1) do you truely not have anything better to do than to start fights on the Internet?

2) who are you to say what works better for me?

3) do you ever provide any support for your attacks?

You're wrong. Humans have only been consuming grains for about 10,000 years.

(snip)

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/grains-and-human-evolution.html

The role of starchy plants in early hominin diets and when the culinary processing of starches began have been difficult to track archaeologically. Seed collecting is conventionally perceived to have been an irrelevant activity among the Pleistocene foragers of southern Africa, on the grounds of both technological difficulty in the processing of grains and the belief that roots, fruits, and nuts, not cereals, were the basis for subsistence for the past 100,000 years and further back in time. A large assemblage of starch granules has been retrieved from the surfaces of Middle Stone Age stone tools from Mozambique, showing that early Homo sapiens relied on grass seeds starting at least 105,000 years ago, including those of sorghum grasses.

She and her colleagues analyzed mortar and pestle-type stones that were found at three sites: Bilancino II in the Megello Valley of Italy, Kostenki 16 at Pokrovsky Valley, Russia; and Pavlov VI in southern Moravia, Czech Republic. Since modern humans as well as Neanderthals inhabited these regions, the researchers think it's possible that either or both groups had cooking know-how.

The food preparation tools were found to contain the remains of starch grains from various wild plants, including cattail rhizomes, cattail leaves, moonworts, the ternate grapefern, lady's mantle, burdock, lettuce roots, rye, burr chervil root, parts of edible grasses, edible seeds and more.

I won't spend much time on this, because it's a well accepted fact and not debated. The neolithic age began about 10,000 years ago. What seperated the paleolithic from the neolithic age? ...modern agriculture (primarily the milling of grains).

Humans have been around for about 250,000 years

So, as you can clearly see, we've only been consuming grains for about 1/25th of our existance. I don't believe that has given evolution enough time for us adapt to a diet high in grains. Compounding the fact is that we have consumed grains in the amounts we do today for only a couple of centuries.

Explain to me, how:

1) making it to the blood stream through the lining of the intestines is different than other nutrients

2) how it doesn't necessarily even make it to the liver even though it is passing into the blood supply of the intestines

Some sort of link to these studies, or mention of the ideas of these studies, would be much appreciated.

What effect does it have on gut flora?

Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Mar;71(3):682-92.

Plant-animal subsistence ratios and macronutrient energy estimations in worldwide hunter-gatherer diets.

Cordain L, Miller JB, Eaton SB, Mann N, Holt SH, Speth JD.


Source

Department of Health and Exercise Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA. cordain@cahs.colostate.edu


Abstract

Both anthropologists and nutritionists have long recognized that the diets of modern-day hunter-gatherers may represent a reference standard for modern human nutrition and a model for defense against certain diseases of affluence. Because the hunter-gatherer way of life is now probably extinct in its purely un-Westernized form, nutritionists and anthropologists must rely on indirect procedures to reconstruct the traditional diet of preagricultural humans. In this analysis, we incorporate the most recent ethnographic compilation of plant-to-animal economic subsistence patterns of hunter-gatherers to estimate likely dietary macronutrient intakes (% of energy) for environmentally diverse hunter-gatherer populations. Furthermore, we show how differences in the percentage of body fat in prey animals would alter protein intakes in hunter-gatherers and how a maximal protein ceiling influences the selection of other macronutrients. Our analysis showed that whenever and wherever it was ecologically possible, hunter-gatherers consumed high amounts (45-65% of energy) of animal food. Most (73%) of the worldwide hunter-gatherer societies derived >50% (> or =56-65% of energy) of their subsistence from animal foods, whereas only 14% of these societies derived >50% (> or =56-65% of energy) of their subsistence from gathered plant foods. This high reliance on animal-based foods coupled with the relatively low carbohydrate content of wild plant foods produces universally characteristic macronutrient consumption ratios in which protein is elevated (19-35% of energy) at the expense of carbohydrates (22-40% of energy).

Is this what you learned from all those student loans I've been paying for?

I will say, patrickh, while I don't really agree with a lot of the conclusions you've drawn, I do appreciate that you have at least done some significant research into these things, and for the most part use good sources.

All he is doing is cherry-picking the literature for sources that support his belief. That's not doing valid research.

Jay

Saturated fat, vitamin C and smoking predict long-term population all-cause mortality rates in the Seven Countries Study
Daan Kromhouta, Bennie Bloemberga, Edith Feskensa, Alessandro Menottia,b, Aulikki Nissinenc and for the Seven Countries Study Group
+ Author Affiliations

aDivision of Public Health Research, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
bDivision of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
cDepartment of Public Health and General Practice, University of Kuopio, Finland.
Reprint requests to: Prof. Daan Kromhout, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Division of Public Health Research, PO Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, The Netherlands. E-mail: daan.kromhout@RIVM.nl
Accepted August 23, 1999.
Abstract

Background The Seven Countries Study has shown that population mortality rates for various chronic diseases are related to diet and smoking. This paper addresses the associations between diet, smoking and 25-year all-cause mortality.

Methods Baseline surveys were carried out between 1958 and 1964 on 12 763 middle-aged men constituting 16 cohorts in seven countries. In 1987/88 equivalent food composites representing the average food intake of each cohort at baseline were collected and chemically analysed in one central laboratory. During 25 years of follow-up 5973 men died and age-adjusted population mortality rates were calculated for each cohort.

Results Multivariate linear regression analyses showed that the population intake of saturated fat and the prevalence of smoking were positively associated with population all-cause mortality rates. Population vitamin C intake was inversely associated with all-cause mortality. It was calculated that a reduction in saturated fat intake of 5% of energy, a 20 mg/d increase in vitamin C and a 10% decrease in the prevalence of smokers may decrease the 25-year all-cause population mortality rate by 12.4% (95% CI : 5.6, 19.4%) at an average population all-cause mortality rate of 45%.

Conclusion At the population level saturated fat, vitamin C and cigarette smoking are important determinants of all-cause mortality.

No its not, and like I said, even given the cherry picking he is drawing some far out conclusions not supported by the articles.

Dietary fats aren't the primary factor associated w/ CVD; hypercholesterolemia is. You are, as far as I understand, correct there.

You are, however, forgetting that there are other deadly problems that are directly related to diets high in saturated fats.

to start...

If you go back and look at the logic of what you are trying to demonstrate with the hypertension studies, you'll see your conclusions really are far out.

And you'll see I just posted (probably while you were posting) that I agree, most studies show there isn't a clear link between dietary saturated fat and CVD. But there are strong links between saturated fats and morbidity and mortality. And I posted up a paper too...

No its not, and like I said, even given the cherry picking he is drawing some far out conclusions not supported by the articles.

But, even given all that, its better than most pissing matches on here.

I've heard of the Intelligence Squared debates, but must admit I really know nothing about them.

That sounds like a really interesting way to score a debate.

What did you think of the US News & World Report ranking of diets?

The grains mentioned in your paper differ greatly from the strains of wheat and barely we consume today. I can't read the full text of your first article and the second mentions dates only 30,000 years back. The seeds from cattails are not the same as the genetically engineered wheat that makes up a great portion of our cereals today.

Do you have any evidence to suggest what proportions of early human diet came from grain? The problem is that different cultures differ greatly in what is eaten even to this day. What people ate during the paleolithic era was based on calorie density and ease of access. I highly doubt that in most areas it was easy to gather a bunch a grains, grind them up, etc. than it was to slaughter one grazing animal that likely provided many more calories.

Posting a recipe for lecso, and this happens a few days later. Awesome. "Hungarian food is hot." has a new meaning.