Urban humans have lost much of their ability to digest plants | Hacker News Reader

Urban humans have lost much of their ability to digest plants

arstechnica.com

24 pointskarma_daemon17 comments

Ha, seems like what all those kooky carnivore diet proponents have been saying all along... (disclosure: am on carnivore diet). Yeah, I personally believe the microbiome plays a big part, I know for sure mine was messed up growing up and increasingly so, after rounds of antibiotics, sugary foods, etc. etc.

But I've also come to the conclusion humans are facultative carnivores, that plants have always been a fallback food.

I eat lots of veggies/greens and meat. So I guess I am ok.

I think if you have access to produce that is not contaminated with pesticides, and grown on quality soil so that it's not devoid of nutrients, it's fine. But it's is intriguing how some people experience remission from chronic ailments by removing plants altogether.

Some people also experience remission from not eating meat, I don't think that proves any point except for "people are different and have different needs".

Also for the initial point of humans being facultative carnivores, it doesn't track with our origins from primates.

First of all, "not eating meat" often means "stops eating junk food", not that literally removing the ~70 grams of red meat, say, Americans are eating per day.

I've been around the block with diets, after my own health concerns, and, 15 years in, I have not seen any consistency in recovery with a vegan of vegetarian diet, let alone by avoiding red meat.

I have consumed carnivore-diet related content for years at this point, and I have not seen a single person go from carnivore back to plant-centric. Not a single person.

YouTube if awash with anecdotes of people recovering with a carnivore diet, not so much with others. There is something to it. Here's just one channel with such interviews, you don't have to watch any of them, just scroll through the titles: https://www.youtube.com/@zerocarb.

First of all, you are showing me anecdotal evidence, it's great it's worked for you and others but the source you give me is a biased one already.

I've seen people who went from no-meat -> meat and back to no-meat, so it's your anecdotal experience versus mine.

Give me an authoritative source and then we can have a discussion about the science behind it, if not we are just stuck in this discussion that won't lead anywhere, I've just challenged your anecdote, I have not said it's not true for some people, I have not diminished your experience but it's your experience...

> There is something to it.

There might be but I don't want to live in a world where anecdotes count as authoritative source for anything, it's a signal, not a conclusion.

Again, I'm glad for your experience, just don't try to peddle it as enlightenment.

And lastly, there's no way for the whole world to be able to support to eat as much meat as you are proposing, it's simply not possible, so perhaps understanding what mechanism might be behind these anecdotes so the people who can benefit from it have access to their necessities rather than pushing it into as a general truth that won't be sustainable with current technology, it's a disservice to you and others in your situation to push meat-eating as a cure-all for everyone, it is not.

> And lastly, there's no way for the whole world to be able to support to eat as much meat as you are proposing, it's simply not possible, so perhaps understanding what mechanism might be behind these anecdotes so the people who can benefit from it have access to their necessities rather than pushing it into as a general truth that won't be sustainable with current technology, it's a disservice to you and others in your situation to push meat-eating as a cure-all for everyone, it is not.

ok so now I the agenda is clear, I'm discussing health, nothing else, "don't speak truth that's inconvenient"

Yes, I am showing anecdotal evidence, and labelling it a such, what's wrong with it?

Re: "doesn't track", I don't understand how? Humans are not able to ferment plant matter like the big apes, our digestive system is closer to that of a dog. We don't seem optimized for digesting plant matter at all.

You don't need to ferment plants to digest them, we are pretty able to digest plants as seen by all the anecdotes of people living healthily on plant-based diets their whole lives.

It doesn't track that we are not able to live like that. A cat can't, a dog can't, humans can and do.

I said that our preferences was for meat, hence "facultative carnivore". Just like dogs really, and incidentally dog owners who feed their dogs 100% meat will tell you how much healthier they are.

I was wrong about dogs, unlike cats they do not require meat.

So your dog analogy also does not track [0].

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/apr/13/vegan-d...

IIRC cats also don't require meat, or any animal products, but it's more complicated, since they need taurine and hydrolyzed protein.

Maybe this explains why every lunch at Pura Vida makes me feel bloated these days... maybe I should just keep at it and this (gas) too shall pass

It'd be interesting to see more data that could help narrow down potential factors in the difference of gut microbes.

Highly processed foods and use of prescription drugs (especially antibiotics) come to mind. I could see both of those being different for rural vs urban populations and would likely have some impact on microbiomes.

Also birth by c-section https://www.science.org/content/article/swabbing-c-section-b... "The microbiomes of C-section babies look a lot different from those of babies born vaginally. In particular, they have lower numbers of Lactobacillus, Escherichia, and Bacteroides bacteria in their guts."

When you inoculate cattle rumen normally the shared water trough keeps it going. So you might inoculate some cattle then the rest will also get inoculated. It might even be tied individual cows losing the inoculation, the herd can keep it going.

Similarly having camels with cattle does this, since camels naturally have gut bacteria of value they pass it on through shared water.

Once thing I noticed going from sharing a beer with our goats to soft drink, beer being a brown bottle, soft drink being clear there would be a lot of cud in the bottle.

Of course in modern society digesting plants more efficiently is bad. More energy makes you fatter and roughage is good.

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