In a message dated 5/15/99 17:19:10, EvMick wrote:
>Some months ago I made a post concerning the Atkins diet...(hi protein...low
>carbohydrate)...it was met with considerable derision.
>What I've gleaned from all of this is summarized in the Eades book.
>
> Briefly he says that for ten thousand generations man was a meat eater who
>supplimented his diet with ocassional veggies...(Hunter Gatherer)...then the
>agricultural revolution occured and our nutritional problems began.
It's statements like this that make me regard hi-protein diet advocates with such derision. (the authors, not you)
Hunter-gathers do not normally eat mostly meat diets. Hunter-gatherer groups
from tropical and warm temperate regions (our only habitats up to the Upper
Paleolithic Revolution) eat predominantly vegetable diets with meat rarely
comprising more than 30% of the diet.
(source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution)
Although hi-meat diets of groups like eskimos and pastoralists demonstrate
humans can tolerate hi-meat diets, it certainly isn't our evolutionary
heritage.
The dieats hunter-gathers actually eat rather resemble the AHA recommendations - moderate fat, moderate meats, plenty of fruits and vegetables, much fat polyunsatured.
Incidentally, a prior "meat diet" fad in the thirties bit the dust when the practicioners started showing up with high rates of heart disease. I can't claim to have actually hunted down the refs for this as the UC Irvine library basically only goes back to the fifties.
Low carb diets was the standard for diabetes for many years. That shifted more recently - in the 60's, I think, when it was shown that the low carb diet exacerbated diabetic heart disease problems. The recommended diet for diabetes now is high complex carbohydrates with careful control of timing and portions.