What's a bit of good advice that's really bad advice?
You know, like "always split on 18," or "having kids is the most rewarding thing you can do in life."
What's that one bit of advice you got from a trusted friend that you know deep, deep down would just ruin your thing?
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Ever since the US Department of Agriculture (not health) started their nutritional recommendations, once-rare diseases like cardiovascular disease, Diabetes II, obesity, and a whole host of mental illnesses have become extremely common.
People are only recently discovering that we can reverse/improve Diabetes I & II, arthritis, obesity, PCOS, psoriasis, depression, autism, anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc. by eating what humans have been primarily eating since becoming human ~2 million years ago when we left the trees, lost the ability to digest fiber, and evolved distinctly human traits for hunting (e.g. a skeletal composition that allows humans to throw heavy things accurately further than any other species, the ability to out-run every other land animal long-distance, and a large brain and complex communication for coordinated attacks on much larger animals).
Humans are still biologically evolved to be persistence pack hunters subsisting on fatty meat, a hyper-apex species that all other animals we evolved alongside (including other apex predators) fear just from the sound of our voices. We've lost sight of who we are as a species.
What..?!
From the studies I've seen, meat does indeed carry higher endemic carcinogen and cardio-disease risks, particularly when processed, particularly when fried, compared to other foods.
And yes, too much fruit can lead to glycemic issues, but assuming properly washed and/or cooked, fruits & veggies are indeed an extremely important part of a healthy diet.
A purely vegan diet means one needs to be careful about getting a full range of amino acids and IIRC some vitamins, but besides that, yes-- a core vegan diet (assuming properly varied) is indeed arguably one of the healthiest diets for most people.
Personally I don't think one needs to be super-strict with it, but the point is that it's a great base to build on.
The major problem with most studies in the field of nutrition is that most of them are correlation studies, which are useful in creating hypotheses but are not sufficient in determining causation.
I won't argue that as a layman, but I feel that there are nutritional meta-studies, plus evidence from inter-disciplines (such as physiology of the colon, how the body processes food at the micro & molecular level, and what H.s.s's typical diet was across many centuries) to suggest that what I posited above is true.
AFAIK the body of nutritionists and the national academies have to take all of this in to account (including the limitations of correlational studies) when making hypotheses about best diet, making for a reasonably clear picture that the human body (outside of people like the Inuit I guess) typically doesn't handle excess meat well, and that we likely evolved as omnivores who didn't eat processed foods, and who mainly ate vegetables & some fruit with opportunistic protein supplementing such.
If this is indeed what our bodies evolved to handle, it shouldn't really be a surprise that we do best health-wise maintaining that approach. Not to mention, there are plenty of studies to suggest the various ways we can get in to health problems straying from that baseline.
Nutritional meta-studies are based on individual studies. If the foundation is composed of correlation studies, such a meta-study would still not be able to show causation.
I was disappointed in the science of nutrition compared to other disciplines, which is why I looked to adjacent fields of study, like anatomy, evolution, biology, psychology, anthropology, archeology, and the history of the study of nutrition itself.
Modern humans have been around for ~300,000 years, and humans have been around for ~2 million years. Looking at our diets across the last several centuries isn't enough to get a clear understanding as we haven't significantly changed anatomically for hundreds of thousands of years. Humans have become apex predators not from scavenging for vegetables and fruits.
Humans have thrived through multiple ice ages where vegetables and fruit were scarce as hunters of megafauna. Our anatomy and unique adaptations suggest that there were strong evolutionary pressures that shaped us into the apex predators we are, despite not having large claws, horns, teeth, jaws, etc. that are typical of other apex predators.
Humans handle fatty meat very well. The growing popularity of the carnivore diet is a testament to this, with several practicing medical doctors starting to speak out in support of it. On the other hand, various populations handle different vegetation with mixed results. For example, a large minority of many populations still can't handle bread, of all things, very well.
You should double-check those studies, as they are likely to be correlation studies that do not prove causation and are riddled with confounding factors.
What's your basis of conceiving of humans as apex predators? I haven't heard them described that way before, moreso that we're fantastic opportunists who can indeed hunt successfully when such is called for. But historically, based on the findings, I don't know of any evidence that suggests we were universally 'apex predators' for any significant amount of time.
This is starting to sound pretty disingenuous or poorly-informed based on my impressions of the science.
Feel free to have the last reply, and if there's something to learn from it, I'll try.
Going off memory:
I'm not sure what science you're referring to, but from what I've learned, nutrition science is very much not a mature field of study, especially compared to adjacent disciplines. If you immediately discount the carnivore diet, I would ask you to ask yourself why (for example, is it because "everyone just knows that fruit, vegetables, and grains are healthy for you"?), and approach the question of what humanity's species-appropriate diet is from first principles.
can you cite your source for “fruits and vegetables are bad for you”?
Source: the inside of his anus
From evolution.
Plants are living organisms, and they do not want to be eaten, so they have evolved many defences to that end. They cannot run away nor physically fight back, yet they are one of the most successful kingdoms on Earth.
How do plants protect themselves? Their primary form of defence is chemical warfare. Plants produce chemicals like oxalates, lectins, phytates, cyanide, hormone disruptors, nutrient blockers, and carcinogens to discourage animals from eating them.
Animals and plants have been evolving together in a never-ending evolutionary arms race for millions of years, wherein animals develop adaptations to be able to break down the plants' defence chemicals safely, and plants evolve stronger defence chemicals. In nature, we see this manifest in herbivores being very specialised in the types of plants they can eat without getting sick. This is why we don't see every animal desolating entire swaths of forests, marshes, grasslands, etc.
Humans, too, are animals, and it was only in the last 12,000 years or so when we invented agriculture and settled down, thus entering a new age of heavy plant intake. Almost immediately, we experienced negative effects such as a shrinkage of brain size, a shorter stature, and poor teeth health. However, while relying on plants at the individual level resulted in health sacrifices, especially later on in life, at the societal level, agriculture provided a means to dramatically increase a settlement's population size and strength.
Humans still instinctively know to not eat plants unless necessary to survive. For example, if you were thrown into the middle of a forest, you would know that eating most of the plants around you will immediately make you sick. Parents also frequently see this when they force their kids to eat so-called healthy foods such as broccoli, spinach, and Brussels sprouts, which the kids will intuitively avoid, but are forced to accept in the name of health.
Essentially, each species has a species-appropriate diet, and humans are not special. We have specific adaptations for specific foods for optimum health, just like every other species — we've just forgotten what that is.
I think 95% or more of the problem with American diets is just excess calories. Or 50% inactivity 50% overeating. Eating more fat is great if you are walking around all day gathering leaves and berries and chasing after (and running away from) animals. If you are sitting at a desk eating more leaves and less meat will probably work better.
It's not just Americans — the world is becoming increasingly obese and sick — and I highly doubt it's because humanity has collectively lost our willpower and health-consiousness within 50 years.
Saturated fat has become so demonised that people can't comprehend how I've lost so much body fat by eating mostly fat while doing minimal exercise. My mental clarity, focus, and energy have also noticeably improved by eating a mostly fatty-meat diet.