A healthy lifestyle is a way of living that reduces the risk of serious illness or early death. It includes activities and habits that contribute to this lifestyle, which engages macro-, meso-, and microlevels of sociological behavior. Following a healthy lifestyle, regardless of age, has numerous health benefits, as it reduces the risk of being seriously ill or dying early. Sociocultural change for sustainable or healthy diets is already happening through food movements, food lifestyles, and traditional cuisines. Food movements are built on multiple values that address how our bodies evolve and promote health and longevity.
Significant evidence suggests that certain lifestyle choices, such as smoking, sedentary lifestyle, and poor dietary choices, are associated with a faster rate of cognitive decline and a higher risk of dementia. Anthropology offers valuable insights into these health issues, including the political economy of inequality, cultural diversity, and cultural aspects. The biocultural approach can be applied to the study of food in various ways, from research into subsistence practices and traditional ways of raising crops to analysis of how groups assign meaning to the food.
Health lifestyles comprise both individual health behaviors and group-level identities, norms, and understandings of health. Health and well-being are shaped by a combination of biology, environment, social, political, economic, and cultural factors. Nutritional anthropology studies human subsistence, diet, and nutrition in comparative social and evolutionary perspectives. Anthropology of health emphasizes the effects of biological and cultural factors on health and well-being.
In conclusion, a healthy lifestyle involves various activities and habits that promote health and longevity.
📹 Anthropologist Debunks the Paleo Diet
Christina Warinner, Ph.D., of the University of Oklahoma debunks the paleo myth in her presentation at the 2016 International …
What is the concept of a healthy lifestyle?
A healthy lifestyle is one that encompasses a multifaceted approach to well-being, encompassing not only the avoidance of disease but also the pursuit of physical, mental, and social flourishing.
What is the health belief model in anthropology?
The Health Belief Model (HBM) is a value-expectancy theory that posits that an individual’s behavior is shaped by their expectations regarding the potential consequences of adopting new practices. The model posits that an individual’s behavior is shaped by these expectations. Please be advised that the site employs the use of cookies. Furthermore, all rights are reserved for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.
What is a lifestyle in anthropology?
Lifestyle refers to the interests, opinions, behaviors, and behavioral orientations of an individual, group, or culture. It was introduced by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in his 1929 book, The Case of Miss R., and has been documented since 1961. Lifestyle is a combination of intangible and tangible factors, with tangible factors relating to demographic variables and intangible factors affecting personal values, preferences, and outlooks.
Location plays a significant role in determining lifestyles, as the nature of a neighborhood affects the set of lifestyles available to an individual due to differences in affluence and proximity to natural and cultural environments. A lifestyle typically reflects an individual’s attitudes, way of life, values, or world view, and serves as a means of forging a sense of self and creating cultural symbols that resonate with personal identity.
However, not all aspects of a lifestyle are voluntary, as surrounding social and technical systems can constrain lifestyle choices and the symbols an individual can project to others and themselves.
What is healthy lifestyle theory?
Health lifestyle theory, based on Weber and Bourdieu’s work, emphasizes the role of socioeconomic status (SES) and other structural variables like age, gender, race/ethnicity, collectivities, and living conditions in determining lifestyle patterns. These factors provide the social context for socialization and experience, influencing life choices and life chances. The interaction of choices and chances leads to the formation of dispositions to act, resulting in various health practices.
What is the anthropology perspective of life?
Anthropology is a unique discipline that uses unique perspectives to conduct research, distinguishing it from related disciplines like history, sociology, and psychology. Key anthropological perspectives include holism, relativism, comparison, and fieldwork. Anthropologists are interested in the whole of humanity and how various aspects of life interact. They use a holistic approach to understand how different aspects of human life influence one another.
For example, a cultural anthropologist studying marriage in India might consider local gender norms, family networks, laws, religious rules, and economic factors. A biological anthropologist studying monkeys in South America might consider their physical adaptations, foraging patterns, ecological conditions, and interactions with humans. By understanding nonhuman primates, anthropologists discover more about themselves. Anthropology is comprised of four major subfields: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology.
While anthropologists often specialize in one subfield, their specific research contributes to a broader understanding of the human condition, which includes culture, language, biological and social adaptations, human origins, and evolution.
What describes a healthy lifestyle?
A comprehensive understanding of health entails a multifaceted approach, encompassing not only the absence of illness but also the presence of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being. This encompasses a range of behaviors and practices, including dietary habits, physical activity, adequate rest, mindfulness, stress management, fitness, and social engagement.
What are 5 characteristics of a healthy lifestyle?
A healthy lifestyle includes a balanced diet, regular physical activity, maintaining a regular sleep pattern, stress management, and supplementation. Obesity is a significant health concern, with over 78 million adults in the U. S. being obese. This disease is associated with leading causes of death such as heart disease, cardiovascular disease, strokes, and some forms of cancer. To avoid obesity, individuals should adopt a balanced diet that includes lean protein sources, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and limited processed foods and added sugar. Regular physical activity, sleep, stress management, and supplementation are essential components of a healthy lifestyle. Obesity is a leading cause of death and can be prevented with proper choices.
What are the 4 concepts of health?
The document outlines four main concepts of health: biomedical, ecological, psychological, and holistic. Health is defined by the World Health Organization as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not just the absence of disease or infirmity. Health is perceived differently by community members, including professionals like biomedical scientists, social scientists, health administrators, and ecologists.
Health has evolved over the centuries from an individual concern to a worldwide social goal, with various changing concepts including biomedical, ecological, psychological, and holistic. Understanding health is the basis of all healthcare, and its perception varies among different professional groups.
What does the concept of lifestyle from an anthropological perspective refer to?
Lifestyle refers to the creative and reflexive ways individuals perform various social identities, often seen as reflexive projects. Sociologist David Chaney defines lifestyles as “characteristic modes of social engagement, or narratives of identity, in which the actions concerned can embed the metaphors at hand”. The rise of a consumerist economy has expanded the range of identities that can be performed through consumption habits, with globalization increasing the variety of goods available for individuals to purchase and people’s awareness of these products.
Critics argue that globalization has led to the homogenization of culture and the disappearance of small-scale shops and restaurants. However, the concept of lifestyle highlights the degree of decision-making available to individual actors who can pick and choose from global commodities, ideas, and activities. Participating in a lifestyle implies knowledge about consumption, and knowing how to distinguish between goods is a form of symbolic capital that further enhances the standing of the individual.
The rise of global conglomerates has resulted in the disappearance of small-scale shops and restaurants, but the homogenization of culture is not a foregone conclusion. Globalization also allows individuals to encounter new ideas, commodities, belief systems, and voluntary groups to which they might choose to belong, making choices and selecting options that resonate with them.
What is the concept of health in anthropology?
The anthropology of health is a field of study that examines the interrelationship between human biology and cultural and physical environments over time. It focuses on the impact of cultural and socioeconomic processes on biological and health outcomes in human populations.
What is the definition of a healthy lifestyle choice?
A healthy lifestyle is characterized by intentional choices that promote well-being, reduce disease prevalence, and increase life expectancy. These choices may include stress management, regular exercise, and adequate nutrition. It should be noted that a healthy life is not a static concept and may vary from one individual to another.
📹 The Ancestral Human Diet | Peter Ungar | TEDxDicksonStreet
Fossil evidence suggests our distant ancestors’ diets became progressively more versatile over time and space. That variation …
The reason why some are opposed to this clean way of eating is because they’re all addicts – a subtle (almost unnoticeable for some) addiction to processed food, sugars, fast food, etc. They can’t grasp the idea that healthy food is medicine, and sometimes the things that don’t taste so great are way more beneficial.
I’m a Medical Anthropologist and there were good points along with important data points left out here. I would say epigenetics should have been discussed in the beginning. The archeology record does show hunter gatherers were on average taller, had better teeth and much less evidence of infectious disease than agriculturist societies. We also have Neanderthal fossilized poop that shows a diet that was around 90% meat. Humans are definitely evolved to be hunter-gatherer omnivores. Also there is no hyper-masculinity shown in the ads just masculinity and I do like eating a big pile of meat myself but I want my fruits and veggies along with it! The diversity of whole foods is definitely important and our industrialized food production over focus on limited items being concentrated into much of the food that many people are limiting themselves to is producing bad results along with all the environmental constimination from pesticides, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals that are being detected in our water supplies, rivers and oceans.
By the way, people didn’t evolve to eat meats. Eating meat evolved us. The fact that our saliva puts ah a jump on ah out digestion is because meat eating increased our brains and um shortened our digestive tract. Um you are a um archeologists but are you a pathologist? I um don’t think I heard that in your list of all you know. By the way, we are omnivores. The level N in the bones indicate we consume carnivores. I watched a article before this where the MD (medical doctor not mouse doctor) took the same facts and made sense of it. Of course if wait l next year, I’m sure your stance will change because that is what science likes to do. Like I say, nobody in the science world can agree. Even when the truth is right in front of you. I was wondering, how do you account for humans bones thinning, losing inches in height after agriculture arose. Clearly, their bodies regressed because of diets. How can you debunk another researchers data. You stand there saying “well his data was only done here or there”. I think I know who you’re talking about and he was older and way more wiser. When you are wise, you don’t need to build yourself up by tearing others down. So UM why not worry about your speech and develop some wisdom. Wild lettuce is still an edible. The latex is used for pain relief. I think the reason people suggest bananas, berries and chickens is because it the closest that we can get to Paleo food. Paleo diet means to eat as close a you can to the neolithic period. The big thing is to not eat sugar or bread.
She says we don’t really have any adaptations to consuming meat and talks about our digestive tract being so long but fails to mention that our colon and cecum is so much smaller than that of our ape cousins. Also, isn’t it possible that we don’t have teeth like carnivores and claws like carnivores because tools and fire have been used for over a million years?
How did she debunk it exactly? The paleo diet is focused in the modern age, so of course it advocates using our modern foods. Also the paleo diet includes fruits and vegetables. Most of her arguments were just nonsensical, and had no basis in an actual paleo diet. Definitely not a takedown in any way.
I’m not really sure why this was promoted; she is an excellent speaker, but many things were blurred and skewed in this talk. I don’t believe the Paleo diet was intended to be just a meat diet, but balanced with meat and veg; relying on whole foods. I’m pretty sure that the 50yo Stone Age diet was meat centric, however. I do not believe that they are interchangeable. I’m not really sure why she believes ancient man wouldn’t have consumed animal muscle. I’m sure they didn’t waste anything, just to dine on organ meat. She breezed past the limited, Neolithic adaptations and disease caused by the western diet. She assumed that because starch was found on a 30k year old tool, that it had everything to do with meal prep so she could proudly claim that Paleo man ate starchy foods. Maybe they were making an ointment, refining seed oil, making a slurry to smear on something, or yeah, smashing tostones. The fossil record can’t tell you this. She rushed through the part where some regional LP adaptations exist and a limited portion of the human population have adapted to consume dairy. It would have been great to include a graphic highlighting those few regions, but that would have reinforced the fact that most adult humans should not consume dairy. It would also have been enlightening to state how long it would take for those adaptations to present permanently. She frequently inferred that the Paleo Diet assumes that humans are carnivores and not omnivores. Much time was repeatedly wasted on this erroneous concept.
If you were a Neolithic person living in what is now London, what plant’s exactly would you have consumed? Potatoes came from the new world along with all of the night shades. No Bananas either . Brassica’s were cultivated much later. Hunting wild boar, deer, rabbit etc. seems like a more plausible food source, and we would have likely eaten the entire animal, to include breaking open the bones and skulls.
So I was with her at the beginning, okay archaeological records, measuring isn’t accurate and the veg we cultivated are the ones we ate…but then she shows that we couldn’t really eat those veg in large quantity and that they where unpalatable. Then she moves on to rediculous claims, true. And the rest kind of went off on a tangent.
She begins by referring to the paleo diet as a fad, but health professionals having been recommending a low carb diet since before she was born. Before pills were developed to fight diabetes the standard recommendation of doctors was a low carb diet. And many doctors still do prescribe a low carb diet for diabetes and other related conditions. This diet is even used to treat epilepsy. The patients brains rely much more on ketones than glucose for fuel. The whole discussion here is whether or not a high carbohydrate grain based diet is a fad relative to the millions of years preceding. And her very first argument that a lack of ability to synthesize vitamin C is evidence that humans require a predominantly plant based diet is utter nonsense. There are a great number of edible plants that fulfil the recommend daily vitamin C for less than 30 calories of carbs eg many berries, green plants and sweet peppers. Indeed, the Intuits have demonstrated that its possible to get enough vitamin C from the trace amounts in organs alone.
I feel like people really tend to mix up keto, carnivor and paleo a lot. Like on paleo eating just very greasy and meat heavy . . Some do it, but it is not what it is about. Eating lots of veggies, nutriendense and without isolated carbs like suggar and flours, food addatives as well as avoiding very commen foodsensetivities. The focus on meat is on high quality intead of quality and adding organ meat for their high nutritional value.
Her whole issue seems to be with the label “paleo”. If the diet was originally named “inflammatory food free” then I guess as an avid archeologist, she would have no bug to bear. Modern farmed GM wheat and refined sugar is the root cause of lots of autoimmune conditions, joint pain, fatigue etc. Check out “what the wheat”
The lecture is a mess. She compares people from one parts of the world to another, gives some adaptations without chronology. For example, yes, we have tri-color vision. The question is does it get better or worse? And it gets worse. Then the question is how many years/generations is needed to loose neutral adaption? I got tri-color vision from our ancestors 6 millions years ago. It is not good nor bad for white europids. Now what can possible anyone in eaurope or asia a little to north eat plant based? Pretty much nothing. What about fat adaptation? She mentions the lengths of our intestine. Again, how does it change with time? And it gets shorter!!!! We got long intestine from primate ancestors and as adapt to mean eating the instestine get shorter and shorter. Never heard of “expensive tissue” hypothesis ? Bad, bad anthropologist. However, i do thing that paleo diet is full of contradictions, but that does not matter, because if is 100000% better that SAD.
From this article, the point is that there is no one correct diet for everybody. We are in heavy food processing right now,and the paleo diet is a good idea. However, each person has his own uniqueness, so the diet that suits everyone is also different. We should learn how to find the right diet for ourselves.
Im surprised with this comment section. Please re-watch this presentation without your anti-vegan or carnistic bias. I’m reading people being angry about claims she didn’t even make and she is not advocating a vegan diet. Her only point with this presentation is to show that the marketed paleo diet is not paleo and the problem is much more complex. Just because your beliefs are challenged does not mean they are wrong. Go investigate fairly with a mind set of learning instead of trying to prove yourself right. For the love of all that is good listen fairly to what people have to say and stop imposing your inaccurate beliefs on others to feel good about yourselves 🤦🏻
I have the U5b2 genotype. The same as Cheddar Man (caveman) paleolithic era. Didn’t his diet consist of seeds and nuts, red deer, aurochs (large wild cattle) along with some freshwater fish. Isn’t that a paleo diet? Isn’t that what my ancestors survived on for thousands of years? They were hunter/gatherers, not farmers. I’ve never tried a paleo diet, but I think I’m going to because I just found out I am histamine intolerant and most of the foods I’ve been eating are causing me great distress. No more tomatoes, spinach, aged cheese, citrus, yogurt, chocolate, wheat, sauerkraut, etc. – all the “healthy” foods I love.
For anyone with anxiety, depression, introversion, low energy, and anyone who has done paleo/whole30 for at least a month, it can’t be debunked after that. If you are perfectly healthy and well-functioning, physically and mentally, and eating anything you please, then it isn’t an issue for you & that’s good. But for the rest of us, paleo can’t be debunked. Period.
I haven’t heard her debunk much or anything. Rather create arguments that I personally never heard about the Paleo diet like emphasis on meat. She rather put the emphasis on plants. I think Paleo diet has more to do with abandoning processed foods and things like dairy our body isn’t used to.she is debating with arguments she created herself. People like her are probably paid to protect the junk food industry. Hasn’t she heard Paleo diet promoters speak on lean meats vs high fats?
Ya, so, call it anything you like but strive to eat the best foods possible for homo sapiens. I like Dr. Ken Berry’s label…not paleo, not primal, not fad…, but get this, “The Proper Human Diet”. Call it anything you like though, just know that grains are not good for us, nor refined sugar, nor hydrogenated vegetable oils. And like Christina Warinner just explained, a lot of vegetables, no matter how much we altered them, are still somewhat toxic. So hopefully if we use our energy to produce foods that are good for us, and stop producing shit food only to make massive amounts of monetary gain, we’ll still be able to feed all 7 &1/2 billion of us. 0_o And if we continue quibbling over inconsequential semantical ego shit until mother nature just kind of morphs us out of the biological equation, well…the universe won’t mind. 😉 PEACE, y’all.
Actually, I do not agree with her, i have autoimmune disease and this is the only diet helped me to be better, I lost weight I feel more healthy and I start work again and return back my life. before I was eating everything as they say little from everything but after I got this dieseas and doctors just gave me some pills and creams which can makes me feel better for sometime but as I stop take it again the pain return back and these pills has too bad side effects but as I start this diet I could stop pills and my body feels better, so I respect dr. Christina but I do not agree with her and all what she said has no approve, every day one research say YES and next day another research says NO so I start do not believe much in all these researches cuz most of it companies pay for it to sell more at the end.
She is lying to her teeth, pun intended, because the reason we don’t have big canines is that we learned to cook meat very early on and we develop tools to cut it. She also forgets that we are bipede, we walk straight and not using four limbs to graze. Also our teeth and digestive system is not designed to take most of our nutrients from plants as we are unable to digest fiber. We don’t chew plants from side to side not we regurgitate the plants to be chewed again for a second time like ruminants or we eat our poo like rabbits to digest for a second time. Claiming she is an anthropologist and having to explain this basic concepts to her is beyond me. Unless she clearly has a vegan/vegetarian bias.
There is so much information out right now when it comes to nutrition and diets that it is just confusing. Can one way of eating be best for all? I am not sure. I think each one must find what suits them best. I am not a fan of the keto diet, however people have managed to get their MS in control by eating keto, it is also said that it helps people with diabetes type 1. So it seems to be helping when it comes to autoimmune illnesses. Then again other studies claim that too much meat can cause inflammation,heart disease etc. What is correct? Maybe depending on what our body needs and what actually makes us healthier is what we should do. I don’t know what to believe anymore.
I agree that true paleolithic diets were varied globally and over time, but I think we should still look to the past for inspiration and guidance, and eat more primitive foods, and primitive processes like soaking, drying, grinding, cooking, fermenting. I hope she is as critical of the modern food industry and our industrialized diet as she is of the paleo-diet. Does she propose the same corporations that made us sick, now make us well? Perhaps we need fewer people. Hopefully we won’t solve that problem with corporations.
She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. The paleo diet has nothing to with replicating exactly what certain Paleolithic tribes may have eaten in one particular locale, it’s about looking to our evolution (which occurred almost entirely in the paleolithic) for guidance on what is best to eat now from everything that is currently available to us.
Michael Eades says there is a basis in the archeological record. He shows research using stable isotopes, and cites the Cassidy Study (1980 Nutritional Anthropology), and also extensive study of Egyptian mummies and their cardiovascular disease that comes from eating mostly wheat. I would like to see some side-by-side research that compares Warinner’s hypothesis with Eades. Seems like you can cherry-pick any research to match your bias.
she presented carefully selected evidence to present her case and says some things that are purely wrong, she says humans would eat small game and organ meat, why would they throw away the rest? we do in fact have evidence of humans hunting mammoths, maybe even to extinction. She is also advocating as an European, what I assume to bunch of Europeans to eat plant-based, would like to see what kind of local plants and fruits do the Scandinavians or other northern populations eat during the winter.
I’m not really done a paleo diet, but as fare as thought your trying to pin down the diet, but ends up confirm what i’ve read was the base of it. No refind and processed food (like sugar) Omnivores eath what they find, but i also beleave there are some consensus about human eating all the big game until there where almost none left..?
Talking fast and using big words does not change the fact that the hunter gatherer did not grow grains because they did not stay in one place long enough to do so. Also he would have starved to death waiting the full growing season to grow any thing. The fact that the people of, Egypt ate mostly grains and had very poor health as is evidenced by the condition of their mummies. I wish she would come out from behind that podium to see what her weight is. By the way would you rather be a wolf or a deer.
Alright, I like the level of detail she’s giving and I find her presentation more convincing than the usual of this type. But I have a lot of questions. One is, if only the elite amongst the Maya were allowed to consume animal products, what does that say about the value of meat? I’m also wondering why she says we have a plant-adapted gut based on its size when the size of our GI is more comparable to carnivores than it is to our nearest primate relatives.
The food industry pays a lot of researchers to produce fake research. For example they have been pushing factory produced transfat (aka margarine) as healthy. The American food industry has been pushing the standard American diet – after WW2 – and that is when the the diabetes epidemic we see now started, not back in ancient times. This archeologist is trying to give advice on medical matters that she knows nothing about. The large scale consumption of carbohydrates as a staple did not take place before about 5000 years ago when farming began. The paleolithic era was well before 5000 years ago or when in the bronze age which this so called archeologist does not seem to understand. Complete un-peer reviewed mumbo jumbo.
This is very incorrect. Though she brings up great points and expells a lot of myths, the main fallacy she seems to be forcing down her audience’ throat is that humans are not designed to eat meat and paleo is connected to the patriarchy reeeeeee. In reality, we are designed to eat more meat than we do on a daily basis… unless you’re from the american south. However, we cannot eat only meat like carnivores. Which nobody was arguing at all. 50% meat, Veggies, mushrooms, nuts, berries, herbs, and occasionally fish etc. This is what we are DESIGNED / EVOLVED to be. Stop the vegan non-sense.
We were apex predators for 100,000’s of years, making an unbelievable amount of animals extinct from hunting and eating them. How can you say we aren’t evolved to eat animals. Our digestive tracts may be different to typical carnivoers becuse yes, millions of years ago we were like our primate cousins. But our digestive tracts are far different to our cousins too. We can’t eat most plants without cooking them and cooking didn’t exist for 99% of our existence
There is so much wrong with this… if our digestion were tuned to digesting vegetable matter, we would have a much longer larger intestine relative to the small intestine, like a gorilla. We would not have a gallbladder to help digest large amounts of fat. We would not have the stomach acid PH of a vulture. Our brains would not have developed to get to the point of being smart enough to cultivate anything to start with because there has to be an excess of calories for that to happen!
If this is a debunk, it’s the worst one I’ve ever seen! After absolutely throwing Dr. Cordain under the bus, she concludes with 3 pieces of dietary advice that are actually main tenants of The Paleo Diet! 1) Diversity is key – we eat too much wheat, corn and soy (all excluded from The Paleo Diet and replaced with a large variety of fruit and vegetables), 2) Eat fresh foods, in season (fresh fruit and vegetables are the base of The Paleo Diet), and 3) Eat whole foods – minimize added sugar and avoid separated (processed) foods. If she would just add 4) Eat fish and leaner, unprocessed meats, and 5) Avoid salt, she would actually be 100% recommending The Paleo Diet! None of her recommendations conflict in any way with Dr. Cordain’s! I’m 50 lbs down, 3 years out on Dr. Cordain’s Paleo Diet, haven’t missed a bite, much less a meal, and recommend anyone interested visit The Paleo Diet website. (including Dr. Warinner)
seems to me this was basically a hit piece with the intention of just hating on the diet because its popular however mis understanding why diets like this, keto and carnivore are becoming more popular. The point is that we started with whole foods in there original forms and so should continue to eat them rather than refined carbohydrates that have no nutritional value and are put together from a hundred different chemicals which are causing increasing health problems amongst the general population. By doing so and removing the heavily processed food we should in return have more energy, not get as fat and be in better health conditions. All you’ve done is say why it doesn’t match to what it is trying to reference but do not address the reason for why diets like this were created in the first place: FOR BETTER HEALTH
This poor woman is is making a fool of her self, I don’t understand why some “scientist” are so bias, you can notice here personal hate, is sad. In deed most of what she is saying is thru, but she is wrong saying that Paleo Diet is that pyramid with animals on the bottom, Paleo Diet is understood that is any diet without processed or ultraprocessed food, like flour, white rise, sugars… but as always you can choose to eat good diet or a no soo good one, and how she says is a lot better to eat a plant base diet, but she forgets the most important that is with no processed food, a lot less starchy foods with some wild fish and a little bit of grass-fed animals. She is making is ridiculous forgetting to mention that those grains that she talk about that our ancestors ate where incomparable with our current grains and nothing to do with our chemical-processed flour or rise. Even doe at the end will be proven that this creasy diet of meat base meat will be better than the criminal diet that the American Heart Association is advertising and is taken soo much harm to the wold.
An example about plant eating: using modern hand tools one person can collect 15 KG of blackberries in 10 hours of work. The work is hard. The person will burn about 4000-5000 kcal for the work. Now, to replenish lost energy that person needs to eat 8-9 KG of the berries, which is impossible. Imaging doing the same work by bare hand picking. The nutrient density of ground plants is too low even to bother collecting them. I mean the old ones. The modern fruits are all products of thousands/hundreds of years of selections. Roots could provide starches, but they needed to be cooked to be absorbed. And food cooking came a lot later. Of course, if you are hungry as hell you might as well eat berries and mushrooms. Also, light and small ones spend less energy, so, may be children could collected plants for eating. This is just speculation.
Things that we know about today’s diet versus the diets that strive to “go back to nature”. First, industrialized food have created foods that our bodies do not really recognize. Foods that are highly processed, used extrusions, stripping of nutrients and polishing. These foods are what are killing us… These things I think we can all agree on… from vegan, vegetarian, paleo, keto and animal proteins. So, the refined sugars, the processed flours and oils. All these things damage our cells in our body. I do believe hyperinsulinima is problematic also…. looking at ancient Egypt with their obesity, cardio vascular disease and died young. They were known as “bread eaters”. youtu.be/RprGtr_cHlY
Well one thing is very clear from her examples of pre cultivated/modified fruits and vegetables… Humans certainly did not subsist on the meager calories of these unpalatable scrawny weeds and seed dense fruits.. And there is no way entire tribes could find, gather, and mill enough scrawny wild grass seeds to make enough flour for their caloric requirements… This leaves only one food group as the main source of calories for our human ancestor’s .. MEAT 🍖
Seems to me like she’s debunking the carnivore diet and not the paleo diet. The paleo diet (as outlined by Chris Kresser) focuses heavily on starchy tubers and vegetables along with fatty acids derived from plants. It also heavily stresses the importance of eating organ meats bc of their nutrient density. Idk but it seems to me like she’s using faulty or unrepresentative source material to define paleo. There will always be fad versions of certain diets in books written by lay-people and based on incomplete and inaccurate data. I do agree though that our ancestors didn’t have access to meat as often as we do but perhaps they could have been healthier if they had? The point of cutting out diary, grains and legumes is so that you can experiment with reintroducing them back into your diet to figure out which (if any) you have a sensitivity to. Different ppl have different dietary needs and there will never be a one size fits all approach to diet as she states.
The funny part about this is that as a personal trainer and coach for 12 years, the paleo diet has never failed to produce STUNNING medical results in anyone who gives it a fair shot. The headline is a little damaging to human happiness but I’m sure it grabbed some eyeballs for this relatively unfit looking doc
“If a modern heart doctor could give medical advice to the iceman Ötzi — the man who was preserved as a mummy after his murder about 5,300 years ago in the snowy Alps — it would be this: Stop eating so much fatty meat and consider taking medications that lower your blood pressure and cholesterol. (Or eat a WFPB diet!) This advice is based on a new comprehensive look at the iceman mummy’s cardiovascular health. A full-body computed tomography (CT) scan showed that Ötzi had three calcifications (hardened plaques) in his heart region, putting him at increased risk for a heart attack. ” See Livescience article, “Ötzi the Iceman Was a Heart Attack Waiting to Happen”
Generally speaking if every single obese person started eating low carb (true low carb like 0-50g carbs/day max) most of them would lose weight and be more healthy And by far the easiest way to achive very low carb intake while not being hungry and having energy to function is to consume meat and a bunch of fat… There are only very few things we know for a fact when it comes to diets… the SAD diet looks basically identically to a diet you would give to rhodents if you wanted to intentionally make them fat… Lots of carbs over long periods of time leads to insuline resistance and in a lot of cases to type 2 diabetes Any common sence (basically classical calloric restriction) diet for weight loss will lead to yoyo effect And if diet omits important things, you need to suplement them in order to function healthily… with all that said, we have no clue what the optimal food for humans is, and our best bet is to look at anecdotal evidence of diets that are widely used and try each of them and see what works for each of us specifically. for me personally that was keto in combination with fasting… eating basically anything else and i get acne and feel generally like shit… what works will be different for everyone
Any variation of plant vs. animal product consumption within early tribal populations is not associated with the diseases of civilization, but all tribal people who switch to a modern diet become succeptible to these diseases. If these diseases are caused by diet, then the factors causal of these disease can only be 1. novel food products (including novel processing), 2. novel portions or food type ratios, or 3. novel insufficiencies. Did I miss something?
I think the issue I have with her talk is she uses a few scientific clues to draw incorrect conclusions. Many of her arguments show that eating meat and vegetables is appropriate. She avoids the fact that vitamin c is in animal products and you don’t need much unless you eat vegetables. She rebutts based on advertisement pictures of paleo dogma. Like big piles of meat. I don’t think paleo advocates for unnatural amounts of anything. So, ancient Egyptians ate bread and beer. Their mummies show advance arterial disease and tooth decay. Other remains of non bread eaters do not show that. Eating whole natural foods cannot and should not be “de-bunked”. People have the opportunity to save their lives, and this person has probably prevented some from even considering it. Shame
All you have to do is look around you – 90% of Americans are MORBIDLY obese and blame it on “genes,” all the while shoving pizza and cake down their throats. Meanwhile we have farming, which eliminated the need to hunt and gather. That made our lifestyle more sedentary, required the use of pesticides and gene homogenization in the crops, resulting in a dramatic increase in the production of foods that can be stored for long periods of time on shelves, through the use of artificial preservatives. Then you have this massive increase in sugar consumption that resulted, a reduction in high quality protein in the diet, and an onslaught of Type 2 diabetes and autoimmune diseases that are now common place.
Humans are opportunivores. Our ancestors ate what they could get their hands on and what provided them with strength and energy to perform. There is no such thing as the paleo diet because our paleo ancestors ate a variety of things depending on region, climate, culture and what was seasonally available. They often moved with the food. Unfortunately todays humans are often fed on diets of misinformation, counter-misinformation and snake oil. I personally have been on a healthy ketogenic diet for the last several years that serves me well. I didn’t have to buy anyone’s diet plan. I researched the best information I could find, experimented until I fine tuned the best-fit diet for my age and condition. I expect things will change as I get older. The only diets that work are the ones that work for you.
Interesting to contrast this talk to that of Jessica Thompson (anthropologist and archeologist) who argues that we could only evolve bigger brains because we transferred from a vegetarian diet to a more meat oriented diet some 3 Mo ago. We didn’t necessarily transfer back to vegetables voluntarily, but because our ancestors were such succesful hunter we needed other energy resources and here starch based nutrition came in handy, which we obviously could already digest. The paleo diet is not mainly based on meats, but should be a healthy combination of fruits, vegetables and meat or dairy products and minimize starch products (not 0). In fact, processed starch products do cause a completely unnatural burst of insulin and this is new. No species has this. So, the paleo diet as presented here is not fair and arguing that we were vegetarian long ago should not lead us to conclude that processed starch diets are in any way beneficial. Societies that relied on that seem to yield smaller people. An obvious problem with the paleo diet is that it is completely unsustainable, or better put, even more unsustainable. So there is a logical counter movement to this paleo diet ‘hype’. I think the diet is healthy if based primarily on fruits and vegetables and healthy meat as it reduced hunger feeling (it does for me) so I eat less. But it is expensive and in the long run more unsustainable when many people use it….. so it is opposed.
So what does she eat? She looks like she’s in phenomenal shape! Sure, I watched Dr. Wahls discus how she walked back her MS through a Paleo diet focused on the nutrients most beneficial to the mitochondria, but this lady has a lot of credentials… So forget real world application and achievement. Either it works for you or it doesn’t. I’m guessing the people who strongly disagree with the Paleo Diet haven’t tried it and followed a structure. Personally, I find people who lead by example are usually the people to best to take a chance on.
The idea of understanding paleo or keto carnivore is not that our ancestor never ate plants, tubers, leaves, roots, seeds, starches. Humans are omnivores..the main point of these diets is that sugar and refined flours etc and industrialized foods are completely out from out gut bioma evolution…and if you go to evidence in results go to other talks on gut bioma and watch on your body results when you change to natural fats, meats, plants, etc as weight loss, lowering chronic disease etc…theories don’t base science, evidence does..just go to any Amazonian tribe and live there for a few weeks..watch what they eat…problem solve…or same in Africa. Make a statistic of diseases they have or not….problem solve…she has a very nice CV but sadly poor conclusions if any debunking natural aboriginal bioma eating correlations …
25:15 – The paper referred to (quite interesting) actually describes what seems to be grinding of cattail (Tifa) leaves, which are edible and rich in vitamins, not grains. Grains are present but that’s not what the cooks were interested in quite apparently. Everything in this exposition so far seems to follow this pattern of misrepresenting the facts or throwing poisonous darts where they are not really deserved. I know from anthropological readings and documentaries that modern hunter-gatherers eat at the very least very generous amounts of meat if possible, meat or fish is their staple food, plants are complementary and they may be important at times, but it’s meat the core element of their diets. Grains are totally absent.
Wow terrible. Human digestion is more like a dog or bear than a chimp. She’s an archaeologist not a doctor. We have a short large intestine (colon) and a long small instestine and we favour enzymatic absorption of nutrients over fermentation. We have a vestigial appendix like most carnivores. And we have one of the strongest stomach acids in the animal kingdom more on par with a scavenging bird like a buzzard than a herbivore. Just to pick up on the vitamin C issue. Humans don’t need vitamin C. What for? To cure scurvy? What is scurvy? It’s main symptom is internal bleeding caused by the deterioration of the arterial wall. This is caused by a lack of collagen in the diet not a lack of vitamin C. Vitamin C does help in the synthesis of collagen but we can obtain collagen as a form of protein by eating fresh meat. It was problematic for sailors not because they didn’t have access to fruits but because they didn’t have access to fresh meat. Aside from which muscle meat does actually contain vitamin C. In terms of vitamin C as an anti virus/bacteria or as part of the immunes system, this function is also cover by cholesterol. This is propaganda. Obviously one of her colleagues sent her out to spread the herbivore message.
What is certain is our ancestors did not ingest inorganic metallic iron filings “fortified” into foods, nor did they have inorganic copper and inorganic iron in birth control pills and falsely called “placebos.” Nor were we as depleted in magnesium and ceruloplasmin-bound copper. Search “Morley Robbins” for more information.
What I learned from this is that the food we eat today has been greatly altered by human interference (not a judgment statement). Whether someone thinks meat is good for them or they think plants are good for them, both have been extremely altered and we don’t obtain them in the way we used to (again, no judgment). The main point is that the notion of a “paleo” diet is nonsensical, as even within the paleolithic period, many alterations in environment and processing changed. Just don’t eat McDonalds.
I’m not sure what to say…I’ve been eating paleo 10 years. Meat, fish and veggies, berries and nuts. Sometimes even a fruit but just citrus. I eat food which is prepared from fresh produce to be consumed immediately. Mostly made in a skillet or grill. No salt. No sausages, bacons or other highly processed foods like bars. I drink water. Not separate sources of fat .Somehow I feel this person don’t actually know what paleo diet is. But most don’t, internet is giving funny information about paleo. Not a paleo I studied more than 10 years ago. It seems to be modernized.
The idea of Paleo diet, is therefore supported. While Paleo people did consume what was geographically available, and not the stuff they didn’t get..they weren’t eating cheese doodles. It means nothing that broccoli has been improved.. this still fits with the flexibility of geographic availability. If the Vikings ate dairy, they had animals already. They didn’t go running out into the forest to suck the teats of reindeer. Nitrogen ratios, clearly don’t inform reliably. Carnassials are clearly not needed to eat a steak, and vegetable foods were second rate woody toxic garbage. The philosophical stance of Paleo, is upheld, and no matter how much food is pumped into needy mouths, the population will grow to overconsume it, whether it is agriculturally produced or wild caught.
after years of being vegan and killing plants i became carnivore. all my illnesses have gone and iam absolutely thriving for the first time in my life. if eating plants is what iam supposed to eat then iam sticking to just meat and fat. i feel awesome. when i die plants insects and animals can eat me.
I don’t think Ancient people just ate meat but her argument about Us not having big canine teeth seemed Flawed to me there is more than one way to skin a cat chimps some times eat meat and sometimes use tools to hunt or the marsupial lion an Extinct predator that lived in Australia it had no canine teeth
Very interesting presentation! I wonder whether many domesticated crops resemble tropical plants. For example the thickness of broccoli may resemble big shoots of many tropical plants (for example giant bamboo). Furthermore I compared the caloric density of domesticated bananas with chimpanzee staple foods (a species of figs; Ficus sycomorus) and found that it is apparently very similar. Insects as food also always fall under the table.
The funny thing is that this whole presentation is actually a straw man. Cordain never denied any of the things she said. However, she’s “debunking” things, Cordain never postulated. What he did was, he tried to compile corner stones of a healthy “paleo” diet that our ancestors would eat for millions of years. And he comes to the exact same conclusion as she did. Funny. I’d say, she never really read or understood Cordain’s concepts in detail.
Very interesting and informative presentation. I keep trying to find “the least common denominator” from all the information on the proper human diet I have studied over the years. I keep coming back to unprocessed whole foods as the foundation for what we should consume. I like the diversity aspect of these foods rather than permanently eliminating so many foods and trying to live that way. Foods like olive oil although processed via machinery are not what I am talking about. I am talking about seed oils (Canola), processed grains, “natural flavors”, refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc when I say processed foods. Something that was not mentioned were times of no food and the effect of that. Personally I believe in intermittent fasting for better health.
Wonderful lecture. This is the way to make me commit to life long learning. Hearing how lack of water in the diet can unexpectedly skew data towards a carnivorous result was a real eye opener. And although Christina didn’t mention it, I’ll bet the fact that our Paleo ancestors just plain starved a lot had an out sized effect on their health.
Just stating, what different diets these people ate doesn’t prove that these diets are all good for you. Apparently, people in Old Egypt were suffering from similar diseases as we are today, therefore it might not be helpful to follow their diet. Just because people were able to subsist on certain foods doesn’t mean they are optimal for your health.
A new paper debunks Dr. Warinner. “In a paper published in the Yearbook of the American Physical Anthropology Association, Dr. Miki Ben-Dor and Prof. Ran Barkai of the Jacob M. Alkov Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, together with Raphael Sirtoli of Portugal, show that humans were an apex predator for about two million years…. “In a process unprecedented in its extent, Dr. Ben-Dor and his colleagues collected about 25 lines of evidence from about 400 scientific papers from different scientific disciplines, dealing with the focal question: Were stone-age humans specialized carnivores or were they generalist omnivores? Most evidence was found in research on current biology, namely genetics, metabolism, physiology and morphology…. “For instance, research on stable isotopes in the bones of prehistoric humans, as well as hunting practices unique to humans, show that humans specialized in hunting large and medium-sized animals with high fat content. Comparing humans to large social predators of today, all of whom hunt large animals and obtain more than 70% of their energy from animal sources, reinforced the conclusion that humans specialized in hunting large animals and were in fact hypercarnivores.” phys.org/news/2021-04-humans-apex-predators-million-years.html
A few major holes in her assertions; firstly that we’re not designed to eat meat, yet we have four organs purely for digesting fat, our stomach acid is stronger than most carnivores and nearly as strong as scavengers, and the length of our GI tract is far closer to a carnivores than even apes. Then for the hunter-gatherers data, saying its heavily skewed to the artic regions doesn’t address that nearly all of the other hunter-gatherer societies still follow similar diets; Hadza in East Africa, Batak in Asia, Piraha in South America, Spinifex in Australia. Regardless of continent, hunter-gatherer societies still live on mostly meat, milk, and if they can find it, honey.
Weston Price points a better picture of diets that allowed humans to thrive in nutrition and physical degeneration, before the industrialization of food. Vegetables that we used to eat have nothing to do with GMOs from today that are full of pesticides (today Monsanto lost a suit of 2bilion dollars because their pesticides cause cancer) Her assumption that we are adapted to eat plants because we can’t synthesize vitamin C is flawed, there is vitamin C in meat and organs. By her exact logic, we can make a case for meat because you can’t find Vitamin B12, DHA and other essential nutrients in plants. Her attitude towards meat is obviously biased and unscientific
She does not seem to know what the paleo diet is. Paleo is not “large quantities of meat”. I am guessing she is a vegetarian meet seems to offend her. The paleo diet never suggests we are carnivores, it is an omnivorous diet. Very heavy in vegetables. It is low in sugar and processed foods. I am Paleo I’ve been Paleo for three years. And I’ll initially lost over 20 pounds and I’ve kept it off. I feel fantastic being Paleo. I cannot eat dairy it makes me extremely ill. I also have issues with gluten have for years, grains also don’t do me any good. I don’t eat a lot of meat. My diet is vegetable-based with some meat. And occasional fruit. Very few Paleo diet’s actually say or claim that this is how caveman actually ate we cannot mimic the way that they ate it is not practical in today’s world and everybody knows that unless you are literally living “like a caveman” foraging and killing your own meat that is not gonna happen. When you eat Paleo the whole idea behind it which it seems to escape this woman completely, is to eat healthy organic vegetables lean meats, no processed food no refined sugars, no grains, or legumes, very nutrient dense foods. Not sure why anybody would have a problem with that. But clearly she does and I’m guessing it’s because somebody’s paying her to have this problem. Processed foods are what makes the money in the food industry. That’s why they make up the bulk of the food industry. Whole foods, healthy foods take time to prepare actually fill you up so you don’t have to keep reaching for that greasy bag of Lays potato chips.
It’s a great talk and very informative, but i don’t see how it “debunks” paleo. Maybe my understanding of what is meant with paleo is different, but i was always under the impression, that paleo simply focuses on “real”, fresh, whole foods. She makes it sound almost as if paleo is the same as carnivore. All i ever learnded about paleo was that this diet consinsts of a huge variety of fresh vegetebales, fruits, nuts, seeds and animal products such as meat, organs, fish, eggs and dairy. I don’t see any condratiction in the information that she presents.
So this scientist didn’t even study what paleo diet is? She just walked into the supermarket and saw some processed gimmicks called paleo and did no other research? I’m going to question this woman and ask why she thinks that because we can digest starch and have foraged for many foods including red and green plants, does that mean that paleo should be debunked. Paleo agrees with you that those foods should be eaten and that adaptations of dairy and wheat are post bronze age meaning the last 10k years of our evolution. This woman is arrogant. She also says that proof of meat consumption is based off water stress however many of the paleo advocstes talk about finding thousands of bones of animals and cave paintings of us hunting them. Look at indigenous cultures! She’s using the same pseudo science to debunk rather than the archeological record. Of course the studies are based off those who don’t use agriculture because for thousands of thousands of thousands of years we didn’t have agriculture. Its a relatively new phenomenon. Lastly in her effort to debunk, She agrees with paleo that we simply didn’t eat them in the same quantities till after the introduction of agriculture. So what that the wild carrot is different now from the domesticated? We also don’t have mammoths anymore, which our ancestors would have eaten and used to make their homes much like the natives used Buffalo. The point isn’t to replicate exactly what was eaten because that would be impossible. The point is to have the same micronutrient ratios as our ancestors: limiting grains, processes foods and dairy and she agrees that processed foods aren’t healthy.
Great article. We evolved eating mostly whole plant foods, with occasional wild game, along with fasting (in today’s terms) and some moderate exercise. It’s all we need to live long, while being active, healthy, drug free, and mentally sharp. You’re health must be your priority, not convenience, cost, or emotional fulfillment. Sugar isn’t worth it, but your are.
There is no way that we could know what humans really ate in the paleolithic era (unless we time travelled and actually witnessed them eating). We can only deduce or make educated guesses; and still can’t be 100% accurate. All I know that pretty much any animal (that includes us humans) would try to consume what is available to survive when the food that they’re used to is not available or is in very short supply. I don’t think ancient humans would say, “I’m just going to eat plants” or “I’m just going to eat animals.” Besides, we have significantly changed from our ancient ancestors (neanderthal, australopithecus, homo erectus, etc.). We have evolved. Today, and maybe also in ancient times, even if we are of the same species, each individual react to foods differently. Some can’t have certain animal products, like those who are lactose intolerant. Others can’t have have certain plant products, like those who easily develop kidney stones due to oxalates. Also we can’t 100% rely on dietary studies because there is always going to be debate and doubt on what foods are really good or really bad for human consumption. For example, eggs were bad (because of cholesterol) and now is good for you (because of the nutrients they provide, and that the cholesterol in them don’t significantly affect the body’s cholesterol levels). Legumes were good (because of nutrients) and now are bad (because they are also high in anti-nutrients). Like it or not, we are all going to die (maybe because of the foods we eat), but we also need food to survive.
Great talk! I’ve really come to believe in the consistent and healthy use of underground tubers, legumes, and bulbs in evolutionary history, as a consistent staple that was present in multiple seasons all over the world. Since finding this out, I’ve come to appreciate buying bulks of potatoes here in the Netherlands. P.s. If u have gut issues, don’t generalize your personal food sensitivities to human physiology, thinking we are carnivorous and fibre is bad for us. Fibre is absolutely necessary great for our health. Gotta feed those beneficial prevotella gut bacteria.
The Neanderthals ate 90% meat because they couldnt fully digest starch from plants like we can/could. They were forced to depend on animals, which was their demise. We also mastered fire, and could cook which unlocked even more nutrients, as well as access to honey, all of which was a huge advantage for the survival of our species and the assimilation of the Neanderthal gene pool.
I’m not advocating anything here but I’ve long been amazed by the Australian Aborigines’ diet in a land of scarcity and abundance. Berries, fruit, nuts, roots, grubs, insects, seeds, grasses, reptiles, mammals ( sea food near the coast) birds and numerous varieties of each. It’s even got a name, “bush tucker”.
Interesting presentation and adding valuable arguments to the discussion. However some flaws. 1) Vitamine C. Before we started eating meat we got plenty vit C. When we starting eating meat we lost the gene for producing it. Her conclusion we did consume so much plants and fruits, so we could survive. Meat has a small bit of vit C and it is enough for living on a meat only diet. Clinical trial of 1 year by Stefansson in the 1930 ties, and published in Jama, proofs this. So a full meat only is no problem, at least nowdays. 2) she spent much time on debukunking the Peleo diet but didn’t mention how poor grains and beans were in the past. 3) Diet studies shows Hugh variations based on where people lived. This proves without any doubt our adoptabilty as species. The conclusion that variation is key and that there is not a single diet we can live on is a step to far. We can live on an exclusive animal based diet.
So???? She wants someone to change the name of the Paleo Diet because today’s foods don’t match what was actually in the Paleolithic Era? I don’t eat Paleo, but if I did, I don’t think I would feel this debunked anything. She feels Murdock “cherry picked” the Eskimos, but she completely avoided discussing the fact they ate mostly meat (and survived) when she went through her list of cultures that survived on vegetation and a small amount of meat?
I like the paleo protein bars (LOL) Meat contains vitamin C, and if one doesn’t ingest carbohydrates, then one’s need for vitamin C is greatly reduced, because the transport system for ‘C’ isn’t being obstructed from glucose.Yes, The Myans ate corn, YES, they no longer exist. Yes, the areas that were not colonized, were not colonized, because there was a lack of meat. How did the ‘paleo farmers’ plow the fields? Just asking…. oh, they went into the woods. Yeah, sure,,, get a small bag: VERY SMALL, and go fill it up. I’ll wait. You will not find meat fiber in the teeth, because it rapidly decays. Fiber lasts forever, unless the microbiome of a ruminant’s bacteria digests it.
She’s not focusing on the main issue with grains and other seeds which is anti-nutrients. First she starts out with a strawman argument that the paleo diet is an all-mead diet. No, that is the carnivore diet. You can eat plenty of vegetables on a Paleo diet as long as they’re not grains or legumes or other seeds that have a high lectin content. Then she starts talking about how we have this enzyme to digest starts and there is starch in the diet in the form of fruit and if you want tubers. The paleo diet is not against tumors or fruits. I’ll be enough she’s almost promoting the idea of a carnivore diet considering that a lot of these fruits were toxic till we cultivate them.paleo food products have nothing to do with the paleo diet, those are marketed by corporations. Now some of the foods will remove anti nutrients or seed oils.
I like to challenge my own beliefs by looking at alternative perspectives, which is why I watched this article. I disagree with her analysis that the nitrogen isotope measurements are unreliable based on her own data in her presentation. She says that these values can be skewed because of water stress (draught), giving examples of herbivores along with humans that show up above carnivores like lions on this measurement. All probably true, but nowhere does she present data showing carnivores or humans at the lower levels of this measurement. Obviously draught conditions can cause the measurement to rise giving a false positive, but do any of the nitrogen isotope tests for early humans show low levels? She says there are too many variables that can influence this measurement, but only listed one, draught. Are there any measurements of ancient humans showing them in the bottom percentiles? Surely there weren’t draught conditions always over 100,000’s of years? So, my takeaway from her own data is that water stress can cause plant eaters to give false positives for the nitrogen isotope measurement along with showing humans higher than known carnivores, but she doesn’t show any false negatives for carnivores. In other words, our ancient ancestors can be assumed to be carnivores which she proves if she was willing to look past her own bias. Extremely poor analysis of the data. She needs to learn how to do critical thinking.
@15:41 She said that the Mayan people had very limited access to meat. How can that be true, since that area at that time was abundant in animals and fish? It should have been very easy and common to at least catch fish, if not shoot, catch, or trap birds, rabbits, small and big game. Considering the fact that people in that era were just transitioning from nomadic hunter-gatherers to the beginning of sedentism and early onset of agriculture you would think that catching fish and animals were still very much part of the zeitgeist and culture. It’s not as if these people had office jobs and super-markets. No, they depended on their sustenance from what they gathered, grew, caught and hunted themselves.
This talk is full of great information. She is a very knowledgeable woman. However, there is also plenty of evidence that goes against what she is saying. What can explain the vast amounts of people that are losing copious amounts of body fat, reducing inflammation, and curing autoimmune diseases through carnivory? If humans were not adapted to eat meat, then this wouldn’t be happening. On top of that, all of the populations on earth that are mostly free of chronic disease include plenty of meat and animal fats in their diet. Okinawans have a 50% higher pork consumption than mainland Japanese, and they also have longer lifespans. Pretty much all of the “Bluezones” actually get a higher percentage of their calories from animal fats than Americans on average. Yes these people eat high quality plant foods, but animal foods are extremely important to them as well.
she doesn’t debunk the diet, period. she tries to attack the word paleo and believes the diet shouldn’t be called paleo. basically a play on words. she claims that something can’t be called paleo because a small group of paleolithic people crushed up grasses (grains) and it was found in their poop. she likes to allure people to the idea that there isn’t one set paleo diet, but this doesn’t disprove the paleo diet at all, it just shows throughout the world there are different paleo diets… the vast majority of which follow the same exact paleo principals. and the idea that we don’t have access to older paleo plants/animals is her last attempt to put the nail in the coffin. again, not working. just because we have access to more juicy, more nutritious fruits, vegs, nuts, seeds, roots, tubers, and meats through breeding doesn’t make it bad. paleo is still paleo. it avoids things that we ought not to eat like grains, beans (not edible in nature), and dairy. what’s funny is that physicians committee is a plant-based organization but it doesn’t want to recognize that most of these paleo foods are plant-based. people also wrongly assume that everyone that follows a paleo diet is keto/low-carb and has their dish with meat in the center. while this might be true for many, it’s definitely not true about all. someone can eat paleo and consume the vast majority of their calories from whole plant foods (minus grains and beans/lentils). plenty of options, even a paleo-vegan diet would work for many because it’s all WFPB.
Regarding this article, I’ve come to realize that the paleo diet is not just a dietary choice; it’s a way for us to connect with nature and history. This has made me reconsider my dietary choices and encourages us to live in a healthier way. The article was very interesting; thank you for sharing, and I look forward to more discussions.
Where is your speech on the dangers of taking antibiotics and the damage this does to our microbiome relative to our ancestors? I’d like to listen to it. BTW, I’m all for eating nutrient-dense healthy vegetation, as opposed to Big Agra, toxin laden, ersatz “food.” Organ meats appear to play a key role for most depleted in bio-copper and other key nutrients… from properly raised, grass fed/finished animals, of course.
when the archeologist starts talking about biology she goes way off track….the anatomy of our digestive systems and guts are actually closer to lions than cows or even gorillas. And why do we have a stomach pH of 1.5? We can digest animal proteins with ease and cellulose not at all. She talks about how starch is mainly digested before it hits our small intestine….animal protein is even more completely digested in the stomach before it hits the small intestine. Also it sounds like she’s trying to debunk the carnivore diet…which is not the paleo diet.
And from the same animals (that we didn’t have to hunt); brains. No competition there either. If you think about the situation for early humans, it is nonsensical that they ate any significant amount of plant foods. We became humans when climate change had reduced forrested areas to plains, so there were hardly any fruits or berries available.
Lions life span 10-14 years and females eat 11lbs of meat daily and males 16. 12lbs x13.5 years x 365 days = 59,130lbs in a lifetime. My life 85 years x 365 = 31025 days and that means about 2lbs of meat daily if I wish to match a lion. I’d better get started….. Aussies eat mostly meat pies with T sauce BTW,except at barbies when they eat raw burnt snags, raw burnt steak, undercooked chicken and lots and lots of VB but never ever salad that the “girls” bring along..
0:20 Ancient diets were not paleo diets. 1:45 Again. Ancient cultures have nothing to do with palaeolithic. 2:00 If that was relevant to the title of the talk she would be talking about palaeontological record not an archeological record. 2:05 European Bronze Age not European Stone Age, so irrelevant for this argument. 3:25 Just because they’re hunter gatherer it doesn’t mean that they eat like stone age hominids. 3:50 how about studying some chronology too? 7:10 Why would palaeolithic diet be reflected in archeological record? It wouldn’t so why mention it? 8:30 That’s because our distant ancestors were herbivores. We’re not. Are you a young earth creationist or something? Ever heard of evolution by natural selection? 11:40 that’s because they’ve hunted big game to extinction, so yes. 12:15 Meat myth? You just said they all ate meat. 15:30 Just find some human bones from relevant time period that show this N15 variance. It should be easy since people lived in different environments. 20:00 Some guy made a unsupported classification – that’s not an argument to support yours. 23:20 Why is this relevant? Palaeolithic humans weren’t pushed anywhere by agriculturalists because they did not exist at the time. 23:55 Bison meat and grass fed beef are rather similar. 25:16 Palaeolithic people ate some plants sometimes. OK. My dog eats some grass sometimes … So? 26:45 Diet book is wrong so it means that hominids weren’t carnivorous. Did I get that right? 27:45 Exactly. Natural plant ‘foods’ are rubbish and humans didn’t eat them much.
Surprisingly uninteresting presentation. Full of strawman arguments. Okay modern chicken eggs and avocados where not available to paleo people and that would disqualify this theory somehow? No paleo is about eating in a similar way to the type of foods that humans are meant to eat, not to strive to eat exactly like they did. The main change is to not eat processed food or grains. This woman is probably sponsored by companies like General Mills, Keloggs etc.