POSTED ON 19 DECEMBER 2010 BY BRODRICK KENT
In recent years there has been significant interest in optimal diet and lifestyle, particularly with curiosity surrounding the role of nutrition in ideal health outcomes. As readers search for dietary excellence they are faced with a multitude of nutritional concepts that all claim to have the 'secret’ to optimal health and vitality. One of the more popular diets in the media is the Paleolithic diet that our long ago ancestor’s ate before the industrial revolution and well before pocket societies were established. This diet has received much attention as of late following the release of Dr. Loren Cordain’s book ‘The Paleo Diet.’
As a society we are dying of diseases of affluence and modernization. Therefore, the Paleo concept in nutrition would make perfect sense to its followers. In an attempt to reclaim our health it would seem logical to review the evolution of diet. However, many readers use Dr. Cordain’s book as their justification to consume a high meat, high fat diet, despite a mountain of evidence indicating that meat dominate diets are actually the problem and result in premature aging and disease.
Here are some points to consider;
• All diets need to be presented as a package. To follow this concept in nutrition authetically the average person would need to spend large amounts of money purchasing high quality organic grass fed animal products which are simply not available or economicaly viable for the masses. Additionaly, people tend to only apply the appealing aspects of this type of diet. For example, an individual may like to eat loads of meat, but won't shop organic, nor will they eat lots fresh ripe fruits and vegetables that contain high levels of beneficial fibre and micronutrition.
Finally, organic grass fed animal argriculture may reduce your exposure to drugs, antibiotics and some environmental toxins, that are abundantly found in today's lifestock, but it doesn't change the problems associated with dietary cholesterol and animal protein, which current research shows is the common denominator in the development of diseases of the vascular system and cancer.1
There is no evidence to support the long-term benefits of eating a Paleo style diet even if the animal products are free from contaiminants. In fact, extensive research conducted on rural chinese, who were living and following their native diets free from contamination, showed that those who even included modest amounts of animal foods developed the most chronic diseases, compared to those who did not.2
• Humans have evolved over eons of time consuming large quantities of plants and vegetation. The hunter gather period was only a snap shot on the human time-line where certain peoples were living of the extremes of the environment. Paleolithic people were cave dwellers who ate for survival and out necessity, not because they had a profound understanding of nutritional excellence. They would consume anything that contained useable calories to avoid starvation. There is a difference between eating for survival and eating for health longevity. Hunter/gatherers did not live long healthier lives – they died of exposure, starvation, being eaten by animals, infections and natural disasters.
• These stone age peoples were not the carnivores that the proponents claim. The reason for this is; hunting and killing animals is not easy and those humans were smaller bipedal beings who were considerably slower than the animals that they were supposedly seeking to eat. Furthermore, they had no technology to assist in hunting and killing prey. The oldest spear recoreded, that kind of looks like a large 'tooth pic,' dates back 500,000 years ago, yet man's time-line spans back as far as 7million years (our bodies evolved over a longtime with plants). Visualise someone chasing down a beast with their bare feet/hands, flimsy fingers and flat blunt teeth - this would actually be quite entertaining!
• Anthropologists Donna Hart and Robert Sussman tell another story of mans journey through time. A story that doesn't support the theory of "Man the Hunter." In their publication "Man the Hunted," Hart and Sussman present extensive research, consisting of current observations and comparative analysis of primate and predator prey relationships, along with new fossil findings that clearly show mans beginnings were one of fear, not ferocity.
Many people today naively hold an image of man as being far superior over all other beings. A perception that man could never be dominated by "dumb animals." Early humans were called hominids, small bipedal beings who were clawless, fangless and were simply not build for the kill. Hominids, like other primates were common prey to larger predators such as sabre tooth tigers, leopards, hyenas, birds of prey, pythons and crocodiles. Humans are social beings who's brains evolved in response to the avoidance of becoming cat food. To compensate for their lack of physical strength and ability to fight of predators, hominids had to outwit their opponents to survive.
Many ardent followers of this concept have come to the conclusion that these beings predominately lived on animal flesh because certain archaeological digs revealed the bones of animals near campsites. It is quite amusing to think just because palaeontologists didn't stumble across orange peels, apple cores or banana skins, these primitive beings must have been savage beasts wielding clubs! The remains of plants do not survive in the same way bones do and the evidence suggests that these same caves were occupied by various types of animal species prior to our Hommid ancentors. This can explain the different types of animal bones recovered in these same dwellings.
It would be more plausible that, our ancestors, out of necessity ate locally growing wild plants and moved about to locate them. They may have scavenged on dead animals when they could, but these opportunities were few and far between. Although, consuming animal flesh would pose its own problems. With no means of storing food, bacteria and infection would set in not long after the animals demise, leading to food spoilage and potential death for those on the scrounge. Especially for a hominid who's structural anatomy is perfectly designed to digest alkalining vegetation, not spoiled rotting flesh.
This is somewhat irrelevant in that we are not hunter/gatherers or cave dwellers anymore and humans are not dying of infectious disease or starvation, but of disease’s of dietary excess, body pollution and poor lifestyle choices. Cave dwellers didn’t live long enough to experience the degenerative diseases that man is suffering from today.
There is no successful population that lives or has lived on a meat-based diet.
In John Robbins book Healthy at 100,3 he presents the research on the worlds longest living and healthiest peoples such as, the Hunzan’s, Abkhasians , Okinawans and Vilcabamban’s. The average individual in these cultures lives to 110 years of age, happy, vibrant, active and coherent. They consume low fat plant based diets, with little or no meat.
Conversely, Dr. Joel Fuhrman presents cultures contrast to those outlined in Healthy at 100. "The Inuit Greenlanders have the worst longevity statistics in North America and this can be due to their high consumption of meat and low consumption of fresh whole foods. Legitimate research shows that these people have higher rates of cancer and die 10 years younger than the average general population of Canada. We do not want to duplicate the life spans of Canadians or that of societies living considerably shorter lives than them.”4
The Maasai in Kenya are a tribe that hunt and eat a diet rich in meats and wild game and they have the worst life expectancy in the modern world. The average lifespan for a Masai women is 49 and for men it is 45 and if they reach the age of 60 they are considered to be very old. Adult mortality rates figures on the Masai, show that they have 50% chance of dying before the age of 59.5 Although the Masai’s short life span is mostly linked to their harsh living conditions, their diets high in meat and low in fresh whole foods still take their toll. Dr. George Mann, who once was an advocate of the Masai diet, went extremely quiet several decades ago when he conducted autopsies on 50 Masai men in their 40’s who had the atherosclerosis of men in their 90’s. If these men hadn’t died so young, they would have had the same degenerative disease that we do in Western countries.
Throughout history humans have migrated all over the planet, at times enduring scarcity and famine, conversely experiencing much abundance. Just because humans consumed a particular diet (due to availability or lack thereof) does not mean that following these dietary patterns is optimal or consistent with health longevity.
Scientists have now been able to conclusively determine the best diet for ideal health by measuring the diet/lifestyle versus the disease rates of various populations world wide. We now know that greatly increasing the consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, raw nuts, seeds and whole grains (and greatly decreasing the consumption of animal products) offers profound increased longevity potential.
This is due in part to a broad symphony of life-extending phytochemical nutrients that a vegetable-based diet contains.6 It is important to note that some of the healthiest cultures around the world consume small amounts animal foods and always have (1-2 serves per week), but the majority of total weekly calories consist of wide variety of unrefined plant based material, with organic animal foods used occasionally as condiments.
References:
1.Campbell, T. C., Campbell, T. M., II. 2005. The China Study, Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc.
2.Chen, J., Campbell, T. C., Li, 3. and Peto, R. 1990. Diet, life-style and mortality in China. A study of the characteristics of 65 Chinese counties. Oxford, UK; Ithaca, NY; Beijing, PRC: Oxford University Press; Cornell University Press; People’s Medical Publishing House.
3.Robbins J, 2006 “Healthy At 100”
4. Iburg KM, Bronnum-Hansen H, Bjerregaard P. Health expectancy in Greenland. Scand J Public Health 2001;29(1):5-12. Choinere R. Mortality among the Baffin Inuit in the mid-80s. Arctive Med Res 1992;51 (2):87-93.
5. World Health Organisation .mortality death rates for the African region Kenya. 2004
6. Willcox DC et al. The Okinawan diet: health implications of a low-calorie, nutrient-dense, antioxidant-rich dietary pattern low in glycemic load. J Am Coll Nutr. 2009 Aug;28 Suppl:500S-516S.
Brodrick Kent
