[aprao]

I don't know if the diet is healthy or not - I am just stating that the culture itself does not place an emphasis on protein to the extent that snakes or insects become a viable source of food, but still results in healthy lifespans of 90-100 years (anecdotal of course) which is a desirable outcome for me personally. You could say that adding snake meat to my diet will increase my lifespan by 20 years and that would still seem like an outrageous choice for me to make.

[spprashant]

Indian diet is diverse and emphasizes moderate consumption, resulting in some good health outcomes overall.

However, the lack of protein is still a major concern. Indian's have "skinny fat" bodies with low musculature. This puts them at risk for cardiovascular diseases. This does, in some part, contribute to low life expectancy in India.

The study you posted in the other thread shows better health outcomes for Asian Indians in the US. But it also mentions Asian Indians have higher socio-economic status, better education and higher per-capita incomes. The same is the case with other Asian demographics. It is not the least bit surprising that they have higher life expectancy, irrespective of diet.

I would argue adding more protein (doesn't have to be animal protein) would result in even better outcomes for Indians everywhere.

[aprao]

I will definitely agree that adding more protein would improve health outcomes for indians - all I really wanted to point out is that a reduced intake of protein does not lead to a drastic decrease in lifespan (other effects dominate that). So there isn't an inherent feeling of anxiety in people who are used to that diet to consume protein at all costs and thus start to consider snakes as an acceptable form of food.

[inexcf]

I mean, there's many factors to live expectancy but don't you find it strange to praise the cultural diet of a country that is at the bottom of the life expectancy chart? And looking at just longevity of individuals most centenarians are from countries with mostly animal protein based diets like Japan and the USA.(Their percentage of centenarians per capita being 100x higher.) Now, this might just be a correlation based on wealthier countries consuming more readily available meat. So i'm not gonna say that protein is a significant factor for health. But it's pretty clear that there's not data supporting the indian diet being healthier.

[aprao]

It's probably not correct to attribute all differences in life expectancy between India and USA to diet alone - factors like air quality are so much worse in India and play a significant role in reducing life expectancy as well. What makes more sense is to compare the life expectancy of Americans who tend to follow an Indian diet vs. those who don't. Asian Indian Americans have a life expectancy of 86-89 years [1], higher than of the US as a whole and even other asian sub groups. So the relative lack of importance attributed to protein is perhaps not as big a deal as people make it out to be.

1: https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/58/5/1631/178...