Common Sense Health

Sometimes I wish I had become a scientist, but most of the time I'm simply content with being a curious person (also, I don't think I would make a very good scientist.)  However, if I were to become a scientist, I think I would want to study something involving evolution.  I know that doesn't narrow it down too much, seeing that so many scientific fields relate to evolution in one way or another, but evolution has always fascinated me.  It just makes sense to me, and informs how I think about everything in the world.  It is a premise for my common sense.

So, when I read my food books, I don't give a second thought to how much evolution is used as an inherent argument.  Clearly, the people writing the books don't either, because rarely do they mention it.  But it usually comes up in statements like, "Our ancestors didn't have trans fats, so our bodies don't know how to process them" or "Our bodies were meant to have constant exercise, like when hunter-gatherers had to run or walk all day to find food to survive".  There are even diet books that are blatantly using evolution as a way of creating a diet for people (a la Eat Right 4 Your Type).  This begs the question: when do I know, when health experts use evolution as a premise for a recommendation, that it is something to believe?

Common Sense.

Let's take Eat Right 4 Your Type.  Maybe it is correct.  Maybe I should be a vegetarian.  But, there is just this hanging doubt over its claims...can your blood type REALLY explain how you should eat?  Can the evolution of blood types get THAT specific?  When I first read it, I found it interesting because I've often thought that becoming a vegetarian might make me feel better.  Meat weighs me down a lot.  I'm a Type A, so according to their theory, becoming vegetarian makes the most sense for me (or less meat than I was eating does, in any case).  My husband is Type O, and he LOVES meat.  He could never become a vegetarian, I think it would kill him.  Once again, spot on with the 4-Typers.  But there is just a part of me that can't help feeling like it is all completely bogus.  Even though they use interesting evolutionary evidence and we happen to work out the way they explained we would, in the end, I just roll my eyes at the whole concept.  It is just too gimicky, because it is something that common sense can't tell me.

On the flip side, I DO believe that the most "natural" lifestyle choices are the best because--though we do our best to not admit to it--we are animals living in the natural world and playing by nature's rule book.  We evolved in an environment that doesn't really look anything like the environment we live in today (well, at least not mine living in the city).  So, to me, trying to achieve the best balance of modern and ancestral lifestyle makes sense in helping one achieve optimum health.  It's figuring out what that means that's the hard part.

There are some people who take this WAY too far.  I don't want to walk around barefoot outside because that's what "our feet were intended to do."  I don't want to eat insects or live in a hut.  I don't want to go all raw.  I don't want to stop using the computer.  How do I know what tips the scale into ridiculous?  The only way I know how is to assess lifestyle choices with my common sense (mixed with a little evolutionary knowledge).

Regarding diet, this means going with Michael Pollan.  He's pretty much said it all, and it makes complete and utter sense when stacked up against my common sense.  There is absolutely no danger in following his rules, nor any argument that would say doing them would be harmful/wrong/unethical/nonsensical (even unpleasant), so I am going to strive to follow his Food Rules. 

Regarding everything else, I think I'm going to have to make my own rules.

But tomorrow, cause I'm tired.