What are we really adapted to eating: tropical fruit or raw paleo?

[runningbird]

Did we spend significant time in human evolution subsisting primarily on tropical fruit? Tony Wright has argued that tropical fruit is the ideal staple in his self published book - but he also went without sleep for 11 days on it as a testament to his health. What are we really adapted to eating?

In his self published book, Wright further questions the widespread assumption that we are indeed at the pinnacle of our evolution. Instead, Wright proposes that the shift away from our evolutionary diets, and the knock-on hormonal effects on the development of our brains, has resulted in species-wide neurological dysfunction with profound effects on the integrity of our perception. Wright points to unprecedented levels of systemic dysfunction, degenerative disease, depression, societal problems, and many other indicators of compromised human function as evidence.

Wright proposes that once we strayed from tropical fruit diets, the biochemistry was simply no longer present to support optimal neurological development. According to Wright's theories, this eventually led indirectly to increased left hemisphere dominance and damage, a compromised and deluded perception, and to us exhibiting a profoundly dysfunctional psychology. Critically, Wright proposes that the neurological degeneration took place mainly in the left hemisphere while the right hemisphere remained comparatively functional, although it was still hugely suppressed by the more dominant (and dysfunctional) left.

[jeff3]

Everything, Omnivorous, anything goes. What is optimal? varies with individuals. Question is, what should you eat?, not, what should we eat.

[scorpio1980]

I tried the raw diet, and for me I felt terrible. I'm adapted to eat an omnivore diet. I eat some fruit, but I can't tolerate too much or I start getting hungry. Meat makes me feel solid, and grounded, and satisfies my hunger.

[ginkgo]

People have adapted to killing each other. But does that mean that we should try to live that way? If there were no light, then we would adapt by becoming blind. But then if there is light, then it will be better for us to adapt to see again.

[Beuford]

What I think humans are adapted to eat is what is available. So, in a tropic area, tropic fruit would be eaten mostly. Usually though, Raw fruit(including berries nuts and seeds) some vegetables and a few insects. In frozen areas where plants aren't as available, meat will be eaten more. In areas where it is not covered with snow, meat would hardly be eaten by a natural human. Humans are highly versatile, so even though we resemble a mostly herbivorous creature, we have the ability to live off a diet that has a fair amount of meat in it if it is winter in a cold climate. So that is how we have evolved, varying but leaning towards plants and what is available.

[jamesbiz]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

People have adapted to killing each other. But does that mean that we should try to live that way? If there were no light, then we would adapt by becoming blind. But then if there is light, then it will be better for us to adapt to see again.

You compare eating veggies only to seeing light, as if eating veggies some how is a step forward in evolution the way seeing light is. There is absolutely nothing you can say that would suggest that eating veggies will make everyone's lives better.

[Dreamline]

I believe we are always evolving even though it doesn't seem so. I never understood how scientists can make that assumption when it takes thousands and thousands of years to evolve and they act like if we can't see evidence in a few hundred years, we must have stopped evolving.

But I do believe he is correct insofar as modern diets will be our undoing. Technology in the food industry may keep billions of us alive but it's doing the human species no favors, ultimately.

I'm not sure about the tropical fruit assumptions. Maybe when we were barely out of chimpanzee DNA. But once humanity was humanity and we developed our big noggin, we started altering our world to suit us, rather than relying on our world to provide for us. THAT alone created evolutionary changes in our DNA, our abilities, and the size of our brains and the physical body. HUGE evolutionary changes.

Since the time we did subsist on only fruit, we have mutated three times, and those mutations were based on mobility (nomadic activity), locale, famine, climate change, interbreeding and the development of agriculture. Our most recent mutation is only a few thousand years old. They are otherwise known as blood type. O, A, B and most recently AB.

You cannot ignore these mutations when choosing your ideal diet. But with humans, extraordinarily adaptable as we are, at least in the short term, it's very difficult to measure the effects of one nature-based diet vs another nature-based diet. Ie: any diet that does not include processed foods. So the benefits of raw vs paleo, or vegan vs paleo, is difficult to discern because both have benefits and both have history in every human's DNA.

I would suggest, if you don't want to have to attain a PhD in nutrition and paleontology, and aren't inclined to accept the information regarding blood type and diet, that you simply eliminate processed foods from your diet. At that point, you have negated about 90% of what will harm you. Coupled with our innate adaptability, you will be as close to healthy as the average person can be without having to spend a lifetime's worth of study on the topic or to rely on science that is often based on biased or riduculous assumptions.

Jennifer

[rocksupreme]

It's not what we are adapted to, but what we adapt to.

The body will adapt to anything you give it. Too much cola and McD's, and the body adapts by getting fat and diabetic. Do push-ups and the body adapts with stronger arms and chest. Everything you do or consume causes an adaptation in the body.

Your body will adapt to whatever food sources you provide for it, but you may not like the effects of that adaptation. Experiment. Then you can choose a diet that causes adaptations you like.

[funchy]

What is the paleo diet? I ask because everyone seems to use this word, but not everyone can agree on what it means. What part of the world does this diet refer to? Do they mean coastal dwellers who had access to seafood? Plains or forest dwellers? Tropical dwellers who had plenty of fruit year round?

[funchy]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

Our most recent mutation is only a few thousand years old. They are otherwise known as blood type. O, A, B and most recently AB.

Can you cite the source of this information? I'm sorry to question you, but it seems like an awfully big claim to assert we didn't have blood type markers prior to a few thousand years ago.

How do you account for all the other markers on the red blood cells? A common one most people have heard of is the Rh marker ("positive" or "negative"). There are thirty common documented blood markers:
Human blood group systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why are only A and B markers important in diet? (AB is just both markers and O is neither marker)

[chrisrushton]

i don't know what's technically best or most efficient for me, but i really do love mangos

[Dreamline]

The four blood types evolved at different eras. O was first, then A, then B and we have no physical evidence of AB existing before about 2,500 years ago.

It really depends on whose theory you believe. Some say A was first but was usurped evolutionarily by O, because O could survive feast/famine cycles better. Some believe O was first because they thrive on a simpler paleo diet far more easily than A which responds to an agricultural-based diet better with agriculture obviously following typical hunter-gatherer behavior on the timeline of human history.

My vote goes with Dr Peter D'Adamo who, between he and his father, have studied blood groups more than anyone I have ever read including the Nobel prize winning Karl Landsteiner owing to newer technology available to the D'Adamos.

The 'O as oldest' camp believe that the timeline goes as follows:

50,000 to approx 30,000 BC everyone was O
30,000 to 10,000 BC type A became statistically significant in number
10,000 to 3,500 BC type B became significant and was spread to Europe
500 BC AB developed as a chimera of types A and B

Interestingly, most of the people who are in the 'A as oldest' camp are looking at our primate ancestors for their proof. But as we know, there are huge gaps between what we can find in the fossil record of ancient cro magnons, which became homo sapiens, and our supposed primate ancestors and have never found a reliable link. Most of the people in the 'O as oldest' camp are studying humans and how they respond physically to situations that mimic hunter-gatherer societies, agrarian societies, nomadic societies and the actual fossil record, and known nomadic histories and migratory records. To me, it's easy to see who is right.

Jennifer

[ginkgo]

Adaptation is entirely different than what is ideal. Humans have adapted to be able to eat anything so they can live anywhere-- Omnivores.

We can live off live or dead meat like carnivores. We can live off of plant foods like herbivores. We can live off of insects like birds do. We can live off of cyano-bacteria like the Aztecs eating spirulina. Again this has nothing to do with what foods are the best for health. We can even live off of eating human meat known as cannibalistic.

Is human meat the healthiest food to eat? But being able to eat it may save your life some day.

[andrew112]

Originally Posted by jamesbiz

You compare eating veggies only to seeing light, as if eating veggies some how is a step forward in evolution the way seeing light is. There is absolutely nothing you can say that would suggest that eating veggies will make everyone's lives better.

Eating vegetables will increase one's chances of living a longer life.

[Beuford]

Originally Posted by jamesbiz

There is absolutely nothing you can say that would suggest that eating veggies will make everyone's lives better.

Someone doesn't like their vegetables

[scorpio1980]

Originally Posted by Beuford

Someone doesn't like their vegetables

No he is just tired of half the people on this board acting like veggies are some magical gift of some sort. Veggies are fine, but when you start telling others how they should live to be healthiest you aren't aknowledging that we are all different, and some can tolerate alot of veggies,and others can't. I for one can only tolerate maybe half what you can veggie wise. I'm an omnivoire through, and through. I eat veggies, but I also might have a big hunk of beef, or fish with that. Veggies are usually half my plate, but only make up roughly 5-10% of calories. I for one don't believe my ancestors were downing pounds, and pounds of veggies a day, too much energy expended for not much in return.

[agnostic]

If there's one thing we have adapted to eating, it's meat. We can live healthy long lives on nothing but fat meat. Try that with any single vegetable or fruit.

[Joeschmoe]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

The four blood types evolved at different eras. O was first, then A, then B and we have no physical evidence of AB existing before about 2,500 years ago.

It really depends on whose theory you believe. Some say A was first but was usurped evolutionarily by O, because O could survive feast/famine cycles better. Some believe O was first because they thrive on a simpler paleo diet far more easily than A which responds to an agricultural-based diet better with agriculture obviously following typical hunter-gatherer behavior on the timeline of human history.

My vote goes with Dr Peter D'Adamo who, between he and his father, have studied blood groups more than anyone I have ever read including the Nobel prize winning Karl Landsteiner owing to newer technology available to the D'Adamos.

The 'O as oldest' camp believe that the timeline goes as follows:

50,000 to approx 30,000 BC everyone was O
30,000 to 10,000 BC type A became statistically significant in number
10,000 to 3,500 BC type B became significant and was spread to Europe
500 BC AB developed as a chimera of types A and B

Interestingly, most of the people who are in the 'A as oldest' camp are looking at our primate ancestors for their proof. But as we know, there are huge gaps between what we can find in the fossil record of ancient cro magnons, which became homo sapiens, and our supposed primate ancestors and have never found a reliable link. Most of the people in the 'O as oldest' camp are studying humans and how they respond physically to situations that mimic hunter-gatherer societies, agrarian societies, nomadic societies and the actual fossil record, and known nomadic histories and migratory records. To me, it's easy to see who is right.

Jennifer

A is first is not a "camp" it is scientifically accepted scientific fact. There is no evidence that O was first. I hope that one day you will stop peddling your snake oil.

[Bleicke]

I think there is no way of saying "paleo man ate this". There were some paleo people eating mostly fruit I imagine (in very hot regions with plenty of fruit). There were some paleo people eating mostly meat (Inuit, Scandinavians) where the weather was cold and plenty of animals were around.

On the other hand we CAN say with a certainty what paleo man didn't eat:

1)Plant oils (except in olives and avocados) that have to be made in factories
2)Grains (including corn and sugar made from it)
3)Giant mutated fruit with 4x the volume and 5x the sugar of natural ones

This is why the paleo diet is both a very varied and negative one. It can't recommend what to eat. It just says what you can't eat. There is no one set of paleo foods, there are lots! Just don't eat anything we KNOW couldn't be eaten by paleo men. Anything else is ok.

[KazeCraven]

shortcut: eat what foods leave you feeling the best on the whole

I think it's safe to say that we can argue about which is the proper diet until the cows come home. And the cows aren't coming home until Jesus comes again. And we all know THAT isn't happening, so yeah.

What happens when you finally figure out the perfect diet scientifically, and it makes you feel like crap?

[Brutha]

[qutoe]Critically, Wright proposes that the neurological degeneration took place mainly in the left hemisphere while the right hemisphere remained comparatively functional, although it was still hugely suppressed by the more dominant (and dysfunctional) left.[/quote]And suddenly the left brain hemisphere started doing weired stuff like inventing language.

[bluedragon]

I find it extremely weird that we cannot determine what foods are healthier than others. Why can't we just analyze the effects on the body, including those effects that will only make a difference over a period of tens of years in one's lifetime? Isn't science evolved enough to detect such subtle changes in the body?

[KazeCraven]

Not yet, we're still working on it. I believe we'll have a chance at what you're talking about with extensive knowledge in the realm of network biology. That'll allow us to know how each produced compound effects each individual cell, and from there we will (theoretically) be able to monitor any effects due to foods and know what that means for the person. The last part is key, otherwise we're just watching lots of crazy fluctuations that may or may not have an adverse effect on the person's body in the long-term.

Without this, you'll have the groups that insist that insulin levels are key, or that minimum digestion is key, or that processing of plant material is harmful, or that animal products are impure, or that a lack of any food reduces health. Way too many variables, no? Well all that would be manageable, but within each of the groups of thought I suggested, there are plenty more variables that have to be addressed, and that's why no one group is obviously better. Some even have good reason to assert that an occasional cream cheese bagel will extend your lifespan. But I'm sure you knew that already.

Plus we'd have to have to have a group of people to study to know what's abnormal for long-term in the first place, having each person eat a specific diet for extended periods of time and monitoring them all the while. And you know how sensitive people are about foods.

Until then it's all just educated speculation.