Why "primal" and not 19th century? page 3

[Derpamix]

Because, as the Primal Blueprint explains, hunter-gatherers (if they didn't die of accidents) had a longer life span and were healthier than your grandparents. Your grandparents were part of an agricultural lifestyle (certainly much healthier than ours). When humans became agriculturalists their brains and bodies shrank. This can clearly be seen in the Massai of the 20th century who were not agriculturalists, were tall, lean, healthier and stronger than we are, and lived longer.

Any data you read on hunter-gatherer ancestors is going to be inaccurate and skewed, especially involving their lifespans, so you can't say most of what is contained in this post with certainty.

[Nekron]

People who equate finetuning their diet with stress have fundamentally flawed views of what stress actually means. How much you look into the science and debates concerning micronutrients is a matter of interest, nothing more, nothing less.

If you get actual panic attacks because you read too much about cancer thats stress, if you just incorporate nutrient xy because of potential cancer prevention, thats all fine. If you get anxious if you see your friends grain containing foods thats stress, if you make the concious decision to not eat the crap everyone else is eating thats not a problem at all.

[Zach]

Because, as the Primal Blueprint explains, hunter-gatherers (if they didn't die of accidents) had a longer life span and were healthier than your grandparents. Your grandparents were part of an agricultural lifestyle (certainly much healthier than ours). When humans became agriculturalists their brains and bodies shrank. This can clearly be seen in the Massai of the 20th century who were not agriculturalists, were tall, lean, healthier and stronger than we are, and lived longer.

The Massai also drink massive amounts of milk, certainly not paleo and only primal because it brings in more followers.

Can you show me any evidence that our paleo ancestors were healthy or free of disease? I have heard lots of conflicting information on this subject. Also the fact that agriculture exploded our population from thousands to millions and now billions. That speaks a lot. I also dont believe that we have shrunk both body and brain size, the sheer amount of available calories should mean that we were able to get bigger and we obviously got smarter. Neanderthals were bigger with bigger brains but they died out.

In fact, if you look at any true hunter gatherer tribe, they are usually tiny in stature, lean mostly but certainly not free of disease.

[Derpamix]

That wasn't my point, you missed it. I avoid crappy food that serves no point to me as well, and have fine tuned my diet. Read through all posts to see exactly how diet can cause stress. You're the one with a flawed view of stress if you don't think everything you do in your life can cause stress.

stress in response to life is a natural process, it's when you compound it unnecessarily is when it goes from adaptive to dysadaptive

[Derpamix]

The Massai also drink massive amounts of milk, certainly not paleo and only primal because it brings in more followers.

Can you show me any evidence that our paleo ancestors were healthy or free of disease? I have heard lots of conflicting information on this subject. Also the fact that agriculture exploded our population from thousands to millions and now billions. That speaks a lot. I also dont believe that we have shrunk both body and brain size, the sheer amount of available calories should mean that we were able to get bigger and we obviously got smarter. Neanderthals were bigger with bigger brains but they died out.

Child mortality was a huge problem even all the way up until the late 19th century

[Omni]

The answer to what diet is dependant on what your actual question is?

If you are asking what is the most appropriate diet for Human beings, then there is no question that your baseline is a Paleolithic diet.

Exactly what that was though is based on anthropological evolutionary studies which are prone to observer bias, but in general one could safely assume that it was centred around meat (including insects), starchy tubers, fruit, larger nuts and some leafy greens as these foods are are obviously recognisable as foods without significant processing.

Where you take that with overlays of modern hunter gatherers, longevity studies, 19 century WAPF, or philisophical ideals is up to you and what your research reveals for you.

A word of caution though on neolithic and modern foods, just because agriculture brought us overpopulation doesn't mean the foods were healthier and if there is one thing that human dietary and medical history has shown us is that we know very little about the operation of the body and it's interaction with the environment.

So for me I lean towards 6-12 million years of natural selection as being more appropriate than 10 thousand years of the artificial environment created by human civilisation.

[Nekron]

That wasn't my point, you missed it.

You realise that you need to actually have a point for me to be able to miss it right?

Since you dont have a stance except for "you have to control your diet but not too much" which is saying exactly nothing, why would one argue with it?
The whole purpose of this blog is to give people who dont care about doing their own research for hours on end a direction to live healther, it even gives context instead of strict rules. Its not like Mark is some retarded asshole like this 30bananas guy that tells everyone "if it doesnt work you are doing it wrong", but there has to be a target group and for the target group "fat sedentary american that hasnt looked into his diet for 20 years" your beloved carb curve is incredibly useful. Weightloss benefits of low-carb but still encouraging the use of low carb vegetables in large quantities.

If you or j3nn or whatever people here decided, that they need more carbs in their life to fuel whatever activities they are doing thats all fine and good. Above mentioned fat american doesnt need tons of carbs while slimming down, period.

[Derpamix]

You realise that you need to actually have a point for me to be able to miss it right?

Since you dont have a stance except for "you have to control your diet but not too much" which is saying exactly nothing, why would one argue with it?
The whole purpose of this blog is to give people who dont care about doing their own research for hours on end a direction to live healther, it even gives context instead of strict rules. Its not like Mark is some retarded asshole like this 30bananas guy that tells everyone "if it doesnt work you are doing it wrong", but there has to be a target group and for the target group "fat sedentary american that hasnt looked into his diet for 20 years" your beloved carb curve is incredibly useful. Weightloss benefits of low-carb but still encouraging the use of low carb vegetables in large quantities.

If you or j3nn or whatever people here decided, that they need more carbs in their life to fuel whatever activities they are doing thats all fine and good. Above mentioned fat american doesnt need tons of carbs while slimming down, period.

Ok, if you say so! (´・ω・`)

[JoanieL]

The thing about judging things like cravings, carb flu, digestive issues, etc. that are posted about on the forum is that you can't possibly know how many people didn't post because everything went smoothly. Companies know that when people are displeased with a product, they'll shout it to anyone who'll listen, but when pleased with a product, they really usually just respond when asked.

So, you'll rarely see threads like:

I don't have cravings!
I never got carb flu!
I didn't s*** my pants!

because those people are perfectly happy with the way it's all going, and don't need to post. I've made this point before in other threads, but I'll be happy to point it out whenever someone thinks that the complaints, issues, whatever people post about represent the entire group of people who have chosen to eat and live this way.

These forums don't necessarily represent the Primal community. They might more represent people who embrace the Primal philos0phy and who like online forums.

[Neckhammer]

These forums don't necessarily represent the Primal community. They might more represent people who ...... like online forums.

I think this is it actually ^