Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

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I had this thought, partly inspired by the book "The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer" by Joel Salatin who touches on it but doesn't explicitly take it further (at least yet). Then there was a question here on Paleohacks, was something like "could a paleo diet sustain the human population?" and the conclusion was basically no - we need an agricultural economy to maintain the current population. "Just like a feedlot," I thought...

We all know most of the criticisms of modern industrial food production as exemplified by the feedlot: the crowding, the lack of exercise, bad health because of horrible diet and no 'nature', using medicine to cure symptoms but not addressing the causes of disease, the huge emphasis on production at the expense of the animal's life (and the Community's), the corn-based industrial economy required to support it, the PR that all this is actually "good" for them and for us, the ocean of toxic waste that is produced that we must all live with.

I bet you can't tell where I'm going with this :-)

It could be US being talked about! As a society, we're overworked, overweight, crowded, unhealthy because of the SAD, expected to produce produce produce (much of it filtering up to a small number of "owners"), in a system that depends heavily on subsidized chemical inputs and produces massive amounts of waste that many people must live with, with fewer options for a 'golden' retirement once productivity drops.

Am I crazy? Is this too far afield? Now I'm not crazy enough to think I'm actually living in a feedlot. I know the difference - at least know the difference between metaphor and real life. But I find the parallels interesting, and perhaps the analogy/metaphor can be stretched enough to produce some good ideas on making some useful changes.

My more specific questions are: has this question been covered ad nauseum already (I won't know until I post it and see the 'similar questions' column!)? Are there any books/blogs one would recommend? If I were a cow in a feedlot, and woke up to the fact that it was WRONG - what would my action plan be for escape? OK I'm changing my diet with paleo - what can I change in my life?

I must have too much time on my hands to be asking this question. Or shirking work. But, still...

flag	asked May 5 2011 at 19:07 CaveRat 3,601●6●16

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WOW this is deep! I'm not being sarcastic either. Food for thought, no pun intended. – Kim The Nourishing Cook May 5 2011 at 19:13

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As expected some relevant questions (with answers) popped up under the Related column. CT's 'What social factors of our ancestors are we missing?' looks interesting and a recommended book "Coming Home to the Pleistocene" is at my local library. "Food for thought" - heh :-) – CaveRat May 5 2011 at 19:25

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Being in a corporate job I have definitely felt like I've been in a feedlot at times.:) Really excellent points. You've opened up a new section in my thoughts... – Kim The Nourishing Cook May 5 2011 at 19:32

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I'd have to agree with your assessment, CaveRat. I think the most troubling aspect of it is that it implies a devaluation of the importance of an individual human life in our society. I think this "feedlot system" has been developed to sustain the "masses" economically, while completely overlooking the common sense that the masses are made up of individual lives. – tartare May 5 2011 at 19:32

Thanks guys - I worried I might have gone a little far outfield with the question! – CaveRat May 5 2011 at 19:40

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Travis Culp · Answer 1 · 2011-05-05 20:22:57Z UTC

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Grain-based diets have historically been ideal for social control. Most systems of governance/economics create really nice trickle-up pyramid schemes where the faceless masses toil (or become cannon-fodder) for the benefit of a select few elites. The rapid population increase that comes with a grain-fed population has always been perfect for fleshing out a conscript army or creating a tax base.

So yeah, I'd have to agree.

answered May 5 2011 at 20:22

Travis Culp♦
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zombie food: 13.waisays.com/zombie.htm – bionicanna May 5 2011 at 22:46

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The more I think about this the more I think phrases like "trickle-up pyramid schemes..." are about right. And that 'progress' in society seems to be more about finding ways to feed/pay us more cheaply while making us harder working and more productive - while trying to cut off that support (e.g., Social Security) once our productivity drops... We get a 'cut', but who does our work benefit most? Ourselves? Our neighbors? No, and not even the managers. Only when you get to the Board of Directors or most senior management do you start to see the real pay-off. – CaveRat May 11 2011 at 21:20

I was thinking of the Roman Empire, ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and feudal Europe as examples of high grain diets and heavy control by the elites. – Lady_Arwen Mar 13 2012 at 19:14

UncleLongHair · Answer 2 · 2011-05-05 20:02:35Z UTC

(I accidentally posted this answer on another thread! Whoops, sorry for those that see it twice).

You can read in book such as "Guns, Germs and Steel" what part agrarian societies play in the development of civilizations. To risk oversimplifying a very interesting book, one key reason why certain civilizations have historically developed and prospered way faster/better than others is the civilization got to a certain level of density and sophistication that not every member of the society had to spend all of their time worrying about food. Once that is achieved, other people in the society are freed up to think about things like technology, governance, religion/spirituality, and those people are the ones that advance the civilization. If you have two adjacent civilizations, one with these advances and the other without, the one with the advances will eventually conquer the other in one way or another.

Imagine a tribe of nomadic hunters, the members of which spend 95% of their time tracking and killing game, and are constantly moving from place to place to find it. That society will probably never develop (according to this theory) beyond a certain point because they're too concerned with basic sustenance.

But in an agrarian society, a minority of the people can generate the food for the majority, freeing up those people to enhance and develop the society. This also requires that the communities stay put, since they have to live off of the land, which is what originally created towns and cities.

There are civilization even today that suffer from the problem of the citizens spending all of their time and energy barely surviving, and these civilizations never develop beyond the most basic social groups (sub-Saharan Africa comes to mind). Meanwhile it is the cultures in the "bread basket" parts of the world that have generally developed and prospered.

10,000 years ago this was a major breakthrough in the evolution of mankind. Today, it is making people fat and lazy because it is way too easy to get food, so easy in fact that you have to go out of your way to not eat too much, to eat healthy foods, and stay active in a way that was required in the distant past. Very few people would willingly give up an endless supply of cheap food, and would rather concern themselves with entertainment or how to make their houses larger. So you end up with cultures that get fatter and lazier with each subsequent generation...

coprophagous · Answer 3 · 2012-01-09 03:20:48Z UTC

Human feed lots. yes i think the super market is a human feed lot where the masses are fed food to medicated them for the work place. its cheap calories, little nutrition, instant gratification. and guarantees a quick demise after your health is used up on a job or carrier. its the perfect government solution. die on the job scenario. but none of us are playing the game. we only eat living food, where every bite is beneficial to health and no empty calories are consumed to replace nutritious ones. are there any free range humans out there? nope, were all tied to these damn computers.

bionicanna · Answer 4 · 2011-05-05 22:44:34Z UTC

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human farming: "the story of your enslavement":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A

answered May 5 2011 at 22:44

bionicanna
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	Yowza - that's quite a statement. – CaveRat May 5 2011 at 22:54
	"Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind." – Primordial Jan 9 2012 at 7:04

Thomas Seay · Answer 5 · 2011-05-05 20:55:46Z UTC

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Your metaphor is apt. The underlying mechanism is to "produce" and "consume". You get marginalized if you question the dynamics of the mechanism. "Resistance is futile." Or is it?

answered May 5 2011 at 20:55

Thomas Seay

It sure seems that way! This strikes me as a paradigm problem in that even thinking about the problem is embedded in the problem itself - although that said there appears to be a LOT of very good thinking on this out there, and I need to grow my own understanding to embrace it. I think the 'paleo' angle is unique though; by taking something as fundamental as our food/diet out of the feedlot mentality it opens the door to other equally revolutionary ideas. – CaveRat May 5 2011 at 21:09

It certainly seems like the SAD diet leaves people complacent and not thinking straight. be like Molly the Cow. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1353409/… – tartare May 5 2011 at 21:24

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Cave Rat, I think the interesting thing about the H-G phenomenon is this. When you talk about breaking out of the paradigm, skeptics will accuse you of being a dreamer of fantasy utopias. However, one can respond to that by pointing out the H-Gs were not ruled by such a mechanism. Now, it can be argued that that was only possible when there was no surplus, etc. etc. Ok. However, the H-G model destroys, in my opinion, that the "society of control" (as Deleuze coins it) is essential, that it is human nature. – Thomas Seay May 5 2011 at 21:26

Oy, Thomas - Now there's a LOT of food for thought there! I have some rather paranoid theories. One is that the reason our schools are so poor is that our society as it works now 'needs' dysfunctionally educated workers (back to the feedlot metaphor). And we work so many hours because the system 'needs' a population without enough spare time to rock the boat. It's not a person or organization deciding this, but rather the system itself self-regulating. I'm gathering this is a similar idea... will look into it. – CaveRat May 5 2011 at 21:49

modern propaganda. If they can't think well enough to critically question the content of your agenda, well, then there will be no problems, and they certainly won't be able to think well enough to organize and overthrow. Add plenty of fluff media/entertainment and you have the cocktail for a Perfect Pravda, the ultimate in self perpetuating propaganda. The problem is when does it reach the tipping point when as a society we become too ill to continue to sustain both ourselves and our overlords? – tartare May 5 2011 at 22:21

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Bill1102inf · Answer 6 · 2012-01-09 04:08:38Z UTC

Most of America is ONE GIANT INDUSTRIALIZED human - Feed Lot.

We OUTSOURCED our productivity (factories)

Imported Liability (chinese crap)

But, America opened NEW FACTORIES, only instead of producing 'things' we produce Overweight and sick - Human Beings for the benefit of the Federal Government, and Big Medicine/Pharmaceuticals.

The factory feed-lots are everywhere -

The following are Fat and Disease Factories:

McDonalds, Burger King, Dunkin, Waffle House, 5 Guys, Arbys, Cold Stone, Dominos, Pizza Hut, Red Rooster, Taco Bell, Taco Time, Wendys, Zaxby's, Chicken Delite, Steak N Shake, etc. etc.

Heck, you can even DRIVE THRU to receive your fully hyrdrogenated, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Mono-sodium Glutemate, Sucrose Infused Fructoselated, Trans-Fatty_acid, Red Dye #40, Butylated hydroxyanisole, butylated hydroxytoluene, Potassium Bromate, Sodium Nitrite, Blue #1, Blue#2, aspartame, aheartattackwaitingtohappen-K ,Yellow 3 and Red 6 --- ALSO KNOWN, as a "Number Six with a diet soda!"

But, DONT WORRY!! Its all safe, the 'government did a study on it!!'.

Once you have put your time in at the Factory Feed Lot.

You eventually get to visit a Processing Facility. Also known as, a Dr's office or an ER.

What happens there??? Well, they poke and prod you, draw blood, weigh you, test you, inspect your junk, culture things and then!??

And Then!?

They Send you to the Slaughter_House!!!

Also known as the Pharmacy or, in some cases, the Operating Room.

Either way, you eventually end up at the Pharmacy.

And what do you get there? Viagra, Lipitor, Crestor, Zocor, Lisinopril, Novarsc, Prilosec, Azytrhomiacin, Hydrochlorothiazide, and about 5000 other wonderful drugs, all made in China for pennies per dose!!

You see, Obese, Sick people go in one end of the system and out comes $$$$$$$!!!!! Pouring out in every direction!!!!

We even have an awesome system that monitors everything that goes on called the US Pay-To_Pay-To_Pay-To_Pay-To_Pay health insurance industry!!

Aaaaaaaand, if you can't pay?? Don't worry!! Someone else will pay for you, even if they never visited a factory once in their life. Or, the drug company might just give you the medicine for free (so they can write off the full retail price!). Bless their hearts.

Bristlebeard · Answer 7 · 2011-05-05 21:18:13Z UTC

Along the lines of your feedlot metaphor, one could also say that we've successfully domesticated Homo sapiens sapiens, domesticated in this sense meaning behaving well in society.

One book I would recommend is Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, as it addresses the topic of whether an agrarian culture is the best or not.

If one wants to decide which diet is better, SAD or paleo, I think one needs to specify what the goal is. If the goal is having the highest possible population, then SAD works rather well (for a time). If the goal is having a bunch of healthy humans running around, well then paleo is the best choice.

I'm_with_Raquel · Answer 8 · 2012-01-09 13:33:39Z UTC

I imagine the whole history of agriculture has a direct relationship with land owning, overlords etc in which the many lose out for the apparent benefit of the few. Leaders of tribes probably grew strong and became responsible for the (basic) health of many people, inspiring relatively large scale agriculture (I imagine we understood for thousands of years about planting seeds etc before we started doing it en-masse).

The reason communism doesn't work is because it is trying to fix a problem it doesn't understand the root of.

L. Peltier · Answer 9 · 2011-05-06 00:40:59Z UTC

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Probably none of you will get this but....ALL roads lead back to Rothschilds.

answered May 6 2011 at 0:40

L. Peltier

If none of us will get it, would you care share? – Todd May 6 2011 at 1:10

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I actually understand the reference, and I get why you might not want to delve... – Todd May 6 2011 at 1:16

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It's about the world being controlled by a small number of families (starting with the Rothschilds) who control the primary financial systems and the biggest banks and thereby control most countries. I think it's interesting, but a little 'over the horizon' in terms of my original question. I mean, even if it's 100% true I'd want to connect some more dots between "paleo" and how we live. Focusing on the Big Bad Bankers is illuminating and even fun (and also depressing) - but it's a little abstract for you & me to DO anything about, and is ultimately distracting. – CaveRat May 6 2011 at 15:37

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I don't doubt that you've got families like the Rothschild's pulling strings behind the curtain. However, if tomorrow the Rothschilds were to disappear the system would self-perpetuate. Nothing would change.So what's the strategy. Maybe something like "Exodus" as proposed by Hardt and Negri and the Italian autonomists. However, even then we have to remember that even if we escape the mechanism, we have internalized it. It could turn into another scenario like the one presented in "Fight Club". – Thomas Seay May 6 2011 at 16:21

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The Rothschilds control 70% of the worlds banks. They own The Federal Reserve, the Catholic Church, the Corporations of London and DC. People like the Rockefellers, Carnegies, DuPonts, etc are all descended from the Rothschilds bloodline.They have enslaved the world financially, militarily and Spiritually. From fluoride to Big Pharma vaccines/drugs, Global geo-engineering to Monsanto and GMOs to....UN Agenda 21. We have gone from Survival Of The Fittest to Thriving Of The Sickest. A return to the "paleo" lifestyle is in order. A return to the Natural Balance. A return to self-sufficiency. – L. Peltier May 7 2011 at 10:07

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Are we living in a virtual feedlot for humans?

9 Answers