Well, I read "The China Study," which showed a pretty convincing epidemiological link between dairy and meat and a wide variety of diseases. I'm not saying that it's impossible to eat a diet with lots of animal products that's will minimize risk of heart disease/cancer/autoimmune disease, but I haven't seen any scientific evidence that shows a "healthy" meat-based diet can compete with the benefits of a vegetarian diet. Of course, I'm not really aware of any studies where the long-term health effects of a meat/seafood/fruits/veggies diet with no processed carbs and no dairy (which I would assume would be pretty close to "the ancestral diet") is examined. It would be pretty interesting to see the results of that study.

I don't think there is any "optimal" diet, and I think that's part of why diet is so controversial. Different diets suit different people with different preferences. So yes, it goes without saying that some "optimal" diets include meat, but it also goes without saying that some don't.

I believe that a responsible vegetarian diet can suit any set of needs, albeit not always optimally.

Going back to the OP, why does what our ancestors ate mean anything to what kind of diet is the healthiest?

Just because we are adapted to be able to handle something doesn't mean that it is good for us...

I mean, we have thick bone in our forheads in order to withstand impacts to the front of our skulls, does this mean it would be healthy to hit yourself in the face with a rock?

I'm certainly not saying that the "ancestral" diet would be the healthiest. If I believed that, then that's the sort of diet I would be eating, rather than being a vegetarian, since almost certainly our ancestor's diet includes some insects, seafood, and/or meat.

So does anyone follow the strict "insect" diet? I reckon we are on to something here, move over atkins...

Probably not. But in some cultures in Africa, when a plague of locusts come, there's a feast and a celebration.

That's actually a rather brilliant consideration, kudos. If we had data material we could make maybe control for deaths somehow.

I hate it when we lack data.

Well, it depends. Even though infants in many societies went through "the crucible," risk of disease would have been higher at all ages. It wasn't a simple matter of "either you die in infancy, or you live to a ripe old age." I mean, even into the early 20th century, old people constantly died of smallpox, typhoid fever, pneumonia, you name it. I'm sure a much greater quantity of 40-year-olds in the past would have been suffering from various awful diseases that we've now more or less eliminated (at least in the developed world).

Of course, there's something to it. I mean, if we extend life expectancy to 300, there will probably be many 90-year-olds in extremely poor health, obese, etc. Nowadays most nonagenarians are relatively active and have relatively good nutrition, so in that sense they are probably "healthier" than future nonagenarians will be. At the same time, as medicine advances, common problems like osteoporosis and dementia will probably be eliminated or will at least be much more treatable, so in that sense we'll find longer-lived people to be healthier and healthier.

I think a major thing to consider is that while poor health in the modern world is largely a matter of lifestyle, poor health in the past was probably more a matter of bad luck/genetics.

Oh yeah, here's a great breakdown of Roman life expectancy. As you can see, it's lower than ours across the board.

I don't think anything past the first development of agriculture is considered an ancestral diet.

interesting that it doesn't show most people only living to 40 or 50, as was claimed earlier in this thread.

It shows most people who make it to adulthood living to 40's or 50's. Which is exactly what was claimed.

no no it was said that the old people were in their 40's or 50's (roman senate). the chart (which let's face it probably isn't that accurate) says that 10% of the population was between 50-60, and 10% of the population was over 60.

based on the chart do you still think most of the roman senators, the old powerful people, were in their late 40s to early 50s?

Mean life expectancy for a 20-year-old was 54. The senators are irrelevant.

There is a huge genetic component to health. How you can say with any confidence that poor health in modern society is largely due to lifestyle?

Apparently 76% of chess grandmasters eat chocolate while they play.

1 in 133 people have Celiac disease. 1 in 20,000 people actually reach diagnosis. It's such a rough disease because it causes a host of random symptoms ranging from autoimmune diseases, gastrointestinal problems, diabetes, thyroid and liver destruction, sterility, and a very long list. The difference in symptoms is what causes Celiac to be one of the most misdiagnosed diseases out there. Doctors end up treating the symptoms the vast majority of the time, without realizing what the culprit is. There are actually a couple studies proving that up to 30% of all people with autoimmune diseases have Celiac.

It is caused by an autoimmune reaction and destruction of the intestinal villi by gluten, a compound found in wheats/oats/barley/rye.

I'm one of these people, so **** you guys who think whole grains are healthy.

Mayo:

I'm sure many of you aren't aware of this but milk contains an opiod protein known as casomorphin.

* β-Casomorphin 1-3
* Bovine β-casomorphin 1-4
* Bovine β-casomorphin 1-4, amide
* Bovine β-casomorphin 5
* Bovine β-casomorphin 7
* Bovine β-casomorphin 8

These casomorphines actually act as opiates as they enter the bloodstream leading to the addictive qualities of dairy. Have you ever tried to stop eating dairy for several days?

While not as addictive as nicotine, it's pretty damn difficult to do.

Pubmed:

Any one who has read "The China Study" may be interested in reading the following:

http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/...-anat-8e.shtml



http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html

The following table was part of the original monograph of the actual study, but not included in the book.


T. Colin Campbell's response to that criticism can be found here:
http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/c...a_response.htm



Follow up response to T. Colin Campbell:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.co...asterjohn.html

The excerpts provided don't stand alone that well. You should read the whole thing.

Because things like exercise, nutrition, and habits like smoking correlate pretty strongly with life expectancy. But yeah, I didn't mean to imply that genetics are less of a factor, that was terrible wording. I meant that we can do more now to counter the impact of bad genes, while in the past bad genes were a death sentence.

I gave up dairy and it wasn't that difficult. I can remember having some minor milk cravings, while in close proximity to milk, but that's about it.