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Melissa McEwen
This blog is about the intersection between evolutionary biology and food. But also about practical applications, sustainable agriculture, and general tasty things. I originally started eating this way to heal from chronic health problems and...it worked!
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More fun with media bullshit
If you thought yesterday's bullshit about stone age grains was fun, get a load of this. Somehow Reuters managed to turn evidence of ground starch into evidence for "bread." But we can't blame the reporters entirely. The scientists seem to have imagined that the ground starch was made into pitas and are parroting it for all to hear.
"It's like a flat bread, like a pancake with just water and flour," said Laura Longo, a researcher on the team from the Italian Institute of Prehistory and Early History.
If you read the actual paper, there are 0 mentions of bread or dough. If there were it wouldn't have gotten past peer review. Evidence for cooking hearths would have been groundbreaking, but there is no such evidence in this study. It really throws a negative light on the scientists here that they would spread around something they didn't have the courage to try to peddle to the scientific community.
Besides that, few hunter-gatherer cultures that grind starch make bread from it. That's extra work. Most use ground starch for porridge-like concoctions which are often fermented to improve nutrition.
Reuters, after not having read the actual paper (maybe with budget cuts they can't afford sci database access), takes a dig at the paleo diet:
The findings may also upset fans of the Paleolithic diet, which follows earlier research that assumes early humans ate a meat-centered diet.
Also known as the caveman diet, the regime frowns on carbohydrate-laden foods like bread and cereal, and modern-day adherents eat only lean meat, vegetables and fruit.
Um, who here eats a paleo diet of lean meat? Raise your hand, because I don't know anyone who does. Maybe they should have done some actual investigation. And to frame it as being about bread and cereal is idiotic as well. There are plenty of sources of starch that are nothing like bread or cereal, and which many, if not most, paleo dieters eat: yams, chestnuts, carrots, etc. I guess I didn't get the Reuters bulletin and I'm not actually eating the paleo diet...
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First, we have to be careful
First, we have to be careful with the reference to "lean meats". One of the purposes of grain fed cattle is to "fatten them up". So it could easily be misinturpreted that way or sometimes even easier to explain to the masses that way.
Second, I want to know what fruits and vegetables are laden with if not carbs.
And finally, one of my favorite quotes from the articles, "It's another nail in the coffin of the idea that hunter–gatherers didn't use plants for food," says Ofer Bar-Yosef, an archaeologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. What exactly did the hunter-gatherers gather if not for plants?
"The findings may also upset
"The findings may also upset fans of the Paleolithic diet, which follows earlier research that assumes early humans ate a meat-centered diet."
What drives me nuts is the implication that this "finding" shows that early humans didn't eat a meat-centered diet. Or that paleo proponents merely "assume" humans ate a meat-centered diet. Logically challenged.
To base a diet on grains
To base a diet on grains requires ... grains. There were not so much around before we started cultivating it.
As Heath pointed out this is
As Heath pointed out this is standard journalistic practice.
Now realize that this kind of things goes on for most of what you read in the paper and see on TV.
My bet is man's early use of
My bet is man's early use of grain starch was for face and body painting.
Written by some clown whose
Written by some clown whose last article had nothing to do with this and whose next one won't either. A moronic written soundbite, a paper-borne toxic event.
Great post as always - I keep
Great post as always - I keep getting forwarded these mainstream articles by "skeptics" (i.e. people who don't actually take an active interest in their own health, just try to mock people who do).
The "lean meat" thing clearly comes from Cordain (and sadly, Robb Wolf perpetuates it to an extent)... I find it frustrating too!
Interestingly, in a recent
Interestingly, in a recent lecture you can find on the internets Cordain backtracks a little on fats. He doesn't think a higher fat diet is bad if you are active.
If you become an expert on
If you become an expert on something and read the newspapers, you'll often see journalists get things terribly wrong. It is ridiculously common. Logically, you should doubt everything you see in the newspaper.
When I know an important story is coming out, I normally focus on one or two points to communicate to the journalist. I'll answer their questions, but then I'll say: if you do nothing else, get A and B right. E.g.
Also just because the
Also just because the researchers in the study were eating a bread made from the plants in the study doesn't necessarily mean they were telling journalists that the 30K-ago human beings at their archaeological sites were *definitely* eating bread. They might have said: oh, one day we made a bread, which is something that could have happened then. From here it's not a long way to this from the Reuters article:
" 'You make a kind of pita and cook it on the hot stone,' she said, describing how the team replicated the cooking process. The end product was 'crispy like a cracker but not very tasty,' she added."
Every professor I know has been shocked by the degree to which a journalist has been able to twist his or her words into something other than their original meaning. In this case it's less likely perhaps, and you have to admit that at a certain point the scientists have to learn to be careful what they say around journalists.
But either way the game of telephone will get us in the end. Whatever presuppositions we have will sneak into the chain of whispers somewhere or other, and we'll be left with what we always knew: don't eat too much meat, you silly extremists.
Wow, this is really
Wow, this is really impressive. It's just such a perfect example of the game of telephone that ends up getting played. And on top of that, just how *quickly* the game gets played -- that article is not even in the current issue of the PNAS, it's in the "Early Edition," which I guess is like an internet preview. (And so technically is the current issue, but you get my point: it is extremely hot off the press still.) So we went from "a few bits of a tuber were found on a mortar and pestle" to "we've always eaten bread" in about 24 hours.
It's all about eyes in front
It's all about eyes in front of screens, right?. You get a lot more traffic when you post some sensational or inflammatory/false, than if it is just another research article suggesting something mundane.
Or, may be he did
Or, may be he did investigate. He read Cordain's book/website and went with the world leading paleo expert opinion of what a paleo diet is.
Granted, he did change his stance...But, the book has been sold in large numbers...and even more people read his website.