Are you saying all that time I spent in what I'm sure is semi-starvation was a good thing??!
The article presents an interesting idea: we're not supposed to be living in constant comfort.
Good food for thought. I, however, have a few bones to pick.
Starvation and Gorging
First of all, I don't agree with the author's notion of semi-starving yourself and then gorging on food. I did that most of my life (skipping meals all week long, and then stuffing myself at some dinner or other to make up for it), and I never noticed the high energy levels he mentioned. In fact I was mostly tired and exhausted except for when I ate. Might I suggest that the benefits of his diet, were not from doing extremes, but because it resulted unintentionally in his insulin levels never shooting up (no snacks, and then big meals with likely a bunch of fat and low glycemic index) and kept him in ketosis. Although, I will not argue the benefit that might result from doing an occasional fast, I do not think that it should be a general way of life. I have a much improved mood, better energy, and general well being since I began eating regularly a couple of years ago.
Also allow me to suggest that even people in palaeolithic times knew to store food from today's hunt or forage. Heck, they might even have had the brains to plan a hunt or gather food before they ran out of food. Starvation was not a norm. Only some generations in pre-agricultural history went through it, most people lived in tribes in areas where they knew they could scratch a living and moved on or died when they couldn't.
Regular Exercise
The idea that human beings from the stone age to the neolithic age, when primitive agriculture began, sat around doing nothing but wandering aimlessly, slowly I might add, for days and then spent an hour in strenuous exercise is almost ridiculous. Consider if you will the list of chores your average caveman, or mud-hut man, had to do (based on lives of primitive tribes and common sense):
- Finding and bringing water (Daily), which includes walking briskly as you don't have all day to get that water, and carrying a most likely heavy container or leather-skin filled with water back to your shelter.
- Gathering wood for fire (Daily), and carrying a bunch of branches and logs around is definitely in the weight lifting category.
- Foraging (Daily/semi-Daily) which meant digging up tubers and finding fruit (which anyone who has tried gardening, or climbing up a tree to gather fruit knows can really be tiring).
- Hunting is done around once or twice a week, even more depending on how big a tribe is. Watching bushmen pursue prey and hunt it, it takes a few hours to do, walking at a brisk or sometimes jogging pace.
- Cooking from scratch, and that includes gutting and preparing animals.
- Miscellaneous: building shelters, herding animals, playing games, etc.
Granted not one person does all these things, but if you had one of these assigned to you as a chore, then you've got your 1 hour exercise a day if not more.
Extreme Weather Conditions
I have very little to say about this, except that man discovered fire and dressed in leather a long time ago. Also I assume they had the sense to put clothes when it was winter to avoid the cold. Seasons do not change in an instant.
Reacting to Stress
Really? I mean Really??
I would say that on average I freak out about once or twice a year. Usually from a cockroach. Other than that, I'd like to present the outrageous idea that human beings are smart and capable of learning.
A person living in the stone age would be as familiar with his surroundings as one living in a modern city. They know all the sounds and animals around them, and do not suffer from regular bouts of high stress, except a rare few times a year. They don't freak out over a snake, because hopefully with constant contact, they have learned how best to deal with it. And if I lived somewhere where a man eating tiger/lion was on the prowl, I'd be having long-term anxiety until they killed the darn thing. I guess what I'm saying is, we too have high moments of stress even in modern life (just think of any accident for ex.).
In conclusion, the idea that man can deal with certain extremes in his life signifies just that. We can survive. But that in no way means, that we can not lead healthy live in a relatively stable comfortable environment. In fact I would argue that because of our large brains, we are better able able to accomplish stable environments than other animals, thus it is in our nature.
You make some good arguing points but ...
ReplyDeleteRegarding food:
Starvation is going for more than 48 hours without food, that's the point when the body starts to experience damage or negative effects from lack of food. What he was talking about is fasting, i.e. refraining from food for a longer period of time. One is officially fasting 3 hours after the last meal.
You are right. Starvaton was mostly likely not the norm. Going through periods of plenty and then little is a much more probable situation. On a larger scale, harsh winters or draughts (certainly not out of the ordinary situations) led to periods where food was not plentiful. On a smaller scale, it's probably not out there to think that when members of these tribes went on a hunt/exploration, they'd go for longer periods without food and eat once they're "home". This would approximate fasting. Even in our world, it happens to the best of us: you're in some situation where getting food is too much of a bother, you skip a meal and you end up fasting long hours.
Having 3 square meals per day plus snacks every single day of your life was probably not normal for people in the palaeolithic age. Having a regular supply of food with some random fasting days in between and alternating periods of plenty and little is probably what we evolved to.
Regarding Regular Exercise:
Actually I don't think it is ridiculous to assume that humans spent longer periods of time not doing much. I think the average caveman:
- lived rather close to water sources
- being smart enough to gather and store food/wood, probably did these activities on a less regular schedule not daily. Most people who still gather wood fire, do it every couple of months or even more. This would fit with the "a lot of intense exercise in a rather short period of time".
- Most hunts would've been for small(er) animals with the occasional large animal. Hunting smaller animals is not strenous exercise, that would be the big animal (again the occasional strenous exercise).
- Cooking, gathering, herding animals and so on are not strenous exercise, this is would bee very low level exercise more or less equivalent to wandering around.
To sum up, most probably moved around at a slow pace with the occasional intense "workout". This fits under the title of random stressor.
Extreme weather conditions:
Despite fire and clothes, unless you have central heating and/or air conditioning, you are exposed to extreme weather conditions.
Reacting to stress:
Yes really! I think the point here is that in modern life, situations where our life is on the line are quite rare (snake, wild predator, ...) for the average citizen in the developed world. Our stress is more spread out and much more level than that of people living in small tribes, who probably had the a more intense but less regular stress bouts.
Predictability leads to stagnation. The idea was that we are a complex system, that to keep in better shape has to be challanged occasionally so that it will improve.
3 square meals and regular exercise will not make you more fit/healthy. Actually they will when you just start out doing that but as most people who workout, one notices that rather quickly you stop improving after following the same regime for a while. The body learns very quickly to adjust to the new situation. This is where the idea of randomness comes in.
Hmm. I would agree mostly about the stress, and the food. Fasting for 3hrs makes sense (Although I'd thought everybody waited at least 3hrs between meals anyway :|).
ReplyDeleteI'm still unconvinced about the exercise. I think humans are supposed to exert themselves a couple of times a week for an hour or so.
The Maasai for instance spend more physical energy than the average westerner that is the equivalent of walking an extra 20km per day. They are herding/hunting tribe.
I've been looking online, and I found an interesting article entitled
"An evolutionary perspective on human physical activity: implications for health"
S. Boyd Eaton and Stanley B. Eaton, III.
Some interesting quotes:
"most Paleolithic Stone Agers were nomadic"
"energy expenditure as physical activity for humans (males and females averaged) living in the late Paleolithic, say 25 000 years ago, center approximately 5.4 MJ ... for a 57-kg composite individual...contrast with an estimated 2.3 MJ...for a hypothetical 64-kg male/female contemporary American."
"Men commonly hunted from 2 to 4 non-consecutive days a week, while women usually gathered every 2–3 days. This spacing of the more physically demanding aspects of forager life has been termed a ‘Paleolithic work rhythm"
"Stone Age exertional activities covered a broad spectrum: walking while gathering, during hunting trips and on visits to neighboring campsites; running after wounded prey; carrying children, game meat, gathered plant foods or firewood; erecting shelters; flint knapping and making composite tools; digging for roots or tubers; butchering and cleaning game animal carcasses; shelling nuts; breaking open crania and long bones for brains and marrow; dancing for simple recreation or as part of religious ceremonies; vigorous play and so forth."
I also just have an additional comment.
ReplyDeleteI disagree that hunting small animals is not strenuous. Just because they're small, doesn't mean they don't have to find them, pursue them, and kill them (assumption is by spear or arrow). The actual hunt I think would be pretty similar to large animals, only difference being that they're lighter to carry back to camp.