But humans survive in family groups and in larger-than-family groups. Our effect on our children doesn’t end in our 20=30s. Being an orphan makes a difference.

So we may have evolved to wear out at the best rate for the survival of our families.

1. can you digest it
2. does it damage your other organs

For example, a diet high in cholesterol is digestible, but will cause atherosclerosis in the long term.

The EP idea is that we might have adapted to eat starch or lactose in order to survive, but our evolution has not adapted to nullify the secondary effects.

Keep in mind that the secondary effects manifest in old age and humans are not supposed to live 70 years. There is no evolutionary pressure to keep you healthy until then, because most of us have kids in the 20-30s. At least the women, which is all that matters.

It is easy to be critical of fad diets, but the reality is that getting real information on what constitutes a healthy diet is very difficult. So I am trying to get more information from any source available to me. I had thought that low fat was important—now I read on the Harvard School of Public Health website that the proportion of your calories that come from fat is not important. The Paleo diet definitely has some good ideas—by eating mostly fruits and veggies, with some lean meats you get all of the vitamins and minerals that your body needs. You also have a better balance of omega 3/omega 6 acids.

I don’t know a lot about biology or evolutionary psychology. I know enough about history and the history of food systems and nutrition to know that there is a lot of variation in what people have eaten at different times and in different places. Also the food we buy at the supermarket is very different than the varieties that our paleolithic ancestors had access to.

I just think that a lot of people want to know how to be healthier, and it is not that easy to find credible information. At least on the paleo diet (although I don’t know about the DeVany version) you will have less chance to get many chronic diseases and you will get all your vitamins and minerals.

I would be interested in understanding why it is considered “reactionary” and why there seems to be so much hostility towards it. I don’t believe that the authors of this blog are doctors or nutritionists, so how can they be sure that they are right about what makes “fad diets” work?

That’s one thing they’re good for. There could be other benefits and disadvantages.

Eating less refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup is an obvious benefit. And less white flour. Whatever you fill in with is bound to be more expensive, though. And maybe not that much healthier, depending on what you choose.

As good a diet would be “You must walk everywhere to buy everything you eat,” unless you live right in the city with restaurants and grocery stores every few blocks. If you live several miles from the nearest grocery store, it would work OK. If you live twenty miles from the nearest grocery store, you could leap to professional marathoning, though you might prefer actually hunting and gathering your own food from the wild.

It is in the same climate and cultural zone as countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, where the use of chilis is ubiquitous. I remember on my first trip to Thailand observing with amazement that every table in every tiny cafe was equipped with no less than three kinds of chilis (dry, wet, and pickled), and patrons were piling them on their food (already so hot my wife and I were extracting whatever peppers we could see) at 6 AM . . .

Yet most Filipinos rarely use chilis in their cuisine. (When we arrived, after three weeks in Thailand and Malaysia, our tastebuds were so cauterized we could scarcely taste anything for a week.)

EXCEPT - and here the mystery deepens – for the Bikol region of southeast Luzon, where they deploy chilis so assiduously that it’s claimed that in a typhoon the Bikolano peasant will save his peppers before his family.

I’ve been studying this region for 35 years or so, and have no explanation for it. Sometimes we need to bow in reverence before the enigma of life.

(Incidentally, both the Burmese and the Vietnamese use far fewer chilis than the Thai, Indonesians, and Malays, but more than the Filipinos [except the Bikolanos]. I offer these observations as imponderable data point.

(Also: why hot peppers in Szechwan and Hunan, but not farther north OR south OR east within China?)

(Whatever it is, it ain’t simple.)

The tomato-pepper coincidence is interesting. But some large regions of the world don’t fit that pattern. They use a lot of peppers in China, and of different kinds, not just hot chilis, but they use relatively little tomato.

Another thing to look at would be the coincidence of tomato usage and pepper usage. Tomatoes are not spicy, but their usage overlaps heavily with peppers. They both came from Central America, so where they are used is either related to where they are able to grow, or where they spread due to accidents fo trade.

Poland didn’t really get in on the 30 Years War (aside from some action in Royal Prussia). The Wiki entry on the 30YW doesn’t even have the word “Poland” in it. You’re probably thinking of the first Northern War (the “Deluge”) or mixing up Poland with Bohemia.

Sorry to be picky. Need a break from grading.

One person claimed he just got one, and it’s helping him lose weight. He’s down 20 lbs! I pointed out to him that he was down 40 lbs. a year and a half ago, then he put it all back on again.

Moral of the story? Never point this out to anyone!

Another said that this water machine cured acid reflux. “So will Rolaids, half the time.” Feeling remorse for being snotty I relented, and read the marketing materials. They are glossy and sophisticated, and cleverly gauged to suggest salutary results from simple biochemical experiments, without any outright claims.

For myself: I had to stop eating sugar.

I had a rolling series of symptoms over a two-year period, some putting me in the emergency room: headaches, sleeplessness, neck and back pain, ears ringing, numbness, heart racing, acid reflux, irritated stomach and intestines, trembling.

I was going through another attack when, on a whim, I typed all the symptoms into Google—and hit every “diabetes” website on the planet!

None of the modern doctors had said the word!

It turns out that I am what you call “pre-diabetic,” which used to be called “hypoglycemic/hyperglycemic.” Extra sugar is poison, to me.

Moral of the story? You can use Google as an expert medical system!

I found a quote from a doctor about a hundred years ago who called too much sugar “the disease that mimics all other diseases.” Believe it, if you’re 55!

On prehistoric diets: It is likely they ate very well and for the most part with wide variety. Wildlife ecosystems were highly productive. I remember reading an early 20th-century anthropological report of hunter-gatherers on a Pacific island—the men never worked, the women worked a few hours a day plucking food from the trees. Where I should have been born!

On what is really recommended now? A low calorie diet, lots of sleep and lots of exercise. If you can hold on for about twenty more years, ageing will be cured. After that, ageing will be reversed. There are some people alive now who will be alive for several hundred years. You will have the body of a teenager, and you will even like hiphop.