It's not carb-rich diets, it's processed carbohydrates. Every culture on earth eats predominately carbohydrates, with a very small few exceptions like Inuit or some peoples in Africa. Asia has mostly rice, Africa various roots, South/North America it was corn, etc. Humans are (loosely) starch-ivores

Every agricultural culture eats primarily carbs. And the onset of agriculture is associated with the onset of tooth decay (and many signs of malnutrition) in the archaeological record.

Non-human primates also eat predominantly carbs, but mostly from fruits (and not from grains, which are highly cultivated by humans).

So I guess it's good to distinguish between sugars-from-fruit and starches-from-grains.

I thought that link between agriculture and tooth decay was due to the early "milling" techniques which introduced bits of stone into the food, causing mechanical wear? I don't remember where I got this from, however.

Price observed that the great majority of traditional diets were high in animal fats. He theorized that vitamin K, which is mostly acquired from animal fat, was the key health-promoting factor. Humans are more likely facultative carnivores than grain-eaters.

Traditional to whom, to hunter gatherers? Early farmers living in tribes? Or people living under strong states that developed over past few thousands years?

Based on my visit to India, travels around middle east, and third world countries. Oils, and fats are the most affordable way to get a high enough amount of calories in a diet for the poor masses. So even if you're poor, and eating rice everyday. It will be typically with something oily and some spices to add flavour.

I read the book, he travelled to multiple continents and generally this is pre- industrial diets, or prior to introduction of vegetable and seed oils, refined sugars, processed carbs, etc. Because he was able to do this research in the 20s, the industrial diet hadn't quite taken over. He also studied mummies in South America. They overwhelmingly had perfect teeth, prior to introduction of modern junk food.

I wonder how they survived berries. Because berries are not good for your teeth due to high (natural) sugar content.

Modern fruits have wayyy more sugar than wild plants, due to years and years of selective breeding.

Even then you still have a lot of fiber and acid to slow down the release and absorption of sugars.

Also berries are fairly seasonal AFAIK

Price observed the traditional cultures he had access to at the time, you can read the details for yourself here: http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/pricetoc....

Mostly acquired from animal fat if you're eating animals... Leafy greens (kale etc.) are a great source of plant vitamin K

K1 comes from veggies. K2 is almost exclusively from animal products (except for natto, yum!).

Apparently our bodies can synthesize some K2 from K1 but my understanding is that's quite variable and should not assumed to be adequate.

There's a fair amount of research linking arteriosclerosis to a deficiency of K2, so it's part of my supplement regimentation. It's definitely worth researching if you're interested in optimizing your health in a very lazy manner :-).

I thought there was also a fair amount of research linking red meat consumption to arteriosclerosis, so something doesn't add up.

It turns out the research for that doesn't meet evidence-based medicine standards. Almost all observational studies of human nutrition are junk science with small effect sizes and poor controls.

the evidence for that was mostly based on Ancel Keys' work around the 1950s and it has been pretty clearly shown that he cherry picked the data in his observational study. When analyzed properly, the link between any kind of heart disease and red meat disappears. Look up Gary Taubes work for thorough references

Source? You may actually be thinking of the lipid hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_hypothesis) that Ancel Keys developed.

As I gather, we still believe that red meat consumption leads to heart disease, but we're becoming less sure of his hypothesis that the elevated cholesterol resulting from saturated fat (found in red meat) causes heart disease.

There is an assumption here that there is one diet is the best in all respects. But I don't think that's the case. Diets have benefits and drawbacks. Like over the years we have adapted a little bit in this direction and then later a little bit in that direction and that's how we are where we are.

There's nothing wrong with natto..

I think the point was that it's not common across the world. Though I might not be detecting some sarcasm.

It was good natured sarcasm. I've researched making it and if I could get the time and focus to do so, I would.

That said, I have yet to eat it and say "yum!"

What a load of b. We have herbivore teeth, all our closest primate ancestors are herbivore, we have a long, herbivore intestine, an appendix, etc. Feels like you have an agenda to push here.

We have a short omnivore intestine and many of the plants our primate ancestors ate would give you a very bad stomach ache.

We don't look like other predators because our main weapon is our brain and tools rather than claws and strength. We also cook our meat which means we need less powerful jaws and less sharp teeth. Keep in mind that you still have incisors and canines specifically for eating meat. You could even run your tongue along then right now and feel how sharp they are.

Gorillas and hippos also have canines. It's not a good heuristic. Try tearing the flesh off an animal with your canines

Fair point. Though we do cook our meat so don't need to tear raw flesh.

This is correct. The Expensive Tissue Hypothesis of brain/gut development pretty clearly shows that a switch to eating meat and hunting coincided with a shortening of our intestines and enlarging of our brain, making us human.

Incorrect. ETH postulates that there could be a correlation between gut length and brain development, the paper explicitly states that there could be an alternative methodology for how we manage the metabolic requirements for our brains. Back to the point on humans having canines. Herbivores also have canines to tear through fibrous plant material see (gorilla, baboon and hippo).

I think the HN demographic doesn't take well to the tone you used, but there is a lot of evidence that you're right.

What is a processed carbohydrate to you? Only refined wheat flower, white rice, and sucrose? These issues started with the shift to agriculture, and the cultures I believe you're describing are all agricultural. That's why civilization exists at all.

Hunter gatherers ate all sorts of things. But starch and sugar was not easily accessible. Wild rice, for instance, would be painstaking to gather and consume in large amounts. Roots and tubers would be small and have lots of antinutrients, keeping you from eating a lot of them. Fruits were seasonal and generally tiny.

If I were a hunter gatherer, in the absence of fresh hunted meat, I would get more nutritional value out of worms or larvae in the dirt than a handful of tubers that may give me a stomachache. Insects are animal protein (and fat).

No the people he studied were in the 1920s. Traditional diets vs newer modern industrial diets. Vast majority of cultures were agricultural since 5000BC. It's seed and vegetable oils (not used as dietary fat source until industrial methods made it possible in early 20th century), white bread, enriched flour, high fructose corn syrup, excessive sugar, etc.

Do you have a source for the starch-ivore comment? Id like to do some research. Thanks.

Yes I first heard about it through the work of Nathianel Dominy [1] [2]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377015/ [2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=ufNEoLeVplc

There's a very interesting and long 6-year old discussion in the comments of the YouTube video you posted. In it, Marcinmd1 makes a lot of very good points, against the premise of the video...

What does "predominantly" mean in the context of diet? Carbs, proteins, and fats all make a very statistically significant portion of most diets.

Most industrial diets rather, but for traditional agricultural diets, complex carbohydrates are 70-80 percent of the diet.

Humans farming is a very very recent development. People existed for millennia before they started farming crops.

Don’t/didn’t indigenous peoples eat roots like cassava and potatoes, beets, etc., even rice?

Different indigenous peoples ate very different diets, from zero carb to mostly carb, but each group ate a smaller variety of foods because they were constrained by their geography. Most diets were high in animal fats though, and even the ones that were high in carbohydrate had adequate amounts of animal fat in the form of cheese and (raw, whole) milk.

Potatoes didn't exist in the Old World until brought from South America. Corn (maize) and tomatoes also came from the New World.

Yeah but mentioned Begg and doesn't mention Price. Begg advocated for mechanical intervention, Price advocated for nutritional intervention. Only mentioning Begg presents a biased view on possible therapies.

Carbs are actually not bad, but if you do not have the proper micronutrients in place they’ll just mess your teeth and your health. Cue obesity, diabetes, dental issues, poor resistance to infection

Could you provide some more information on this?