A plausible explanation of your claim that humans are “made” to eat diets based almost solely on grains and tubers (high glycemic index) and that animal foods (glycemic index = 0) was never meant for us is the difficulty of wholesale reproduction of livestock. There is a popular claim that the biomass of an organism is at most 1⁄10 of what it consumes before reaching maturity. This claim likely explains why feeding livestock during the winter, especially during Russian colder winters, required peasants to make far more effort to, for example, prepare the hay.
An alternate explanation could imply that people who live in the tundra do end up aging faster as a result of actual deficiencies. But this coukd also be unlikely, since these people’s biochemistry could have already rewritten itself to adapt to the new environment.
EDIT: The biochemistry of humans who engage with agriculture could have also rewritten itself to adapt to the agricultural environment richer in carbohydrates.
My point was not specifically that people up north eat an animal based diet but that ALL people everywhere do. We have been hunter gatherer for a couple of hundred thousands years, and farmers for a couple of thousands. To me it makes sense to look at what hunter gathers today eat (i know its not a perfect proxy but better than observing what people eat at McDonalds). As you can see, ALL present hunter gatherers eat animal foods, and they eat a lot of it. We need fat and protein, they are essential for us. Carbs are not.
“An alternate explanation could imply that people who live in the tundra do end up aging faster as a result of actual deficiencies.”
Do people age faster up north due to deficiencies? What is you source for that?
We have been hunter gatherer for a couple of hundred thousands years, and farmers for a couple of thousands.
I’d be wary of leaning too hard into this kind of argument, because our evolutionary history goes back more than a hundred thousand years.
Homo Habilis are currently believed to have been opportunistic scavengers at best, given that they weren’t adapted well enough to running to do persistence hunting.
While all the hunter-gathers in your table eat meat, the table also tells you that they all eat carbs whenever they’re available in the environment. A large part of our success as a species was our ability to adapt to and thive on many different kinds of diets, from almost vegetarian to almost carnivorous.
The Hadza reportedly get [10-20% of their calories from honey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadza_people), and in interviews with people who have lived with them I’ve heard that they prioritize honey even over meat ie even while tracking they’ll risk losing their prey if they see a beehive. They need the calories to get through the dry season.
I don’t think we have any numerical records for the Coast Salish, but their traditional foods seem to be pretty heavy on berries, both as sauces and dried in big cakes.
EDIT I’m not sure why only the first paragraph got parsed as markdown, or how to fix it.
Of course hunter gatherers eat/ate carbs, but they did not base their diets on grains and beans. Fruits and berries “wants” to get eaten. But… how long is the fruit and berry season? A few months if you are lucky. The rest of the time animal foods is pretty much the only thing available. Sure you can chew on the occasional root, but how many calories will that give you?
My stance is that more animal foods in peoples diets would reverse some of the damage from the high carb ultraprocessed foods in peoples diets. I live in Sweden. The recommended weekly red meat consumption is 350grams. That is like one or two meals. To me that recommendation is madness when you look a insulin resistance and diabetes numbers. People need to get a bigger share of their energy from protein and fat, not less.
I don’t have sources for the alternate explanation. What I meant is that agriculture could have made producing animal-derived foods harder than carb-rich plant-derived foods because animals have to be fed at least an OOM more of plant-derived foods.
A plausible explanation of your claim that humans are “made” to eat diets based almost solely on grains and tubers (high glycemic index) and that animal foods (glycemic index = 0) was never meant for us is the difficulty of wholesale reproduction of livestock. There is a popular claim that the biomass of an organism is at most 1⁄10 of what it consumes before reaching maturity. This claim likely explains why feeding livestock during the winter, especially during Russian colder winters, required peasants to make far more effort to, for example, prepare the hay.
An alternate explanation could imply that people who live in the tundra do end up aging faster as a result of actual deficiencies. But this coukd also be unlikely, since these people’s biochemistry could have already rewritten itself to adapt to the new environment.
EDIT: The biochemistry of humans who engage with agriculture could have also rewritten itself to adapt to the agricultural environment richer in carbohydrates.
My point was not specifically that people up north eat an animal based diet but that ALL people everywhere do. We have been hunter gatherer for a couple of hundred thousands years, and farmers for a couple of thousands. To me it makes sense to look at what hunter gathers today eat (i know its not a perfect proxy but better than observing what people eat at McDonalds). As you can see, ALL present hunter gatherers eat animal foods, and they eat a lot of it. We need fat and protein, they are essential for us. Carbs are not.
“An alternate explanation could imply that people who live in the tundra do end up aging faster as a result of actual deficiencies.”
Do people age faster up north due to deficiencies? What is you source for that?
I’d be wary of leaning too hard into this kind of argument, because our evolutionary history goes back more than a hundred thousand years.
Homo Habilis are currently believed to have been opportunistic scavengers at best, given that they weren’t adapted well enough to running to do persistence hunting.
> [...they were capable of eating a broad range of foods, including some tougher foods like leaves, woody plants, and some animal tissues...](https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-habilis)
While Australopithecine were straight-up herbivorous:
> [While the researchers cannot completely rule out the possibility of occasional consumption of animal protein sources like eggs or termites, the evidence indicates a diet that was predominantly vegetarian.](https://www.mpic.de/5631022/vor-drei-millionen-jahren-lebten-unsere-vorfahren-vegetarisch#:~:text=The%20team%20of%20researchers%20found,diet%20that%20was%20predominantly%20vegetarian.)
And hominid species earlier in the line were probably frugivores.
So a fuller version of this story would be that we have millions of years of adaptations to eating fruit and tubers, followed by millions of years of adaptation to also eating meat (initially sporadically and opportunistically, and later through more systematic hunting), followed by [at least tens of thousands of years of adaptation](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900722001150) to eating grains and dairy ([possibly including the genes that cause celiac](https://www.acsh.org/news/2015/07/08/scientists-think-they-have-an-origin-story-for-celiac-disease#:~:text=Furthermore%2C%20evidence%20implicates%20at%20least%2040%20genes,of%20celiacs%20disease%20is%20a%20good%20one.)).
While all the hunter-gathers in your table eat meat, the table also tells you that they all eat carbs whenever they’re available in the environment. A large part of our success as a species was our ability to adapt to and thive on many different kinds of diets, from almost vegetarian to almost carnivorous.
The Hadza reportedly get [10-20% of their calories from honey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadza_people), and in interviews with people who have lived with them I’ve heard that they prioritize honey even over meat ie even while tracking they’ll risk losing their prey if they see a beehive. They need the calories to get through the dry season.
I don’t think we have any numerical records for the Coast Salish, but their traditional foods seem to be pretty heavy on berries, both as sauces and dried in big cakes.
EDIT I’m not sure why only the first paragraph got parsed as markdown, or how to fix it.
We’re basically just fish with a few recent adaptations that allow us to live on land.
IIUC, evolution is supposed to accelerate greatly during population growth.
Of course hunter gatherers eat/ate carbs, but they did not base their diets on grains and beans. Fruits and berries “wants” to get eaten. But… how long is the fruit and berry season? A few months if you are lucky. The rest of the time animal foods is pretty much the only thing available. Sure you can chew on the occasional root, but how many calories will that give you?
My stance is that more animal foods in peoples diets would reverse some of the damage from the high carb ultraprocessed foods in peoples diets. I live in Sweden. The recommended weekly red meat consumption is 350grams. That is like one or two meals. To me that recommendation is madness when you look a insulin resistance and diabetes numbers. People need to get a bigger share of their energy from protein and fat, not less.
I don’t have sources for the alternate explanation. What I meant is that agriculture could have made producing animal-derived foods harder than carb-rich plant-derived foods because animals have to be fed at least an OOM more of plant-derived foods.