[chubot]

Natural doesn't necessarily mean anything, but time-tested does.

It's too long to explain here, but people who have read both Michael Pollan and Taleb probably understand what I mean.

Nutrition isn't a science on solid ground, and food isn't a linear combination of its nutrients.

It's true that "natural" beef might be raised in ways that aren't time-tested (in fact it's very likely given modern farming). But something like Impossible Burger is also guaranteed not to be time-tested. That isn't to say I wouldn't try it, but it's definitely an important difference.

[saagarjha]

> Natural doesn't necessarily mean anything, but time-tested does.

Being “time-tested” helps, but it’s not necessarily the only thing to keep in mind. Consider that lead was “time-tested” for thousands of years.

[chubot]

I don't really know the history of lead, but I suspect it illustrates the point.

There are no traditional foods with lead in them, because people who ate lead would have died, ensuring that the custom didn't survive.

However lead paint was a relatively new thing. People didn't have painted walls for thousands of years. It was used for awhile (not sure how long), and then the test of time figured out that it was poisonous.

Is there some history you know of where the test of time didn't work? It's almost tautological to be honest. (And tautological does not mean "untrue" :) )

Lead might have been "bad" by modern standards in the past, but there were also hundreds of other things that were worse for mortality, so maybe lead use in certain applications just got noticed in the last century or so.

[X6S1x6Okd1st]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition

[chubot]

A link isn't an argument... but briefly, an appeal to tradition can be right or wrong. In this case it's closer to right, because human biochemistry hasn't changed nearly as much as the Western diet has.

Diets were completely changed in the last 70 years -- how much evolution do you think happened in that time?