If you’d said “Neolithic”, I would’ve been right there with you—but not paleo-. Documented forager diets are hugely varied: even if we throw out the Arctic Circle populations as obvious outliers, they range from mostly plant to mostly animal; the animal component can be mostly aquatic or mostly terrestrial; and the plant component is even more idiosyncratic. I have no reason to believe this wouldn’t have been true in the ancestral environment.
There are some unifying factors: most of the forager diets I’ve read about have more fish and fruit than modern Western diets, to name an exceedingly obvious example. But there’s a far cry between that and saying that they can meaningfully be treated as a unit in this context.
Apparently fish is by far the healthiest form of meat
That is not self-evident to me.
Red meat is considered harmful mostly because it’s usually high in saturated fat which has been demonized for the past few decades. If you think saturated fat is fine, I don’t see why you’d consider red meat unhealthy.
Fish, on the other hand, is considered healthy largely because of omega-3 fatty acids and the reason that contemporary Western humans need them is that the usual diets have massively skewed omega-3/omega-6 ratios. And the reason for that is all the seed oils (soybean, sunflower, etc) that we consume. I don’t know if eating fish would be especially “healthy” for someone with a normal o-3/o-6 ratio.
A 1999 meta-analysis of five studies comparing vegetarian and non-vegetarian mortality rates in Western countries found that in comparison with regular meat-eaters, mortality from ischemic heart disease was 34% lower in pescetarians, 34% lower in ovo-lacto vegetarians, 26% lower in vegans and 20% lower in occasional meat-eaters.[9]
Now it’s possible that this correlation does not imply causation. Its also possible that the meat-eaters are eating low-quality processed meat, or are overcooking their meat.
Fish does pose worries about mercury. I have been considering going pescetarian at some point in the future, but if I can get the same benefit by using olive oil instead of sunflower oil then I won’t bother.
I am aware of observational studies. But if you want to quote some, please find ones which examine total mortality and at least discuss the confounding factors.
E.g. this is a better example, but note that in this case they lump fish and chicken together under “white meat”.
If you’d said “Neolithic”, I would’ve been right there with you—but not paleo-. Documented forager diets are hugely varied: even if we throw out the Arctic Circle populations as obvious outliers, they range from mostly plant to mostly animal; the animal component can be mostly aquatic or mostly terrestrial; and the plant component is even more idiosyncratic. I have no reason to believe this wouldn’t have been true in the ancestral environment.
There are some unifying factors: most of the forager diets I’ve read about have more fish and fruit than modern Western diets, to name an exceedingly obvious example. But there’s a far cry between that and saying that they can meaningfully be treated as a unit in this context.
An interesting point. Apparently fish is by far the healthiest form of meat, but does this depend upon whether your ancestors lived near the sea?
That is not self-evident to me.
Red meat is considered harmful mostly because it’s usually high in saturated fat which has been demonized for the past few decades. If you think saturated fat is fine, I don’t see why you’d consider red meat unhealthy.
Fish, on the other hand, is considered healthy largely because of omega-3 fatty acids and the reason that contemporary Western humans need them is that the usual diets have massively skewed omega-3/omega-6 ratios. And the reason for that is all the seed oils (soybean, sunflower, etc) that we consume. I don’t know if eating fish would be especially “healthy” for someone with a normal o-3/o-6 ratio.
Wikipedia says:
Now it’s possible that this correlation does not imply causation. Its also possible that the meat-eaters are eating low-quality processed meat, or are overcooking their meat.
Fish does pose worries about mercury. I have been considering going pescetarian at some point in the future, but if I can get the same benefit by using olive oil instead of sunflower oil then I won’t bother.
[Standard disclaimer about confounding in these types of studies being even harder than normal.]
I am aware of observational studies. But if you want to quote some, please find ones which examine total mortality and at least discuss the confounding factors.
E.g. this is a better example, but note that in this case they lump fish and chicken together under “white meat”.