Posted 07.23.2012 at 5:00 pm
4 Comments
Monkey Eats Banana
Tom Coppen
Paleo diets, in which people attempt to eat like they imagine cavemen ate (mostly meats, supplemented with occasional wild fruits), were trendy a few years back, and still have their adherents. The idea is that modern humans are healthier when eating what our bodies evolved to eat. And that's a fine idea, but Rob Dunn over at Scientific American has a correction: to find out what our bodies evolved to eat, why stop at the Paleolithic period? Why not go back further--to apes and monkeys? It's a great piece about how arbitrary diets can be. Read it here.
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Eat as close to the garden as possible. Eat organic. Eat as much fruit, vegetables, grains and nuts as possible; eat your meat as if it was candy, small portions. And anything sugar, just give it up. Well this is what I do for myself, take care. ;)
This sounds like a crap story. Why should we look at another species to determine our eating habits? Our species evolved past their eating habits when we developed large brains and complex social behaviors as early hominids millions of years ago. Also, primates are cannibals and it is not uncommon for a chimpanzee to munch on the carcass of a rival clan's young. Does anyone really think that we should be listening to someone claiming we should eat like that?
The paleo diet makes sense. You eat things in season, fresh, and without a lot of processing. You also limit or eliminate your consumption of foods made from grains which weren't a significant portion of our diets until a few thousand years ago.
Why stop at apes and monkeys? Why not be totally stupid and go back to the fish-like marine animals before they stepped out of the water? -_-
Mmmm, that banana in the picture sure looks good!