Will humans evolve to counteract anti-nutrients in grains? page

[Loneketo]

Does anyone think this will ever actually happen? That the main generations that do not follow primal/paleo will eventually develop such an adaption which would make grains more nutritious and not harmful?

[Grok]

Grain eaters don't evolve, they devolve.

[magicmerl]

Actually, I think that our environment is selecting for resistance to plastic toxicity at the moment.

[Loneketo]

Actually, I think that our environment is selecting for resistance to plastic toxicity at the moment.

Lol, so I guess not?

[paleo-bunny]

No, we are omnivores. The only creatures to genetically adapt to eating wholegrains are specialists such as harvest mice.

Resistance to plastic toxicity certainly seems more pressing.

[Primal Moose]

I'm still waiting for us to evolve accelerated healing factors and optic blasts...

[Blackcatbone]

Does anyone think this will ever actually happen? That the main generations that do not follow primal/paleo will eventually develop such an adaption which would make grains more nutritious and not harmful?

Highly unlikely, unless it confers something beneficial that allows grain eaters to have more/healthier children that are more likely to also reproduce. There are some new studies coming up showing that foods that we eat can influence gene expression, which is then pass on to our offspring (IIRC, I haven't read that much on the topic) but in the grand scheme of things, no.

[sbhikes]

Does anyone think this will ever actually happen? That the main generations that do not follow primal/paleo will eventually develop such an adaption which would make grains more nutritious and not harmful?

I think that the obesity epidemic (which includes all the related diseases and fertility problems these days) is a teratogenic effect of grains and industrial processed foods. So no, I do not think adaptation will happen because the primary result seems to be accelerating ill-health and eventual reproductive failure in only a few generations. Perhaps we could soldier on with just mild illness if we followed Weston A. Price preparation methods, but I don't see us doing that as a species any time soon. We are likely to suffer some kind of global collapse before then in a denouement of our population explosion having been fueled by grain coupled with the general destruction of the biosphere that has supported our life thus far.

[Lewis]

Does anyone think this will ever actually happen? That the main generations that do not follow primal/paleo will eventually develop such an adaption which would make grains more nutritious and not harmful?

I should imagine that some adaptation may have happened. I don't think they tend to be such a problem for people whose ancestors came from the Fertile Crescent, simply because they've been living with them for longer.

I don't agree with the forms of words "make more nutritious" though. At the end of the day, they only supply what they supply, which isn't superb nutrition, so even if you could cope with them really well you wouldn't be getting much out of them.

I also suppose that to the extent that you adapt to something, epigenetically or even genetically, you don't necessarily end off better. There are trade trade-offs. It might be something like this: You're able to build a sufficiently robust skeleton even where the protein supply is limited, but it's a fairly small one.

[kenn]

What is this plastic toxicity?