Thursday, April 25, 2013

Debunking the Paleo Diet: TED Talk



Ancient diet researcher Dr. Christina Warinner challenges some of the commonly held beliefs about the Paleo Diet in this fascinating talk.
Journey through history as she explores the edible landscape of our ancestors.
What’s your take on the Paleo Diet fad that is so popular?
From TED:
TED Fellow Christina Warinner is an expert on ancient diets. So how much of the diet phad the “Paleo Diet” is based on an actual Paleolithic diet? The answer is not really any of it.
Dr. Christina Warinner has excavated around the world, from the Maya jungles of Belize to the Himalayan mountains of Nepal, and she is pioneering the biomolecular investigation of archaeological dental calculus (tartar) to study long-term trends in human health and diet. She is a 2012 TED Fellow, and her work has been featured in Wired UK, the Observer, CNN.com, Der Freitag, and Sveriges TV. She obtained her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2010, specializing in ancient DNA analysis and paleodietary reconstruction.

It should also be noted that the ancestors the Paleo Diet refers to had a very short life span. In diet history, the longest living humans have lived on a plant-based diet.

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