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. we started farming and eating grains and suddenly we're building cities, civilizations, roads, the scientific method, skyscrapers, and going to the moon.

That's not because the grains are healthy. That's because the agriculture allowed man to settle in one spot and get food more easily instead of living nomadically and spending most of his day searching /hunting for food. This allowed him to develop bigger civilizations and provided him the opportunity to cultivate his mental and artistic abilities, including technological innovation.

something about the premise used here is off. all this talk about grok and how healthy, strong, perfect, enviable he was. but grok was a bum. he didn't do anything for hundred of thousands of years but simply survive. we started farming and eating grains and suddenly we're building cities, civilizations, roads, the scientific method, skyscrapers, and going to the moon.

Grains led to exponential population growth and the human race could spend less time foraging for food and more time on intellectual and technological pursuits. It didn't happen overnight, but yes you are correct. Agriculture is a human invention, wait what's your point again?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture

That's not because the grains are healthy. That's because the agriculture allowed man to settle in one spot and get food more easily instead of living nomadically and spending most of his day searching /hunting for food. This allowed him to develop bigger civilizations and provided him the opportunity to cultivate his mental and artistic abilities, including technological innovation.

This ^

Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond

Farming (vs nomadic life) allowed other individuals in societies to specialize in many different areas -- growth of knowledge -- vs everyone having to hunt and gather for their family's existence

Farming helped create (and immunize) larger societies. A reason germs killed off some conquered societies (that were not previously exposed).

The ability to farm the same crops/animals across a land is also one of the reasons China has so many people, versus the Americas for example. Different crops/farming had to be developed as humans migrated South in the Americas. Whereas, in China, the same crops could be produced West to East (vice-versa).
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I do not agree with everything Diamond has written about (in other books), but this book was excellent. Pulitzer Prize winner. Very interesting.

Here are the videos (not as good as the book)

NOTE:
I am still up in the air about the idea that grains may be bad. I love spaghetti and lasagna .

http://whole9life.com/

here is a good resource on this topic imo

the point is why try to emulate a period in our history when we were the least productive as a species?

Guns, Germs, Steel is great. but the difference between Europe and the Americas was because of agriculture (the germs arguments is sorta beyond the scope of this discussion because it has to do with animal husbandry and living conditions, etc.). the Americans lived like Grok, and they were left behind. if you want to take the EV of living like Grok vs Cereal Man, Cereal Man wins because most of the Groks died, even if individual Groks were healthier than individual Cereal Men, and further, you can sustain exponentially larger Cereal Man populations so there's just more life overall throughout the species.

but i even have issues with the assumption that Grok is healthier than Cereal Man. how is this determined? by muscle mass and fat content? that's really a one dimensional measure of health. if Grok is unable to live long lifespans because he doesn't have time to send people to medical school or blacksmith school because nobody has free time to do anything but forage and hunt, it's all a moot point.

and De Vany may be a robust 70 year old, but there's far more 80-90-100 year old cereal eaters in the world. and things like diabetes and obesity are not directly related to a cereal diet because Asia has far less incidence of these diseases and they're super cereal munchers.

we're thriving as a species on a cereal diet. we merely sustained on the primal diet.

we're thriving as a species on a cereal diet. we merely sustained on the primal diet.

I think you have this backwards... We are surviving on a cereal diet that is causing us to be obese, have diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, among others causing us to have a short lifespan and forcing us to need modern medicine... When we could be thriving on a primal diet.

The very thing that caused the human species to have explosive population growth and lead to cultural, intellectual, and technological growth is now what plagues us health-wise.

the point is why try to emulate a period in our history when we were the least productive as a species?

Guns, Germs, Steel is great. but the difference between Europe and the Americas was because of agriculture (the germs arguments is sorta beyond the scope of this discussion because it has to do with animal husbandry and living conditions, etc.). the Americans lived like Grok, and they were left behind. if you want to take the EV of living like Grok vs Cereal Man, Cereal Man wins because most of the Groks died, even if individual Groks were healthier than individual Cereal Men, and you can sustain exponentially larger Cereal Man populations overall.

but i even have issues with the assumption that Grok is healthier than Cereal Man. how is this determined? by muscle mass and fat content? that's really an artificial measure of health. if Grok is unable to live long lifespans because he doesn't have time to send people to medical school because nobody has free time to do anything but forage and hunt, it's all a moot point.

we're thriving as a species on a cereal diet. we merely sustained on the primal diet.

You are speaking as if you can't eat Grok's healthy diet and still live the intellectual life of Cereal man, and that is false. In order to eat like Grok, we don't have to hunt and gather our own food like he did. We live in different times.

And you are correct that the difference between Europe and the Native Americans was because of agriculture and that's why the Native's were left behind, but it's not because the European agriculture made them healthier (as I have already stated). It's also not because the Natives chose not to live off of agriculture, because they did and many of them did live off of agriculture. It's just that the Europeans developed agriculture a long time before the Natives did because of different plants in their different respective areas of the world, so they had a longer time to develop technology.
Also, you are either mistaken in your idea of how the Natives lived, or you mispoke, because there were many Native socities that had greater civilizations then anything in Europe. For instance, when Cortez and his men came to Tenochtitlan, they had never seen anything like it. They had running water (which Europe didnt), bigger markets then anything they had ever seen, magnificent buildings and temples, and an elaborate system of bridges and causeways. Many of them bathed everyday, and overall lived a lot less like Grok then you seem to think.

There's been plenty of studies showing all the nasty health effects of grains.

and De Vany may be a robust 70 year old, but there's far more 80-90-100 year old cereal eaters in the world. and things like diabetes and obesity are not directly related to a cereal diet because Asia has far less incidence of these diseases and they're super cereal munchers.

How many 73-74 year olds do you know that pull a Land Rover everyday for excercise? Look at Jack LaLanne and what he ate and feats he accomplished physically:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_LaLanne#Timeline:_LaLanne.27s_feats

It is called the Asian Paradox, but don't think that it isn't changing as they become more and more westernized.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8587032.stm (China faces "diabetes epic")

I'm pretty sure they live much less sedentary lifestyles, not to mention eat much more meat and seafood. Just because rice is a staple of their diet doesn't mean that it isn't balanced out with plenty of fish, chicken, fowl, rodents, insects, etc...

I think you have this backwards... We are surviving on a cereal diet that is causing us to be obese, have diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, among others causing us to have a short lifespan and forcing us to need modern medicine... When we could be thriving on a primal diet.

The very thing that caused the human species to have explosive population growth and lead to cultural, intellectual, and technological growth is now what plagues us health-wise.

excactly. And the argument of "how can it be so unhealthy, life expectancy is so much longer today than grok lived. . " is nonsense. Life expectancy is longer because of modern medicine and the treatment of disease, not because of our modern diet.

for what its worth i have been eating "paleo" style diet for the past 18 months. i have lost 50bls and feel great. i just eat tons of meat, veggies, and some fruit

this guy has a good podcast/website/book http://robbwolf.com/

Anyone read "Food Rules" by Michael Poliquin? I know Mike Boyle always suggests that when ppl ask him about diet/nutrition - it's to the point and easy to understand. He says if your working out a lot, just add protein to what he says in the book.

I'm trying Tim Ferris' "slow carb diet" from his "4 Hour Body" book. I can only eat legumes (for carbs), vegetables and protean plus I get to binge on whatever I want 1 day a week (fruits, milk/lactose, grains ect..). I feel great and I've been losing weight (10lbs in 3 weeks with no exercise or portion/calorie restrictions so far). It's a little tough to do this diet as a vegetarian but it's much easier than attempting to balance eating grains and dairy (& fructose) while trying to lose weight or trying to fall asleep when your stomach is growling.

You are speaking as if you can't eat Grok's healthy diet and still live the intellectual life of Cereal man, and that is false. In order to eat like Grok, we don't have to hunt and gather our own food like he did. We live in different times.

I think you nailed it, Jigglin.

Also, you are either mistaken in your idea of how the Natives lived, or you mispoke, because there were many Native socities that had greater civilizations then anything in Europe.

i was mistaken then. i think this was a bit of a derail since both civilizations weren't really like Grok, just that one had a lot less agricultural opportunities and animal resources.

The very thing that caused the human species to have explosive population growth and lead to cultural, intellectual, and technological growth is now what plagues us health-wise.

Chazb0t, this is what tickles me intellectually. if we didn't have grains, we wouldn't even be having this dicussion with our computers and chairs and running water. so now we're to just discard it forever? it doesn't follow. if it's that bad, then how did people make such progress in just the last 10,000 years?

It is called the Asian Paradox, but don't think that it isn't changing as they become more and more westernized.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8587032.stm (China faces "diabetes epic")

I'm pretty sure they live much less sedentary lifestyles, not to mention eat much more meat and seafood. Just because rice is a staple of their diet doesn't mean that it isn't balanced out with plenty of fish, chicken, fowl, rodents, insects, etc...

from that table, the UK seems to be more of the paradox. but that's what i was getting at. it's not the cereal itself but how that cereal is processed and consumed that's the problem.

Chazb0t, this is what tickles me intellectually. if we didn't have grains, we wouldn't even be having this dicussion with our computers and chairs and running water. so now we're to just discard it forever? it doesn't follow. if it's that bad, then how did people make such progress in just the last 10,000 years?

Because the grains aren't responsible for our progress in the last 10k years. The population growth explosion is a result of the creation and development of agriculture... That's it.

To Nawhead: Consider this: If somebody only ate chocolate bars all day, they would become fat, stupid and moody but chances are they will still get a lot more accomplished than the guy who has to go out and forrage for a possible (not guaranteed) meal.
Also, the domestication of livestock may be a significantly bigger factor than the production of grains as far as agriculture and societal advancement is concerned. Grains are great to have on hand when you want to grow some meat, though.
Grains are clearly better than malnutrition/starvtion but just because advanced socioties have things like cake and pastries and bread and pasta does not make it the best choice in a world with supermarkets and year round access to fresh produce.