[curryst]

> Historically, we've always consumed all these things. Meat, seafood, vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, seeds, human lineage ate all of this for a very long time. Why would any of it be bad for us?

Because evolution trends toward living long enough to reproduce. People often die of heart disease once they're old enough they weren't having kids (although exceptions certainly exist).

Evolution doesn't give a fuck if fruit suddenly becomes poisonous to you on the day you turn 65. Youve passed on your genes, your survival is now irrelevant.

So the things that will help us live a long time are not driven by evolution. "We've always eaten it" is a terrible argument because it should be followed by "but the average lifespan was like 40 up until a few decades ago".

[wtetzner]

> Because evolution trends toward living long enough to reproduce.

I'm not sure it's that simple. Given that humans tended to live in tribes, it was in the tribe's best interest if people were healthy and vital beyond reproduction, for hunting, protection, care of young, passing on wisdom, etc.

> People often die of heart disease once they're old enough they weren't having kids (although exceptions certainly exist).

There are cultures where heart disease is nearly unheard of. So I don't think this explanation is very satisfying.

[didibus]

You're right, the evolutionary argument is just one dimension.

I don't think it's irrelevant, because logically we should have evolved to process what we eat so it doesn't kill us. But evolution could have settled on a compromise between availability to the food and some "good enough" health and lifespan like you say, live at least 40 years, healthy enough to have and raise offsprings.

It just seems a good starting point to start refining from.

I've alluded to other dimensions, like how it seems plant and seafood heavy diets correlate to longer healthier lifes and meat heavy ones don't. But I also wanted to point at the uncertainty exactly in those. We don't really have data of people on very good meat quality diets versus your typical large scale meat production. So it can be premeditated to just blame meat.

Similarly more modern forms of vegetable based byproducts also have studies showing correlation with inflammation and other issues. And again I think it be premeditated to just blame vegetables.

In the end, when I consider multiple dimensions that I've read about, the diet most consistently appearing "healthier" in the average is what I said. A varied source of nutritions from different foods, all of high quality, with no excess in any one of them over the others, with overall eating less of it all, with minimal processed food consumption. For which I was just showing that even the evolutionary dimension corroborates.

Another way to look at it, we don't know enough about any single food and their risk, so a diversified portfolio is the best strategy to mitigate the risks, similar to financial investments.