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EventsWere our ancestors meat eaters millions of years ago?
When did our ancestors start eating meat? An exciting archeological find supports the idea that we needed meat to survive as early as 1,5 million years ago. That means our ancestors had probably been eating meat regularly for a long time prior to that date.
The piece of bone above comes from a two years old child that may have died from lack of (vitamin B12) meat millions of years ago. Thus veganism without B12 supplementation may have been dangerous for a long time!
Sci-news.com: 1.5-Million-Year-Old Skull Fragment Shows Oldest Evidence of Regular Meat Consumption
Here’s the study behind the news.
More
Guide to red meat – is it healthy?
Letting that go, I think you should leave vegans alone. What did they do to you doc?? :P While your website is very respectable and educational, I think the constant digs at vegans is getting old. If they are vegan for ethical reasons, let them be; even if you don't think the diet is great. Look at Rich Roll http, ultramarathoner or whatever! I am sure he is supplementing b12 and appears to be thriving on a vegan diet!
Besides. You know very well that B12 is made by bacteria, found in soil and if we consider the lack of antibacterial vegetables wash available back then- they would have got b12 that way! I am diagnosing that poor child with Crohn's Disease or plain pernicious anaemia.
Thats my 2 cents ***Disclaimer, I am not a vegan, but a healthcare professional ;)
The ethics conversation can go around in circles forever. In this context (blog) however, the focus is on the foods to eat that will keep a human as healthy as they can be. I, and most (>95% that eat meat) others consider that to be all the ethical consideration necessary.
Not only the orginal post by the doctor, but some of the inane comments that followed.
The alternative to a HFLC diet is not becoming a strict vegan or even a vegetarian. About 90% of the alternatives involve eating animal products to one degree or another. Even many of the better known "low fat" proponents such as Dr. Dean Ornish allow animal products in all but their strictest "reversing heart disease" diet.
http://www.pmri.org/lifestyle_program.html#nutrition
Or look at the DASH diet, or the Mediterranean diet, etc. all allowing animal products sufficient in B12.
Really picking out vegan's problems with B12 is like some vegans saying HFLC folks don't allow any grains at all. Billions of people around the world live on low fat, high carb diets and have ZERO deficiency in B12. It requires fairly minimal amounts of animal products to get sufficient B12.
What the people ate 1.5 million years ago? I imagine they ate anything they could get their hands on, be it plant or animal, fat or carb. You ate it all to survive. They didn't have the luxury of wacky extremes. This looking back in ancient dietary history is like folks who go back to the Bible and finding exactly what they're looking for to back up the theory they hold. In the Bible you can prove just about anything. Same with looking at ancient diets.
BTW, I'm eating meat tonight, last night, the night before that, etc. I dare say in the last 30 days I've not had one day without eating meat, or fish, or eggs. (no Spam though)
Amazing, simply amazing. From 8000 BC until now in 2012 AD, down hill.
Of course there is loads of medical science to prove exactly that.
Ah yes, the Golden Age of human health, 8012 BC.
Watch Fathead Documentary and In search of the perfect Human Diet.
I wonder, there are about 7,000 million people living on Earth today.
Is there any city, local region, or island, where even 1 million of them are eating the "perfect Human Diet".
Please let me know which place this is so I can look it up.
Or has humanity got it so entirely wrong that there is no place on Earth where the majority of people currently eat the "perfect Human Diet"?
Wade are you a Vegan?? I would assume you are not LCHF by the way you are talking.IF so why are you on this forum.A Troll maybe??
I don't know how many vegetarians there are in the world, but given that it's in the hundreds of millions, I think the assertion that humans need meat to survive or ever have done is hard to believe.
I'm all for eating delicious, nutritious meat, but if someone chooses not to eat it, I respect that decision. There are far worse diets than a well-balanced vegetarian (or even vegan) diet. Anyone who feels compelled to shout at vegans that they're in immediate mortal peril would do well to look at how long vegans actually live (it's not dramatically different from average). If the comments I see here about vegans were true, they should all be out shopping for coffins.
Vegetarians who comprise by far the bulk of your "hundreds of millions" still eat animal products... so that is besides the point.
Yes, as humans we are opportunistic omnivores and we can live on pretty much anything that is alive -- plant and/or animal.. it's all on the same tree of life. Although I will contend that it is far easier to get complete nutrition from animal sources.
As for vegans and those who feel compelled to stand up for them, I just wish they would leave me the heck alone to eat the way *I* choose. I'm sick of being preached to, moralised at, or judged for my choices.
My money has the man on mostly Fat and animal protein will comprising most of his diet will live longer than any you have mentioned.Look at many of the new studies on aging cancer and heart disease pertaining to not spiking blood sugar and excessive carbohydrates not being used causing these problems in the human body.
Where are our advocates?
Vegans are trying to convert every one that is their Job it is a religion not diet based on science or health.The Trolls are helping propagate it because it makes these powerful people money due to feeding people cheap crap and treating the illnesses they cause.It also makes sure we idolize any one who does not suffer from these problems and seek out fake cures in the process which helps in selling people on stuff they do not need when the answer to good health is hidden under their Noses.If they are preaching over population and something has to be done the last thing they want is us living longer.
Oh, btw, I am not vegan, not even vegetarian.
Ok, hopefully it was clear that I was daramatising my statement a little bit. To be fair though, one of the top rated comments on this post is "veganism is a dangerous eating disorder... isn't that common knowledge?".
The reason that it isn't beside the point is that it was a direct response to the statement "An exciting archeological find supports the idea that we needed meat to survive as early as 1,5 million years ago." Note: "meat", not "animal products". And yes, when I said "hundreds of millions", I said it about vegetarians rather than vegans.
I favour a more selective approach to grazing from the tree of life ;-)
Agreed.
I make ferments like homemade sauerkraut and yes they do have some B vitamins and minerals from the fermentation and dead Bacteria growing in them and very low in carbs but I do not think this is the answer. They are more digestible,pro-biotic and good for you but this will not sustain you by it self.My research shows it will still not make up meat in the diet though.I make homemade Buttermilk and ale as well many other fermented products like sourdough breads.They are only good for a carb up IMO to replace Glycogen.
Thanks for saying what I said is classic.Complement or not I took it as so LOL
A true sceptic must always be preperad to question everything they know, especially things that they want to be true, and should always follow the evidence and never their "feelings".
http://www.justinowings.com/understanding-bodyweight-and-glycogen-de/
You do realize they comprise no more than 1% of the population in most Western nations.
With vegetarians making up from 3% to 8% in those same countries.
Of course many of those vegetarians comsume cheeses, yogurts, milk, eggs and such.
But there you go with famous statments "I can not see how you can keep insulin down wile relying solely on Sugars and Carbs with some fiber to sustain yourself."
You'd think vegans were all running down to the store to buy donuts, pasteries, bananas, corn flakes, and mashed potatoes. Washed down with liters of sugary fruit drinks.
You do realize that most vegans do not have a problem with insulin, diabetes, or obesity.
That you'd have a problem with what you imagine to be a vegan diet is one thing. Perhaps you have problem genes. A little fact checking will allow you to understand that those problems are rare for vegans. Veganism, certainly not for everyone, not for me, not for you, but hardly a diet that produces the problems you seem to dream up and fear.
Like I said, vegans make up about 1% of people, and with all their much ballyhooed propaganda, perhaps in 20 years, they'll make up 2% of people. Interestingly I find their efforts to convert people about equal to that of those promoting HFLC and Paleo, though clearly in recent years, the HFLC adherents have far more publicity. One only need look at Amazon's list of the top 20 food/diet books.
I'd day 16 of the top 20 are HFLC or Paleo.
Seems the vegan crusaders are doing a poor job. Not to worry in the long run because from what you say, they'll all be dying off soon anyway. Natural selection will eliminate them in due course.
reread what i wrote above.
i will recreate here :"i doubt very much that 8000 years ago anyone ate grains to "restore glycogen" though."
to summarise here. 8000 years ago humans did not know about glycogen or that grains/carbs restore it or that it is depleted in exercise. your post suggested that they knew this and specifically ate carbs TO restore glycogen.
and as to
"Oh by the way Eddie there are extremely physically active people on a low carb diet that eat 100 grams or slightly more that manage to stay in keto wile others not so physically active have to stay as low as 20 grams or so to loose weight and stay in keto.Were do you think the Carbs are going most are replacing glycongen stores they are not just burning them off as they eat them that is almost impossible with out storing fat and gaining weight."
i do this so i am well aware of this possibility.
the wording of your posts on here make you out to be as bad as the misleading vegan websites.
is english a second language for you? i ask because if it is this would at least explain some of the confusion from your posts.
No, what I am more concerned about is their effect on public opinion and especially on government policy:
It was largely through the efforts of the CSPI that MacDonalds stopped using beef-tallow for its french-fries and instead switched to "heart-healthy" trans-fats in vegetable oils! Bugger-all to do with "science in the public interest" and everything to do with stopping others from eating animal products.
And currently at the PCRM website I see they have a petition for the USDA to "Get Milk Out of School Lunches". So much for responsible medicine.
Now they are teaming up with environmentalists to convince everyone it is better for the planet
These people are affecting what we get to eat... are you content to sit back and let that happen?
Stabler and Allen (2004) Vitamin B12 deficiency as a worldwide problem. Annual Review in Nutrition. 24:299-326.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15189123
If their influence is a 3, then the meat, dairy, and restaurant industry rate a 97 on a 1 to 100 scale.
Meanwhile if you are going to be against their tactics, then I guess you have to be against those who are trying to cut out all the sugary (carb laden) drinks. Do you oppose those efforts?
If you look at the entire nation or even the earth, clearly the anti-vegetarian, anti-vegan forces are moving in the other direction. In almost all the nations rising into the middle class, the consumption of meat and fat is rising, not falling.
All this hysteria about vegans here seems to be born out of insecurity.
Also, it must be noted that 98% of the world has no desire to be in a Keto state.
I see this "man the barricades" mentality on both extremes of the diet wars. Scary carbs on one site and scary fat and oil on the other. Each group well stocked with studies and ancient civilizations as proof.
Meanwhile, in the middle, the public gets fatter and fatter while diet books fly off the shelves.
I went with LCHF regardless and have been liberating about a stone every two months. And about an inch of male waist-circumference per month. I was once told in my health food adventure that a pound of human fat holds about 3500 calories. If I am losing even as little as seven pounds a month, that daily increase in ketolytic burning is 24500 cal / 30 days = 817 cal per day. I do not feel crazy hungry any more, and although I sometimes am concerned like many these days about my budget; yet the overall angst reduction is a significant mental health benefit -- which was a real clinical point of concern. In another year, and beyond, this lifestyle I ought to be able to fully leave the false fashion of health food diets in the fog of the foolish vicissitudes of youth.
Last week I went to donate blood, and the blood-clinic nurses were complimenting my blood pressure and pulse, which they asserted were improved from last visit and notably healthy by their standards. [133 systolic: 79 diastolic] BP: 60:80.
On the weekend following, I watched a Lars Monsen documentary about his two and a half year trek across the full expanse of the Canadian continental north. He lived {almost} exclusively on fish, fat, rabbits, ptarmigan, and sometimes caribou or moose. And never demonstrated the tired, cranky, fickle or distracted angsty behaviour typical of modernity. He always had the energy and interest to continue with his adventure, and was regularly able to demonstrate strategic and intelligent focus when encountering difficulties.
The american comedian Lewis Black has a joke about the ambiguity of diet industry claims on longevity diets, where he cites a man in New York who lived to be 106, or so, on fat-back [pork] and red wine. At the time I heard the joke, it seemed an outrageous expression of the angst of diet, and funny across that conscious-unconscious tension; but now it seems more truthful than comedic.
I love the way you pull statistics out of thin air (or somewhere much darker) as if your made-up numbers have any meaning or significance.
These influential lobby-groups have ALREADY affected the way many people eat and although dressed up in "science" or "responsible medicine" they obviously have another agenda that overrides those high ideals. Yes, those with the money, free access and education can indeed choose to eat well but as I also pointed out these groups are trying to change what is offered in school lunchrooms...no doubt social programs as well.
I disagree with ANY lobby group (even anti-sugar -- if such existed) having more of a say in government policy than the voting public.... they are supposed to represent the people, NOT the loudest, most powerful, or richest voices.
That said I see no "forces of evil" ranged against me, nor do I see an on-going conflict which by definition requires opposing "sides"... my world is not quite so black and white.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/fall-foods-why-seasonal-eating-primes-...
Humans have the ability to eat meat or non-meat items and can survive on both. Eating meat would lead to healthy and prosperous outcomes for our ancestors, but in times of scarcity, we could switch to carbs or sugars to survive. Because carbs and sugars would likely be consumed only in times of desperation, our bodies kicked up the insulin response to these types of foods to ensure that we maintain a good fat reserve until we can again start consuming meat.
It makes intuitive sense, and I suppose the takeaway is that in modern society, there's not much need to consume the foods that we would only have eaten out of desperation.