Ward wrote:
> make anaffirmation about how you believe evolutionary adaptation to
> diet takesplace, instead of criticizing how you think it doesn't take
> place. And explain given these mechanisms why they would result in
> optimal adaptation to a vegetarian diet (which I assume you believe is more
> optimal than a diet with some meat in it) even if meat was also part of the
> diet for 2-3 million years. If things happened that way, they had to
> happen somehow. How do you think they did?

This is starting to turn into a beating a dead horse thing, but
there is absolutely no question that humans & all our ancestors
evolved on omnivorous diets, able to survive in all sorts of
environments should the need evolve.  Clearly what Evolution did was
to put in all sorts of fail-safe systems so that if one type  of
food was unavailable we could get by on many other types.  I think
Ward has unquestionably made this case.  But so what?  The question
is what is the best diet for some or all of us today.  Evolution
decrees that lemmings will go over cliffs, which may be great for
limiting the population density of the species as a whole, but not
be all that wonderful for the individuals leaping.  Evolution
decrees that humans can live almost entirely on RAF, but we know
that this is hardly a healthy lifestyle when measured by the age at
which the diseases which cause death appear.  Evolution decrees that
humans can get by almost (or maybe totally) on plant foods should
RAF be unobtainable.  What I'm saying is that the evolutionary
arguments don't mean all that much to me, someone with the dentition
of a primarily herbivorous creature.

In medicine (particularly human medicine) there is always too little
data, & too little of the data come from human trials (particularly
life-long human trials).  You always have to go on subtle clues &
intuition.  But in the case we are debating here (which is sort of
unique in that there is so much good data), there seems to be more
than enough human data (from life-long experiences) to conclude that
high-percentage RAF is bad news (the Eskimo example) and that
raw-veg is great (Norman Walker living to 109 is a good
example-although I believe he ate small quantities of cheese).  We
can extrapolate from animal data to conclude that excessive protein
is bad.  We are probably not yet at a point where we can state
whether small amounts of RAF might be better than straight veg., &
it may well be that certain magical meat ingredients (possibly
lipoic acid-a great antioxidant- or lycine) confer health benfits
when included as a small % of the diet.  And all this is with the
caveat of INDIVIDUAL needs showing a wide variance.

I conclude:

a) we can state with near certainty that all fruit does not work
b) it seems to me that if a wide array of plant foods grown on
well-mineralized soils is consumed, most all will do fine
(particularly if they are getting sufficient sunlight)
c) it may indeed be true that some individuals need small amounts of
RAF (or maybe even cooked foods), but I suspect that
poorly-mineralized soils and/or lack of sunlight are the problems,
not a lack of RAF.

--Doug Schwartz
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