Friday, July 28, 2017

The Paleofantasy

I checked out the book "Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet and How We Live."

When I first saw the title I smirked.

When I saw that the author was female I laughed a sly "heh, heh."

Nick saw me reading it the other night and said I was only doing so "to make fun of the paleo types."

He knows me well.

I wanted to experience a scientific take down of all those idiots who act like they are slaves to their inner cavemen.

I've lost count of all the people in the comments section of online stories who say, "I'm sorry, but it's evolution, we can't help it." This is usually right after they've explained to the poor, unknowing masses how men have to treat women like crap because they've been doing it since we crawled out of trees. It's biology they say- written in the DNA, an enduring genetic trait, etc.

I'm also irritated by the smug prophets of the paleo diet who like to act like we were once in perfect harmony with our environment and need to meat it up to be our best selves.

Spoiler alert: there never was such a time and there is no way to return to what we were in the olden days. We've changed too much genetically as have our current food sources.

Author Marlene Zuk gives examples of how quickly evolution can take place and how it can act in different ways to achieve the same results.

She writes about the genetic mutation that causes lactase persistence and how in one region of Africa people have evolved to keep producing lactase while in another, people have acquired a specialized gut bacteria that aids with dairy digestion.

She points out that plaque taken from both Neanderthals and Australopithecus had gelled grain remnants in it-so there bread and grain haters!

She writes about the variety of foods and habits of our ancient relatives depending on the time of season and where they lived. Surprise, surprise-they were not monolithic.

This should surprise no one but I'm sure it will.

Somewhere, a paleo disciple is imagining a golden age where men went shoeless, ate regular meals of meat, wore animal skins and were always fit.

I guess if you ignore the irregularity of meals, the brutality of parasites, exposure to extreme cold, the threat of being mauled by something wild and the fact that personal hygiene practices were limited then sure, it sounds great.

The chapter I'm reading now addresses the old chestnut about males needing to spread their seed everywhere and women supposedly being all reluctant about sex. It also discusses representations of the division of labor.

She quotes Lori Hager who says, "the early models of Man the Hunter were popular in part because they validated the way Western families were structured in the 1940s-60s...the implication is that women stay home and care for the children, while men go out and bring home the bacon, or mammoth meat."

Adrienne Zihlmann discovered that in modern groups where women are still the gatherers, they often provide the bulk of the nutrients for the group and that in other cultures women hunt as well. She says the old idea of men as the superstars of yesteryear, "came to stand for a way of life that placed males center-stage, gave an evolutionary basis for aggressive male behavior and justified gun use, political aggression, and a circumscribed relationship between women and men as a 'natural' outcome of human evolutionary history."

I am really enjoying this book.

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