Tofu makes you gay

December 12, 2006 10:13 AM

Tofu is to gays as fluoridated water is to Communists? No, but tofu is as protein-rich as this article by James Rutz, chairman of Megashift Ministries, is delightfully rich in crazy. (previously on MeFi: Is soy safe?, Tofu Eaters v. Hummers). The comments thread about this article on Pandagon is priceless.
posted by bitter-girl.com (135 comments total)

From the article:

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.

And yet, these people throw a hissy if women breastfeed in public...
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:15 AM on December 12, 2006

No, tofu makes you gassy and self-righteous. Sun-dried tomatoes make you gay.
posted by jonmc at 10:16 AM on December 12, 2006 [4 favorites]

What about creme brulee?

And what if it's made with soy milk? (joke!)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:17 AM on December 12, 2006

I agree that this guy is an idiot, and this particular expectoration of idiocy is mildly entertaining. And I'm also willing to bet that preachers who focus so closley on homosexuality are probably repressed homosexuals themselves.

However, and not to knock the post, but do we need to hear about every instance of it? There are literally thousands of preachers and ministers saying things like this. We don't have fpp's for every goofy white supremacist hate site out there, and I would argue that (a) the same type of person buys into both theories, and (b) both ideas/ideologies need to be equally marginalized and ostracized.
posted by Pastabagel at 10:19 AM on December 12, 2006

I disagree, Pastabagel. I think that it's important to warn people of the danger. How much hot man-on-man sex could be avoided if they just hadn't had that second helping of Tofurkey???
posted by leftcoastbob at 10:28 AM on December 12, 2006

What about creme brulee?

That makes you French, which is even worse.
posted by jonmc at 10:28 AM on December 12, 2006

Ok, I'll buy that, Pastabagel. It would get awfully exhausting to read about all such instances of crazy. But there are just so many things that feed into this one, such as:

• hypocritical gay megachurch pastors


• fear of homosexuals in general


• serious problems with breastfeeding in today's society (see: the recent Delta affiliate issue in Vermont)

He's not a one trick pony with this one, he's really gunning for multiple issues.

(I won't even go into the Chicks Buy This Stuff, And So It's All Their Fault undercurrent, though the comments thread at Pandagon said it won't be long 'til they blame Ted Haggart's wife for buying soy milk, and y'know, they're probably not half-wrong. They've already blamed her for letting her looks go, why not attack her grocery-buying habits next?)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:29 AM on December 12, 2006

Yes, homophobes do seem to be repressed homosexuals.
posted by MythMaker at 10:29 AM on December 12, 2006

This would explain why there are so few Chinese. All that soy they eat has been giving them the gay.
posted by justkevin at 10:30 AM on December 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

Or that second helping of meth, leftcoastbob.

justkevin, on that note, last I checked, it wasn't tofu making girls as young as 8 go through early puberty in this country, it was all the freaky growth hormones that're pumped into beef and the (more commonly consumed) cow's milk.

Used to be that, on average, Asian women reached puberty much later than Westerners (in some cases ca. age 18) because they didn't consume as much fat / dairy in their diet. I read a study that said this is rapidly changing as the typical American fast food hell diet spreads around the world.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:34 AM on December 12, 2006

Or that second helping of meth, leftcoastbob.

I hear they're coming out with soymeth.
posted by jonmc at 10:37 AM on December 12, 2006

You of course need to ask what the alternative to Tofu would be … and, of course, that would be: MEAT!!

Gluten has way more protein than tofu, percentage wise. Meat is not the only other option.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:38 AM on December 12, 2006

Apart from his insane comments about homosexuality, the article was surprisingly coherent. Soy products are obviously completely un-natural for humans to eat. It is stupid to believe that something is healthy just because it comes from plants.
posted by JoddEHaa at 10:40 AM on December 12, 2006

Pretty soon you'll have to sign a register to buy your soy over the counter, jonmc. I mean, sure, you can use Sudafed to make original-formula meth, but if soy can make you gay... well. We can't have the kids buying that OTC.

mrgrimm, you know what's really tasty? seitan.

HEY! Maybe when he was talking about "devil's food," he was confusing Satan and seitan?
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:41 AM on December 12, 2006

Some 5000 or so years ago human adults were not able to digest lactose, which means adults couldn't drink milk, which means the adults all drank soy milk, which means we evolved from gay apes.
posted by StarForce5 at 10:44 AM on December 12, 2006

serious problems with breastfeeding in today's society (see: the recent Delta affiliate issue in Vermont)

I didn't actually pick up on this, which is a different twist, because I didn't read everything on every link because, well, he's crazy.
posted by Pastabagel at 10:44 AM on December 12, 2006

mrgrimm - true, but isn't a lot of carbohydrates from wheat lost during the production of gluten (mmmm, yummy)? Or is that carbohydrate saved somehow during the commercial process and used for other things?

(All I know about gluten production is doing it in the kitchen when I was a kid - make a big thing of dough, slowly wash it in water while kneading - then getting a little chunk of chewy gluten)
posted by porpoise at 10:46 AM on December 12, 2006

Soy products are obviously completely un-natural for humans to eat.

Why is soy more unnatural than wheat, corn or any other plant?
posted by Pastabagel at 10:46 AM on December 12, 2006

The obvious solution is to give our young men massive infusions of life-giving manhood administered via semen.

The answer was in our pants all along.
posted by fleetmouse at 10:50 AM on December 12, 2006

In a tangentially related link:

Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?
posted by lalochezia at 10:51 AM on December 12, 2006

I've made gluten like that, porpoise - it's so messy! It's positively seitanic.
posted by fleetmouse at 10:51 AM on December 12, 2006

Yeah, what (the appropriately-named and tastily carbohydrate-y) Pastabagel said. Since when is soy completely unnatural for humans to eat?

On a more-or-less unrelated but cool as hell topic, did you know you can make a (textile) fiber from soy? I'm working on a book about these fibers... the soy is made via a chemical catalyst process on leftover tofu-making water, you can do a corn-based fiber (tradename ingeo) with corn sugars, plus bamboo and wood pulp-based (tradename Tencel) yarn.

See this company's site for knitting yarns made from all of those. Oh, and yarn made from seaweed can actually transmit vitamins and stuff into the skin!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:52 AM on December 12, 2006

JoddEHaa writes "Soy products are obviously completely un-natural for humans to eat."

What the fuck does this even mean? Are we supposed to be eating woolly mammoths and berries?
posted by mr_roboto at 10:53 AM on December 12, 2006

p.s. to everyone, sorry about that knitting dorkout. I can't help it sometimes.

I blame the tofu in my fridge. It's altering my brainwaves from 15 feet away.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:54 AM on December 12, 2006

The answer was in our pants all along.

So we're supposed to eat fish?

Apart from his insane comments about homosexuality, the article was surprisingly coherent.

Well, sometimes smart people use their intelligence mainly to create elaborate rationalizations for their own prejudices and hangups.

Pretty soon you'll have to sign a register to buy your soy over the counter, jonmc.

This is me you're talking to. The day I eat a soy product is the day Toby Keith is a guest on Soul Train.
posted by jonmc at 10:54 AM on December 12, 2006

I take it this guy has never been to Korea...
posted by TetrisKid at 10:56 AM on December 12, 2006

*observes son loudly singing Wonder Pets theme while wearing my bra on his head*
*considers last nights side dish of Trader Joe's Soy-cottash*

....

*so be it. Teh Gay is just too damn adorable.*
posted by maryh at 10:58 AM on December 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

Pastabagel: yes, soy is much more unnatural than almost any other plant food, since it, like all legumes, needs to be boiled for a long time just to make them edible for us humans.

Since they need to be processed so much in order to make them edible, they are a relatively new food. Therefore, we cannot possibly have adapted to eating them, yet. Evolution takes a lot more than a couple of thousand years to complete the rewire from meat eaters to tofu eaters.

We aren't there yet, but if you decide to continue eating tofu, you will at least have done your part to ensure that we can eat tofu on Mars in the year 10,000.
posted by JoddEHaa at 10:59 AM on December 12, 2006

Who says (male) homosexuality is feminine anyway? In some cases homosexuality is related to and/or expressed as hypermasculinity.

I don't mean to imply that gender dysphoria (second link) is the same as homosexuality, but it is appropriate to the current discussion of homosexuality and feminization.
posted by Mister_A at 11:01 AM on December 12, 2006

hypocritical gay megachurch pastors

Joining Ted Haggard, another evangelical minister's hidden "gay" life is exposed in Denver -- Pastor resigns over homosexuality.
posted by ericb at 11:02 AM on December 12, 2006

mr_roboto: What the fuck does this even mean? Are we supposed to be eating woolly mammoths and berries?

The answer is YES. Or at least as similar as possible, within ecological limits, of course.
posted by JoddEHaa at 11:02 AM on December 12, 2006

I don't know if tofu is gay, but it's a spunky little food, and I enjoy it's spunk.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:06 AM on December 12, 2006

Well, then. It's frozen Trader Joe's bison burgers and raspberries for us tonight!

(hey maryh, family stories are filled with instances of me doing much the same thing... and look! I turned out just fine).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:08 AM on December 12, 2006

Hey JoddEHaa -- so I suppose you don't eat corn tortillas or tomato sauce or potatoes either, eh? (presuming you're of European descent, those have only been in your ancestor's diets for a few hundred years, if that).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:11 AM on December 12, 2006

So basically all cattle in the US are gay? Huh.
posted by cog_nate at 11:11 AM on December 12, 2006

Well, tofurky necks are pretty freakin' gay.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:19 AM on December 12, 2006

This is me you're talking to. The day I eat a soy product is the day Toby Keith is a guest on Soul Train.

Prepared traditionally, it can be great. Let soys be soys, as nobody ever said ever because it is gay.
posted by sonofsamiam at 11:25 AM on December 12, 2006

I dunno, jonmc. Deep fried tofu is pretty awesome. Especially with the sweet-sour-y sauce. Plus, never underestimate the powerful draw of the Soul Train.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:33 AM on December 12, 2006

You know what's totally gay? Sporogenous propagation of lifeforms through asexual mitotic division. Can you even fathom the enormous potential that's been squandered on this frivolous activity up to this point in the history of our universe? Blasphemy in the face of God^® himself.
posted by prostyle at 11:43 AM on December 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

mrgrimm, you know what's really tasty? seitan.

Oh, agreed. For sure. Seitan is probably the best of them, but I love most of the fake meats/TVP. Tempeh is just meat made out of corn.

It boggles my mind that anyone is grossed out by fake meat, but so many people are for some reason.

Isn't a lot of carbohydrates from wheat lost during the production of gluten (mmmm, yummy)? Or is that carbohydrate saved somehow during the commercial process and used for other things?

Dunno about that, but you've got a good point. Processed gluten doesn't have many carbs.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:54 AM on December 12, 2006

I once was at dinner with notorious tech blowhard John C. Dvorak, and about halfway through dinner he launched on a 20 minute rant about how soybeans were destroying American society with feminizing hormone analogs. He went on at some length in a monologue, then we interrupted and teased him a bit with fluoridation comments and the like. Then he kept going on and it was evident he was quite serious in his belief. It was pretty odd.
posted by Nelson at 11:58 AM on December 12, 2006

I never touched tofu as a child, nor much as an adult either, so I couldn't have caught Teh Gay from that. Wonder what crap I ate as a child ended up doing it ... Chef Boyardee Beef-O-Getti? Bugles?
Jeno's Pizza Rolls? Fritos Hot Bean Dip? Or maybe it was Plastigoop fumes ...

I don't know if tofu is gay, but it's a spunky little food, and I enjoy it's spunk. (Astro Zombie)

As Mr. Grant said to Mary Richards ... "I hate spunk."

It's positively seitanic. (fleetmouse)

*head explodes*
posted by chuq at 12:00 PM on December 12, 2006

Just to be clear, nowhere in Dvorak's rant was he anti-gay or anti-woman. He we just anti-soy.
posted by Nelson at 12:00 PM on December 12, 2006

"nowhere in Dvorak's rant was he anti-gay or anti-woman"
Yet he referred to the "feminizing" of America? Call it what you want, it's still ignorant and bigoted.
posted by 2sheets at 12:05 PM on December 12, 2006

soy is just a red herring. tea-tree oil carries teh ghey!!
posted by the painkiller at 12:06 PM on December 12, 2006

The human gut, JoddEHaa, is marvelously easy-going with regard to the kinds of food it will accept and process. Our digestive systems are able to adapt to "alien" foods rapidly, because eating something weird is so much better than starving. Also, I am sure that cave people were eating raw soy beans at some point. Finally, who are you to decide what is and is not "natural"?
posted by Mister_A at 12:17 PM on December 12, 2006

"Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis"

Chinpokomon Executive: You are American.
South Park Toy Store Owner: Yes.
Chinpokomon Executive: Ohhh, you must have very big penis!
South Park Toy Store Owner: Excuse me, I was just asking you what you're up to with these toys.
Chinpokomon Executive: Nothing, we are very simple people with very small penis. Mr. Hosik's penis is especially small!
Mr. Hosik: So small.
Chinpokomon Executive: We cannot achieve so much with such small penis, but you American wow, penis so big, so big penis!
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:19 PM on December 12, 2006

What about creme brulee?

That makes you French, which is even worse.

Unless you use it to take out a liberal SCOTUS judge, in which case Ann Coulter will let you do her.
posted by homunculus at 12:22 PM on December 12, 2006

No no, it's true. The introduction of Soy into the american diet coincides with I.G. Barben Pharmaceuticals population control through homosexuality campaign. This soy is evil stuff, man!

/end goofy/obscure L. Ron Hubbard reference.
posted by IronLizard at 12:24 PM on December 12, 2006

bitter-girl.com: so I suppose you don't eat corn tortillas or tomato sauce or potatoes either, eh? (presuming you're of European descent, those have only been in your ancestor's diets for a few hundred years, if that)

Tomatoes are healthy vegetables. Potatoes and corn are not. I'm sure you can spot the difference between the two groups. Potatoes and corn have to be processed to be eaten, one can be eaten off the tree.

But the basic rule to try to eat by is: eat as similar to our hunter-gatherer ancestors as possible. (Fat, nuts, meat and vegetables) The rest is details. :-) But if your mom made your favorite pasta, don't be silly, eat it.
posted by JoddEHaa at 12:24 PM on December 12, 2006

I only eat what my own body produces.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:27 PM on December 12, 2006

But the basic rule to try to eat by is: eat as similar to our hunter-gatherer ancestors as possible.

Isn't there a dentist or something who wrote a big book about this?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:36 PM on December 12, 2006

Tomatoes are healthy and potatoes/corn are not? (Makes Scooby-Do noise of disbelief). Maybe during the current low-carb jihad, but not in general! Also, tomatoes aren't vegetables ;)

You can eat both potatoes and corn right out of the ground/off the stalk if you so desire... well, unless the potato is green because it's been exposed to sunlight and that's a whole 'nother story.

Hey! let's look at that article quote again, because it makes me laugh:

But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.?

Oh yeah! it's always Mom's fault. Don't forget that. God forbid you be influenced by excess estrogen...
posted by bitter-girl.com at 12:36 PM on December 12, 2006

"Potatoes and corn have to be processed to be eaten"

They do?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:38 PM on December 12, 2006

*looks at penis*
Fuck you fucking soy!
posted by Mister_A at 12:39 PM on December 12, 2006

(Fat, nuts, meat and vegetables)

But don't you dare cook any of that! Fire makes food evil.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:39 PM on December 12, 2006

"The basic rule to try to eat by is: eat as similar to our hunter-gatherer ancestors as possible."

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors mostly died in their twenties. But go ahead, be "natural," if that's what does it for you. I'll be the one drinking Scotch and eating petite pastrami sandwiches at your funeral.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:45 PM on December 12, 2006 [4 favorites]

Okay, I really prefer TVP but now I have to switch to soy.
posted by Morrigan at 12:49 PM on December 12, 2006

PinkStainlessTail: Isn't there a dentist or something who wrote a big book about this?

I'm sure there is a whole bunch of people who have written books about this. Logical, of course, considering how much sense it makes to eat the food than we are adapted to eat. I particularly like one by an Australian medical doctor named Wolfgang Lutz called "Life without bread".
posted by JoddEHaa at 12:51 PM on December 12, 2006

Here is some evidence supporting JoddEHaa's position:

Seagulls have bills. These bills are good at picking up and ingesting certain types of foods. Their bills are ineffective at cracking the shells of clams or other shelled molluscs.

Yet sometimes these birds will process the molluscs, dropping them from a great height to release the nutritious slime secreted within their calcitic shells. Then these gulls consume the booger-like corpus of the mollusc! Yuck! And you know what, they die within a few years of eating their first processed mollusc booger body.

QED.
posted by Mister_A at 12:52 PM on December 12, 2006

JoddEHaa, what you have failed to present is any kind of down side:

What terrible things will happen to me if I eat corn and potatoes and soy?

Hint: to avoid utter crackpot status, at this point you must respond with SPECIFICS, backed up with statistical data.
posted by InnocentBystander at 1:02 PM on December 12, 2006

the food than we are adapted to eat ???

Ok, this just reminded me of my high school ex-boyfriend, a lifelong vegetarian described (by current boyfriend's best friend) as "Quentin Tarantino on Slimfast." A friend of ours spotted his blog online and sent me the 'about' blurb. He's living somewhere out west with four vegan dogs.

Now, dogs are omnivores, as we humans are. They can be vegan if they want to (read: if their humans want them to). Cats can't. There's a lack of certain essential nutrients cats have to have in a non-meat diet, and they'll die.

Unlike cats, humans can eat just about any crazy ol' thing they want and live quite happily, thanks... barring a metabolic disorder, Crohn's or something else out of the ordinary. It's not that we haven't adapted to eating soy.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 1:08 PM on December 12, 2006

I hear buttsex makes you gay, too.
posted by ninjew at 1:09 PM on December 12, 2006

JoddEHaa writes "Logical, of course, considering how much sense it makes to eat the food than we are adapted to eat."

Actually, that strikes me as utter nonsense, which is consistent with the reliability of intuition in reaching scientific conclusions. I can make about twenty "intuitive" arguments to counter it off the top of my head, each of which is meaningless, as none of them are backed by well controlled empirical studies. Personally, I'm going to stick with cooking my food, but that's just a matter of aesthetics.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:13 PM on December 12, 2006

Awww, come on, mr_roboto, you know you wanna be a Fruitarian.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 1:16 PM on December 12, 2006

I hear buttsex makes you gay, too.

I intially read this as 'buttersex' and began wondering about the implications for Marlon Brando.
posted by jonmc at 1:19 PM on December 12, 2006

Yeah. Hm.

Estrogen masculinizes the fetus in utero.

Estrogen stimulates masculine behavior in masculinized brains.

If soy infant formula has any estrogenic effects on male babies, it would make them look more feminine but act more masculine.

Consumption of soy by the pregnant mother would probably, if anything, increase the masculinity of the fetus during gender differentiation.

Soy products seem to me to be much more likely have hormonal effects than milk products, but it all depends on personal consumption. Everything in moderation! You can't just say 'this is good' and 'that is bad'... that is overly simplistic.

And yeah, you have to cook soy (to deactivate an enzyme in it) or it will give you a bloated bellyache, but so what?
posted by zennie at 1:22 PM on December 12, 2006

bitter-girl.com: humans can eat just about any crazy ol' thing they want and live quite happily, thanks... barring a metabolic disorder, Crohn's or something else out of the ordinary. It's not that we haven't adapted to eating soy

sure, humans can survive on Twinkies and Mountain Dew. We are omnivores, something I am very thankful for, considering that my recent forefathers would have died out were it not for potatoes. Without potatoes, I wouldn't be sitting in front of this computer.

But the fact that we can eat something doesn't mean that we should eat it. For most of our evolutionary history, we have not been eating potatoes. We are not as well adapted to eating potatoes as what we ate as hunter gatherers. I would say that any other opinion qualifies for crackpot status, InnocentBystander. :-)
posted by JoddEHaa at 1:30 PM on December 12, 2006

mr_roboto: Personally, I'm going to stick with cooking my food, but that's just a matter of aesthetics.

Good, since nobody has argued against cooking food.
posted by JoddEHaa at 1:46 PM on December 12, 2006

What about edamame? I personally dont like tofu (even as a veg-head) but I could eat bushels of edamame.

Maybe I'm bi.....
posted by elendil71 at 1:51 PM on December 12, 2006

Come on, JoddEHaa. You keep saying that we should eat this or that.

Unless you're talking about some revelation from God, then that "should" HAS to be based in something. An 'or else'.

As in, "People should eat the foods they evolved to eat, because _______________"

So fill in the blank.
posted by InnocentBystander at 1:54 PM on December 12, 2006

Good, since nobody has argued against cooking food.

Yet.

This is MetaFilter, after all.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 1:56 PM on December 12, 2006

Good, since nobody has argued against cooking food.

What is the "processing" that has to happen to potatoes before they're edible then?

Potatoes and corn have to be processed to be eaten, [tomatoes] can be eaten off the tree.

For most of our evolutionary history, we have not been eating potatoes. We are not as well adapted to eating potatoes as what we ate as hunter gatherers.

I still don't understand what this has to do with anything. How does how long we've been eating something apply to its nutritional value? Particularly since, evolutionarily speaking, the difference between the hunter/gatherer period and now is an eyeblink, mere thousands of generations. We're barely different.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 2:00 PM on December 12, 2006

We're barely different.


That came out wrong: as a species we've barely spent anytime at all on the planet. We were hunter/gatherers for an eyeblink. We've barely evolved since then, but we've barely existed at all.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 2:02 PM on December 12, 2006

Dear Mister_A,

I am very sorry to hear that you don't understand evolution.

Many people find it quite easy to understand that if an animal has been exposed to a particular environment for many thousands of years, then it will be very well adapted to life in that environment. Some people further realize that if there is an abrupt change in the environment, there will be a time when that species is not 100% suited to the new environment. After a while, many generations, it will adapt. the seagulls that you mention has had plenty of time to adapt.

You might want to argue that humans have already adapted to the new environment that we were exposed to after the Neolithic Revolution. You might want to argue that the process of evolution somehow predicted that humans in the future would live predominantly on grains and potatoes. Evolutionary biologists would of course disagree with you.
posted by JoddEHaa at 2:06 PM on December 12, 2006

InnocentBystander: "People should eat the foods they evolved to eat, because _______________"

because those are the foods that they are best adapted to eat.

any owner of a zoological Garden will tell you that in order to make the animals happy, you have to replicate their natural environment as closely as possible.

as I understand it, this is only controversial if you somehow doubt that humans are animals. :-) Do you?
posted by JoddEHaa at 2:15 PM on December 12, 2006

Many people find it quite easy to understand that if an animal has been exposed to a particular environment for many thousands of years, then it will be very well adapted to life in that environment.

However, it does not follow that it is less well adapted to life in slightly different environments, with slightly different foods than what it is accustomed to. By your logic, since humans evolved in a tropical climate, we shouldn't live in temperate regions.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:17 PM on December 12, 2006

I know the thread has already evolved away from this sort of comment, but I just got here...

Tofu makes you gay

See, I knew there was a good reason for my username.
posted by soyjoy at 2:19 PM on December 12, 2006

JoddEHaa - cooking food is not natural. If God or Richard Dawkins had intended us to eat cooked food, he/they would have supplied us with an internal cooking organ, like those possessed by dragons, with which to perform said cooking. You should eat your meat raw, or not at all.

Also, how do you know that people have not been eating potatoes for most of their evolutionary history? I suspect that this is dead wrong. Potatoes did not spring into being in 1847.

Here's a highlight from a NYTimes piece from 1982 - I don't know how much this view has changed, but this piece places the extraction and eating of tubers by paleolithic dudes in the realm of the possible.

'Most of us who study early prehistory,' Professor Isaac said, 'are firmly convinced that fruits, nuts and perhaps tubers, dug up with simple tools, were the mainstay of life.

We should all remember, too, that the paleolithic diet presented high masticatory stress, ie, it was hard to chew, leading to increased dental wear. Very few dental caries, though, as there were no refined sugars to eat.

What's it all mean? It means that the human animal is capable of eating just about anything, and that it's "natural" for us to eat whatever our brain can conceive of eating. Eating too much of any one thing is probably the most "unnatural" thing we can do gastronomically.
posted by Mister_A at 2:19 PM on December 12, 2006

JoddEHaa, if people never try to eat foods other than that to which there is a preexisting adaptation, how do they adapt to new foods? Also, the use of tools, such as the technology of cooking foods to improve their safety, is just as valid an adaptation as anything built into your DNA.
posted by zennie at 2:20 PM on December 12, 2006

Now Stuart, if you look at the soil around any large U.S. city with a big
underground homosexual population - Des Moines, Iowa, perfect example.
Look at the soil around Des Moines, Stuart. You can't build on it, you
can't grow anything in it. The government says it's due to poor farming.
But I know what's really going on, Stuart. I know it's the queers.
They're in it with the aliens. They're building landing strips for gay
Martians. I swear to God.

/Dead_Milkmen
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:20 PM on December 12, 2006

DevilsAdvocate: We have been living in cold climates longer than we have eaten modern foods. Lots has happened in the clothing and housing areas since we moved north. Our bodies are almost unchanged.
posted by JoddEHaa at 2:24 PM on December 12, 2006

OK, JoddEHaa, whatever.

At the point you admit you have NO reasoning behind what you're advocating besides a circular definition, you are *ding ding ding* a crackpot.

And don't say I didn't give you a chance to justify your position.

There is no "should" in your imperative whatsoever. There is only your sole, unfounded opinion that people should eat this way... because you say so. Even though you offer no concrete health benefits, nor any observable consequences for failing to adhere to your dietary ideas.

Even saying "you should keep Kosher because G-d says so" is offering SOME kind of reasoning. You offer none whatsoever.

So, either you're a looney, or you're a troll. Either way, I have no time for someone who lacks the ability to justify their beliefs in even the most rudamentary terms.
posted by InnocentBystander at 2:25 PM on December 12, 2006

JoddEHaa writes "because those are the foods that they are best adapted to eat."

So what?
posted by mr_roboto at 2:26 PM on December 12, 2006

ZenMasterThis, don't tell my boyfriend this, but I'm in love with you.

(we're constantly quoting that song in our house...)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 2:27 PM on December 12, 2006

People should eat the foods they evolved to eat, because those are the foods that they are best adapted to eat.

Nope. Those are foods which humans are adapted to eat. Not necessarily the foods which humans are best adapted to eat. Evolution is about organisms being "good enough" for their environment. Not "as good as possible," which is the distorted view of evolution which you seem to have.

That humans evolved in an environment where A, B, and C were available to eat, and X, Y, and Z were not, implies only that it is possible for humans to survive on A, B, and C alone. A, B, and C alone constitute a sufficient diet for humans. Not necessarily the best possible diet for humans. It is a fallacy to conclude from that information alone that A, B, and C constitute a better diet for humans than A, B, C, X, Y, and Z.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:39 PM on December 12, 2006

ZenMasterThis wins.

Last night, I had pad thai with tofu for dinner, and my girlfriend had a steak. When it was time for bed, she penetrated me.

What a country!
posted by hifiparasol at 2:42 PM on December 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

We have been living in cold climates longer than we have eaten modern foods.

And yet, there was some point in the past where humans had been living in cold climates only as long as we've been eating modern food now. If people at that time had had your mistaken view of evolution, they would have said, "we are not adapted to temperate climates, and thus we should only live in tropical areas." Were people at that time wrong to move out of tropical areas?

Lots has happened in the clothing and housing areas since we moved north. Our bodies are almost unchanged.

Improvements in clothing and housing are improvements in technology, not evolutionary adaptations. If technological improvements justify acting against what evolution has adapted us to, then I can equally well note that there have been many technological improvements in food preparation and storage since we started eating "modern" foods.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:47 PM on December 12, 2006

DevilsAdvocate: It is a fallacy to conclude from that information alone that A, B, and C constitute a better diet for humans than A, B, C, X, Y, and Z.

I agree. But would you concede that we PROBABLY are better adapted to eating ABC than the new foods XYZ?
posted by JoddEHaa at 2:56 PM on December 12, 2006

for most of our evolutionary history...

As was mentioned earlier - we died like flies before we hit 40. Since our diets have become more varied, our lifespans have increased. QED.

JoddEHaa - because those are the foods that they are best adapted to eat.

Were you best adapted to sit in a chair whilst typing on a keyboard? I think it's best that you go back to your shaggy cavemates to grunt out your reply.

This is just sillyness. Look around you - humanity is the best adapted species on this planet - because we learned how to adapt the planet to our species. Are you telling me that we could get this far by failing in the dietary game?

Because we learned (evolutionary success) to process our foods through cooking and other means, we could spend less time hunting and gathering and more time doing other things. Don't even get me started about how beneficial cooked protein was to the evolution of thought.
posted by jkaczor at 2:57 PM on December 12, 2006

DevilsAdvocate: Were people at that time wrong to move out of tropical areas?

I don't thing "wrong" or "right" applies in situations like this. It happened. That's all there is to say about that.
posted by JoddEHaa at 3:02 PM on December 12, 2006

If I ever encounter a 'tofu makes you gay' person 'in-the-flesh', I will gladly educate them on 'Cruetzfeldt-Jakob' and prions...

Which could explain their crazed behavior.
posted by jkaczor at 3:02 PM on December 12, 2006

...humanity is the best adapted species on this planet - because we learned how to adapt the planet to our species...

Such as, for example, thinking that homosexuality is ok¹, whether soy-induced or not. And non-reproductive sex.² And eating corn, potatoes³ and tomatoes raw right off the vine, as Jeebus / Fruitarians intended.

1. Except James Rutz et al.
2. hifiparasol's girlfriend
3. Well, they are better mashed, but if you like 'em raw, good on you.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 3:13 PM on December 12, 2006

P.S.: Soy sauce is fine. Unlike soy milk, it's perfectly safe because it's fermented, which changes its molecular structure. Miso, natto and tempeh are also OK, but avoid tofu.

Because tofu isn't fermented, you see.
posted by scalefree at 3:41 PM on December 12, 2006

Actually, scalefree, tofu isn't. Tofu is -- essentially -- the soy equivalent of cheese. See this link for a how-to. No fermentation required, the coagulant (magnesium chloride or calcium sulfate) takes the place of the rennet in (animal milk) cheesemaking to bind all the proteins and other stuff together.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 3:52 PM on December 12, 2006

uh, im unclear as to why this jackass doesnt advocate feeding tofu to women? doesnt he think we should do something to stem the tide of lesbianism in our society?
posted by mano at 4:01 PM on December 12, 2006

Lesbians aren't real, silly mano. They're like dragons. Or Invisible Sky Fairies.

Or so they'd have us believe.

In the United Kingdom, lesbianism has never been illegal, in contrast with male sodomy which often was punished with death or imprisonment, sexual activity between males being legalised in England and Wales only in 1967. There are various apocryphal stories about why lesbianism was not criminalised in the UK. One relates that Queen Victoria refused to sign a bill outlawing it, insisting, "ladies did not do such things."

What she was really referring to, of course, was "eating tofu."

(ok, I shouldn't be posting with my blood sugar this low, kids... I'm getting goofy).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 4:15 PM on December 12, 2006

I thought soy made people more aggressive.
Not that gay men (or women for that matter) can't be aggressive, but it's not the first characteristic that comes to mind.
posted by brevator at 4:18 PM on December 12, 2006

Zennie, I don't think you're correct about estrogen masculinising the brain of the male fetus. Testosterone - it enlarges the preoptic hypothalamus; indicative of male sex pattern.
And so far, the greatest statistical weight for sexual orientation lies on the in utero hormonal balance. Estrogen --> female pattern in the hypothalamus, and testosterone --> male pattern. overall, if a male gets a lot of testosterone during development, they are more likely to turn out very heterosexual, while a male who receives little testosterone and lots of estrogen will be more likely to turn out homosexual.
Fortunately, for the sake of a species survival, the mother responds to hormonal secretions of the fetus, and in turn makes the 'heterosexualizing' hormone to the kid (test -> men, est -> fem).

So. if you're pregnant, and want a gay baby boy, eat tofu a lot... i guess (not sure if estrogen would survive the gastric juices and digestive process)... If you want a straight baby boy, don't, and just hope he's not one of the 1/10 that turn out gay for no clear reason.

Either way, who the fuck cares? Oh yeah, latently-homosexual-redneck-McGee... Sorry there buddy.
posted by wumpus at 4:19 PM on December 12, 2006

I'm not a cell biologist, but I am a biologist, so let me say this clearly:

Soy is not estrogen!

Or to be more precise, the isoflavones (also known as phytoestrogens) found in soy are not estrogen. They aren't even steroids (which real estrogen is), but they have a similar shape. allowing them to bind to estrogen receptors [great overview]. There's a push to relabel them Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERMs), in that they modulate estrogen receptor activity, possibly by competing with estrogen. Too little estrogen activity is bad for you, as is too much estrogen activity (it's linked to certain types of cancer). Isoflavones seem to have some very selective binding to estrogen receptors alpha and beta, which allows it to moderate estrogen activity, keeping it just right.

And the whole estrogen equals homosexuality thing. That's way out in left-field.
posted by Mercaptan at 4:45 PM on December 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

Wait, so then does soy make men lose their sense of humor?
posted by brevator at 4:59 PM on December 12, 2006

"We are not as well adapted to eating potatoes as what we ate as hunter gatherers. I would say that any other opinion qualifies for crackpot status, InnocentBystander. :-)"

JoddEHaa, we haven't adapted to staring at computer screens and typing on QWERTYs all day either, so OMG you'd better get the hell off your computer and head for the rain forest, eh? Get a-goin', dude! Those nuts aren't gonna be gathered without you!

"I agree. But would you concede that we PROBABLY are better adapted to eating ABC than the new foods XYZ?"

No. There's no logical evidence which says so. We may in fact be better adapted by evolutionary accident to eating our modern foods, and only ate the original stuff because that's all we could find. And here's the evidence: since people started eating modern foods, our lifespan has doubled! In every nation where modern foods are introduced, health and longevity increase, while infant mortality rates plummet!

See, that's an example of something that sounds "good," but has no actual evidentiary basis or logical footing. Correlation without causation, you see?

There's no way to tell whether eating a hunter-gatherer diet is more appropriate to our health than modern foods, because there's too much conflicting or obscured evidence.

Hanging on to a "theory" which has no real evidence to support it is a very definition of crackpottery. Some training in critical thinking would be in order, dude.

As for the guy from WND who wrote the first article... boy, is he terrified of getting his manhood removed, huh? Bet he has vagina dentata nightmares a few times a month. Sheesh.
posted by zoogleplex at 5:32 PM on December 12, 2006

Who needs vagina dentata when you've got a half-gallon of soymilk in the fridge, zoogleplex? Look out! it's dangerous! It puts your penis in peril!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 5:38 PM on December 12, 2006

"I agree. But would you concede that we PROBABLY are better adapted to eating ABC than the new foods XYZ?"

I say we go with the Jesus diet!!!
posted by ericb at 5:41 PM on December 12, 2006

"Look out! it's dangerous! It puts your penis in peril!"

To that, I can only respond thus:

LAUNCELOT:
We were in the nick of time. You were in great peril.
GALAHAD:
I don't think I was.
LAUNCELOT:
Yes, you were. You were in terrible peril.
GALAHAD:
Look, let me go back in there and face the peril.
LAUNCELOT:
No, it's too perilous.
GALAHAD:
Look, it's my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can.
LAUNCELOT:
No, we've got to find the Holy Grail. Come on!
GALAHAD:
Oh, let me have just a little bit of peril?
LAUNCELOT:
No. It's unhealthy.
GALAHAD:
I bet you're gay.
LAUNCELOT:
No, I'm not.

My, those boys were just so far ahead of their time, eh what? ;)

Hmm, should I go ahead and bastardize "Hakuna Matata" now? NAAAAH!
posted by zoogleplex at 6:01 PM on December 12, 2006

Only if you can work in the word "okara," zoogleplex.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 6:09 PM on December 12, 2006

But the fact that we can eat something doesn't mean that we should eat it.

What?

Look, evolution didn't screech to a halt when we were eating mammoths 10,000 years ago: for instance, humans of Asian descent are more likely to be lactose intolerant (90%) than humans of Caucasian descent (15%). How do you suppose that happened? Could it be...evolution?

If there is some food item from which we can extract nutritional value, even if it takes work to do so (artichokes, olives, cassava root, lobster), then it is to our advantage - as a species - to do so. Some species go the other way: think of some Hawaiian birds, which evolved bills with shapes that allow(ed) them to feed from one kind of flower. Upside: no other species competes for food with you - yay! Downside: If your food source disappears (climate change, natural disaster, introduction of new species - humans, say - that trash your niche), well, as a species, you're screwed.

Is it good for us to eat lots of sugar and processed crap? Well, no. Is it to our advantage to try to obtain nutrition from as many sources as possible? Yes.
posted by rtha at 6:59 PM on December 12, 2006

Hearing about the teachings of Christ makes you gay.
posted by Balisong at 7:01 PM on December 12, 2006

Son of a bitch!
That's why I have man boobs and my grapes are turning to raisins.
posted by nj_subgenius at 8:43 PM on December 12, 2006

So if tofu makes you a gay guy, does Quorn make you a fungi?

/ducks
posted by greatgefilte at 10:05 PM on December 12, 2006

Wow. There must have been deca-gallons of Soy Milk consumed in Ancient Greece. Those cats were fucking each other every which way. Sparta was manly AND Homo-riffic!

I drank soy milk for years and never ONCE did I get wood over a dude. Well Ok. Once. Semi-wood. And to be fair that was Viggo Mortgensen as Aragorn. But c'mon. Everybody wanted to nail that guy.

I stopped using soy milk and soy protein for protein shakes (in favor of Whey and Milk) after strength training a couple years back. I did see significant/better gains. Not sure why. But it is true.

However I didn't feel any MORE Heterosexual as a result either. Which, COUGH, wouldn't be possible anyway since I already peg the scale. My heterosexuality is registered with the FBI.
posted by tkchrist at 10:33 PM on December 12, 2006

JoddEHaa, we haven't adapted to staring at computer screens and typing on QWERTYs all day either

That's so fucking true. We're adapted to dual monitors (one for each eye) and split keyboards (so we can put our feet up on our desk) with a dvorak layout (because that sounds so much less gay than qwerty).

Now, let me think about the proof for the isomorphism between repetitive stress injury and homosexuality/femininity while I repair the run in my hose.
posted by cytherea at 11:26 PM on December 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

Where oh where can the batshitinsane tag be? Is it on the hunt for buttsex?

This has definitely been the talk of LJ today. What a fucking whackjob.
posted by sperose at 2:04 AM on December 13, 2006

Ahh Mr. Christ, you have made me laugh, and not for the first time...

Let's get together and have Gardenburgers sometime...
posted by Mister_A at 7:24 AM on December 13, 2006

zoogleplex, Mister_A, rtha, others: I'm ending the discussion here, but if you (or others) interested in nutrition and evolution; check out The Role of Nutrition in Human Evolution: Highlights and Implications which is the slides from a lecture I listened to once. You might find it convincing too.
posted by JoddEHaa at 8:20 AM on December 13, 2006

wumpus: Zennie, I don't think you're correct about estrogen masculinising the brain of the male fetus. Testosterone - it enlarges the preoptic hypothalamus; indicative of male sex pattern.
And so far, the greatest statistical weight for sexual orientation lies on the in utero hormonal balance. Estrogen --> female pattern in the hypothalamus, and testosterone --> male pattern. overall, if a male gets a lot of testosterone during development, they are more likely to turn out very heterosexual, while a male who receives little testosterone and lots of estrogen will be more likely to turn out homosexual.
Fortunately, for the sake of a species survival, the mother responds to hormonal secretions of the fetus, and in turn makes the 'heterosexualizing' hormone to the kid (test -> men, est -> fem).

I haven't reviewed all the research, so I can't speak to the statistical weight of anything. However, I know that estrogen does play an active role in gender determination and masculinization. Female are protected by a protein that binds and effectively neutralizes most maternal and fetal estrogen (default is to be female). Now, that's not to say that testosterone plays no role in male development and masculinization, but obviously they're not meant to be getting that testosterone externally, in the womb, where they're awash in mom's steroid hormones. As far as I know, estrogen is actually the active form of steroid sex hormone in the male brain anyway; an enzyme converts testosterone into estrogen.
posted by zennie at 8:26 AM on December 13, 2006

But would you concede that we PROBABLY are better adapted to eating ABC than the new foods XYZ?

If X, Y, and Z are "shards of glass, liquid nitrogen, and red-hot magma," then yes, I would concede that ABC are better.

However, if X, Y, and Z are "plant and animal products which, on a biochemical level, are very very similar to A, B, and C" I would not concede that.

As for the powerpoint you linked to, that's what you should have brought up at the start of this debate! I haven't looked at it closely enough to evaluate the evidence, but at least it's saying, "a paleolithic diet is better for humans than a modern diet, and here's evidence to support that, based on some modern human groups who eat a paleolithic diet," which is completely different from what you were saying, "a paleolithic diet is better for humans than a modern diet because humans evolved to eat a paleolithic diet, so the paleolithic diet is necessarily better than the modern diet, and we need not look for any evidence to support this since it follows from first principles."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:04 AM on December 13, 2006

"So if tofu makes you a gay guy, does Quorn make you a fungi?"

We have a WINNER! :D No-prize is in the mail...

"That's so fucking true. We're adapted to dual monitors (one for each eye) and split keyboards (so we can put our feet up on our desk) with a dvorak layout (because that sounds so much less gay than qwerty).

Now, let me think about the proof for the isomorphism between repetitive stress injury and homosexuality/femininity while I repair the run in my hose."

I bow in obeisance to your awesomeness, cytherea. The invoice for my new replacement split Dvorak keyboard is on its way to you via Priority Mail. :)

"I'm ending the discussion here, but if you (or others) interested in nutrition and evolution; check out The Role of Nutrition in Human Evolution: Highlights and Implications which is the slides from a lecture I listened to once. You might find it convincing too."

Appeals to Authority are so much less sexy when they involve PowerPoint presentations...
posted by zoogleplex at 11:34 AM on December 13, 2006

DevilsAdvocate: "a paleolithic diet is better for humans than a modern diet because humans evolved to eat a paleolithic diet, so the paleolithic diet is necessarily better than the modern diet, and we need not look for any evidence to support this since it follows from first principles."

I believe it is true, apart from the "need not look for any evidence" part. I think my main mistake here has been assuming that people (not necessarily you :) know more about the process of evolution (that they believe in) than most people actually do. But hey, no harm done.

EOD
posted by JoddEHaa at 11:38 AM on December 13, 2006

I think you're still conflating two different questions.

Q1) Is a paleolithic diet better for modern humans than a modern diet?
A1) [Studies comparing the health of modern humans on a modern diet to the health of modern humans on a paleolithic diet]

Q2) If it is found that a paleolithic diet is better for humans than a modern diet, why might that be?
A2) One possibility is that it is because humans evolved while subsisting on paleolithic diets, thus they have adapted specifically for paleolithic diets.

Each answer is an appropriate answer to the question it is paired with. However, you seem to want to answer Q1 with A2, which is incorrect.

EOD

Is this supposed to be "end of discussion?" If so, you didn't mean it the first time you posted it in this thread, so likewise I won't hold you to it this time if you change your mind.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:14 PM on December 13, 2006

JoddEHaa:

You might have a better point if we had, in fact, evolved to eat certain foods. Instead, however, we evolved highly acidic stomachs (ph1-2) that break down almost everything we throw at them into component nutrients/smaller molecules for digestion through the small intestine. Except, of course, for diced carrots.

We are better off, therefore, eating nutrient rich foods from anywhere, rather than low-nutrient crap. It doesn't matter if those foods are natural, artificial, or soylent frakkin' green. Your stomach certainly doesn't care. If it's susceptible to HCL, it's all absorby goodness.

In conclusion: Saying EOD in the middle of a conversation when you're utterly wrong is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
posted by Sparx at 12:59 PM on December 13, 2006

Except, of course, for diced carrots.

Surprised no one has mentioned corn yet.
posted by IronLizard at 2:37 PM on December 13, 2006

I've got chunks of corn in my crap bigger'n you.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:23 PM on December 13, 2006

So, does that make you a big asshole?
posted by IronLizard at 6:59 PM on December 13, 2006

No, my personality makes me a big asshole. Correlation does not equal causation.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:41 PM on December 13, 2006

So you shit giant chunks of corn due to a personality dysfunction and you don't have a personality dysfunction because of the giant asshole?
posted by IronLizard at 8:22 PM on December 13, 2006

Nevermind, you're confusing me. Let's stick to indigestible food discussions.
posted by IronLizard at 8:24 PM on December 13, 2006

JoddEHaa, have you read the PowerPoint you referenced:

A diet of raw food could not supply sufficient calories for a normal hunter-gatherer lifestyle

I thought 'processing' the food was unnatural?

And, while that section was in one of the 'discounted' sections, the author states:

1. Improvements in dietary quality probably resulted from
changes in diet composition:
- more meat

combined with the ways in which food is modified.
- improved food technology:
use of fire and development of cooking and food sharing

And what about:

Humans have evolved not to subsist on a single, Paleolithic diet, but to be flexible eaters


And...

More protein-rich food

Isn't Tofu rich in protein, without some of the detrimental aspects of meat?

While the author discusses the health benefits of the paleolithic diet - nowhere is age or average lifespan measured - that's rather odd, don't you think?

And then statements like:

Reduction in stature

Hmmm - from my understanding we have been getting significantly taller over the last 2000 years. Exceptionally in the last 100 - most likely because of better nutrition - try this.

Atkins would love this guy - and on the whole it is interesting - but what makes this guy think we have STOPPED EVOLVING!!!! If you believe in evolution - can you tell definitively that we have stopped evolving?
posted by jkaczor at 9:42 PM on December 13, 2006

Ok, I'm invoking Godwin to stop this thread...

HITLER WAS A VEGETARIAN.

EOD.

;)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 4:39 AM on December 14, 2006

Okay okay, so I've said a couple of times that I'm finished with this discussion. Apparently I weren't.

DevilsAdvocate: Each answer is an appropriate answer to the question it is paired with. However, you seem to want to answer Q1 with A2, which is incorrect.

I agree. That's what I've been doing. It is a natural consequence from the fact that I'm not trying to push my truth down anybody's throat. I focus on the parts that I find most interesting. If something tickles your fancy, there is this whole inter-web thing, that might help you fill in the blanks. :-)

jkaczor: have you read the PowerPoint you referenced:

Not only that, I went to the lecture.

A diet of raw food could not supply sufficient calories for a normal hunter-gatherer lifestyle I thought 'processing' the food was unnatural?

Cooking foods that are poisonous to humans for a very long time in order to make them edible is unnatural. At least when you then proceed to base your diet on those foodstuffs. A couple of examples might be:

Potatoes contain glycoalkaloids, toxic compounds, of which the most prevalent are solanine and chaconine. Cooking at high temperatures (over 170 °C or 340 °F) partly destroys these. The concentration of glycoalkaloid in wild potatoes suffices to produce toxic effects in humans.
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato

The Chinese did not eat unfermented soybeans as they did other legumes such as lentils because the soybean contains large quantities of natural toxins or "antinutrients."
-- http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/tragedy.html

> Humans have evolved not to subsist on a single, Paleolithic diet, but to be flexible eaters

Flexible eating is good. Modern diets are extremely grain-based, and not very varied at all.

> Isn't Tofu rich in protein, without some of the detrimental aspects of meat?

No. Tofu is rich in protein, but contains absolutely none of the nutrients that meat contains. But of course, fried meat contains some pretty bad cancer inducing chemicals. I try to boil it.

While the author discusses the health benefits of the paleolithic diet - nowhere is age or average lifespan measured - that's rather odd, don't you think?

Not really. It's a power point presentation after all. The author has also written a 1000 page book on human evolution (in Norwegian). Maybe it's in there. :-) He is also a professor of biology, although a title is of course never a guarantee of anything.

Hmmm - from my understanding we have been getting significantly taller over the last 2000 years. Exceptionally in the last 100 - most likely because of better nutrition - try this.

As I'm sure you are aware of, uman history is a lot longer than 2000 years. The archaeological record proves, without a doubt, that the agricultural revolution was a total disaster for people's health. It made it possible for more people to survive, that's true, but the healths of those people were terrible. The average heights, as can be measured from skeletons, sank by 5 inches.

Atkins would love this guy

I don't know about Atkins, but in my supermarkets there is a whole shelf full of Atkins branded foods, and they are chock full of soy protein.

what makes this guy think we have STOPPED EVOLVING!!!! If you believe in evolution - can you tell definitively that we have stopped evolving?

Now that is an interesting question. Firstly, it is obvious that both you and I have stopped evolving. Evolution is something that happens to a species, not persons. We are stuck with the genetic material that we have, and have to live with it. We could either choose to disregard the possible limitations that that puts on us, or we could choose to take our genetic heritage into account and decide to leave active healthy lives.

As for the human species, a couple of thousand years of eating "modern" foods isn't enough by a long shot for us to adapt. Especially, since the degenerative diseases caused by the modern foods mostly occur after reproductive age, leading to even slower adaption. I've also heard that the fact that we travel so much, marry and reproduce with people from all over the world slows down the process of human evolution even more. TV shows like jackass probably speeds it up though.

bitter-girl.com: HITLER WAS A VEGETARIAN.

Thank you.
posted by JoddEHaa at 7:52 AM on December 14, 2006

"Cooking foods that are poisonous to humans for a very long time in order to make them edible is unnatural."

Exactly! Boiling water, for example, or processing it or adding chemicals in order to purify it is a bad idea because IT'S NOT NATURAL!!!OMG!!!

If Darwin had meant for us to stop adapting, he would have made the whole world from something incapable of reacting to new stimuli, like, for example, your arguments.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:54 AM on December 14, 2006

Natural, Soy-based Substance Might Help Fight Multiple Sclerosis, Neuroscientists Find
posted by homunculus at 9:23 AM on December 14, 2006

JoddEHaa: > Isn't Tofu rich in protein, without some of the detrimental aspects of meat?

No. Tofu is rich in protein, but contains absolutely none of the nutrients that meat contains.

Wow, dude. I'm not pushing soy, but that's just plain wrong, in a basic Nutrition 101 way.

Evolution is something that happens to a species, not persons.

Precisely. For example, when your progeny (and/or nutritional advisees), generations hence, do not compete as well as the progeny of others who have adapted to eating what new and different foods the perpetually changing world provides, the human species will evolve.
posted by zennie at 11:32 AM on December 14, 2006

Wow, dude. I'm not pushing soy, but that's just plain wrong, in a basic Nutrition 101 way.

According to Wikipedia standard Tofu "contains beneficial amounts of iron [and is] is relatively high in protein" For most men today, the risk is too much iron, not too little. So much for those nutrients.

Precisely. For example, when your progeny (and/or nutritional advisees), generations hence, do not compete as well as the progeny of others who have adapted to eating what new and different foods the perpetually changing world provides, the human species will evolve.

What you don't seem to grasp is that somebody would have to DIE an early death or not be able to reproduce in order for that adaption (evolution) to happen. I prefer nor to be selected against, thank you. You might feel differently. Please do.
posted by JoddEHaa at 2:10 PM on December 14, 2006

JoddEHaa:
1. You do realize that you are quoting Wikipedia, contradicting yourself, and generally not making sense?
2. One does not have to die to satisfy the rules of "survival of the fittest." One has only to be less fit, and therefore less competitive. It's not always an all-or-nothing game, which is just as well for genetic diversity. Recreating dietary restrictions that existed before humans became so monstrously successful at surviving... well, to each his own.
posted by zennie at 2:42 PM on December 14, 2006