Real Raw Food Topic

[MelBrooksfan]

During my first semester of college, I had a professor who was.. well.. a hippy. Both in dress and attitude. He was a huge proponent of raw food dieting. The reason he gave was a vague and had to do with raw food having more enzymes that are cooked out of the food and lower its nutritional value. He also pushed the notion that food manufacturers are deliberately placing dangerous and lethal additives in processed food.

Wikipedia has not been much of a source for disproving this bunk (just repeating each side's argument and, last I checked, lacked a link to any real, hard science on the subject). So, is this bunk as I think it is? Why? Etc.

[Lisa Simpson]

I have no scientific knowledge about a raw food diet. It hasn't been discussed in any of the nutrition classes I've taken. However, I loved the raw food whackjobs that were on P&T's BS. They did a great job of making themselves look stupid.

ETA: The ADA says that some canned vegetables are more nutritious than their fresh counterparts:

Canned tomatoes, corn and carrot products provide higher amounts of some phytochemicals than their fresh counterparts as a result of the canning process.

[ChristineR]

Quackwatch (http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/PhonyAds/mp.html)on enzymes.

The short answer is that enzymes in the stomach have nothing to do with enzymes in your body.

Although cooking can destroy nutrients, it can also make nutrients available. If you think about it, this is why we cook in the first place. A lot of foods are just not edible without processing, so they have no available nutrients.

Additives are more complicated, as some of them are less than completely wholesome. The FDA will tell you they are safe in small amounts, but the FDA has been known to be influenced by the food industry.

There's ample evidence that you should eat a balanced diet with lots of fresh and unprocessed foods and that such a diet will meat all your nutritional needs.

[Capsid]

During my first semester of college, I had a professor who was.. well.. a hippy. Both in dress and attitude. He was a huge proponent of raw food dieting. The reason he gave was a vague and had to do with raw food having more enzymes that are cooked out of the food and lower its nutritional value. He also pushed the notion that food manufacturers are deliberately placing dangerous and lethal additives in processed food.
Any macromolecule (including enzymes) go through a fairly strrong denaturing process by exposure to our stomach acid, in other words it's cooked chemically.

[ChristineR]

That's funny, except that canned vegetables contain less of some vitamins and that sort of outweighs the benefits of phytochemicals, such benefits being pretty unclear and often exaggerated.

[Mojo]

During my first semester of college, I had a professor who was.. well.. a hippy. Both in dress and attitude. He was a huge proponent of raw food dieting. The reason he gave was a vague and had to do with raw food having more enzymes that are cooked out of the food and lower its nutritional value.


Enzymes are proteins. While it is true that they will be denatured (made ineffective because their structure is changed) by cooking, even if food is eaten raw they will be denatured by the acidity of the stomach contents and digested (i.e. chopped up) by enzymes in the stomach, and further digested before being absorbed.

They have no nutritional value other than as a source of amino acids.

[Lisa Simpson]

Actually, newer research shows that canned is often better than fresh:

Canned fruits and vegetables often are considered nutritionally inferior to their fresh and frozen counterparts. While this may be true regarding sugar and salt content, it's not true when it comes to other nutrients. In fact, in a recent study completed at the University of Illinois, many of the canned fruits and vegetables evaluated contained as much or more of certain nutrients than their fresh and frozen counterparts.

For example, most brands of canned apricots, spinach and pumpkin provided more vitamin A per serving than their fresh- cooked counterparts. Also, canned asparagus, potatoes and spinach tended to outrank or equal fresh-cooked varieties for vitamin C. On the other hand, fresh-cooked tomatoes tended to be higher in vitamin C and fresh-cooked carrots higher in vitamin A per serving than canned or frozen types.

One reason canned (and frozen) fruits and vegetables sometimes rank nutritionally superior to fresh produce is they're usually processed immediately after harvest, when nutrient content is at its peak. This is especially true when it comes to the vitamin C found in green vegetables. The longer a green vegetable sits on a truck or in the supermarket, the lower its vitamin C content. Because they are more acidic, fresh (as well as frozen and canned) fruits are less susceptible to loss of vitamin C during storage.

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/columnnn/nn970122.html

[ponderingturtle]

The fundamental premise that you get more nutrition out of uncooked food than cooked food is crap. This is because while sure it might have more vitamins and essential amino acids before cooking, if you can't extract more of them in an uncooked state the whole premise is garbage.

And to show how cooking and treatment can improve the bodies ability to extract nutrients look at field corn.

To quote from Good Eats
DD: Well, because the Spaniards took back the material but not the technology to make it healthful. The way the native American style of making it was with alkali that it would change the cellular structure in the amino acids and make it a more healthful product.
AB: Ah, so the Europeans didn't do that.
DD: No, they just cooked it and made it into mush and made into bread and all kinds of things and then they started getting this nutritional deficiency disease that became known as polegra.
AB: What are the symptoms of that?
DD: Well, first you get this rough skin, and then you get diarrhea, and then that goes on to dementia and then death.

Link (http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season2/Corn/CornTranscript.htm)

[casebro]

The digestive enzymes alone will let me consider tilting the table towards raw.

My brother noticed that particuler brands of peanut butter made him 'windy'. After he pointed it out, I confirmed. With three cases of pancreatitis in the family, I am aware of digestive problems caused by lack of enzymes. Plus my experience as a homebrewer- beer is made by enzymatic action. Anyway, I had bought some roasted peanuts at the store, they gave me enough gas to float the Hindenberg. Hmmm, try Googling. Seems that roasting peanuts makes something in them turn into a trypsin inhibitor. Seeds generally have their own enzymes to make them sprout and grow. Inhibiting the enzymes prevents sprouting, until the proper time. Inhibiting the enzymes also prevent digestion in our gut. So, later in the gut, bacteria do the digesting, and give off gas. Like yeast making bubbles in beer. Raw peanuts don't do this. Infact, they seem to prevent the gas from other causes. There must be lots of excess trypsin in peanuts?

All seeds have enzymes. Until they get heated to about 170F. I don't think the pulp of fruit has as much as the seeds.

Enzymes are most active in the 125-150F range. Which makes me wonder how much foods can be influenced by holding them in this range. "Mashing" barley does that, and turns starches into sugars. Lots of cooked foods are only heated to this internal temperature. Steak, frinstance. Good french fries are either fryed once for a couple minutes, allowed to cool some, and fried again. Or the prepared ones are blanched before freezing. Either way, they spend some time in the "mashing" point. Perhaps there is an optimum point, between raw and cooked to death?

[Mojo]

Inhibiting the enzymes also prevent digestion in our gut. So, later in the gut, bacteria do the digesting, and give off gas. You have enzymes of your own to digest food in your gut, which will digest the enzymes in your food, whether or not it is cooked.

[korenyx]

A former co-worker of mine got suckered into the raw food diet; she spent two weeks telling us how great it was until it caused her IBS to flare up and she missed work.

I looked at one of the raw "cookbooks"; the woman who wrote it had skin like an old suitcase.

No thanks; I have great skin and no IBS. I will keep cooking.

Kore

[Miss Anthrope]

The thing all these radical "lifestyle" diets seem to be missing is just a simple concept of balance and moderation. Raw, fresh produce IS good. Especially when it is consumed with healthy grains (that require some kind of prep), cooked legumes, some nice oily fish, et cetera et cetera. Heck, even a little beer, wine, and chocolate is shown to be beneficial.

Unfortunately raw foodies and their ilk are downright religious.

[ChristineR]

Actually, newer research shows that canned is often better than fresh:



http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/columnnn/nn970122.html

Yeah, I've seen that, but it is a bit disingenuous. So canned apricots have more vitamin A than fresh apricots that have been cooked. Not real surprising, as the canners have better cooking equipment than do I and the fruit is real fresh. But who cooks their apricots before they eat them? And if I did cook them, I wouldn't start by boiling them in sugar syrup.

So if you are going to buy fresh and process them as if you were canning them, sure it makes more sense to let the pros do it.

[ysabella]

I like looking up this stuff, so I have done it several times. Enzymes in most raw foods, say a carrot, certainly have nothing to do with digestion of the carrot in the gut.
That's not even the claim, at least not lately; nowadays the claim is that the carrot enzymes make a difference during chewing and swallowing, and that somehow it makes a cumulative difference over time in how much digestive enzyme you have to make, the overarching theory being that we all have some finite resource of digestive enzymes. To me, that's sort of like saying you should never run, just walk slowly, because you only get so many heart beats. How that means we should eat raw foods, I don't know. In many cases they are much harder to digest.

There are a couple of exceptions - if you eat lots of raw papaya and/or pineapple, both have lots of strong enzymes and some might make it through to the gut. Both are used in commercial meat tenderizers because the enzymes break down proteins nicely.

There are two over-the-counter preparations of enzymes to help people digest - Lactaid, a form of lactase to help digest lactose (milk sugar) and Beano - alpha galactosidase that breaks down oligosaccharides. Both are particularly acid-happy versions of enzymes (so they will make it past the stomach) and both are made from an aspergillus mold that is found on cassava, at least I read that somewhere.

Beyond that you can actually buy actual digestive enzymes to sprinkle on your food so it starts being digested before you eat it. Some very ill people have to do this. I doubt it is delicious.

This site is a great read about raw foodism and several other diet types: Beyond Veg (http://beyondveg.com)

[JJM]

I have seen many good comments here. However, I think the subject is being approached like the fabled blind men describing an elephant, each one describing one part.

For example, cooking vitamins can destroy them; but by how much? Does an "adequately" cooked vegetable still have enough vitamins after accounting for the loss? Are other parts of the vegetable more readily digested in the trade-off? Only quantitative analysis in each case can tell us.

Another important consideration is sanitation. Modern methods of harvesting food lead to lapses at various points in handling and processing (even old methods led to the occasional infection). For example, workers in enormous, factory fields are unable to leave the field to relieve themselves. Also, as I understand it, eggs can be infected early in development; so washing cannot clean them. Adequate cooking is a way of assuring the food is not contaminated.

[ponderingturtle]

I have seen many good comments here. However, I think the subject is being approached like the fabled blind men describing an elephant, each one describing one part.

For example, cooking vitamins can destroy them; but by how much? Does an "adequately" cooked vegetable still have enough vitamins after accounting for the loss? Are other parts of the vegetable more readily digested in the trade-off? Only quantitative analysis in each case can tell us.

Another important consideration is sanitation. Modern methods of harvesting food lead to lapses at various points in handling and processing (even old methods led to the occasional infection). For example, workers in enormous, factory fields are unable to leave the field to relieve themselves. Also, as I understand it, eggs can be infected early in development; so washing cannot clean them. Adequate cooking is a way of assuring the food is not contaminated.

The problem is that cooking vs raw is not universaly one way or the other. There might well be some foods that are better for you raw, but the point is that it is certainly not all foods, unlike the raw food people claim.

[JJM]

The problem is that cooking vs raw is not universaly one way or the other. There might well be some foods that are better for you raw, but the point is that it is certainly not all foods, unlike the raw food people claim.That is a concise statement of my post.

[tracer]

He also pushed the notion that food manufacturers are deliberately placing dangerous and lethal additives in processed food.
This is a favorite argument from the anti-processed food crowd.

Synthetic food additives tend to be subjected to some pretty rigorous safety testing both before and after they're introduced to the market. It's not uncommon for some of these tests to show an unpleasant result. For example, sodium saccharin was shown to cause an increased incidence of cancer in laboratory rats. Similarly alarming prelimiary results were obtained for BHA, alar, and red dye number 2.

What ends up being missed in these discussions are the dangerous and lethal chemicals found naturally in foods. Grain alcohol, for example, also causes an increased incidence of cancer in laboratory rats. The baking process that ordinary bread undergoes produces small amounts of acrylamide, also a known carcinogen.

It is unfortunate that "artificial" additives are regarded as poisonous-until-proven-otherwise, while "natural" foods are regardes as safe-until-proven-otherwise.

[tracer]

This site is a great read about raw foodism and several other diet types: Beyond Veg (http://beyondveg.com)
I am SO gonna put that link up on my Vegetable-Free Living (http://www.rogermwilcox.name/vegetable) webpage.

[Dustin Kesselberg]

It's important to eat both raw and cooked food depending on the food. Some foods when cooked can actually increase materials that cause various diseases including cancer. For example cooking some meats will produce Heterocyclic Amines which can cause cancer which wouldn't be present in uncooked meats otherwise. Link. (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/heterocyclic-amines)

Studies also show that in specific vegetables, cooking release specific nutrients including beta Carotene, especially in carrots. Link. (http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/128/5/913)

This is why it's important to eat a both raw food diet and a cooked food diet.

[tracer]

And NOT cooking some foods can give you salmonella or botulism.

[mhaze]

I've been used to barbecued steaks and raw salads. Now I need to try raw steak and barbecued lettuce?

[tracer]

Country-fried barbecued lettuce, seared to perfection!

[Jorghnassen]

I've been used to barbecued steaks and raw salads. Now I need to try raw steak and barbecued lettuce?

I don't know, but a tartare and fries just go so well together.

/I wish I could have those right now...

[MelBrooksfan]

Now I need to try raw steak

Is there any other kind?

[Starthinker]

I quite enjoy raw peanuts. They move through me like a pipe cleaner race car.

[bluess]

Mr.Blue had a friend who went after everything faddish, including the raw food diet. Mr.Blue does very well on mostly salads with (cooked) chicken and other protein sources. On the other hand, my poor tummy can't deal, and I don't see why it should.

I once picked up the 'cookbook' Raw. I love food. I would starve to death on food prepared in that manner.

[g4macdad]

This all sounds very encouraging. I eat a diet of approximately 50% cooked foods and 50% raw. I guess I am 100% safe then. :D

[TV's Frank]

As I remember from Good Eats, cooking (say, boiling), does remove some nutrients from the food (especially if you toss out the water when done). However, it also breaks down cell walls that your digestive system can't always handle, releasing extra nutrients. Net result: cooking is good.

[g4macdad]

As I remember from Good Eats, cooking (say, boiling), does remove some nutrients from the food (especially if you toss out the water when done). However, it also breaks down cell walls that your digestive system can't always handle, releasing extra nutrients. Net result: cooking is good.

Yes cooking is good, and necessary, but no more or less than raw foods.

If you never eat raw foods you are going to have problems.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2371201605571520281

[luchog]

As I remember from Good Eats, cooking (say, boiling), does remove some nutrients from the food (especially if you toss out the water when done). However, it also breaks down cell walls that your digestive system can't always handle, releasing extra nutrients. Net result: cooking is good.
It really depends on the food. Did some research on this topic for a similar thread a while back, specifically about broccoli. Seems that there's a component to cruciferous vegetables in general, and broccoli in particular, that is undesirable. I don't remember exactly why, but it might have been that it interferes with calcium absorption. Light cooking destroys this compound without destroying other, beneficial nutrients. ISTR there was also something about overcooking causing something else to break down resulting in another undesirable compound.

[Dogdoctor]

It's important to eat both raw and cooked food depending on the food. Some foods when cooked can actually increase materials that cause various diseases including cancer. For example cooking some meats will produce Heterocyclic Amines which can cause cancer which wouldn't be present in uncooked meats otherwise. Link. (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/heterocyclic-amines)

Studies also show that in specific vegetables, cooking release specific nutrients including beta Carotene, especially in carrots. Link. (http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/128/5/913)

This is why it's important to eat a both raw food diet and a cooked food diet.
The article about cooking meat doesn't show you should eat it raw. It says that if you cook at low temperatures for short periods of time then it should be safe. This would be much safer than not cooking it due to possible bacterial/parasite contamination. It also says you should microwave the meat and then cook it so less HCAs are formed.

[Jackalgirl]

I agree with the general premise that sometimes cooking is good, sometimes it's not -- it depends on what you're cooking, and how, and for how long.

Cooking releases the starches in a lot of stuff (grains and other highly fibrous plants, if I'm recalling correctly), so the discovery of fire (and cooking) was significant in that it allowed us, for the first time, to get extra nutrition out of something that wasn't all that nutritious at the time.

An anthropologist buddy of mine used to joke around about his absolute 100% guaranteed sure-fire austrolopithicine diet -- you can eat ANYTHING you want, but the only way you can prepare it is to beat it with a stick. "I guarantee you will lose weight!" he'd yell, in a "Craaaazy Watto" type voice.

On the other hand, it would not surprise me to learn that some of the highly-processed foods we eat are ultimately not so good for us -- especially since we're not biologically geared to eat them. Not that this automatically means that we should be eating an all raw diet, but that using evolutionary medical information to assess diet is a pretty good idea, and would give us some good insights about what we eat.

[Dogdoctor]

Whatever our digestive tracts evolved eating has nothing to do with what is best for us. Whatever is best for us wil be determined by science and not speculation about what we used to eat.

[g4macdad]

Whatever our digestive tracts evolved eating has nothing to do with what is best for us. Whatever is best for us wil be determined by science and not speculation about what we used to eat.

So what will you eat in the mean time? :p

[Dogdoctor]

So what will you eat in the mean time? :p

There is a bunch of info on what you should or shouldn't eat. I am not aware of up to date comprehensive sources of information but here is one source
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/100/4/450
Basically you should eat a low fat diet with low amounts of sugars and a controlled amount of salt and drink alcohol in moderation. Maintaining a normal or thinner body weight might be good also as is regular exercise and not smoking.

[newlyfound]

I haven't read all thread and I am sorry if I am repeating someone else's comments. Cooked food is good because the cooking eliminates possible bacterias inside the prepared food. And to avoid maximum destruction of the nutrients, some cook their food the minimum time possible. As to the canned food, I think, the reason why it looks as if it's better than the non-canned is because the food get devitalized via the treatement it receives in adding all colorants, presevatives, chemicals to improve its taste etc. so to compensate that, the food industy goes out and tries to replace the lost nutrients by adding the corresponding vitamins, minerals. They also go ahead and display that on the package, I see it aaall the time "vitamin (this or that) fortified", please dont' take my word for it, next time you grocery shop, grab a can of something, read the ingredients section, and see how much stuff is in there that is anything but food. Turn around the can and read everything there is to read and see. Of course some companies are better than others, but basically the canning rules and laws are the same for all. Also, for common sense sake, preserved food (with preservatives and what not), would be less nutritious depending on how long it's been sitting in the can, I am not nutritionist but I would not expect a food that's been in a can for I don't exactly know how long to be as healthy as one that's just been packaged, so to be on the safe side, one should opt for fresh non-processed food.

[Jackalgirl]

There is a bunch of info on what you should or shouldn't eat. I am not aware of up to date comprehensive sources of information but here is one source
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/100/4/450
Basically you should eat a low fat diet with low amounts of sugars and a controlled amount of salt and drink alcohol in moderation. Maintaining a normal or thinner body weight might be good also as is regular exercise and not smoking.

(Emphasis added by me) Why is this, I wonder? Why is a diet low in fat, with low amounts of sugar and controlled amounts of salt better for us than, say, a diet high in fat, with tons of sugar in it?

In opposition to your statement that "[w]hatever our digestive tracts evolved eating has nothing to do with what is best for us. Whatever is best for us wil be determined by science and not speculation about what we used to eat", I have this to say: a scientific (and paleoanthropological) study of what we used to eat is not speculation. I think that what we evolved to digest is very important in understanding proper dietary requirements now.

[Dogdoctor]

(Emphasis added by me) Why is this, I wonder? Why is a diet low in fat, with low amounts of sugar and controlled amounts of salt better for us than, say, a diet high in fat, with tons of sugar in it?

In opposition to your statement that "[w]hatever our digestive tracts evolved eating has nothing to do with what is best for us. Whatever is best for us wil be determined by science and not speculation about what we used to eat", I have this to say: a scientific (and paleoanthropological) study of what we used to eat is not speculation. I think that what we evolved to digest is very important in understanding proper dietary requirements now.

Whatever fossil evidence they have of our diets and digestive tracts it is limited I am sure and they are making generalizations to say anything about it but besides that why would study show anything about what we should eat? Do you suppose that evolution knew we were going to be eating commercially grown animals and plants? Do you suppose evolution had any idea what was best for us? If we follow what we evolved to be eating many of us would die from parasites and malnutrtion as what likely happened to us as we evolved. Is there any science behind your idea?
As far as the reccomendations it comes from studies showing that people who eat high fat diets are prone to getting various cancers and people who eat lots of sugar are prone to dental disease and people who are overweight are prone to various problems etc.

[Jackalgirl]

Whatever fossil evidence they have of our diets and digestive tracts it is limited I am sure and they are making generalizations to say anything about it but besides that why would study show anything about what we should eat? Do you suppose that evolution knew we were going to be eating commercially grown animals and plants? Do you suppose evolution had any idea what was best for us? If we follow what we evolved to be eating many of us would die from parasites and malnutrtion as what likely happened to us as we evolved. Is there any science behind your idea?

Sure. There's a branch of anthropology that studies such things, called "medical anthropology". In fact, there's a specialization in medical anthropology -- evolutionary medicine -- that even more specifically deals with such stuff. Evolutionary medicine bases its prescriptions on the idea tht rates of cultural change exceed the rates of biological change. Our hunger-gatherer physiology was shaped over millions of years, while the cultural changes leading to contemporary lifestyles have occured rapidly. ("Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge", Haviland, Prins, Walrath, McBride, Eleventh Edition, p. 70)

So there is a branch of science studying this stuff. Some of the names mentioned are Melvin Konner, Marjorie Shostak, George Armelagos (all anthropologists) and a physician by the name of Boyd Eaton (I mean, these are the folks listed in the sidebar in my text book that talks about evolutionary medicine).

Please bear in mind that I am not saying that we all need to go back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, or that there is no value whatsoever to modern methods of plant & animal husbandry, farming techniques, cookery, medicine, etc. I'm simply saying that there's something to be said for doing a systematic study of such paleoanthropological information (where it can be found accurately, of course), and that I suspect that some answers to problems we have with modern diets can be found, or at least, suggested there.

As far as the reccomendations it comes from studies showing that people who eat high fat diets are prone to getting various cancers and people who eat lots of sugar are prone to dental disease and people who are overweight are prone to various problems etc.

Oh, no doubt there. I'm not disputing the studies. But they don't attempt to answer the question "why" -- they are simply presenting cause and effect relationships. If you can get some data as to understanding the "why" of these things -- why are high-fat diets correlated to cancer, why do high-sugar diets lead to dental problems (and diabetes), and so forth -- then you can start making futher connections and plans as to figuring out how to have a balanced, moderate diet (and possibly also predict what new food products might be prone to causing dietary problems).

P.S. Let me add, just as a sidebar, that one of the arguments made in my Anthro book is that the development of culture has been one of humanity's most significant discoveries/developments. Culture -- as a means of social, economic, and technologic organization -- has allowed us to expand into areas in which we normally couldn't live, in numbers the land normally couldn't support. In other words, it allows us to bypass the rather lengthy process of evolution -- instead of having to wait millions of years to adapt to a cold climate, for example, we figure out a way to make clothing (and we discover fire), and through our shared culture, this idea ramifies through a large number of people and presto! you've got humans living in cold climates in practically no time at all. So that's what the book is talking about when they say things like "rates of cultural change exceed the rates of biological change."

[Dogdoctor]

Sure. There's a branch of anthropology that studies such things, called "medical anthropology". In fact, there's a specialization in medical anthropology -- evolutionary medicine -- that even more specifically deals with such stuff.

So there is a branch of science studying this stuff. Some of the names mentioned are Melvin Konner, Marjorie Shostak, George Armelagos (all anthropologists) and a physician by the name of Boyd Eaton (I mean, these are the folks listed in the sidebar in my text book that talks about evolutionary medicine).

Please bear in mind that I am not saying that we all need to go back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, or that there is no value whatsoever to modern methods of plant & animal husbandry, farming techniques, cookery, medicine, etc. I'm simply saying that there's something to be said for doing a systematic study of such paleoanthropological information (where it can be found accurately, of course), and that I suspect that some answers to problems we have with modern diets can be found, or at least, suggested there.



Oh, no doubt there. I'm not disputing the studies. But they don't attempt to answer the question "why" -- they are simply presenting cause and effect relationships. If you can get some data as to understanding the "why" of these things -- why are high-fat diets correlated to cancer, why do high-sugar diets lead to dental problems (and diabetes), and so forth -- then you can start making futher connections and plans as to figuring out how to have a balanced, moderate diet (and possibly also predict what new food products might be prone to causing dietary problems).

P.S. Let me add, just as a sidebar, that one of the arguments made in my Anthro book is that the development of culture has been one of humanity's most significant discoveries/developments. Culture -- as a means of social, economic, and technologic organization -- has allowed us to expand into areas in which we normally couldn't live, in numbers the land normally couldn't support. In other words, it allows us to bypass the rather lengthy process of evolution -- instead of having to wait millions of years to adapt to a cold climate, for example, we figure out a way to make clothing (and we discover fire), and through our shared culture, this idea ramifies through a large number of people and presto! you've got humans living in cold climates in practically no time at all. So that's what the book is talking about when they say things like "rates of cultural change exceed the rates of biological change."
So there is people studying it. That hardly amounts to having any science behind your ideas. The ideas exist, they are studying it, but have no proof of any validity to the idea that somehow studying prehistoric diet will lead to better health. Or is there something more to it than speculation?

[g4macdad]

So there is people studying it. That hardly amounts to having any science behind your ideas. The ideas exist, they are studying it, but have no proof of any validity to the idea that somehow studying prehistoric diet will lead to better health. Or is there something more to it than speculation?

"Science" tells us to eat something different every year. What about their evidence? I can use "science" as well as the next guy. So please!:rolleyes:

[Hellbound]

So there is people studying it. That hardly amounts to having any science behind your ideas. The ideas exist, they are studying it, but have no proof of any validity to the idea that somehow studying prehistoric diet will lead to better health. Or is there something more to it than speculation?

I think you're misunderstanding what's being said, to a degree at least.

By studying the diets of our ancestors, it can help explain some question about the trends in diet today, and why certain types of diet cause problems. For example, it can help explain why we seem to have a taste for sugars and fats, even though an excess of these substances is harmful. Sugars and fats tended to be rarer/harder to get, and sugars specifically were usually in the form of fruits, which also were harder to get (limited growing times during the year, high compitetion, etc). These were high-energy foods, so when food is hard to get they're good choices. Evolution, though, adapted our taste for these things to the situation we were in back then (they were harder to aquire). Today, with the relative ease of getting sugars and fats, that works against us.

I don't think Jackalgirl is arguing that the raw food diet is a good thing; I believe she's jsut arguing against your earlier claim that it doesn't matter what our ancestors used to eat. The diet we had in ages past, and the environmental situation(s) that developed that diet and certain tastes in our biology, can help answer questions about our diet and tastes today.

[Hellbound]

"Science" tells us to eat something different every year. What about their evidence? I can use "science" as well as the next guy. So please!:rolleyes:

No, the media reporting what they call science tells you something different every year. If you bothered to understand science, instead of commercials, newspaper articles, and 2-minute clips on the news, you'd know that.

Give us some examples of these changes, why don't you?

The problem is that the media reports results often after single, intial tests, and overstates the results far beyond validity. Science is based on repeatability: a number of scientists can perform the same type of test, under varying conditions and in various locales, and get results that agree. This process, however, takes time. When something has been studied long enough to have reasonable certainty, it's no longer news. When it's new and shiny, it's uncertain.

Of course, you've already amply demonstrated a lack of understanding in science, so I shouldn't be suprised.

[Jackalgirl]

I don't think Jackalgirl is arguing that the raw food diet is a good thing; I believe she's jsut arguing against your earlier claim that it doesn't matter what our ancestors used to eat. The diet we had in ages past, and the environmental situation(s) that developed that diet and certain tastes in our biology, can help answer questions about our diet and tastes today.

Thank you, Huntsman -- that is in fact exactly what I was trying to say. I'm sorry I couldn't come across as clearly as you!

[g4macdad]

No, the media reporting what they call science tells you something different every year. If you bothered to understand science, instead of commercials, newspaper articles, and 2-minute clips on the news, you'd know that.

Give us some examples of these changes, why don't you?

The problem is that the media reports results often after single, intial tests, and overstates the results far beyond validity. Science is based on repeatability: a number of scientists can perform the same type of test, under varying conditions and in various locales, and get results that agree. This process, however, takes time. When something has been studied long enough to have reasonable certainty, it's no longer news. When it's new and shiny, it's uncertain.

Of course, you've already amply demonstrated a lack of understanding in science, so I shouldn't be suprised.

Oh! One who is incapable of doing scientific experiments on their own will still be able to discern the bad science from the good. I see a fundamental flaw in your reasoning.

Don't shoot the observer.:D

[Dogdoctor]

I think you're misunderstanding what's being said, to a degree at least.

By studying the diets of our ancestors, it can help explain some question about the trends in diet today, and why certain types of diet cause problems. For example, it can help explain why we seem to have a taste for sugars and fats, even though an excess of these substances is harmful. Sugars and fats tended to be rarer/harder to get, and sugars specifically were usually in the form of fruits, which also were harder to get (limited growing times during the year, high compitetion, etc). These were high-energy foods, so when food is hard to get they're good choices. Evolution, though, adapted our taste for these things to the situation we were in back then (they were harder to aquire). Today, with the relative ease of getting sugars and fats, that works against us.

I don't think Jackalgirl is arguing that the raw food diet is a good thing; I believe she's jsut arguing against your earlier claim that it doesn't matter what our ancestors used to eat. The diet we had in ages past, and the environmental situation(s) that developed that diet and certain tastes in our biology, can help answer questions about our diet and tastes today.

Is there evidence that studying primitive diet will show us anything useful about what we should eat or why we have problems? From my perspective it seems like it won't. So my question is "is there any scientific reason to believe that it will?" Apparently the answer is no.
eta: I think the idea that evolution has lead us to eat right as in eat the best diet for us is wrong. I don't see any reason to beleive that based on what I know of evolution. I don't see why studying diets of our ancestors will give us any clue about us today. Show me why that would be.