tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716313682018292463.post8463806042583265122..comments2008-11-10T03:58:53.238-08:00Artificial Swedenerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02332627386345833010noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716313682018292463.post-12790006657711795212008-11-10T03:58:53.238-08:002008-11-10T03:58:53.238-08:00But, wait, candy is one of the "ecological, cultural, and physical touchstones"....right?Artificial Swedenerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02332627386345833010noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716313682018292463.post-23314491718532297182008-11-09T09:22:59.588-08:002008-11-09T09:22:59.588-08:00True, hunter-gatherer types have a better health profile than Westerners... but, then again, so does basically any culture that is not "post-agricultural," as you put it. Michael Pollan points out in his book "In Defense of Food" (as do others) that virtually every culture, regardless of it's TYPE of diet - purely meat and fat for Inuit versus a fish-and-vegetable-centric selection for the Japanese, for example - is for the most part without the "Western" diseases you mentioned, such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc.(or was, until the Western diet was introduced), as long as they stick to a diet that is full of foods cultivated, foraged, or hunted naturally (and moderate alcohol intake is found to be good for you in almost all cases, by the way, which is why virtually every culture has some form of it). The point is that the human body is remarkably adaptive, and can live - in good health - on almost any diet, except one consisting of processed food-like stuffs that ignore the ecological, cultural, and physical touchstones of the human race's relationship to food.Joshuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564883569785275942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8716313682018292463.post-50633362334108261472008-11-07T14:32:14.377-08:002008-11-07T14:32:14.377-08:00I was hoping you were going to tell us Swedish Fish really do exist!hBomBerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00398368241095069574noreply@blogger.com