For Evolving Brains, a ‘Paleo’ Diet of Carbs
2nd April 2016
Cooked meat provided increased protein, fat and energy, helping hominins grow and thrive. But Mark G. Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London, and his colleagues argue that there was another important food sizzling on the ancient hearth: tubers and other starchy plants.
Our bodies convert starch into glucose, the body’s fuel. The process begins as soon as we start chewing: Saliva contains an enzyme called amylase, which begins to break down starchy foods.
Amylase doesn’t work all that well on raw starches, however; it is much more effective on cooked foods. Cooking makes the average potato about 20 times as digestible, Dr. Thomas said: “It’s really profound.”
Cooking would have made wild tubers much more nutritious to humans, he noted, “which is not to be sniffed at, especially if you’re a very hungry Pleistocene hunter-gatherer.”
Another clue to the importance of carbohydrates, Dr. Thomas said, can be found in our DNA. Chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, have two copies of the amylase gene in their DNA. But humans have many extra copies — some people have as many as 18. More copies of the amylase gene means we make more of the enzyme and are able to derive more nutrients from starches, Dr. Thomas said.
Dead cow and spuds are the basis of all true civilization.
April 3rd, 2016 at 09:22
Carbohydrates are unusual nutrients, if they are a nutrients at all. There is no disease process involved in a carbohydrate free diet, with every other nutrient there are consequences when certain amounts are not consumed. It is entirely possible to live a completely healthy life in total absence of this “vital” component of a healthy diet.
April 3rd, 2016 at 19:03
And you are certainly free to do that. I, however, will have fries with that.