additional information is now available for some of the topics covered in the interviews, updates in postscript form have been added here for each of the three original articles.
IMPORTANT: Be sure to check the [Updates to Part 1], [Updates to Part 2], and [Updates to Part 3] before prematurely attributing specific views to the author based only on the original section of each part of the interviews. A quick outline of the updates can be found in the Table of Contents for each part. Also, please note the following important modifications/changes in the present web version:
- Specific points in the original interview that have been affected by newer science or that have benefited from additional observations in hindsight have been marked in the text with an asterisk (*). These points are the items discussed further in the updates concluding each part of the interview, and have been labeled with boldfaced, triple-asterisked (***) heads in the update sections for easy identification.
Some of this information entails important modifications to a few of the interpretations/conclusions that were drawn from the evidence discussed in the original interviews. However, rather than wrestle with the problem of how to re-edit the interview periodically as a whole without changing the flow of the original, I have elected to leave the initial text of each part of the interview in its original form, and simply supplement it with updated evidence as it becomes relevant.
I became aware of much of this additional information after having begun to subscribe to the PALEODIET listgroup which was launched on the internet at about the same time the interviews were first published. At the time the postscripts to the interviews were written, the Beyond Veg site had not yet been conceived and I did not foresee the need to provide a full set of references for the updates. Eventually, the inclusion of references linked directly to the updates here on the site is planned when time allows.
For those wanting reference citations in support of this additional information, a good place to start would be to search the archives of the PALEODIET listgroup for posts on these topics, or if that fails, post questions about them on the PALEODIET listgroup itself. (You can also find instructions for subscribing to the PALEODIET list at the same link.) Pointers are given in the postscripts to some of this information where known.
I want to thank Loren Cordain, Ph.D. of Colorado State University, a regular participant on the list and one of today's most knowledgeable researchers in the field of Paleodiet, who was instrumental in making me aware of many of the updated pieces of information discussed in the postscripts to Parts 1 and 2 that appear here.
- The text of the interview is republished here much as it originally appeared in Chet Day's Health & Beyond newsletter, with the following modifications:
- Heads and paragraph-level lead-in subheads have been added, certain technical terms have been boldfaced, and some of the longer paragraphs have been split up, to promote easy scanning and readability on the web.
- Comments in brackets [ ] are brief explanatory notes for the sake of clarity in this republished version, and a few minor word insertions for improved clarity have also been made.
- Numbers in brackets [ ] denote footnote references, which are clickable to access the author referenced, and page number of work cited. (The author and page-number references are themselves clickable to access the full entry in the interview bibliography.)
- For those unfamiliar, the term "Natural Hygiene," which appears periodically in these interviews, is a health philosophy emphasizing a diet of raw-food or mostly raw-food vegetarianism, primarily fruits, vegetables, and nuts, although for revisionists eating some cooked food, it can also include significant supplementary amounts of grains, legumes, and tubers. Important to the points covered in this interview series is that Natural Hygiene begins with the idea that diet and other health behavior of human beings will be best when it is in accord with their natural biological adaptation. How that squares with the actual facts of evolution compared to the traditions of Natural Hygiene--and by extension those of most other vegetarian diets--is one of the themes discussed here to bring out the differences in the ways "natural" diets are conceived. If you find the peculiarity of the term "natural hygiene" disconcerting, simply substitute the concept of "mostly raw-food vegetarianism" where it occurs in the discussion.
- Ward transferred coordinatorship of the Natural Hygiene M2M to long-time member Bob Avery in 1997, and is no longer associated with the Natural Hygiene movement. To learn more about the N.H. M2M (now called the Natural Health M2M), or for information about getting a sample copy, you can find out more here.
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
PART 1
Setting the Scientific Record Straight
on Humanity's Evolutionary Prehistoric Diet
and Ape Diets
- Preface and introductory remarks
- Interviewer Chet Day's introduction of Ward as guest
- Personal experiences with fasting, Natural Hygiene, and veganism
- Introduction to Natural Hygiene through distance running.
- Initial experiences with fasting.
- Health crash after extended period of overwork and poor diet.
- Post-crash fasts and recommitment to Natural Hygiene.
- Improvements on fasts alternating with gradual downhill trend on vegan Natural Hygiene diet.
- Shortcomings of the "comparative anatomy" rationale for determining our "natural" diet.
- Exposure to the evolutionary picture and subsequent disillusionment with Natural Hygiene.
- News of long-time vegetarians abandoning the diet due to failure to thrive.
- Gradual personal health decline on vegan diet.
- Paleontological evidence shows humans have always been omnivores
- Evidence well-known in scientific community; controversial only for vegetarians.
- Timeline of dietary shifts in the human line of evolution
- 65 to 50 million years ago (Mya): Ancient primates, mostly insectivores.
- 50 to 30 Mya: Shift to mostly frugivorous/herbivorous.
- 30 to 10 Mya: Maintenance of mostly frugivorous pattern.
- 7 to 5 Mya: Last common ancestor branches to gorillas, chimps, humans.
- 4.5 Mya: First known hominid (proto-human).
- 3.7 Mya: First fully bipedal hominid (Australopithecus).
- 2 Mya: First true human (Homo habilis), first tools, increased meat-eating.
- 1.7 Mya: Evolution of Homo erectus, considerable increase in meat consumption and widely omnivorous diet, continues till dawn of agriculture.
- 500,000 to 200,000 y.a.: Archaic Homo sapiens.
- 150,000 y.a.: Neanderthals evolve.
- 140,000 to 110,000 y.a.: First anatomically modern humans, possible increase in fire use for cooking (insufficient evidence).
- 40,000 B.C.: First behaviorally modern humans.
- 40,000 to 10,000 B.C.: Late Paleolithic, latest period of universal hunting/gathering subsistence, seafood use becomes evident in certain areas.
- 20,000 B.C. to 9,000 B.C.: Mesolithic transition period.
- Approx. 10-8,000 B.C.: Neolithic period, beginnings of agriculture, precipitous drop in meat consumption, great increase in grain consumption, decline in health as indicated by signs in skeletal remains.
- Subjectively based vegetarian naturalism vs. what evolution tells us
- Example of creative misinterpretation of evolutionary evidence to support frugivorism/vegetarianism (old fossil teeth microwear study).
- Subjective naturalism vs. the functional definition provided by evolution/genetics
- The subjective "animal model" for raw-food naturalism.
- The trap of reactionary "reverse anthropomorphism."
- Subjective views of dietary naturalism are prone to considerable differences of opinion; don't offer meaningful scientific evidence.
- Evolutionary adaptation/genetics as the functional scientific test of what's natural.
- Correcting the vegetarian myths about ape diets
- Citing of outdated science an earmark of idealism out of touch with reality.
- Accumulation of modern post-1960s research shows apes are not actually vegetarians.
- Diet of chimpanzees.
- Meat consumption by chimps.
- The more significant role of social-insect/termite/ant consumption.
- Breakdown of chimpanzee food intake by dietary category.
- Fluid intake in chimps not restricted to fruit, and includes water separately.
- The predilection of chimpanzees toward omnivorous opportunism.
- Other ape diets.
- Diet of gorillas compared with chimps.
- Other apes less closely related to humans.
IMPORTANT: The updates and additional observations linked to below modify some of the conclusions that were reached at the time the interview was first published in 1996. Before attributing a specific view on a particular subject to the author, please make sure you read the updates first.
PART 2
Fire and Cooking in Human Evolution,
Rates of Genetic Adaptation to Change,
Hunter-Gatherers, and Diseases in the Wild
- Preface and introductory remarks
- Knowledge gap in vegetarian community about evolutionary data/implications
- Many Natural Hygienists identify the system with certain dietary details, even though the system itself flows from principles independent of those details.
- Hygienic and vegan diets are a significant restriction of the diet(s) on which humans evolved.
- Avowed Shelton loyalists are actually the ones who have most ignored his primary directive.
- Only two insights remain that are still somewhat unique to Natural Hygiene.
- Strong recognition of the principle of the body as homeostatic self-healing mechanism.
- Fasting as a tool to promote such self-healing.
- In some ways Natural Hygiene now resembles a religion.
- The rift in the Natural Hygiene movement over raw vs. cooked foods
- Character of the rift: doctors vs. the rank-and-file.
- One side ignores the need for philosophical consistency. The other denies practical realities and real-world results.
- Is there a way these two stances in the conflict over cooking can be reconciled and accounted for scientifically?
- When was fire first controlled by human beings?
- Evidence for very early control of fire is sparse and ambiguous.
- Earliest dates for control of fire accepted by skeptical critics.
- Crux of the question: first control of fire vs. earliest widespread use.
- Sequence of stages in control: fire for warmth vs. fire for cooking.
- Opportunistic exploitation of animal kills by predators after wildfires.
- Potential adaptation to cooking in light of genetic rates of change
- Rates of genetic change as estimated from speciation in the fossil record.
- Measurements of genetic change from population genetics.
- Influence of human culture on genetic selection pressures.
- Relationship between earliest milking cultures and prevalence of lactose tolerance in populations.
- Genetic changes in population groups who crossed the threshold from hunting-gathering to grain-farming earliest.
- Recent evolutionary changes in immunoglobulin types, and genetic rates of change overall.
- Rates of gluten intolerance.
- What do common genetic rates of change suggest about potential adaptation to cooking?
- Are cooking's effects black-and-white or an evolutionary cost/benefit tradeoff?
- Cooking introduces some toxic by-products but neutralizes others.
- We have a liver and kidneys because there have always been toxins in natural foods the body has had to deal with.
- The belief that a natural diet can be totally toxin-free is an idealistic fantasy.
- Cooking may favorably impact digestibility.
- Cooking practices of Aborigines in light of survival needs.
- The role of individual experimentation given evolutionary uncertainties about diet
- Fly in the ointment: dietary changes since advent of agriculture.
- The need to be careful in making absolute black-and-white pronouncements about invariant food rules that apply equally to all.
- Conflicting data from various modern lines of evidence means people must experiment and decide for themselves.
- Openness means challenging any rigid assumptions we may have through experimentation.
- Conflicts between paleo/anthropological vs. biochemical/epidemiological evidence
- Cornell China Study conclusions about cholesterol and animal protein are contradicted by evidence from studies of modern hunter-gatherers.
- Large and significant differences between domesticated meat vs. wild game.
- Protein and calcium loss: fossil remains of Paleolithic humans reveal high bone mass despite presumed high protein intake.
- Caveats with respect to using modern hunter-gatherers as dietary models
- Not all "hunter-gatherer" tribes of modern times eat diets in line with Paleolithic norms.
- Infectious disease in modern hunter-gatherers.
- Fasting vs. extended nutritional stress/deprivation seen in some modern hunter-gatherers pushed onto marginal habitats.
- Animals in the wild on natural diets are not disease-free.
- Uninformed naturalism and unrealistic expectations in diet
- Unrealistic perfectionism leads to heaping inhumanity and guilt on ourselves.
- Health improvements after becoming ex-vegetarian
IMPORTANT: The updates and additional observations linked to below modify some of the conclusions that were reached at the time the interview was first published in 1996. Before attributing a specific view on a particular subject to the author, please make sure you read the updates first.
- Uncertainties about earliest use of fire for cooking
- Incompatibilities between dairy consumption and human physiology
- Genetic changes due to "neoteny" (such as adult lactose tolerance) not indicative of overall rates of adaptation.
- Additional indications of incongruence between dairy and human physiology.
- Lactose and heart disease.
- Poor Ca:Mg ratio which can skew overall dietary ratio.
- Saturated fat.
- Molecular mimicry/autoimmune response issues.
- Signs of evolutionary mismatch between grains and human physiology
- Certain wheat peptides appear to significantly increase the risk of diabetes through molecular mimicry.
- Research suggests that celiac disease is probably also caused by autoimmune responses.
- Phytates in grains bind the minerals iron, zinc, magnesium, and calcium.
- Hyperinsulinism, excess carbohydrate consumption, and "Syndrome X."
- Hyperinsulinism and diabetes.
- Recent studies indicate diets higher in protein reduce symptoms of Syndrome X.
- Why do cooked or denser foods often improve raw/vegan health?
- For those who do not thrive on raw vegan diets, do the benefits experienced from grains/dairy outweigh any downsides?
- Long-term concerns.
- Mitigating circumstances.
- Noteworthy difference between lacto-vegetarian subpopulations and raw-foodists adding grains/dairy.
- For previous raw-foodists, the supplemental amounts are usually relatively modest.
- Information about cooking's ultimate impact on health at the biochemical level of detail is still inconclusive.
- Big picture is more clear: Impact of cooking is likely to be much less important than other overarching considerations.
- Magnitude of effect from macronutrient ratios likely plays the most influential role.
- Types of fats, and their ratios and sources.
- Factors that may precipitate Syndrome X.
- Eating all natural foods or all-raw by itself does not automatically result in a prudent diet.
- Which foods are, in fact, the most natural for humans.
- Which natural foods can be important to minimize or avoid.
- What balance of macronutrients, whether raw or cooked, results in best long-term nutrition?
- Update on protein intake and bone loss
- Animal protein has greater impact on calcium excretion.
- Paradox of high bone mass in pre-agricultural skeletons despite large animal protein intake points to compensating factors.
- Eskimos and osteoporosis.
- Brief miscellaneous points
PART 3
The Psychology of Idealistic Diets and
Lessons Learned from The Natural Hygiene Many-to-Many
About Successes and Failures of Vegetarian Diets
- Preface and introductory remarks
- Problem: Finding unsanitized reports about the full spectrum of real-world results with vegetarian diets
- Background on the Natural Hygiene Many-to-Many as a pool of information about individuals on vegan and raw diets.
- Assessing the veracity and relevance of people's individual stories.
- Why the Many-to-Many was started: bypassing "official" vegetarian organizations with vested interests to get less filtered information.
- The attractions and pitfalls of purist black-and-white dietary philosophies
- PROBLEM #1: Confusion and contradiction in the marketplace of dietary ideas and research.
- PROBLEM #2: Feeling powerless over microbes, genetics, or out-of-control authoritarian health-care.
- PROBLEM #3: Thoughtful non-authoritarianism vs. mere reactionary rebellion.
- How Natural Hygiene and raw/vegan diets satisfy the above appeals--the attractions and the pitfalls.
- Other unconscious needs also met.
- Success/failure rates of vegan diets in Natural Hygiene
- Rough estimate of success/failure rate of vegan diets based on experiences of people in the N.H. M2M.
- Dropouts over time and "cheating" on the diet complicate the assessment.
- The problem of vested interests among "official" sources in getting straight answers.
- "Party line" views and ostracism of dissidents.
- Special measures that may make the diet work for more individuals argue against its naturalness.
- Gap between uncensored reports and officialdom rarely surfaces publicly in a way that gets widespread attention.
- Success/failure on all-raw vegan diets compared to more conventional vegan diets that include cooked starch sources.
- The distinction between short-term and long-term results is critical in evaluating "success."
- Are the rare all-raw success stories the "ideal," or simply "exceptions"?
- Symptoms of "failure to thrive" on raw and/or vegetarian diets
- A look at the most serious potential problems.
- Low-profile symptoms more commonly seen.
- How people get trapped by "pure" diets that don't maintain long-term health
- The "frog in slowly boiling water" syndrome.
- How can things end up bad when they started out so good?
- The lulling effect of imperceptibly slow declines in health.
- Emotional "certainty" shuts down one's ability to rationally assess symptoms.
- The willingness to make sober judgments of current symptoms is perpetually displaced into the future.
- Those who are successful are partners in reinforcing the tendency not to see failures as real failures.
- How obsessively striving for absolute dietary purity becomes a fruitless "grail quest"
- Significant parallels with religious behavior.
- The role of unseen and unverifiable "toxemia" as evidence of one's "sin."
- The "relativity" of absolute purification transforms it into an ever-receding goal and goad.
- Self-restriction becomes its own virtue as absolute purity recedes.
- Endgame: fundamentalist obsessive-compulsiveness.
- Successful vegetarian diets require more than simple dietary purity
- More attention to robust nutritional intake and other health factors.
- Stress and vegetarian diets.
- Stress creates less margin for error for nutrition's contribution to physiological maintenance.
- Successful Natural Hygiene diets are often less strict and more diverse than traditional/"official" recommendations.
- Special nutritional practices added by some individuals.
- Potential role of involuntary "lapses" in filling nutritional gaps.
- Lapses usually automatically interpreted as "addictions" instead by adherents.
- Rationalizing dietary failures with circular thinking and untestable excuses
- Pat answers and mantras.
- Unfalsifiable excuses impervious to testability.
- "You're too addicted."
- "You just haven't given it enough time yet."
- "Unnatural overstimulation."
- When symptoms are always seen as "detox."
- Other meaningless, unhelpful, or unfalsifiable excuses.
- 5 tips for staying alert to the traps of excessive dietary idealism
- Self-honesty instead of denial.
- Focus first on results rather than theoretical certainty.
- Utilize reasonable timeframes to gauge trends.
- Exercise at some activity that gently challenges your limits, to hone sensitivity to changes in your capacities and health.
- Don't ignore feedback about how you are doing from people who know you well.
- Interview wrap-up
- The science will change somewhat but big picture is more important than disputes over details.
- Tolerance for our own mistakes, tolerance for others.
- Open-mindedness is an ongoing process, not something one achieves and then "has."
IMPORTANT: The additional observations linked to below provide more in-depth information that further explores the eating behavior patterns, and their health impact, as described in the original interview that was first published in 1997. Before attributing a specific view on a particular subject to the author, please make sure you read the updates first.
- Further observations about "failure to thrive" on vegan diets
- Case of rickets in vegan toddler.
- Family environment and parents' dietary beliefs/practices.
- Particulars of father's diet (reflected to some degree in toddler's diet).
- The son's diet was not much different, though perhaps heavier in fruit.
- Calcium deficiency rather than vitamin D deficiency as potential cause?
- Elimination of problem using supplements/animal foods demonstrates insufficiency of diet, regardless of exact cause.
- Tendency is to rationalize as to speculative possibilities while ignoring probability/plausibility.
- Special measures to make vegan diets work can be seen as compensations for lack of evolutionary congruence.
- That even informed advocates acknowledge vegan diets should be carefully planned suggests that less margin for error is a real issue.
- The yo-yo syndrome as potential indicator of failure to thrive on strict diets
- Viewing the yo-yo syndrome as valuable feedback to help pinpoint problems breaks the cycle of guilt over so-called "lapses."
- Unhooking from guilt frees attention to seriously consider and evaluate practical solutions one may have been blind to before.
- Experimental attitude requires new mental relationship with the question of "certainty."
- Why is being "hungry all the time" on a veg-raw-food diet such a problem for some individuals even in the short-term before any deficiencies could have arisen?
- Diet is lower in overall nutrient/energy-density than the one the human body evolved on.
- Human digestive system not optimized for maximum extraction of nutrition/energy from a diet of all high-fiber foods.
- Eating like a gorilla leads to a life centered around food like a gorilla.
- Becoming highly dependent on "mainstay" foods in a veg-raw diet
- The frequency of dependence on avocados and/or nuts is explained by human digestive system's design for denser foods.
- Raw-foodist eating patterns and difficulties are predictable/understandable given evolutionary design of human gut.
- Once all other, more energy-dense foods are eliminated, "fruitarianism" is the logical/inevitable outcome.
- The fallacy of fruitarianism: word games vs. the real world of practice and results
- Word games over what qualifies as "fruit" often expand the definition so far that the distinction means little.
- Were our evolutionary primate predecessors really true "fruitarians"?
- Simply put: Humans are not apes.
- People may do well at first, but this is because they are living off of past nutritional reserves.
- Advocates of "fruitarianism" frequently change their definition of it over time.
- Synopsis of 4-part 1970s-era "Fruit for Thought" article series, by the American Vegan Society's Jay Dinshah.
- Fruitarian gurus weren't actually practicing what they preached, but followers who did ran aground.
- Excuses, excuses.
- Failures the rule, no successes ever came to light.
- Little change in fruitarian movement between now and then.
- Notable Natural Hygiene practitioner at the time related specific problems seen in numerous fruitarian patients.
- Beyond the myth of fruitarianism is the empowerment that freedom from fantasy brings.
- When evaluating claims, look beyond the word games.
- A more "evolved" path, or only more extreme?
- Judge the diet, not yourself--by bottom-line results, not high-sounding philosophy.
SEE BIBLIOGRAPHY
| GO TO PART 1: |
Humanity's Evolutionary Prehistoric Diet and Ape Diets |
| GO TO PART 2: |
Fire and Cooking in Human Evolution |
| GO TO PART 3: |
The Psychology of Idealistic Diets / Successes and Failures of Vegetarian Diets |
Back to Frank Talk by Long-Time Insiders
