The Perfect Human Diet (2012)

[Leisher]

Yay Amazon Prime!

A guy dies in 1978, but is saved by medical personnel. He makes it his life's mission to discover what is the perfect human diet. This documentary sums up what he has discovered in his research.

You know how every fad diet has some science behind it to "prove" it works? What if a diet had indisputable scientific evidence to prove it is the end of the conversation? That is what you will see in this documentary.

There is also a very strong case made, without the filmmakers realizing it, for the direction of society and how it relates to diet. (Hint: We're probably getting stupider thanks to our food.) That would definitely be worth exploring in another documentary.

The football field is one of the best tools I've ever seen to describe man's diet. Once you see it, it will always stick with you.

I am very curious for Catt, Thib, and Gordon to watch this film. I know Catt's on some diet now, Gordon has been working out/dieting on and off like me, and Thib has discussed diets here before.

It's a really good documentary.

[thibodeaux]

I'll put in the queueue

[TheCatt]

Is this the paleo diet movie?

[Leisher]

They talk to the author of The Paleo Diet

[GORDON]

Where do they stand on eating pussy?

[thibodeaux]

Pussy is meat, I guess, so go for it.

On the movie, not a whole lot here that I didn't know. Definitely a who's who of the "ancestral" dietary movement: Taubes, Eades, Cordain, Wolf.

The only real new to me was the guy looking at the isoptopes; it seems pretty irrefutable now that humans have been mostly carnivorous for a couple million years. Yes, humans ate plants too, but it's absolutely retarded to claim that we're designed to be herbivores.

[Leisher]

On the movie, not a whole lot here that I didn't know.

I figured that. I still remember how you described your diet from years ago.

What are the downsides? How much do you try to fit fruits and vegs in or grains?

[thibodeaux]

TBH, I don't even try very hard anymore. I eat bacon and eggs or turkey and cheese for lunch, some meat for dinner, and an after-dinner protein shake with some cream and fruit. On vacation I might slack a little but I try to make up for it by skipping lunch. I might eat some brocolli or asparagus at supper, and an apple or banana after supper. That said, discipline does have an effect on my body-fat-composition. I've been slacking, and I don't have a six-pack anymore.

So, more on the movie. To me it's pretty obvious that we're poorly adapted for eating grains and dairy and other agricultural foods...yet we ARE somewhat adapted for it. There is a thing called lactose tolerance (well...at least SOME of us have it), and compare the ability to consume alcohol of, say, Italians vs. Native Americans. I'm sure there's many Italians with an alcohol problem, but it's nowhere near as destructive for them as it is for the red man. Clearly evolution didn't stop 10,000 years ago.

Furthermore, I am not convinced that America's problems are all due to diet. I mean, people are just SO. FUCKING. FAT. It's like Wall-E levels of disgusting. Is that really due to corn syrup and white flour? What about the rampant mental illness in this country. Women in particular are on SSRIs at an astonishing rate: they're literally fucked in the head. Is that due to diet? Or is the gay-frog water a real thing? Or what? Is it social-media and feminist driven striving? I seriously am beginning to think women NEED to be pregnant, illiterate, and in the kitchen, for their own mental health. And I have a daughter.

I don't know what's going on, but it's depressing.

[Leisher]

So, more on the movie. To me it's pretty obvious that we're poorly adapted for eating grains and dairy and other agricultural foods...yet we ARE somewhat adapted for it. There is a thing called lactose tolerance (well...at least SOME of us have it), and compare the ability to consume alcohol of, say, Italians vs. Native Americans. I'm sure there's many Italians with an alcohol problem, but it's nowhere near as destructive for them as it is for the red man. Clearly evolution didn't stop 10,000 years ago.

Furthermore, I am not convinced that America's problems are all due to diet. I mean, people are just SO. FUCKING. FAT. It's like Wall-E levels of disgusting. Is that really due to corn syrup and white flour? What about the rampant mental illness in this country. Women in particular are on SSRIs at an astonishing rate: they're literally fucked in the head. Is that due to diet? Or is the gay-frog water a real thing? Or what? Is it social-media and feminist driven striving? I seriously am beginning to think women NEED to be pregnant, illiterate, and in the kitchen, for their own mental health. And I have a daughter.

I don't know what's going on, but it's depressing.

This all day. This is what I was talking about when I said:

There is also a very strong case made, without the filmmakers realizing it, for the direction of society and how it relates to diet. (Hint: We're probably getting stupider thanks to our food.) That would definitely be worth exploring in another documentary.

We blame social media, technology, politics, etc. for people getting dumber, but this movie really made me start to question what role our diet plays. "You are what you eat", right? So if you eat stupid things...

[thibodeaux]

There's a lot of research coming out about gut "biome" (i.e., the bacteria that live in your intestines). Evidently a lot of non-digestive parts of your body are affected by this. Like: mood and craziness. Naturally, ours is all fucked up.

It could very well be that the insanity of American women is due in large part to gut biome. But I wouldn't rule out The Pill.

[thibodeaux]

http://freakonomics.com/2013/07/23/the- ... revisited/

after 1980 the average BMIs of young men increased at a rate more than seven times faster than the rate observed over the previous century.

While it may be true that BMIs have been increasing slowly for a long time, the increases observed in recent decades are much faster and have pushed many adults and children over the obesity threshold in a remarkably short time. The trend is distressing, but to reverse it we only need to turn the clock back to 1980. We don’t need to go back to 1900.

What happened post-1980? I remember the 2nd half of the 70s as well as the 80s. I just don't think the food was THAT much worse. Maybe it was video games, wtf knows.

[TheCatt]

Lots of things changing in that time frame. Video games, fast food, economics, cars got not shitty for once, workplace changes, sugar in diet, etc.

I blame Bush

[TheCatt]

If I had to pick two, I'm going with: too much sugar, too little moving.

[thibodeaux]

But I'm saying: we had sugar and fast food in the 70s.

I'm really thinking the gay-frog water sounds like a good possibility.

[TheCatt]

But I'm saying: we had sugar and fast food in the 70s.

I'm really thinking the gay-frog water sounds like a good possibility.

My point was but we eat MORE of it or something... but this says not as drastically as I had thought. Fast food was much harder to find in the 70s, as far as my memory goes.


A little more granularity here:

Americans eat more chicken and less beef than they used to. They drink less milk – especially whole milk – and eat less ice cream, but they consume way more cheese. Their diets include less sugar than in prior decades but a lot more corn-derived sweeteners. And while the average American eats the equivalent of 1.2 gallons of yogurt a year, he or she also consumes 36 pounds of cooking oils – more than three times as much as in the early 1970s.

This points to changes in the types of foods (more granular than above)


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... e-decades/

[thibodeaux]

I doubt it's cheese, but the corn and cooking oils are good suspects. Maybe the chicken is loaded up with gay-frog water.

And where's soy? Hm? The Soy Council got to you, Pew?