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Sat, 18 Nov 2006 18:23:17 -0500 |
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World Too Overpopulated to Support Paleo Diet
The biggest problem that the facts of Paleolithic/evolutionary nutrition
poses is that the planet cannot support everyone eating a Paleo diet. I
have seen estimates of the carrying capacity of the planet ranging from
250,000 to 100 million hunter-gatherers. This provides a disincentive to
spreading the word about the Paleo Diet. As knowledge of Paleolithic
nutrition spreads, the demand for Paleo foods will increase, eventually
leading to massive price increases that will put the foods out of reach of
all but the wealthiest. Many of these foods will likely be overconsumed
right out of existence. When I came to realize the consequences of this
problem of limited supply of Paleo foods I was rather disheartened. By
spreading the word we cannot help all the people who suffer from diseases
of civilization, but we do increase the possibility that these foods will
become too expensive for us in our lifetimes. After learning these facts I
realized that global population control--which I used to see as
unnecessary--should be the #1 priority of the human race. Daniel Quinn's
book, Ishmael, reinforced that view. Other priorities are preserving the
Paleo foods and the remaining hunter-gatherer peoples.
It's impossible to feed the world on the foods of 10,000 years ago, but
perhaps we can gradually move society away from using the foods that were
developed in the last 100 years. One method might be to tax all foods and
food ingredients developed after 1900 and use the revenues to fund
nutritional research and the costs of the transition to older foods.
Is it possible for society to develop a wild- or near-wild-plant form of
agriculture to increase the nutritional value of society's plant foods and
increase the quantity and diversity of Paleo foods in the diet? I know
that EatWild researcher Jo Robinson (http://www.eatwild.com/jo.html)
has "plans to develop a test garden featuring plants with exceptional
nutritional value that are similar to plants growing in the wild." There
is also this study: "Prospects for sustainable use and development of wild
food plants in Ethiopia," http://cat.inist.fr/?
aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1001004
Cordain suggests we can make the following changes and still feed the
world:
> Eliminate grain feeding of cattle
> Encourage consumption of omega 3-rich oils like canola, flaxseed and
mustard seed oils
Anyone else have some ideas or heartening thoughts to make the problem of
the limited nature of Paleo foods more palatable?
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