Atkins' Diet



M

Maleki

Guest
I read somewhere human is the only "animal" that does not
store vitamin c in his body. Elsewhere I remember I read
something to the effect that this feature in human might've
been the result of having eaten a lot of fruits in his diet,
in some long period of his evolution, to the extent that the
vitamin c levels in his body reached toxic level and killed
off those who could store it and left only the ones who
could not store it in the body.

If the above picture is correct, then Atkins diet cannot be
healthy based on the claim they make that it corresponds to
what human has been eating most of the time during his
evolution (before domestication of grains began). Fruits are
missing in this diet. Anybody knows how the diet's advocates
explain this?

--

tA parishAn nashavad kAr be sAmAn naresad
 
In article <[email protected]>,
Maleki <[email protected]> wrote:
>I read somewhere human is the only "animal" that does not
>store vitamin c in his body. Elsewhere I remember I read
>something to the effect that this feature in human might've
>been the result of having eaten a lot of fruits in his
>diet, in some long period of his evolution, to the extent
>that the vitamin c levels in his body reached toxic level
>and killed off those who could store it and left only the
>ones who could not store it in the body.

Dubious. I don't know about this "storage" business; we
all can store some C in our bodies. Otherwise, we'd
develop scurvy after a few days of no C in our diets. The
whole point of vitamins is that they're substances we need
but can't make for ourselves, and thus must get them from
our diets.

Humans are unusual among mammals in not being able to make
our own C; guinea pigs and other primates also lack the
ability. But many animals that can make C have much higher
serum levels of it than we
do.

>If the above picture is correct, then Atkins diet cannot be
>healthy based on the claim they make that it corresponds to
>what human has been eating most of the time during his
>evolution (before domestication of grains began). Fruits
>are missing in this diet. Anybody knows how the diet's
>advocates explain this?

They can always take a multivitamin.

-- David Wright :: alphabeta at prodigy.net These are my
opinions only, but they're almost always correct. "If I
have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were
standing on my shoulders." (Hal Abelson, MIT)
 
Maleki <[email protected]> writes:

>I read somewhere human is the only "animal" that does not
>store vitamin c in his body. Elsewhere I remember I read
>something to the effect that this feature in human might've
>been the result of having eaten a lot of fruits in his
>diet, in some long period of his evolution, to the extent
>that the vitamin c levels in his body reached toxic level
>and killed off those who could store it and left only the
>ones who could not store it in the body.

This is not how vitamin C metabolim works in those animals
which do produce it, so it is very unlikely to have how it
worked in those proto-humans who did produce it.

>If the above picture is correct, then Atkins diet cannot be
>healthy based on the claim they make that it corresponds to
>what human has been eating most of the time during his
>evolution (before domestication of grains began). Fruits
>are missing in this diet. Anybody knows how the diet's
>advocates explain this?

Yes, they think you should a) find out about the Atkins
diet, which *does* permit fruits, b) investigate food
sources of vit C, which occurs widely in many foods,
including vegetables and meats. Some seafood is particularly
rich in C.

There is a great deal of nonsense written in newspapers
about the Atkins diet.

--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
 
"David Wright" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:p[email protected]...

<snip>

> Humans are unusual among mammals in not being able to make
> our own C; guinea pigs and other primates also lack the
> ability. But many animals that can make C have much higher
> serum levels of it than we
> do.

Primates are also unique among mammals for having
trichromatic visual receptors.

> >If the above picture is correct, then Atkins diet cannot
> >be healthy based on the claim they make that it
> >corresponds to what human has been eating most of the
> >time during his evolution (before domestication of grains
> >began). Fruits are missing in this diet. Anybody knows
> >how the diet's advocates explain this?
>
> They can always take a multivitamin.

Certain vegetables of the Solanaceae - tomatoes and peppers
- also have a lot of Vitamin C - peppers in particular have
more C than citrus fruits. Peppers are also a staple food of
the US desert southwest, despite having once been declared a
"poisonous plant" by some bureaucrat:

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/poison/Capsian.-
htm

Tom Davidson Richmond, VA
 
Maleki wrote:

> If the above picture is correct, then . . .

It wasn't correct.
 
On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 02:59:59 GMT, David Wright wrote:

> In article <[email protected]>,
> Maleki <[email protected]> wrote:
>>I read somewhere human is the only "animal" that does not
>>store vitamin c in his body. Elsewhere I remember I read
>>something to the effect that this feature in human
>>might've been the result of having eaten a lot of fruits
>>in his diet, in some long period of his evolution, to the
>>extent that the vitamin c levels in his body reached toxic
>>level and killed off those who could store it and left
>>only the ones who could not store it in the body.
>
> Dubious. I don't know about this "storage" business; we
> all can store some C in our bodies. Otherwise, we'd
> develop scurvy after a few days of no C in our diets. The
> whole point of vitamins is that they're substances we need
> but can't make for ourselves, and thus must get them from
> our diets.
>
> Humans are unusual among mammals in not being able to make
> our own C;

If other apes can make their own needed C in their bodies,
why human, being just another "ape", cannot? As I said,
somewhere, in a book or news item and not a usenet post,
someone claimed this was a clue to human's consumption of a
lot of fruits daily to the effect of poisoning himself by
vitamin C. Those who could make C in themeselves died out
and the rest stayed around and we're the descendents.

> guinea pigs and other primates also lack the ability. But
> many animals that can make C have much higher serum levels
> of it than we
> do.
>
>>If the above picture is correct, then Atkins diet cannot
>>be healthy based on the claim they make that it
>>corresponds to what human has been eating most of the time
>>during his evolution (before domestication of grains
>>began). Fruits are missing in this diet. Anybody knows how
>>the diet's advocates explain this?
>
> They can always take a multivitamin.
>

The point is not vitamin C. The point is human dependence on
fruit consumption. One more time: If human consumption of
fruits have been so regular and substantial that it has had
evolutionary imprints on us (such as our inability to
manufacture C in our bodies), then how can Atkins Diet
proponents put the consumption of fruits aside without
worrying about _other_ evolutionary imprints that
consumption of large amounts of fruits has had in us?
Imprints like a number of other dependencies on fruits known
and unknown to us at this point.

If we stop eating fruits, we may lose much more than what a
"multivitamin" can provide. How do the Atkins' Diet freaks
explain this?

--

sagi ke pArs koneh nemigireh.
 
On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 14:09:06 +0000 (UTC), Chris Malcolm
wrote:

> Yes, they think you should a) find out about the Atkins
> diet, which *does* permit fruits,

It limits carbohydrate consumption to under 20 mg a day.
If human is carved to eat a lot of fruits daily (for
_other_ reasons than vitamin C)how can he keep himself
below that limit?

> b) investigate food sources of vit C, which occurs widely
> in many foods, including vegetables and meats. Some
> seafood is particularly rich in C.
>

Nobody is talking about vitamin C. I brought the vitamin C
matter as a clue to human dependence on consumption of
fruits for other sources and not necessarily vitamin C.

> There is a great deal of nonsense written in newspapers
> about the Atkins diet.

I don't read them. And I'm not talking nonsense.

--

kur kuro peydA mikoneh Ab chAlaro.
 
Atkins diet works because a high protein diet makes you
*feel* full with having eaten less calories than if
you'd stuffed yourself with calorific equivalent of
apples and cabbage.

That's it.

Apparently.

"Maleki" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]... <...>
>
> If we stop eating fruits, we may lose much more than what
> a "multivitamin" can provide. How do the Atkins' Diet
> freaks explain this?
>

They don't have to. We (so-called civilised Westerners)
opted out of the gene pool a long time ago.

Steve.
 
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