Dean Esmay wrote:
> Generally speaking the idea that the healthist diet for any animal will be
> the diet it evolved to eat should be so self-evidence that it should be the
> standard against which any other diet should be measured.  If a foreign,
> un-natural diet should prove healthier, so be it, but the competing theory
> should be the one with something to prove since it must necessarily rest on
> something besides evolution to make its case.

An excellent point! In the absence of data, the evolutionary diet would
seem to have a headstart over others.

> >(b) Food is the sum of its parts. I think it is important to note
> >that a natural diet should be able to be analyzed in terms of
> >macronutrients,
> >micronutrients, fibre, fatty acids, additives, etc etc.
>
> This is an interesting theory, but is it legitimate?  Macronutrients may be
> far less important than is now so commonly believed.

Well, my point is simply that WHATEVER a natural diet is, it differs
from
other diets ONLY in ways which can (at least theoretically) be analyzed
chemically. To suggest otherwise means you're some kind of gastronomic
dualist, which is too weird for me to think about. :) Now, whether the
ideal level of analysis is macronutrients, or macro+micro, or whatever,
is an interesting question, but not relevant to the point I was trying
to make.

> This theory of yours also overlooks the troubling fact that we very likely
> do not have anything like a complete understanding of everything in foods
> that is beneficial or necessary to human health.

True enough!

> The only two things I can point you to in the scientific literature are the
> studies showing that vegetarians usually suffer from mineral deficiency and
> the enormous amount of data which shows that the consumption of cereal
> grains is extremely unhealthy, since most vegetarians consume grains as
> their primary food source.  These have been discussed at length over on the
> Paleodiet Symposium list (the technical sister to this list).  Look through
> our archives for messages by Staffan Lindeberg and Loren Cordain for the
> most citations on that.

Hmm, I would like to look at the archives, do you have the URL? I find
it
amazing that the data showing that grains are extremely unhealthy is so
overwhelming.

> husband's story is equally compelling--he used a macrobiotic diet to cure
> his own cancer, but long term also found that he could not maintain good
> health without bringing animal flesh back into his life.

Frankly, I doubt I'd find it that compelling. Interesting, I'm sure, but
one thing I've learned is that if you listen to enough single case
reports (which are a dime a dozen on the net), you will find ones that
give an incredibly compelling account of someone who completely changed
their life by eating only Count Chocula cereal for 6 months.

These single case reports (like Ray Audette saying how little bodyfat
he has) are often inspiring and fascinating, but they really aren't any
good reason to believe in one diet or another.

Toby