On Feb 22, 2008, at 4:57 am, Theta wrote:
> I wonder, readers, do you think that the family food choices passed
> from generation to generation might be involved here rather than or
> in addition to genetic material? I mean, in my family, at least 4
> generations ate more-or-less the same kinds of foods and recipes.
> Is this genetics or culture or both?
A bit like William says, you need food AND genes to make a body. Our
genes operate under a set of assumptions, namely that we are living in
the paleolithic era. They respond to our food as if it was the stuff
available in that era. So, eat meat and veg and you should be
healthy. Eat cheese and beans on toast followed by a bar of milk
chocolate every day, and you will either get fat or die of some
horrible degenerative disease.
Feeding a dog the above non-paleo diet will not make it fat, it will
kill it (if the beans don't first - I don't know about that). The
dog's genes do not respond so favourably to the cocoa (specifically
the theobromine) in the chocolate.
I also suspect that what the last 4 generations of your family is not
that dissimilar, from your genes' point of view, to what anyone else
ate. Here's a scale of paleo - non-paleo, where the left hand side is
pure paleo and the right hand side is pure grains, dairy, legumes and
sugar. I've marked samples of diets consumed in the paleo era "X",
and samples of diets consumed today, "Y".
|XXXX-X--X----Y-----------Y---------------------------Y-Y----YYYYYYY-Y|
This is what I have in my head when I hear someone say "I eat a
healthy diet". I think, "So you only eat 80% bad stuff instead of
95?" (Or alternatively, "So you're in the lower end of the I'm-glad-
I'm-not-a-dog region")
Ashley
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