Dude, I'm with you!

Just as a reward to a very good year, I'm going to celebrate by going without veggies for an entire year!

356 days of culinary heaven baby!

Well, from reading this, it seems there was lots of meat/fat eating going on. Lots of "bang for the buck" activity. Yah, we don't know a lot, so are left to lots of theories. And I think the best theory so far is that cats are behind this whole mess!

I tried the all meat diet for a few days and didn't like it. Too much will power. Life is too short to deny myself the wonderful taste of fresh fruit and piles of steamed buttered veges and crunchy roasted almonds and an occasional dark chocolate. I think I agree more with Neanderthin. Early man would have eaten a variety of things and would certainly never have used his will power to avoid an apple tree or a pear tree. He probably fell asleep under it with a full belly. Sorry Bear, your way is too spartan, I want to enjoy life a little more.

Nor would they have had any concept of 'nutrition' as we think of it. I'm pretty sure that if they discovered that something tasted good and didn't hurt them, they ate it.

So if we didn't EAT it, how did it get in our stools?

I just want to say that I am highly amused The Bear chose an omnivore as his user name.

Great thread.

Or at least, if they did nutrition was defined as not starving.

But you are referring to the stools of "hunter-gatherers" that came AFTER "hunters".

I think it is possible that we would have focused our energy on hunting game if it was available... and I think it was available for a long time. Only after the game began to get scarce did we resort to gathering as well. You have to remember that apples back in those days were about as sweet as the leaves on the same tree. How many times have YOU picked leaves off of a tree and eaten them? I am only saying that eventually we HAD to start eating everything we could to survive... then, we became "hunter-gatherers" and vegetation started showing up in our stools.

I don't know how many times I need to repeat this "theory"... and it is only a theory, just as your statements are only theories. And, if one adopts this theory, they still have to figure out WHEN we made the transition (different in different parts of the planet for sure). If it was real recent, then Bear is correct, and we have not been able to adapt. BUT, if it was much longer ago, then Bear is wrong and we have had time to adapt to SOME carbs in our diet. I agree that excess insulin is VERY damaging to our bodies. Just how much we can handle is up for debate. HUGE surges produced by eating straight sugar (from processed food) is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE as most of us will agree.

In "Life Without Bread" they point out that northern Europeans went through a recent ice age, and that they have only been eating non-animal food for the past 2000 years. I don't think that is enough time to properly adapt to this food. In other parts of the world, as the book does point out, there was longer time to adapt. The book does say we are in a transition to a new diet, but it makes clear that a lot of us cannot handle this new diet at this time.

TIME is the critical factor here. How much time have we been eating carbs, and how much time is it going to take to adapt? Although some would say we have been eating carbs all along. Some think we can eat no animal products (vegans) and be the healthiest. I don't have ANY answers (as Bear seems to think he does), but just find the possibilities intriguing.

And, I still think my cat theory deserves some serious consideration!

I too seem to be experiencing more and more of an intolerance to fruits and veggies. How refreshing. I keep hearing that I must eat veggies, yet they leave me starving and hungry, and go right through me (sorry for the bad visual, lol).
--Elizabeth

I have to agree that if it becomes too difficult to eat like "theBear", then it is probably better (if only for your mental health) to eat non-animal foods. Which ones is what most people struggle with. The thing is, if one knows that they don't really NEED non-animal food, then they will only eat the ones they like, instead of forcing down veggies they hate (which I think a lot of us have done, just to "get all those good nutrients"). To me, that is the real theme of this thread (and most likely it's lure)... whether we really need non-animal food, or if it is truly optional.

So, with that logic, since taste is totally acquired, they would have eaten all grass, leaves, bugs, sticks, dirt, everything in the environment. Which, possibly they did... but, I still say it was only once the "good stuff" (the animals) got scarce. And, when I say "good stuff" I mean bang for the buck energy... far bigger concern to survival than "taste"! Right? Or are we still trying to justify eating chocolate cake?... since that is certainly in our present environment!

When you say "discovered that something... didn't hurt them", you must remember that it WILL hurt them if they get less energy from what they foraged than the energy it took them to forage it... they will die off in a hurry! I think that qualifies as "hurt them".

Actually, from my POV this is more of an argument in favor of eating more than just meat; I doubt that any intelligent being would pass up edible food in favor of that which still must be hunted and killed (a tart but edible berry in the hand vs. two birds still alive, kicking and fleeing from you in the bush, if you will) and would likely have eaten both. I don't believe that our paleo ancestors were stupid or foolish. Food = survival. Easy food = greater chance at survival and less chance of going hungry. I also think that you are assuming that our paleo ancestors had absolutely no sense of curiosity so that having witnessed another animal eat berries, grasses, tubers or seeds they would not have wondered to themselves, "I wonder what that tastes like or if it's good for food?"



Well...if it was a choice between cake and starve, guess what I'd be eating? Besides, I don't know about your environment, but there isn't any chocolate cake in my immediate vicinity at the moment so if I wanted some, I'd have to go hunt for it. Having said that, I thought we were discussing what paleo peoples ate and I don't believe that scientists have found any fossilized chocolate cake remains or cake residue in petrified poop to date.
Another angle that I haven't seen considered yet is that none of us are living in the same environments (ie relatively pristine and unpolluted) as paleo people and so their biological oxidative stress would have been considerably lower than what we experience so eating the same diet while not living in the same environment may not necessarily equal the same results. So, even though my plan only allows me 30 grams of carb per day, I attempt to choose those highest in antioxidants to counteract that oxidative (free-radical generating) stress as best I can. Think of it as an insurance policy of sorts (something that our paleo ancestors also didn't have ).

Taste is totally acquired? If that is the case, why can't some people seem to acquire the taste for veggies? Why does everyone, nearly univerally, crave sweets?

What makes you think they couldn't get energy out of a piece of fruit? We're very, very good at getting energy from carbs. So good in fact, that too many of them and we get fat. Voila, stored energy. Its a heck of a lot harder to store energy from protein and animal fats. Its almost impossible to eat enough of it to do that. Of course, in your version of Paleo-times, it rained meat every day from 2-4 in the afternoon so no one every had to miss a meal.

I've no doubt the vegetarians grasped at this as some sort of proof that vegetables are necessary in the diet, but the fact remains that ruminent upper GI contents are a good source of energy and nutrients - good enough to support an animal weighing over a thousand pounds!

Consider the fact that the purpose of digestion is to extract nutrients from food, and in order to do that, the food may need to go through considerable processing to make those nutrients available, and - especially in ruminents - to convert raw fibrous vegetable matter into something that is actually useful to the organism, namely fats and proteins. Recognizing this fact is hardly advocating for vegetarianism, since the only practical way for our H-G ancestors to get this material was to kill an animal that produces it. I further speculate that paleo people discovered that the GI contents could also be used to help preserve (pickle) meat, indeed this would have naturally happened if they used the stomach and gut to contain meat butchered off the carcass. Voila... the invention of sausage!

Possibly few modern Inuit would. What about pre-modernized Inuit and other H-G cultures?The few times I've managed to catch my dogs in the act, the contents of the abdominal cavity were consumed first. We also occasionally feed our dogs lacto-fermented vegetables (they actually have their own pickle-jar on the counter) and it doesn't matter if we feed it with liver, eggs or anything, they go for the pickle first. Again, not advocating for vegetarianism, but speculating that carnivores may have an evolutionary reason for liking fermented condiments and vegetables dressed in short chain fatty acids.

Wyv

I LOVE veggies. However my POV is that they are not necessary to sustain ones health. I really could not give a flying leap about what our ancestors ate though I am finding this discussion enlightening. I just know what works for me, keeps my blood glucose happy, my moods stable (and that makes DH and my 4 kids plus the 13 I teach happy) and my weight down. I can not argue with those results. I am impressed with the knowledge here though and will continue to read and follow it close...