That's the name I think of every time someone talks about constant writing. He admits that he is emotionally very stable and doesn't suffer of ups and downs as most of the other writers.
Homo as a specie is way older. We started using tools and hunting way before homo sapiens. And even if you want to cherry pick homo sapiens, agriculture is just a minor fraction of his history.
Homo is not a species but a genus therefore considering older and extinct species as reference for our dietary requirements would be unwise. And even before agriculture most of the calories of hunter gathers was coming from plants.
Also https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet-ha...
I quote:
Humans come from a fairly generalized line of higher primates, a lineage able to utilize a wide range of plant and animal foods. There is general agreement that the ancestral line (Hominoidea) giving rise to humans was strongly herbivorous (14, 15). Modern human nutritional requirements (eg, the need for a dietary source of vitamin C), features of the modern human gut (haustrated colon), and the modern human pattern of digestive kinetics (similar to that of great apes) suggest an ancestral past in which tropical plant foods formed the basis of the daily diet, with perhaps some opportunistic intake of animal matter.
Going on:
Consumption of animal matter to satisfy requirements for protein and many essential micronutrients would free up space in the gut for carbohydrate-rich plant foods and allow for their use as fuel for the increasingly large human brain (14). Because humans initially evolved in Africa, where wild animals generally lack appreciable fat stores (2), it seems clear that they consumed a mixed diet of animal and plant foods, given the apparent limitations of human digestive physiology to secure adequate daily energy from protein sources alone (4).
Whilst early human were not vegan they were hardly mostly carnivores either. Furthermore as stated in both articles basing the diet of modern humans on the one of our ancestors is a mistake!
P.S. I am far from being vegan! Suturday I ate 600g of a delicious cow.
The other article does seem to be in favor of promoting a vegetarian view. But to me it seems incredibly lackluster:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08999...
To shorten it up:
1) Today we suffer of diet related disease
2) Other great apes are mostly vegetarians
3) Our digestive system is very similar to that of apes
result:
The recommendation that Americans consume more fresh fruits and vegetables in greater variety appears well supported by data on the diets of free-ranging monkeys and apes.
Previously our differences from apes have been correlated to the fact that we cook food:
Thus, humans are relatively poor among autoenzyme-dependent omnivores in digesting uncooked plant fiber. The human large intestine lies somewhere between that of the pig, a similar omni-vore, and the dog, a carnivore capable of consuming an omnivore diet that has a reduced cecum and short colon.
The problem is that many people start to develop problems in digesting many types of food that would normally be easily assimilated.
The causes could be many but the most likely culprits are antibiotics and pesticides damaging the gut lining and flora.
The consequence is that people is losing the ability to safely eat foods that would be normally considered safe and healthy.
In all probability the reason that a meat only diet works for so many people it's that it is a subtype of low FODMAP diet.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/22466-low-f...
I had the same problem a few years back when I tried a vegan diet for a few months. 2 teeth pulled, inflamed gums, plus as a bonus bad acid reflux (the 3 things could be related i guess).
Going back to a normal diet made them better but did not fix it completely. A few months back I tried keto which did fix all those problems.
It really depends. People living on the coast usually eats more fish, while inland people is more into pork. Olive oil is always used everywhere, just in the north there is a greater use of butter. Vegetables do get eaten but mostly as condiment of some other meat/fish or pasta. We indeed don't eat huge bowls of veggies as they make it sound. But we do eat a lot of seasonal fruit.
And to add to the paradox, my region Umbria (which has the best longevity in Italy) is probably the Italian capital of cured meats.
Lebanese food is probably the closest to an ideal Mediterranean diet. It really is mostly vegetables with olive oil with a sprinkle of some meat and grains.
Well there is a few people for whom this diet is having great effects. But there is indeed no science at all to back it up at the moment. But it is surely curious that such a diet which goes against every knowledge we have about diet can work even if just in the short time.
2 examples of dogmas which got debunked:
-you need to eat carbs to nourish your brain
-you need fruits and veggies to avoid scurvy
It is indeed kind of, in a very mild roundabout and self-involved way, “interesting.”
I know a guy that tried this diet and ended up on statins at 23 but I never thought to write about it on substack for (lol) consumption on HN, and I certainly wouldn’t have expected that ephemera of an anecdote to make it to the front page of a popular website about technology.
Edit: also it is downright hilarious that it’s assumed that this guy doesn’t season his food at all aside from salt.
Is there an HN/lobsters settle site for comedy articles?
High LDL is a known consequence of keto on lean people. There are ongoing studies to find out if this is a risk factor for plaque development in otherwise metabolically healthy people.
Anyway stopping the diet would normally lower his LDL to his previous levels without the need of going on statins at 23...
Vegans are thinner and usually malnourished.
Meat eaters are usually fatter because they get their meat from mcDonalds. Even a vegan eating chips every day has the potential of becoming obese.
You are really just comparing health conscious people to the average person. But if you would instead compare health conscious meat eaters with health conscious vegans you would see that the first group usually does much better.
Do you have any evidence that vegans are malnourished or less healthy? You will find the opposite across studies. Sorry but the science doesn't support you here.
I'm aware of the hype and the optimistic studies around vegan diets (as an ex vegan I've been through a lot on the topic).
The problem with the vegan narrative is that it tends to focus on 2 main outcomes: weight management and the health of the circulatory system.
This is fine and nobody doubts that compared to a typical diet composed of processed foods this is a great improvement.
What the discourse is severely lacking is what are the shortcomings of this diet.
You always get generic messages that you must be careful and keep an eye on b12, iodine, iron, zinc, vit d, calcium and b3 but we never had large studies about how well this warnings are being followed.
Are you in an optimal weight? How about your lean mass? Any deficiencies? I couldn't find any large scale reliable study on these values. But by experience of myself and people I know (and by many people who had to stop this way of eating) it seems like it is a real problem, much more difficult to get around than the news outlets will make you believe.
However your physiology doesn't change in two generations.
We can easily adapt our microbiome to get access to new sources of calories. But our erect posture, tool crafting and use abilities, and our guts structure are all evolutions we gained from our hunting/scavenging times. We are what we are because of meat and fat, not green leafy vegetables.
Where is your first sentence coming from though? Afaik keto works well by stabilizing and lowering insulin release with the effect of minimizing the storage of fat and carb cravings caused by sugar crashes.
If you want to you can literally skip a meal without becoming grumpy, lightheaded or ravenous.
Also: how can a diet composed of meat, fish, cruciferous and green leafy vegetables, cheese, nuts, berries, fatty fruits like avocado and olives, and healthy oils be one of the least nutritious diets around? A vegan diet is clearly scoring much worse on this topic I'm afraid.
To give you an example in this study where different foods are evaluated based on their micronutrient density (in an attempt to combat malnutrition) you'll see that the top foods are all of animal origin: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.80656...
Results: We find that the top sources of priority micronutrients are organs, small fish, dark green leafy vegetables, bivalves, crustaceans, goat, beef, eggs, milk, canned fish with bones, mutton, and lamb. Cheese, goat milk, and pork are also good sources, and to a lesser extent, yogurt, fresh fish, pulses, teff, and canned fish without bones.
The problem is that most folks don’t know what keto is…they assume we are all eating a pound of bacon a day and nothing else. Its a ridiculous notion.
Starting keto for me eliminated literally all processed foods. Every food I eat is is pretty much its whole form, excepting cheeses, butter, and olive oil. There are quite a few processed foods on the market called “keto”, but most folks I know on the diet tend to avoid or only use those very sparingly.
On a weekly basis I eat eggs, cheese, pork, beef, fish, chicken, berries, nuts, and cruciferous vegetables. Some olive oil, and some butter. If that is unhealthy…I am not sure what healthy is.
