Comment by corsac | Hacker News Reader

Comment by corsac | Hacker News Reader

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> several health issues with milk consumption, unlike quinoa consumption.

Are you claiming that most people who consume milk as a major part of their diet suffer health problems from it? Or that grain-based diets do not cause health issues?

> That is because we've evolved for a orders of magnitude longer to eat plant material.

Evolution has no telos. Evolutionary leaps into new niches are the norm, and hunting had formative impacts on the evolution of modern humans. We've also evolved for orders of magnitude longer walking on all fours (and walking erect causes health issues, such as stressing the back), but that has no bearing on what is healthy or suitable.

> It's not a good argument to take a small exceptional population and apply that reasoning to the general case.

I don't believe I did so. Northern European-origin populations are not small or insignificant, but I agree that for lactose-intolerant populations who have no tradition of using milk-based foods they are generally nutritionally unnecessary.

Dairy isn't nutritionally necessary for anyone. Perhaps it was in the past, but not now. You won't find evidence for that.

Not sure what you mean about telos. Evolution informs us about why we eat what we eat and how we might be affected by various foods, but it does not control us. We can choose what we want to eat.

> Dairy isn't nutritionally necessary for anyone. Perhaps it was in the past, but not now.

Assuming alternative sources of the same essential nutrients, I agree – no single food is nutritionally necessary or ever was. In the real world, meanwhile, dairy products are a key source of protein etc. for people in at least some regions where sufficient alternative sources are not widely affordable or available. Certainly, milk was crucial to the survival of many populations as recently as a century ago (not "aeons ago during some ancient famine").

> Evolution informs us about why we eat what we eat and how we might be affected by various foods

Evolution is an open-ended history of accidents, with much to say about what works for us (as opposed to what cannot).

> but it does not control us.

Indeed. Not only does it not control us, we cannot even conclude based on it that a novel environment or resource will not be advantageous. In the case of ungulate milk consumption, it turns out it was.

> Not sure what you mean about telos.

Evolutionary adaptations are in the nature of accidents, not guided by any purpose or implying any optimal "natural" state. Populations taking advantage of accidental fitness for new niches is a defining pattern in the evolution of life on earth, and consumption of milk by some human populations fits that pattern. Drawing conclusions about the suitability of drinking milk because "we didn't evolve to drink it" is fallacious (in contrast to, say, explaining most people's lack of lactase persistence by their ancestors' non-consumption of milk, which is sound, non-teleological reasoning).

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