How are we supposed to eat?

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  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    Sorry guys, I wasn't looking for advice. Probably the wrong forum or even app to post on. I was just interested in what our bodies was designed for and if their was in a tual eating pattern we are "supposed"to eat. Thanks for the advice on some interesting reads though! I personally just eat whenever I'm hungry. Sometimes breakfast, sometimes not! As long as I have a good munch in the evening I don't care personally. And I don't go over my calories!! Works for me! :smile: . It just got me thinking as most grazing animals horses, cows, sheep would get very poorly if they ate how a lion would.

    There is no "designed for" or "supposed to"...humans are highly adaptable which is why we thrive...
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    Sorry guys, I wasn't looking for advice. Probably the wrong forum or even app to post on. I was just interested in what our bodies was designed for and if their was in a tual eating pattern we are "supposed"to eat. Thanks for the advice on some interesting reads though! I personally just eat whenever I'm hungry. Sometimes breakfast, sometimes not! As long as I have a good munch in the evening I don't care personally. And I don't go over my calories!! Works for me! :smile: . It just got me thinking as most grazing animals horses, cows, sheep would get very poorly if they ate how a lion would.

    Fair questions, but look at the words here. If our bodies are "designed", then who is the designer? If we are "supposed" to do something, who or what supplies the meaning? Questions like this are philosophical or religious.

    Another way of asking would be "what is the optimal human diet?" But even then you have to decide how to do the optimization.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited October 2017
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    I did wonder that as we would of adapted from our habitat. I really just wondered what our bodies are designed for. I did believe that the small meals a day did slow the metabolism down and I'm glad you have put me straight! I just eat as and when I'm hungry to be honest just save enough calories for the evening for a biggish meal so i feel satisfied. Seems to be working :smile:

    Our bodies were not "designed" to eat any particular way. That includes some major assumptions.

    We evolved over time (whatever you believe about why we exist at all), and did so in a wide variety of environments and changing environments. We ate when food was available and under cultural traditions that made sense given the food enviroments in which those cultures lived.

    What food was available depended on where and when we were. There is no one human habitat and even if there were that habitat changed as more humans were invariably born or climate changed (which it did numerous times).

    We wandered from Africa to the entire world -- clearly lots and lots of different climates and cultures and eating patterns.
  • Rebecca0224
    Rebecca0224 Posts: 810 Member
    edited October 2017
    avskk wrote: »
    I think it might be helpful to remember that human bodies weren't "designed" at all. Evolution is a series of adaptations, it is ongoing, and it is not conscious or purposeful. It doesn't matter what our ancestors ate at some arbitrary point in the past; it doesn't even really matter what food-related adaptations we might have inherited and live with today, other than specific issues (such as lactose intolerance) that can make us individually ill. We're still adapting. It's a continual process until extinction.

    Eat whatever you like that doesn't make you ill, at whatever times best suit your hunger cycles, in quantities and types appropriate to your body's individual needs. Your body is not my body is not anyone else's body; none of us were "designed" and adaptations are not homogenous across entire species. I may have inherited a particular mutation -- such as the aforementioned lactose intolerance -- that you do not have. Neither of us will ever know which of our bodies carries traits useful to the survival of the species, because the process that cements such mutations as useful adaptations takes place over millennia, not a single lifetime. The best we can do is avoid things that make us sick, eat things that support our health, and try not to overeat.

    The bolded from the above post is important to think about. Evolution takes time. Humans currently have a very pampered life compared to 20 or 30 thousand years ago, things have changed dramatically in the last 50 to 100 years. Thousands of years ago our ancestors ate whenever possible and as much as possible and evolution hasn't changed that yet but we have more food available and that's a problem for some people.

    As far as what the body is designed for that can be put into simple terms. The human body is designed to extract nutrition from anything consumed. For the general population meal timing and frequency are irrelevant.

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