[_yb2s]

I strongly disagree- I have a related academic background and have read the nutrition literature extensively myself, attend nutrition conferences, etc. and don’t agree there is convincing evidence for what you are saying. This narrative is just one of the cherry picked diet fads.

Moreover, saying the history of human diets gives us no information is just incorrect. It’s not the final word on nutrition, but it is the obvious Bayesian prior. When you raise any animal in a zoo, or culture a microbe in a lab the first thing you do is mimic its natural environment as well as you can, at least until you understand more.

Personally- I am much more interested in quality of life aka things like “reproductive success” than lifespan in my own health, but I am also skeptical that they are at odds. I am an active person and enjoy being physically strong, high energy, etc.

[hombre_fatal]

Well, the prior is that our ancestors had to survive on what was available, not live optimally healthy lives even during their reproductive years.

At the end you imply that your preferred diet (presumably high saturated fat, low carb, low fiber) makes you stronger and gives you more energy than the alternatives. But that's not the trade-off nor implication that can be drawn from our ancestors eating what was available to them for survival. We can do better in 2024 than use narratives about the past to dictate how we eat today.

You should listen to this debate between Matthew Nagra and Anthony Chaffee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FFV0w55k2I -- You will find yourself making the same points as Chaffee, but go see if you are as equally stumped by the evidence that Nagra provides.

[throwup238]

> Well, the prior is that our ancestors had to survive on what was available, not live optimally healthy lives even during their reproductive years.

That's true but our ancestors weren't some poor apes constantly on the verge of starvation scrounging for any kind of food they can find. If contemporary tribes are any indication, in the tropics food was very plentiful and their diet was diverse, long before they started domesticating animals and cultivating plants. These ecosystems support hunter gatherer tribes to this day, the last few remaining holdouts from agriculture and pastoralism. That allowed archaic humans to spread as far east as Indonesia more than a million years before they made it north of the Mediterranean.

[_yb2s]

Life also had to survive with oxygen poisoning… but we’ve been adapting to it for a while and we are pretty dependent on it at this point.

I don’t follow any diet fads or protocols, and don’t do lc/hf as you are implying, other than avoiding processed food in favor of actual plants and animals. However, I am a competitive strength athlete, and do keep protein high when preparing for a competition- because I can directly measure the positive results in my performance. Carbs and fiber seem to be just as important- even sugar e.g. from fruit is a great fuel for replenishment of glycogen and reducing stress from intense exercise. I have friends that are masters strength athletes in their 70s and 80s and they have incredible quality of life for their age, simply because they are still strong and active.

I’ll take a look at the video, sounds interesting.