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  #1   ^
Old Tue, Aug-12-03, 19:24
jeanne48's Avatar
jeanne48 jeanne48 is offline
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Plan: Redbook Magazine
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Default Man as a Hunter

Dear all,

I have been reading many lucid and eloquent messages on the advantages of low carbing. Lower carbing has certainly helped me!

I am not sure why it is so important to believe that early man was mostly a hunter. I've evolved since then. Besides reading about Lucy, a 3-1/2 million year old, fairly well preserved skeleton found in 1974 who reportedly was a grain eater, it is common sense to think that people ate the fruit and grain growing around them until they had the use of weapons. They may have eaten smaller animals that they could catch and kill but I am sure that was supplemented with that dirty word "grain." No, as someone inferred, fruit, grain, herbs and vegetables did not wait for man to discover how to grow them.

Our teeth show that we are omnivorous--in fact most of our teeth are shaped like herbivores. Don't forget the Atkins diet is not against vegetables or grains(?), just says a higher protein diet is better. Carbs seem to be meant for the more active.

Check out this link and you will see what some scientists say early man ate.

http://www.ivu.org/history/early/ancestors.html

In defense of low carb diets, it doesn't matter what our forbears ate--I have to go with what is good for me. The test on whether this diet is a fad or not depends on the soundness of its principles.

I'm sure the pioneers of this diet were non-conformists and thank God for that. I am not here mainly for acceptance but looking for a WOE that will work. If it doesn't, I will eat whatever does work and hopefully, not crow.

God bless,


Jeanne48
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  #2   ^
Old Wed, Aug-13-03, 07:30
GaryW GaryW is offline
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Plan: Atkins
Stats: 277/223/180 Male 71
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You don't think a vegetarian organization just might have slanted the facts towards their biased agenda?
How many of those veggies 'n fruits do you think were around in those cold Winters back then for man to readily pluck? Remember, the majority of human existance was pre-agriculture that modern folks often take for granted.
Sure, we took in a few nuts, seeds, the occassional fruit, etc. but we were a far cry from being the vegetarian caveman your vegetarian organizations would have you believe. Check with more objective sources next time you supply your references, or you'll naturally be challenged. So get over it and the vegetarian's fact-distorting PR machine and enjoy your low carb way of life! Why it's "important" to understand whether / if we were primarily veggie-eating vs. meat-eating is because despite your statement that you've evolved, we're relatively still the same "carbon-based units" that more-than-less digest and process sugars, regulate insulin, etc. as we've done for a long, long time - vastly outstripping the relatively recent agricultural age of a "blink of an eye" ten-thou years.
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  #3   ^
Old Wed, Aug-13-03, 07:43
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cartmanis cartmanis is offline
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Plan: LC
Stats: 330/286/200 Male 70
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Jeanne,

I find myself at odds with a lot of what you post. I've read a lot myself, and have seen a lot more sources pointing to early hominids eating a meat rich diet than mainly grains/veggies. (though obviously we are omnivors and eat a large variety of food).

For an equally biased source of information to your veggie site, http://www.pathwai.org/Diet.htm

But my ultimate conculstion is, eat what you enjoy, LC whatever way you do it seems very obviously to me the healthiest way to eat.
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  #4   ^
Old Wed, Aug-13-03, 11:16
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Shellyf34 Shellyf34 is offline
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Plan: Atkins
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Location: Monterey Bay Area, CA
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Lucy was similar to Australopithecus, and was physiologically nowhere near Cro-Magnon Man (us). She wasn't "early man." She was early man's ancestor.

That being said, you are right, grains were used by early man, as were fruit and vegatation, but meat was their main source of sustanance, and vital to survival. And when we say grains here, we are talking about smashed-up grains, mixed with water and cooked on hot stones, highly unprocessed. The time-intensive process of gathering grain only allowed for limited consumption of grain products anyway (until the advent of farming).

So, when people like Ray Audit talk about eating like early (Cro-Magnon) man, he is talking limited grain, fruits, vegetables and organic meat (with meat being the main source of nutrition). The steep rise in Diabetes, heart disease and obesity didn't really start until the early 20th century with the coming of processed foods, flour and refined sugar.
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Old Wed, Aug-13-03, 11:42
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cartmanis cartmanis is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shellyf34
but meat was their main source of sustanance, and vital to survival.


And, to add, from what I have read, the increase of nutrient dense meat consumption coincides with the enlargment of our brains and intelligence, their previous nutrition higher in the grains and veggies couldn't support that.
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Old Thu, Aug-14-03, 07:30
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gawdess gawdess is offline
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I am no anthropological genious but I would think back in the early times there was little storage, making it hard maintain any level of plant consumption in cold weather and not only that I wonder how they would distinguish between poisonous and non...If I were Lucy I would have stuck to meat.....At least I wouldve had a good figure....anyhow....my 2 uneducated cents for ya
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  #7   ^
Old Fri, Aug-15-03, 18:00
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jeanne48 jeanne48 is offline
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Posts: 27
 
Plan: Redbook Magazine
Stats: 166/144/140 Female 5'5
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Progress: 85%
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Thank you all for taking the time to write--differing opinions is what makes things interesting!

Evolution is what has reclassified obesity. Instead of storing fat in our bodies like early man did for winter, we store our food in the refrigerator which probably has a slight space advantage LOL and, alas, is not seasonal. However, you are right in one thing--we still store fat in our bodies as a "leftover" from prior times. Obesity like the word "norm" has really become defined in narrow terms. People who store fat probably have an efficient metabolism. It's our definition of beauty that has become so radically different and that is probably in the last 50 years, not 10,000.

The reason our bodies store fat is the same reason you all are so sure we are meant to be meateaters. Whatever did we do in the winter other than make babies? However, we ate and we stored the fat during the months we could--we ate a lot during the spring/summer/fall seasons.

Bears are omnivores, I wonder what they did in the winter? While I don't think we hibernated, we probably scavenged on meat AND the uncovered vegetation. The very reason our bodies are made the way they are is for the harsher times. (By the way not all of us had to experience "winter".) If this reason is valid, then other "carbon-based units" would have also evolved to eat meat. I don't know of any caribou or elk or deer that are meat-eaters, do you?

As for brains (because we ate meat of course)--if eating meat was the only basis for the evolution of our brains, then lions, tigers and other carnivores should be much smarter than we are. Are we also saying that for the last 10,000 years we have lost our edge (in brains) because we are now eating grains? I think not. I am still amazed at what ideas people are coming up with and the interesting and awesome writing I am witnessing in this forum.

As for who we are descendants of -- I'm not sure and there are differing opinions (Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon). Lucy or whoever or apes (chimps have 99% of our DNA)! How would a gorilla look on the Atkins diet? No more pot belly which is necessary to digest their fruit/vegetation diet. He'd be a hunk, LOL.

However, unclear as it was, the main point of my post was that we should not base a good thing on a possibly bad foundation. Then if that foundation crumbles, so does the good that came with it.

Take care all,


Jeanne48
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  #8   ^
Old Fri, Aug-15-03, 18:45
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jeanne48 jeanne48 is offline
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Posts: 27
 
Plan: Redbook Magazine
Stats: 166/144/140 Female 5'5
BF:
Progress: 85%
Location: NC
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Dear ShelleyF34,

I do wholeheartedly agree with you about the processed and refined foods and its relationship to our health, though not necessarily obesity. (I don't see all obesity as unhealthy.) What makes things worst now is we are playing with the genetics of all foods--including domesticated animals we use for a food source. I often wonder if the antibiotics we inject in them to keep them healthy affects our latest immunity to antibiotics -- I'm no scientist so I can only guess.

Regarding the fact of man being essentially a meat-eater and sometimes a grain eater--does the fact that carbs get stored as fat and protein doesn't lend itself to the fact that early man may have been primarily a grain eater? See my previous post regarding the necessity of man sans a refrigerator (LOL) to store fat to survive the winter.

Somewhere I read that if we starved ourselves on say 400 g of calories that we could eventually maintain our weight on that small amount of calories. Our bodies are miracles!

What we are now fighting is opinion (ads featuring skinny models) and sometimes greed. Why do you think airplanes seats are so small? They want to fit as many people in the airplane as possible. I'm not that big and I am very uncomfortable in today's airplane seats.

Thanks for your post.


Jeanne48
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