• 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.

• Update on fat consumption in pre-agricultural and hunter-gatherer diets
  
  • Organ meats favored in preference to muscle meats in hunter-gatherer diets.
    
  • Type of fat may be more important than amount of fat.
    
  • Cardiovascular disease and cancer are rare in hunter-gatherers, despite their fat/protein intake.

• Co-evolution of increased human brain size with decreased size of digestive system
  
  • Data points to increasing dependence on denser foods, processed by a less energy-intensive gut to free up energy for the evolving brain.
    
  • Sufficient amounts of long-chain fatty acids essential to support brain growth.
    
  • Animal prey likeliest source for required amounts of long-chain fatty acids during human brain evolution.
    
  • Human brain size since the late Paleolithic has decreased in tandem with decreasing contribution of animal food to diet.
    
  • A closely related factor is that the increase in brain size co-evolved with a concurrent reduction in size of the human gut.
    
  • Human gut has evolved to be more dependent on nutrient- and energy-dense foods than other primates.

• Corrected anthropological survey data shows meat averages over 50% of hunter-gatherer diets
  
  • Previous meta-analysis of Ethnographic Atlas survey data on hunter-gatherer diets was performed incorrectly.
    
  • Modern hunter-gatherer diets vis-a-vis optimal foraging theory and reconstructed prehistoric diets.

• Meat consumption levels in early Homo species

• Research updates relating to diet and health late in human evolution

• Clarifications regarding chimpanzee diet

SEE BIBLIOGRAPHY

SEE TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

GO TO PART 1 - Setting the Record Straight on Humanity's 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 & Failures of Vegetarian Diets

Back to Frank Talk by Long-Time Insiders