The human body wasn't meant to eat . . .

[Felch]

I've seen this a lot. Magazine articles, friends talking about new diets, and whatnot are full of it.

"The human body isn't meant to eat gluten."

"Humans weren't designed to drink milk."

"Our bodies were never intended to eat processed foods."

Am I right to be irritated by these arguments? They seem really silly.

First of all, it begs the question that the human body was ever "meant" "designed" or "intended" to eat or drink anything. We're omnivores, we've evolved to eat just about whatever we can get a hold of. Whether we were "designed" by an intelligent being to eat something or not eat something else is really beyond science at this point. We're not even like baleen whales, which evolved to sift the seas of krill, or whatever the hell they eat. As long as we can extract nutrients from something, that's what we've evolved to eat.

Also, we humans aren't necessarily responsible for our own digestion. Bacteria in the gut outnumber us in terms of cells, and have a substantial and poorly understood role in digestion. People who have trouble with certain sugars or proteins are possibly just missing a symbiont that other people have in abundance. Maybe the reason you're lactose or gluten intolerant is because you never drank milk, or you went on Atkins. By starving those bacteria of their food, you've diminished their numbers, and now they're not around to help you digest those nutrients.

The processed food argument just bugs me because it's all about that nostalgic view of old-fashioned diets. Before food was processed and preserved chemically, people had an unfortunate tendency to either starve outright, or suffer from vitamin deficient diets. The problem with today's food might be that it's processed and full of preservatives, but it's more likely a problem with modern diets favoring junk over nutritious fruits and vegetables. If you process corn or sugar beets to get all the fructose or sucrose out, that's going to lead to a rotten diet. If you process broccoli and bananas into some sort of vile paste, and toss in some commonly used preservatives to keep it from spoiling, that's probably going to be just fine for you.

So, am I an ass who's totally wrong, or are magazines writers and my dieting friends just a bunch of trendy neo-luddite ****wits?

[loinburger]

I read in a National Geographic awhile back that the claim that only processed sugar causes cavities is falsified by the fact that about a third of all exhumed mummies show evidence of life-threatening dental abscesses.

[Japher]

The only thing humans were meant to do was to evolve. We could not feed the masses of the world if it were not for processed food, ag technology advancements, and intricate distribution systems. Additionally, we would not have the numbers we have were it not for medical advancements, which some people will claim causes downs syndrome, ADHD, and other mental diseases. Still, for any report to claim they know what we or even I was meant for is absurdly absurd and assumingly assuming.

[Felch]

Most of the bodies they dig up from ancient agricultural societies are riddled with health problems.

One of the most common health problems archeologists have found is called "Being dead for thousands of years." Other, less common health problems are diet related. Monoculture diets are apparently bad for you.

[BeBMan]

If man was designed to post on the internet you'd think he'd be given much more fingers to type, that's for sure. Maybe also some additional arm or hand here and there.

[Japher]

what do you mean here or there? the optimal place would be right in the middle of your chest!

[BeBMan]

what do you mean here or there? the optimal place would be right in the middle of your chest!

What? Just imagine they play the national anthem and you're supposed to lay the hand on your chest. If there's already a hand or somesuch, how can they be sure you're being honest?

[Japher]

That's true, but a face palm would be so much easier

[BeBMan]

That's a good point. I'll rethink my design ideas to work this in

[Provost Harrison]

Providing we have lactase secreted into our digestive tract, we can quite happily digest and absorb dairy products. In it's absence, then no (excluding any predigestion).

Gluten, similar. Providing you don't have an immune response to the partially digested protein, you can break it down and absorb it quite happily.

Personally, my digestive tract works just fine and secretes all the enzymes it needs to secrete, and my immune system doesn't go ape**** at the silliest of things. So I can eat what I like and I don't appreciate some jumped up dietician telling me what I can and can't eat. Try and have a balanced diet - and that does include fat too! And follow one simple rule...if what you eat is greater than what you burn off, you'll put on weight. And vice versa. So if you eat a lot and aren't prepared to give that up (like me), exercise more. I managed to lose over 30kg with barely changing my diet - I just made sure I exercised plenty.

[Provost Harrison]

And speaking of dieticians...that Gillian McKeith woman...what a f**ked up, poo-poking sourfaced b*tch!

[Dauphin]

You are what you eat.

McKeith ate a talking turd.

[DanS]

Human beings are omnivores -- meant to eat everything. If the food doesn't kill us or make us sick, it's OK to eat.

[Dauphin]

Plus McKeith's lining up of food of the week looks like the Iceland adverts with Kerry Katona.

[Drake Tungsten]

The British are proof positive that human beings can survive and even thrive on the vilest of food sources.