People are looking for flat simple global solutions, which is probably a relic of our evolution since we evolved in small tribes that could have such solutions. I particularly see this in vegans, who often present numbers for efficiency as if we need to calculate diets based on the whole world. But the world isn't flat and the solutions to global problems will be localized. If it were flat we could just tell the Peace Corps to teach everyone to grow millet gruel. But the reality is that development projects need to adapt to the local environment. In Upland Nepal, improvements of livestock matter. In South Africa, improvement of yam varieties and family planning matters. In most of Europe and the 1st world, we have a whole different variety of problems.

I certainly don't advocate paleo for the world. It is a specific diet for individual problems. In terms of global health, I would like to see more funding for a variety of agricultural projects. The sad thing is politcovegans like Myers would not support such projects. I've seen Heifer International criticized by vegans for giving poor Africans livestock! Let them eat gruel...

I recommend reading: http://agro.biodiver.se/ an excellent blog on local development projects and other local ag stuff

The Coming Population Crash

http://www.landinstitute.org/ = Wes Jackson's Perennial grain project

I'll add more later :)

But you know what's arrogant/narcissistic? The idea held by a small group of wealthy most-ly white liberals that by eating beans they are saving the world. Sorry, economics doesn't work that way.

One non-nutritional argument against the Paleo diet is that it isn't sustainable for the entire world or even on smaller scales in less-developed nations.<<

That's because we're about 5B over the carrying capacity of the planet for humans to eat this way and growing. I satisfied the balance by not having kids.

I was interested in what people thought about the implications of improving the lives of those in the developed countries vs. allocating those resources to help the less-developed ones.

It depends on what you mean by "help". If by "help" you mean "give them more food", then I don't think that's a good solution. I'll let Daniel Quinn say it:

For ten thousand years we've been increasing food production to feed an increasing population—and for ten thousand years our population has grown. Every single "win" in food production has been answered by a "win" in population growth. Every single one. But, according to our cultural mythology, this doesn't have to happen—and one of these years, magically, it will not happen. The magic will presumably be that all nations will achieve improved social and economic conditions and adopt effective, voluntary family planning, just like the Union of Concerned Scientists recommends. This magic didn't happen last year or the year before that or the year before that or the year before that or the year before that—but one of these years, by God, every guy on earth will put on a condom and super-glue it in place and it WILL work. One way or another, there will come a year when we increase food production—and miraculously there won't be an answering increase in population to consume it.

Our cultural mythology explains why it was vitally important for us to increase food production last year. We HAD to, in order to feed the starving millions. Everyone knows that. But, oddly enough, we increased food production to feed the starving millions, and guess what? The starving millions went on starving. The population went up—but the starving millions didn't get fed. And of course we know why it's vitally important to increase food production THIS year. We've got to do that in order to feed the starving millions. We WILL increase food production this year—there's no doubt of that—but is there anyone in this room who believes that the starving millions will be fed, this year, for the first time in living memory? I guarantee you, my friends, that by year's end this year, the starving millions will still be starving—and I guarantee that our population will have grown by two percent.[...]

Let me explain why those starving millions are not getting fed. Every year here on this parking lot we call earth, the human population grows by about two percent—all segments of it grow by two percent. This means that there are more blue-eyed people here this year than last year—and more brown-eyed people. It means there are more red-haired people here this year than last year—and more brown-haired people. It means there are more people here growing up well fed—and more people here growing up hungry. The starving population goes up just like all other populations, and producing more food can do NOTHING BUT produce more starving millions. We're not making hunger go away by increasing food production, we're just creating more and more people to go hungry. Increasing food production actually INCREASES the number of hungry people, the same way it increases the number of rich people, poor people, tall people, short people, smart people, and dumb people.

It's unintuitive, perhaps, but if your vision of sustainability is that everyone gets fed well then you end up with an unsustainable growth in population. Because you're not just feeding people, you're feeding a culture and a system. And that culture, that system, is what is responsible for the fact that some people are well fed and other struggle to make ends meet. True sustainability must first come from a different culture which has sustainability as one of its inescapable foundations. Hunter-Gatherers who ate the original paleolithic diet had that (not in every case, but for the most part). But even we who eat a modern Paleo diet and support pastured cattle, etc... we don't. Sorry for the length of the quote.

This is a great question, and an issue I struggle with myself. I don't think "narcissistic" is the right word, but selfish? Yeah, maybe. The problem is that in order for Paleo/Primal to be sustainable, we would have to rework - from scratch, pretty much - our entire world economy. Food would have to be local, to eliminate transportation costs and spoilage. Food subsidies and protectionism would have to stop altogether, thus favoring local food. Whole areas of social policy would have to be revamped, regarding how charitable assets are distributed. Food aid would have to stop, probably. In other words... no possible way. So, since I can't change the world, I work on myself. And when I have the money, I support orgs like Weston A. Price in their efforts to educate, and I try to support local farms and local food advocates.

I'm personally not interested in the sort of dietary martyrdom about which you speak.

7 billion humans is far too many and certainly would not have occurred without grain consumption. Does this mean that because of the sins of our fathers we should continue to eat grain and continue to swell the human population to even more ridiculous levels?

Because I refuse to reproduce, I make far less of an impact on resources than someone who is consuming a "sustainable diet" but creating offspring who create offspring and so on.

I don't think Paleo needs to be justified by any means other than personal criteria: health, energy, and so forth. Indeed, I would ask what the motives of the critics are. If Paleo isn't sustainable.... well, what is?

However, there is a strong argument for change within the system, which is very similar to buying new hybrid electric vehicles. It is this: absent some radical change, which would alter the rules of the game in ways that are difficult to foresee (and hence to plan for), people are going to continue to drive and buy cars. By voting with our money for better vehicles, we increase the incentives for the world to flow our way, and in an incremental (even potentially "evolutionary" :) way rather than a boil-the-ocean jump to perfection. (Please don't read too much into this argument: I personally drive an old car and use a bike, and I know perfectly well that a lot of buying is simply social signalling. Nevertheless, I think the above reasoning is sound).

Similarly, by buying what is now fairly expensive and high quality food, we increase the market for exactly that. From the comments on this board, I think most of us would love it if almost-as-good-but-much-cheaper Paleo food became available.

The rotting sores and bloated bellies of the starving masses will never be a mortgage on my life, nor on my choices for myself or the values I produce for myself and others I value. While it's certainly unfortunate that not everyone in the world lives in the lap of luxury or even at a level of basic sustenance, it's simply not my problem.

This is MY life and it simply boils down the that.

A comment I made on my blog yesterday peripherally speaks to the root cause, the chief antagonism in today's politically charged world: collectivism vs. individualism.

http://freetheanimal.com/2011/02/vegan-lies-and-their-stick-figure-people.html#comment-60655

I never think globally, so you could argue that everything I do is selfish.

As for food, I try to buy locally (and have plans to grow my own produce) but if local isn't available I don't worry about it.

I never say to myself, "Is it fair for me to eat ribeye tonight when there are families who only get beef once a year, if at all?" I say, "Hooray, ribeye is on sale!" 8)

I have read a number of economists and agriculturalist who say the real food problem is distribution, not lack of growing space or output. Remember, the ol' US of A PAYS farmers to NOT grow crops or raise cattle (I know the former, but only think the latter).

That aside and getting BOT, I am sure some Paleo types are in for Narcissistic and Self-Indulgent reason. But, that is why they do anything; so Paleo is just another example of their Narcissism and Self-Indulgence.

But, I am also sure that lots, maybe most, Paleo folks are in for their health and wellness and really appreciate how much better they feel on it; and do not do it as an ego thing.

I dont' know if we are able to help each and every person. but I do know, that as the rich elite of the globe, we do not do enough. A lot of humanitarian programs are based on patronizing giving instead of empowering the poor. There should be more programs like Heifer, that help people be self-supportive with animals. There are more and more programs that help rework the land in a natural way - letting cows graze and fertilize the soil which helps growing plants on teh same land in cycles. there are lands where only grazing animals (sheep and goats mainly) can survive, like in semi-deserts and mountain areas. Animals are often the only source of sustainability.A lot of good land where people for generations were growing tubers and rising their herds are devastated because of the abuse from the North's big businesses. Land is taken away to build factories or big farms with produce shipped to Europe and the US. If the poor countries were left to itself, helped to restore their natural resources, agricultures and way of living they would be able to support themselves. But the big corporations have no interest in them, so they keep on stealing land to create huge sugar cane plantations or similar. First people need to educate themselves, to learn how these poor became so poor, and how come countries with often amazing natural resources, or at least good enough land, are so poor. Then we can think of strategies.

I think that even if the Paleo diet in its strictest form cannot scale, variants of it certainly can be implemented depending on local conditions even if these cannot carry the branding "Paleo." What I think is important is to implement as much as possible the diet that will bring the best health and, in cases where this cannot be done, to reduce damage as much as possible. The additional question that this question necessarily implies is: what is a scalable diet? Let us say that we all had to suddenly go on a poverty diet. I do not believe this would have to be composed mostly of wheat, soy, and fructose like the SAD is. White rice has a low toxin load, so do lentils. Pseudo grains are complete proteins that have fewer toxins than the gluten grains. A diet containing whatever portion is necessary of these elements in addition to fibrous vegetables, nuts, and tubers would certainly be an improvement on the SAD and one that could perhaps be more sustainable or at least storable. Not the ideal but not total poison either. In any case, addressing such questions is very difficult in such limited space since, as Melissa mentioned, this global problem is composed of tons of tiny problems with their own solutions and it is impossible to produce a blanket "sustainable" global diet just like that.

Why food? I think people tend to pick and choose lifestyle choices to moralize over based on what they are comfortable with. Food is one of the easiest ways to do this. It doesn't require much sacrifice to eat a piece of toast versus a piece of steak. Perhaps poor countries can't afford to eat paleo on a large scale. They also can't afford all the clothes, shoes, clean living spaces, toys, furniture, entertainment, computers, medical care and everything else we have. How is that sustainable for everyone? I don't have any theories about how to fix the entire world, but I think it might be more sustainable for many impoverished societies with a little space for a few goats or chickens and a garden. That could feed a non-farming family easily without too much extra work and money after the initial expense. Donating the initial training and expense is a more worthwhile effort in my opinion than eating a piece of toast.

I tend to think that we are very good at meeting demands. Lab grown meat has been demonstrated, it just isn't a research priority right now. Most of us could grow quite a bit of what we eat if we had about 5% of our living space converted to hydroponics. Not worth it right now.

I think that we are all working on creating questions, and the fact that we don't have answers yet is a very poor reason to stop trying to formulate the question. Once we have a good question answering it is something we are good at.

So maybe we are over carrying capacity, maybe cities are unnatural. On the other hand I tend to believe that natural is the sum of the changes all the species make to expand their niche and deal with their wastes, we are not unique in altering our environment.

I do think we have a distinct advantage in that we can do our alterations with the understanding of what other species need and how they are going to impact the environment, in my ideal world we work to weave these changes together.

Of course in my ideal world we also dense up to make more space for other creatures and wildness and do a lot of other things that are not traditionally paleo.

It's not human nature to gather in the hives that are modern cities. Nothing is particularly natural to us anymore. On a global level eating "paleo" is not sustainable, but neither is the human over-population of the time we live in. Our genes want to express themselves as well as possible and genes according to Dawkins are pretty selfish.

narcissistic? self-indulgent?

who gives a fuck?

what does that have to do with taking care of yourself?

perhaps because a majority of the world's population lives on less than $2 per day, I should do the same?

everything we do is narcissistic and self-indulgent by this measure, it has to be in relation to the people around you, not the 7 billion people of earth

i assume 95% of the people on this discussion site are from the USA....we are the richest people on earth, don't kid yourself.

Container gardening is going in a lot of new directions. Vertical, rooftop, straw bales, raised beds at the senior centers. Any way vegetables can be grown, we're going to figure out how to do it in every nook and cranny of urban and village life and with a variety of materials. Optimized hydroponics is for spaceships, we're going to be laying out old carpet on rooftops. This is how supplementation with healthy foods can happen in an increasingly crowded world.

The logistics of container gardening begs for variety. The isolated growing areas helps with preserving unique strains for seed saving. Coming across each others' containers as part of village life helps with sharing locally-targeted growing knowledge and seed sharing.

I'm afraid anything large-scale and centralized is going to constantly be under pressure to go the way of grains. Seeds are the part of the plant that is supposed to last through seasons and store a punch of energy that whole time. In thinking of distributing food to areas, grains make sense. To get away from grains, we have to get away from thinking about distributing.