Does the human body really need such healthy food?

[miniwh]

As in, 5+ a day veg/some fruits etc

For thousands of years humans weren't able to access that type of varied and balanced diet

You could say we need to move with the times but other mammals are in good health by eating what's always been available to them and nothing else

So surely our bodies are designed for fairly restricted and limited diets?

I spoke to a woman this past year, a qualified nutritionist and dietician, and her big point was that in supermarkets, the place we go to buy food, only about 10% of what is sold would be recognised by our great-grandparents as food. Only those items should really be called food by us.

The other 90% of what they sell is "nutritionally void ultra-processed edible substances". Aka UPFs. Aka the stuff that'll kill you.

Once a person realises this and aims to consume (as a large majority of their diet) "food" rather than the other stuff, then their health markers and life expectancy increase massively.

But it's a long road to get there... Mostly we just buy the cheapest stuff in the supermarket that our kids like, etc, and then wonder why obesity and all the other diseases are through the roof.

So that's the main advantage that those olden-days people had - whatever scarcity and hardships they faced, (which of course I do realise were enormous), at least they were eating real food! :)

The research points to nearer 20 portions a day now but 5 a day was seen as intimidating so I doubt we’ll have that campaign out there any time soon. We aren’t designed for anything, we evolve as the surviving humans pass on beneficial genes. That’s not really design.

20 portions of fruit and veg a day?

ain't no one got time for that nonsense.

What would be the aim with 20 portions a day?

I’ve done it for a week or two, it wasn’t actually that hard, but I’m too lazy to keep it up. I should do it again as I felt bloody amazing.

The same as the science for 5 a day?

I thought that in hunter gatherer days we ate a much wider variety of food. Have you read Sapiens? It's interesting

Turds of truly epic proportions.

Self selecting sample - in many countries, you're seeing the results of a woman strong and healthy enough to survive childbirth, so on top of the protective effects of female hormones (which is what women from wealthier companies benefit from), you've already purged the sample set of the ones less likely to survive blood loss from injuries or infections or were too malnourished to live much longer than the childbearing years.

Nuns, however, live a very long time on the whole. Partly lack of childbirth, partly less chance of being victims of male violence in the home, less chance of HIV and often a healthier lifestyle in terms of diet, not smoking or drinking and no drugs.

Well men tend to die of stupidity. Won’t look after their health. Won’t go to the doctor.

What do you mean? The human body evolved to eat an unprocessed organic heavily plant-based diet. 5-a-day is just attempting to restore that now we have processed food.

Came here to say exactly this

I'd love to see one of your daily meal plans?

I am interested in food and try to be reasonably healthy but for example, is a cheese and onion egg quiche (not home made) processed crap?

Favourite post of the day!

Yes. If you don’t know what all the things in the ingredients list are it’s processed to hell.

If you tend to eat heathy, difference is significant when you eat crap. Also the difference in cause of death and life expectancy in different countries makes it clear that diet is quite important if you want to live long and healthy.

Depends on the ingredients. What you need to look for is how many ingredients there are (not too many), and whether you've heard of all the ingredients (i.e. are they things you might have in your kitchen at home).

Lots of food that are heavily marketed as "natural", "no additives", "no added sugar", "bio...." etc. with wholesome looking labels are actually heavily processed, full of crap, fillers and sweeteners.

Yep. At least in the UK through a lot of history if you made 30 you had a good chance of making 50.

I think there are two things to keep in mind OP - that the only thing that anyone seems to agree on is that an ultra processed diet is bad and fruit and veg are good, and secondly yes you will do OK on a crappy diet when you are young because you are young, but if you don’t want to be sick in old age you will need to step it up.

I think it's more to do with the amount of processed food we have

I made a Thai green curry yesterday and was shocked to discover there were E numbers in the coconut milk I used. Processed junk is everywhere and hidden in plain sight

I don’t think all humans are designed to eat mostly plant based. In the arctic circle some communities used to mainly eat whale blubber, and were very healthy for it.

Some do better with that, others don’t.

I’ve read interesting research into carnivore diets, mainly in relation to digestive issues, connective tissue disorders and auto immune conditions, and early results look very promising. There’s also evidence that for some people too many veg can prolong digestive issues and constipation. From what I’ve read there a few drs who now recommend that some of their patients try 6 months of carnivore (basically beef, butter and eggs) to improve their symptoms that are escalating and becoming difficult to manage.

@Ohpaella

Did you not.. take a while to adjust?!

In a Victorian novel I’ve just re-read (set 1860s ish) there’s a mention of three pounds (weight) of meat a day, at nine pence (old,pence) a pound, for a family of four, parents and two teen girls. And the family was considered very poor.

I do just wonder what else they ate. Probably not much more than bread, potatoes and cabbage. But those are healthy enough.

I do just wonder what else they ate. Probably not much more than bread, potatoes and cabbage. But those are healthy enough.

Bread in Victorian times was famously laced with Arsenic!

Hey at least it wasn't E175 <shudder>