Over a half decade ago Professor Jared Diamond, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel, famously wrote
“The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.”
Dr Diamond was referring, of course, to the devolution of human health that took place as mankind suffered the corporal transformation driven by the mismatch between hunter-gatherer genes and an agricultural diet and lifestyle. Smaller stature, decreased cortical bone thickness, obesity, increased incidence of infectious diseases, dental caries, periodontal disease, vitamin deficiencies, and even famine – all common in agriculturists – were not, for the most part, the lot of pre-agricultural man.
Humanity doubtless gained more than it lost in this hunter to farmer changeover when viewed in a big-picture sort of way. Farming made possible larger communities filled with workers, workers who, for the first time, made specialization of labor a possibility. And fewer people could till the fields and provide food for the many, freeing the others to pursue the arts, business, politics, and warfare.
From Richard Eades, MD - WWW.proteinpower.com
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