Somehow I imagine roots and berries
| were a sought after alternative.
| momirlan wrote:
| Does this mean that domestication of raccoons is next ? They seem
| to enjoy excess protein from urban garbage.
| csours wrote:
| I've been thinking about the ethics of domestication with
| regard to racoons a lot.
|
| Which makes me also think about the ethics of domestication of
| other animals, and makes me think about the ethics of "owning"
| domesticated animals.
|
| I know this is a divisive topic among different people, and I
| find it to be a divisive topic in my own mind.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| As an owner of a border collie, I'm starting to think that
| certain animals are too smart for domestication. Raccoons, like
| border collies, might just be better adept at training their
| humans, rather than the other way around.
|
| :-)
| wiremine wrote:
| We recently adopted a Sheepadoodle, and this comment really
| resonated with me. It's a combination of a poodle and an old
| english sheep dog, which many think are originally from
| border collies. She's a wonderful animal, but really, really
| needs mental stimulation! She's got us trained to be sure.
| :-)
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It's such a particular kind of intelligence, too, in that
| they get such pleasure of things that honestly annoy most
| human beings. Ours will just go for hours rolling a ball
| back and forth to you, totally fascinated by the way the
| ball moves across the floor, and how she's getting you to
| do something for her. For a human, it's just tedium.
|
| You can see how useful they'd be for moving sheep around
| for hours while responding to commands. They just like it.
| And don't care about weather, or distractions, or anything.
|
| Last week I had mine out in the bush here and she was
| carrying her frisbee with her. A rabbit bolted out not 5
| feet in front of her and she completely ignored it, because
| she was currently stopped in her tracks, busy, giving the
| frisbee "the eye"
| yowlingcat wrote:
| Raccoons combine border collie intelligence with /hands/. I'm
| not sure I'd be able to handle the level of mischief these
| adorable critters could get up to.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| You can see it in videos of people who do have them as
| "pets." They, like monkeys, are just constant stress/work.
| And very destructive.
| jpm_sd wrote:
| s/monkeys/children
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I'd imagine that dog domestication also depended on wolves
| being pack hunting carnivores. One can imagine there's
| synergies between a group of humans and a pack of wolves
| hunting large game.
| screye wrote:
| isn't that the main theory for Zebra vs Horse domestication?
|
| Heirarchichal structures in Animal societies is directly
| correlated to suitability for domestication.
| brmgb wrote:
| Wild wolves are social but not particularly hierarchichal.
| A typical wolf pack is formed of a couple and their
| offsprings. Adult wolves leave the pack to form their own.
|
| The idea that wolf pack have complex fixed hierarchical
| structure is mostly a myth produced by inadequate research
| from Rudolph Schenkel on captive wolves and popularized by
| even more inadequate research and a book by L. David Mech.
| Mech then went on to do very good work on wild wolf.
|
| Wolves are however both social and used to complex
| interactions involving social dominance.
| disown wrote:
| > Wild wolves are social but not particularly
| hierarchichal.
|
| This is simply a lie. All wolf packs are strictly
| hierarchical. Meaning there is no wolf pack without a
| hierarchy.
|
| > A typical wolf pack is formed of a couple and their
| offsprings.
|
| Which forms a hierarchy.
|
| > The idea that wolf pack have complex fixed hierarchical
| structure
|
| Who said they had a "complex" "fixed" hierarchical
| structure? It's rather simple and obvious.
|
| > Wolves are however both social and used to complex
| interactions involving social dominance.
|
| "complex", "social dominance". Which is it? You say they
| don't have complex hierarchy and then claim complex
| interactions involving social dominance. What do you
| think social dominance exists to create?
|
| Wolf packs have hierarchy like human families have
| hierarchy.
| brmgb wrote:
| > This is simply a lie. All wolf packs are strictly
| hierarchical. Meaning there is no wolf pack without a
| hierarchy.
|
| Tone it down a bit. You should inform yourself. I gave
| you the name of the author to read, Mech, in my previous
| post.
|
| Wolf packs are not hierarchical. You have the parents
| leading because well they are the parents taking care of
| their offsprings and that's it. The rest of the group has
| no fixed hierarchy.
|
| > complex", "social dominance". Which is it? You say they
| don't have complex hierarchy and then claim complex
| interactions involving social dominance.
|
| Wolves have situational and individual dependants
| relationship some involving dominance. For example
| parents tend to harass their young when they approach the
| age of leaving. Some youngs situationaly fight other
| youngs but you can't establish a ranking of individual in
| a wild pack. That wouldn't make much sense.
|
| I have complex relationships with my friends. They
| sometimes involve dominance. Yet we don't have a
| hierarchy.
|
| > Wolf packs have hierarchy like human families have
| hierarchy.
|
| Human families don't have hierarchy. Young children are
| subordinate to their parents until they come of age, a
| bit like in a wolf pack actually.
|
| I am starting to understand your confusion.
| jere wrote:
| >Nutritional deficiencies came from the absence of fat and
| carbohydrates, not necessarily protein. Indeed, if humans eat too
| much meat, diarrhea usually ensues. And within weeks, they can
| develop protein poisoning and even die. "Because we humans are
| not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet, we simply cannot digest
| protein very well," Lahtinen says. "It can be very fatal in a
| very short period of time."
|
| What? This seems flat out wrong. Carbohydrates are the only
| macronutrient you can live without. Regardless of the long term
| health outcomes, many people live for years on carnivorous diets.
|
| The first sentence might be talking about our past digestive
| systems, but the rest is about the present.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Maybe the article was not clear enough, but what is correct is
| that you cannot eat only proteins to cover all your energy
| needs.
|
| Significantly more than 50% (e.g. 2/3) of the calories you eat
| must come from either fat or carbs, it does not matter which,
| as long as it is not protein (it does not matter for preventing
| protein-caused problems; depending on what kinds of fat or
| carbs you eat, they might cause other problems).
|
| A mixture like pemmican, which is 1/2 dried meat + 1/2 fat, has
| probably around 2/3 of its calories from fat, so it is
| perfectly OK as the only food for extended durations.
|
| While the animals hunted by them did not have much fat in their
| meat, ancient humans usually took care to not waste the fatty
| bone marrow and brain, which were a major source of fat for
| them. Nevertheless, those animals still contained much more
| proteins than fat, so it is very likely that the humans could
| not eat all the meat, so they probably ate the best parts,
| leaving the rest to scavengers.
| Footkerchief wrote:
| As happens way too often, the confusion is from pronoun abuse.
| "It" refers to protein poisoning, not to the set of all
| carnivorous diets.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| 'Rabbit starvation"
| https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning
|
| pemmican fixes it, a mix of 50-50 protein-fat plus berries.
| lhorie wrote:
| From what I've read, protein poisoning is supposed to be a
| result of _exclusively_ eating exceptionally lean meats (e.g.
| rabbit) at the exclusion of everything else for prolonged
| periods of time (such that your body reserves get depleted).
| Beef and pork have relatively high fat content so you'd be
| unlikely to develop it from eating them in modern high protein
| diets, and even on a rabbit-only diet, it's supposedly possible
| to minimize the risk by also consuming the animal's organs.
|
| For what it's worth, I first heard of protein poisoning from a
| survivalist, who was talking about extreme scenarios where
| there's very few calories available for consumption at all
| (e.g. winter survival in tundra)
|
| There are certainly other well documented cases of nutritional
| deficiencies caused by lack of certain foodstuff (e.g. scurvy
| in ships in the 15th century, due to usage of copper ware,
| which denaturates vitamin c) so it wouldn't be strange to
| develop other nutritional deficiencies with a highly unbalanced
| diet.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I think scurvy in the 15th century was due to not including
| anything that might have vitamin C in the provisions. It was
| scurvy in the 19th and early 20th century that was due to
| copper pots (no one noticed because ships were much faster so
| sailors didn't get scurvy), the wrong citrus juice (I don't
| recall whether they had lemon or lime juice but they had the
| one with less vitamin C and called it by the name of the
| fruit with more), tinned food (babies on land were getting
| scurvy because the canning process destroyed vitamin C and
| they were only fed canned food), and contemporary doctors not
| really believing that scurvy was caused by the deficiency of
| anything.
| lhorie wrote:
| You may be right about the dates, I was going from memory
| so could be mixing up my sources. The part about doctors
| not being aware of vitamin c deficiency as a cause for
| scurvy definitely rings true for one story I read about a
| south pole expedition
|
| EDIT: found the story here
| https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm
| loosetypes wrote:
| I recently caved and watched the latest season of Alone, which
| takes place in the Canadian Arctic, on Netflix. It basically
| matches the non-canine related aspects of this article.
|
| Contestants were sent home months-in, despite having excess
| meat stores from hunting/fishing, because of dangerous weight
| loss levels. They were literally starving to death even while
| eating excessive amounts of protein.
|
| There's a separate question of how "true" the show is (looking
| at you Bear Grylls!) but I believe the diet aspects were done
| in coordination with doctors.
| wtetzner wrote:
| I haven't seen the show, so I'm curious about what those
| contestants were eating. Did they eat the full animal, nose-
| to-tail?
| abfan1127 wrote:
| I have to agree with you. Having lived a zero-carb lifestyle
| for years in my late 20s (losing a ton of weight and becoming
| the most athletic I'd ever been in my life), either that line
| is patently false or I'm a super hero.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The line in question:
|
| > Because we humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous
| diet, we simply cannot digest protein very well
|
| So you spent years of your life eating _nothing_ but meat,
| maybe eggs? You never had dairy, never had fruits (bananas,
| apples, oranges, lemon in or on something), never had
| vegetables (carrots, onions, leafy greens) in that time
| period?
| GordonS wrote:
| I'm not the OP, but a ketogenic (very low carb) diet is not
| exactly uncommon these days.
|
| I follow one myself (for health reasons, I have reactive
| hypoglycemia), and have done for a few years now. While it
| was difficult at the start, after a while you get used to
| it. And I lost a ton of weight without even trying.
|
| I don't eat bread, fruit (barring a small amount of
| lemon/lime juice in food), or _any_ grains or root veg
| (potatoes are worse than table sugar for spiking blood
| glucose!).
|
| I do eat meat, eggs, and lots of low-carb veg - leafy veg,
| broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, chicory, aubergine,
| courgette, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, onions etc.
|
| I also eat plenty dairy too - cheese has no carbs, and a
| small amount of milk/cream has very little.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > I do eat meat, eggs, and lots of low-carb veg - leafy
| veg, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, chicory,
| aubergine, courgette, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, onions
| etc.
|
| This is my point to the OP, if you're eating any of those
| things you are still an omnivore, even if you're a low-
| carb omnivore. They seem to be claiming to have been on a
| carnivorous (only animal products) diet for years.
| samatman wrote:
| It's by no means unheard of, all you have to do is type
| "carnivore diet" into your search engine of choice to get
| all the information your heart may desire.
| adrian_b wrote:
| "zero-carb" may be true, but that does not mean that you have
| eaten only proteins. If that would have been true, you would
| have been dead.
|
| The meat of most domestic animals is fatty, most cheese &
| other dairy is fatty, eggs have a lot of fat in the yolk.
|
| Even if you did not eat any carbs, your food must have
| included enough fat to provide more calories than the protein
| content. Otherwise you would have had quickly severe health
| problems.
| lnanek2 wrote:
| You are right, in modern times, carbs are generally considered
| bad. But some people trying all protein diets do report
| diarrhea. Doctors don't generally refer to it as too much
| protein, though. They refer to the problem as too little fiber.
|
| Also, some arctic explorers tried living on all meat, and
| suffered vitamin deficiencies such as scurvy. So, while meat is
| a complete protein, unless you are eating fresh liver meat from
| a fresh kill, you are going to need some source of vitamin C at
| the minimum. Except for liver, meat isn't actually a great way
| to get fat soluble vitamins either.
| mnl wrote:
| Be careful with liver if you get it from polar bears for
| instance. You could get seriously ill (even die) because of
| hypervitaminosis A.
| aritmo wrote:
| "excess protein" is more interesting in a scientific paper than
| "offal and bones".
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