Correct Interpretation of Evolution and Raw Eating

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

 

As some of you may be familiar with, there have been conflicts between

the " evolutionary " ideal diet, and the Raw-food diet. Essentially,

the raw food diet says we should eat raw fruits and veggies and a few

other things like nuts, and that's it. And we all know here how

healthy that makes us. But the most popular evolutionary

interpretation of man's ideal diet usually comes in the form of the

" Paleolithic " diet, where eating cooked meat is a significant part of

our diet along with cooked root veggies and such. I have discovered

the problem with this interpretation, and found a solution for the

raw-food diet which agrees with evolution. Maybe some of you already

have the correct interpretation, but for me this is new.

 

Some raw foodists have been so uncomfortable with evolutionary

interpretations of our diet that they have been led to reject

evolution in total, which I feel is a shame. The theory of evolution,

like all other scientific theories, is benign. Scientific theories

are not simply thought up by some person who thinks a lot and " wants "

to shake up the status quo. Scientific theories are simply

frameworks, for understanding a collection of observed facts,

principles, and predictions. No more and no less. Scientists

generally aren't stupid or have hidden agendas, and most are genuinely

interested in the truth.

 

So, the usual " evolutionary " argument begins with: " if you consider

our ancestors 50 to 100 thousand years ago, and given that our genes

change so slowly that we actually are still living with the genes of

those ancestors, we should eat a diet similar to what those ancestors

ate, because this must be what is natural. And archaeological

evidence does indeed show that we were eating cooked meat and cooked

root veggies and things like that. "

When the average person is presented with such an argument, well how

can they disagree? I mean some person is bringing up genes,

archeology, 100,000 years,...how can you argue with that? Most people

don't know the first thing about genes and archeology, and so an

unfortunate but common response is to reject evolutionary science

altogether because it doesn't agree with..., raw food for example.

 

So here is the problem: why does the person arguing the

" evolutionarily natural " diet pick 50 to 100 thousand years? I think

it is simply an honest mistake. Though the arguer means well and has

good intentions, he/she might subconsciously choose such a time frame

because it justifies the eating of meat and cooked foods.

 

And so here is the correct evolutionary interpretation: what type of

digestive system do we have? I'm talking big picture here.

 

We have a digestive system of the animal kingdom. Seriously, the

entire animal kingdom - reptiles, birds, mammals, insects (are they in

the animal kingdom?), etc - have a digestive system which takes food

in by the mouth and expels waste out the other end. This digestive

system is common to all species within the kingdom, with of course

species-level peculiarities - but thats okay, it's still the same

basic design. This system has been with us for 100's of million of

years!!!!! The genetics that make up and run this system are so

fundamental to being " animal " , it simply must be an almost static

feature of our genetic profile. So, choosing the 50 to 100 thousand

year time frame simply misses out on the bigger picture which is

ultimately much more informative.

 

How does this " bigger picture " understanding of evolution and our

digestive system help us understand raw food?

It is a digestive system which EXPECTS RAW FOOD. Our human digestive

system, fundamentally similar and in some ways identical to all other

animal digestive systems, simply expects raw food. Cooked food simply

wasn't part of the 100's of millions of years of existence of the

animal digestive system.

Now, some non-critical thinkers might say " well that may be true, but

we know today that cooked food is better for you " . Well, all of us

here think more critically about our food than that. I am sure we can

all agree that for some reason, cooking our food changes its quality

in some fundamental way and our digestive system simple isn't prepared

for it.

And, of course, we can use our modern knowledge and research (which is

actually simply re-found lost knowledge of the past) to show that for

our particular species, raw fruits and veggies are the foods most

suited to us.

 

I came to this realization after thinking about someone's post in

which he said " it all comes down to fiber and getting enough fiber in

the diet " . At first I thought that couldn't be it but I pursued the

idea. Then it made sense: it all comes down to denatured vs. natural

food. Can we say that cooking changes the nature of the food, i.e.

denatures it? Yes I think we can all say that, even the non-raw

foodist. Can we say that there is a possibility that denatured food

isn't recognized by our 100 million year old digestive system, which

is expecting raw natural food be put into it? I think we can at least

give that a possibility. Do we have modern research (for those who

need it) that indeed eating cooked food causes health problems? Of

course, we have lots of that (though, the majority of our population

is not at all familiar with it - I remember being asked for scientific

references when I told someone that milk (or was it coffee) wasn't

very good for them, ooohh that bugged me!).

 

So it simply comes down to: our digestive system wants raw food, and

when we don't get it we eventually or quickly get health problems.

This completely agrees with evolutionary theory and genetics, and is

simply a superior interpretation than when limiting it to the 100,000

year time frame.

 

So, next time someone tries the evolution argument of 100,000 years on

you, kindly educate them that they are missing out on 100's of

MILLIONS of years of evolution, in which our digestive system has been

forged expecting raw food. And we all here certainly have the

knowledge of WHICH types of raw food are best for us.

 

I've used the 100,000 year cave-man argument myself, even here! But

no one has ever presented this new interpretation to me, so I thought

I would share it.

 

Cheers

 

Joe