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Fantastic_Beans t1_ir4jplc wrote

Reply to comment by Evergreen_76 in Study: Shifting to Plant-Based Diet Important for Colorectal Cancer Prevention by BoundariesAreFun

Meat for our ancient ancestors was a treat, not a staple. Nuts, grains, roots and tubers, and carbs.

https://www.calacademy.org/explore-science/early-human-diets#:~:text=Prior%20to%20about%203.5%20million,modern%2Dday%20gorillas%20and%20chimpanzees.

"Prior to about 3.5 million years ago, early humans dined almost exclusively on leaves and fruits from trees, shrubs, and herbs—similar to modern-day gorillas and chimpanzees."

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JohnCavil t1_ir4qh9q wrote

My ancestors were inuit, i'm pretty sure they ate a lot of meat and not many fruits.

People can keep going back further nd further until they can say all our ancestors ate grass because some ancient mammal did so. Modern humans did not exist prior to 3.5 million years ago so who cares what some ancient ape ate. I dont really care what species other than homo sapiens eat.

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Fantastic_Beans t1_ir4wges wrote

You're not who I was replying to, but sure. Inuits were a special case because they ate almost every part of the animal to gain nutrients. This includes parts that the average person today would balk at. They certainly didn't eat the prime cuts for every meal.

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Talenduic t1_ir4z2h7 wrote

*the average north American, in Western Europe it was a bit of the opposite we had to learn to stop eating too much offals

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JohnCavil t1_ir589x7 wrote

Again i think when you say things like "the average person today would balk at" you're assuming that average is some american/english person.

Even here in northern europe one of the most common foods for lunch is liver. As in pretty much everyone, from 4 year olds to 90 year olds consume it. It's probably a top 3 common food for lunch. Not to mention China where all kinds of weird parts and organs of the animal are regularly eaten. Africa too.

My point is and was just that when people discuss these sorts of things, they almost only do it from a western, but even more so an American perspective.

What did ancient humans eat? Some ate mostly fish. Some mostly fruits, berries and grains. Some mostly meat. Some a lot of roots and potatoes. Some ate a mix of everything. The inclination to say "oh well red meat is bad" or "well grains are bad" or "no meat is bad" because some group of humans 120,000 ago didnt eat x or y, completely ignores the fact that humans ate what was available, not what was healthy. You can't conclude anything based on ancient diets.

If you lived by the sea you ate fish. if you lived in a rainforest you ate fruits, if you lived on the steppes you ate meat. This has nothing to do with health. I know you weren't claiming that, but i think even discussing what the "average" person ate is completely irrelevant.

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Fantastic_Beans t1_ir5m84c wrote

I never said meat was bad. I said eating meat at every meal was bad. Everything in moderation. By the way, the near all meat diet of the Inuit people does take a toll on the body. Here's a few interesting links.

http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.1814937!/httpFile/file.pdf "Inuit have a similar prevalence of CAD (coronary artery disease) as non-Inuit populations, they have excessive mortality due to cerebrovascular strokes, their overall mortality is twice as high as that of non-Inuit populations, and their life expectancy is approximately 10 years shorter than the Danish population."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23489753

"Young Eskimo adults (20 to 39 years) of both sexes were similar to whites, but after age 40 the Eskimos of both sexes had a deficit of from 10 to 15% relative to white standards." (Note that the word "Eskimo" is used here because this article was written in 1974, before the word was ultimately replaced) https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-abstract/27/9/916/4911797?redirectedFrom=PDF

Due to their habit of eating raw meat, up to 12% over the age of 60 had trichinella. But eating raw meat was crucial to the Inuit, because their main source of vitamin C was raw seal and whale blubber. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20144253/

So maybe the Inuit diet isn't the best example. It worked, sure, but I wouldn't write home about how healthy it was.

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Mindless-Day2007 t1_ir65e48 wrote

High Cvd in Inuit can be because they lived in hut and expose with fire smoke, cold weather (yes, cold weather relate with cvd), lack of exercise in winter and also Inuit has high smokers.

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Fantastic_Beans t1_ir674ru wrote

Were they living in huts in the 1970s? If it was caused by cold weather, then the non-Inuit people of the same region would be experiencing it to, thus evening out the numbers. But that wasn't the case.

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Mindless-Day2007 t1_ir6n6ib wrote

Some of them still living in huts right now, 70s? Plenty.

Non Inuit may not living in the huts and inhaled smokes or heavily smokers like Inuit. Again, there is plenty of reasons to get CVD, not only meat, or even worse is meat cause no cvd or little trouble but was being blamed for majority of cvd.

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Fantastic_Beans t1_ir6o4z7 wrote

High cholesterol diets have time and time again been linked to heart disease, so I think I'd been hard pressed to believe that a culture that lives almost exclusively off of meat and fats isn't victim to heart disease because of their diet. Smoke may play a part, but the diet certainly doesn't help.

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Mindless-Day2007 t1_ir7ms7u wrote

And also dietary cholesterol has found no to little effect on body cholesterol. While smoking, smoke exposure, cold weathers, stress affect cholesterol. Therefore Inuit diet has little to do with CVD, or even if it does, insignificant part of it.

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Fantastic_Beans t1_ir7ui24 wrote

I don't know where you are getting that information from but

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-and-cholesterol/cholesterol/#:~:text=The%20biggest%20influence%20on%20blood,cholesterol%20you%20eat%20from%20food.

"The biggest influence on blood cholesterol level is the mix of fats and carbohydrates in your diet—not the amount of cholesterol you eat from food."

The main contributor to a high cholesterol level is a high fat, low fiber diet . There are different types of fat, some good, some bad. The very worst of the worst are trans fats and saturated fats. Saturated fats are found almost exclusively in animal products, with the odd exception of coconut.

Inuits ate/eat a high fat, low fiber diet almost exclusively. That diet is loaded with saturated fat. While other environmental factors might also elevate the risk of cardiac disease, what they put in their bodies is inarguably the biggest factor.

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Mindless-Day2007 t1_ir82jde wrote

Also > Although it remains important to limit the amount of cholesterol you eat, especially if you have diabetes, for most people dietary cholesterol is not as problematic as once believed.

> The discovery half a century ago that high blood cholesterol levels were strongly associated with an increased risk for heart disease triggered numerous warnings to avoid foods that contain cholesterol, especially eggs and liver. However, scientific studies show a weak relationship between the amount of cholesterol a person consumes and his or her blood cholesterol levels

> For most people, the amount of cholesterol eaten has only a modest impact on the amount of cholesterol circulating in the blood. (24) For some people, though, blood cholesterol levels rise and fall very strongly in relation to the amount of cholesterol eaten. For these “responders,” avoiding cholesterol-rich foods can have a substantial effect on blood cholesterol levels. Unfortunately, at this point there is no way other than by trial and error to identify responders from non-responders to dietary cholesterol.

Also Inuit diet is high in Inuit's wild-caught game are largely monounsaturated and rich in omega-3 fatty acids, aka good fats, yet they still have higher cvd, because mostly they eating raw which higher carbohydrates than regular Western diet.

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Fantastic_Beans t1_ir8p4gw wrote

Yes. Cholesterol in food has a mild affect on cholesterol blood levels. However, fat and carbohydrates have a massive effect on blood cholesterol levels. Saturated fats in particular.

Inuit people include raw blubber in their diet; it's their main source of vitamin C. Blubber is mostly fat. Saturated fat.

I don't think I should have to explain this any further. Since you don't seem to understand and your grip on nutritional science is lacking, I won't be responding any further to you. Feel free to research the topic on your own, but I'm not being paid to tutor.

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soztech t1_ir54obl wrote

You can't even compare the physiologie of 3.5 mil years ago with the one we now have...

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Haptoh t1_ir6gzgg wrote

Yeah humans 3.5 millions ago ate vegetarian diet. Except modern humans have been around for 300 thousand years.

Humans 2 billion years ago ate bacteria, maybe you should eat them too.

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