Help me debate this guy on nutrition?

Of course, there are lots of mammals that eat grains – most rodents, for example, but even certain ruminants, I think. Birds, ditto.

The funny thing is, the guy is on the Atkins diet, even if he thinks it’s his own pet theory, disparaged by the Establishment.

By the time the food gets into your bloodstream, it’s been broken down into its compenents. Your blood can’t tell if the vitamin C came from an out-of-season strawberry or an in-season red pepper.

Tell him what I tell folks who give me the whole “the cavemen didn’t eat X, so we’re not designed/evolved for it” schtick:

Cavemen had a life expectancy of 17. Since we’ve added refined foods, modern medicine (apparently made up of parroting doctors), and “non-natural” foods, our life expectancy has been steadily increasing, and now stands at about four times that. It would be higher still if we stopped killing each other (apparently a popular caveman passtime) and fed everybody.

Sample size? All of humanity. I’d say that pretty much rules out the “everything cavemen didn’t have is going to kill you” school of thought.

Way ahead of you, pal. :wink:

Anyhoo, I kind of agree about docs. My PCP was telling me a whole litany of rules about eating and all the while I was thinking of how they contradicted what my nutritionist said. I’ve tried to get help and will continue to, but it’s tough to parse these various theories. I know that part of it is that my nutritionist is also thinking of behavioral and emotional issues, and what’s doable with only gradual steps. She said it was OK if I go to OA but not to follow their meal plans.

PCP/some OAers: no white foods (flour, sugar)
Nutritionist: no reason for a ban on white foods

PCP: don’t eat after 8 PM
Nutritionist: no physiological reason to stop at 8

PCP: Pick fruits and vegetables (I can’t stand most of them and they make me hungrier than before I ate)
Nutritionist: don’t force yourself to eat F&V; take a vitamin

If all doctors are idiots, why does John trust his when it comes to his numbers. He could be at death’s door for all he knows!

Well, the problem with these things is that they’re general guidelines, evelated into rules. For example, one should probably eat less refined white flour and sugar, but in some hands that translates into, “Don’t eat that,” while in other hands it translates into, “Don’t eat only that.”

In re eating after 8 PM: don’t know about nutritionally, but if you’re liable to heartburn, it’s not bad advice.

Ah. Got this one.

Doctors are smart enough to read lab results. They are not smart enough to come up with new ideas on nutrition.

Actually, that may not be far off. Some of the doctors here eat some pretty questionable stuff.

They only look like cavmen. :smiley:

Seems to me that the mark of a good nutritionist is one that doesn’t forbid anything, but just encourages you to make smarter choices more often.

Knowing what’s right isn’t hard.

Doing what’s right is.

Re: the “only humans eat grain” thing

The other day I read an excerpt from Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity’s Unappeasable Appetite for Energy by Alfred Crosby which argued quite convincingly that cooking is what makes humans unique. It evolved in the Upper Paleolithic period, and allows us to move some of the work of digestion outside of the body, “clearing the way for a smaller gut and larger brain, and enabling that gut to harvest stored solar energy from previously unappetizing or inedible sources, such as hard grains.” Also obliged us to learn to plan and co-operate. And gave us more time to learn to do other stuff.

Where on earth does anyone get the idea that only humans eat grains? That’s absolutely bizarre to me. Last weekend I went out to the Carl Sandburg house to play with the baby goats. They wouldn’t eat grass from my hand, but if I reached into an area they couldn’t get to and picked a stem with seeds on the end, they’d happily munch away on it. Grass seeds are full of fat and protein; it would be remarkable if nothing evolved to take advantage of them as a food source.

Daniel

Sounds like he’s on a variant of the Caveman diet (or the Neanderthin diet :rolleyes: ). Good luck to him… “The Neanderthin diet is considered rather Neanderthal by some dieticians, who call it a primitive, artery-clogging mistake.”

Really? So he’s saying that our digestive systems and brains evolved alongside our kitchens? That’s very interesting. You got any more on this?

Many animals will eat grains if they have the opportunity. One of my cats will eat cornbread if she can get it.

Wolves can synthesize vitamin C in their bodies, which humans can’t. That’s a physiological difference requiring a different diet.

Most people, with the possible exception of pure-blooded Native Americans, Polynesians or Aboriginal Australians, probably have some Mediterranean ancestry- the Romans (and other Mediterranean peoples) got around. With a name like “John,” I’m guessing it’s unlikely he is any of those. There probably aren’t many of those around any more who don’t have a European, Asian, or African ancestor somewhere…

Another thing to which I take exception, tdn, is the idea that there is one diet which is right for every body.

The Pima Indians adapted centuries ago to a diet in which carbohydrates were released from very slow-release creeping desert plants. Give them donuts and potatoes, they get a sugar rush. Over 50% of them have diabetes on the diet that makes Americans fat. They need carbohydrates, but they need them from slow release sources.

I was born with a mild degree of hyperinsulinism. It’s the reverse of diabetes. I can get hungry faster than anyone I know. I get symptomatic from low blood sugar within three or four hours of a meal. My husband likes to say, parodying an ancient TV show, “Don’t get her hungry. You wouldn’t like her when she’s hungry.”

For me, from decades of experience with my body, fruits are tempting but dangerous (I indulge, but I know what to expect), white rice means plummeting blood sugar in two hours’ time, and fats equal satiety. I have worked out my own right-for-me diet which involves whole grains that release sugars slowly, other complex carbohydrates, lots of vegetables, small amounts of meat and fat with every meal. Works. I’m near ideal weight and I don’t suffer too much from low blood sugar.

Is my diet right for John? Of course not. Is it right for you? Of course not. Then why in all the fricking name of everything that’s holy should John’s diet be right for you???

Add to which, his diet isn’t right for me.

Or for the Pima Indians.

As it turns out, the topic of diet never came up last night. I’d rather have discussions in which John is more rational. So, over a meal of fruits and veggies (which some people might call “sausages” and “more sausages”), we decided to discuss 9/11. Turns out Rumsfeld was behind the launching of the missile at the Pentagon, and Wolfowitz helped plant the bombs in the WTC.

John, John, John, I thought we raised you better than that.

There’s been some human evolution since migrations out of Africa. For example, eskimos have adaped to a diet that is rather different from anything found in lower latitudes.

There’s also the “cavemen didn’t die of cancer/heart disease, etc., so we should emulate their diet.”

There’s a reason why cavemen didn’t die of those diseases: they were eaten by bears* before they got old enough to get them.

*or other preditors. “Eaten by bears” just sounds funnier.

Not just any bear. The dreaded Pleisocene saber-toothed bear!