On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 16:48:00 -0600, Robert Kesterson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>> Anyone who believes in the validity of Paleolithic nutrition surely
>> believes the truth will eventually gradually win out
>
>That is not the case. I believe in the validity of the paleo dietary
>principles, yet I have little reason to believe that the truth will win
>out. In the mass market, money talks. Agribusiness is **huge**, and has
>powerful lobbyists, public relations firms, laboratories, ....
The economic incentive that opposes Paleolithic nutrition is, ironically,
probably the biggest factor that will delay the potential problem of
excessive demand and high prices for Paleo foods. Another factor is that
the diet is more restrictive than most and unappealing to many people who
are accustomed to modern foods that have been a part of our culture now
for thousands of years. The cultural institutions for which modern foods
are part of their history, religious and traditional teachings and
practice will also be major forces opposing evolutionary nutrition.
When I say the truth will eventually win out, I didn't mean within the
next few years. It may even take a century or more, but I think that the
accumulating research of scientists like Cordain, Eaton, Lindeberg, and
those who follow in their footsteps, will eventually grow too large to
ignore or dismiss. Sure, there will be false studies funded by industries
to refute their findings, but there will also be a few objective studies
here and there that confirm the evolutionary nutrition research and keep
building the case. There are also some interest groups, albeit no where
near as powerful as the modern food interests, who have incentives to
promote evolutionary nutrition--such as the defenders of evolutionary
biology, pasture-fed livestock companies, tree nut companies, alternative
and conventional medical providers and nutritionists who find that
evolutionary nutrition and medicine helps their patients, and perhaps some
of those few natural nutritional supplement companies that use very little
modern food ingredients.
>... It doesn't even matter if the
>surgeon general comes out tomorrow and says that all grains are horrible,
>people will still eat them. Just because something isn't good for you
>doesn't stop people from consuming it (ask any tobacco producer).
Yes, I know that many people will continue to eat modern foods like grains
and I said that myself--I even used the same example of tobacco smokers:
- "There will be lots of people who would rather die than dramatically
- change their diets, just as there are many who continue to smoke despite
- the known risks, but it won't take a major shift to make the already
- expensive Paleo foods even more expensive."
I was speaking only of Paleo foods, not of modern foods like grains, when
I said that demand will eventually exceed supply to the point that it
drives up prices dramatically, whether it takes 10, 50, 100 or 1000 years.
In the long run, the only question is when this will occur, not if.
Grains, like many of the modern foods, will likely remain relatively cheap
for a long time to come. Again, as Cordain stated, it is the cheap foods
like grains that have enabled the massive population growth that gives us
over 6 billion people.
< "without agriculture's cheap starchy staples, it is no exaggeration to
say that billions of people worldwide would starve." -- Loren Cordain >
It won't take the whole world's population switching to a Paleo diet to
make it very expensive, just a small fraction of it. Again, as Cordain
noted, the total potential Paleo food supply could only feed 10% or less
of the world's population as of 2001--about 9% of today's world
population. I don't know at what portion of that 9% those foods would
start becoming very expensive, but I know it would happen well before the
9% maximum was reached.
If or when evolutionary nutrition and medicine become widely known and
accepted, the problem of the limited nature of Paleo foods poses some
interesting possible dilemmas. Perhaps poor people and nations who cannot
afford Paleo foods and believe they can greatly ameliorate and prevent the
diseases of civilization will clamor for those foods, saying, "Why should
only the rich benefit from these foods? Ration them among all the nations
so that they may go to those who most need them--pregnant mothers, infants
and patients with severe cases of modern disease." Will it be more ethical
for governments to promote healthy nutrition through Paleo foods, or will
it be better for them to discourage healthy adults from eating them, so as
to keep the prices down and reduce the extinction of species of Paleo-like
animals and plants?
Cordain states that "in most western countries, cereals are not a
necessity, particularly in many segments of the population that suffer
most from Syndrome X and other chronic diseases of civilization. In this
population, a return to a Stone Age Diet is not only possible, but highly
practical in terms of long-term healthcare costs." This appears to argue
for some form of rationing to people who "suffer most from Syndrome X"
(and I would argue that pregnant mothers with a history of Syndrome X in
their family are actually a higher priority for the Paleo foods, since
modern foods likely do the most damage on developing babies and this would
likely do the most to prevent disease rather than just treat it) when the
point is reached that that becomes the only way to make sure these people
get the Stone Age foods. This logically leads to the conclusion that some
day it will require a doctor's prescription to buy the Paleo foods. This
would lead to people trying to get around this bottleneck by growing and
raising their own Paleo foods, by paying doctors to write them a
prescription and by buying Paleo foods illegally on a black market, but it
may be the least bad of several bad alternatives. Some people would get
doctors' prescriptions just so they could resell the foods to others, as
happens with valuable prescription drugs today.
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