The Evo Diet: Going Ape
As part of an experiment for BBC TV, a group of volunteers set up a tent in a zoo -- and ate like the apes for 12 days.
A nutritionist devised a " three-day rotating menu of fruit, vegetables, nuts and honey". This worked out to about 5kg (11lb) or food per person per day,
The results were impressive:
- Cholesterol dropped an average of 23%
- Blood pressure fell from a level of 140/83 to 122/76
- An unintended side effect was weight loss: 4.4kg (9.7lbs)
According the producer:
"There was a lot of farting going on."See the full story at BBC (thanks Nick).
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First of all, cholesterol drops even in bad diets if theirs weight loss. They'd have to gain or maintain weight to prove the diet lowered cholesterol.
The diet doesn't sound healthy.
This Diet: seems poor in grains, poor in dairy or rice milk for vegans.
ReplyFlatulence is probably a contributing factor to global warming :) but the real question is why would anyone want to eat like an ape? It is a fad…
ReplyMore than that, I think it's a joke.
ReplyCheck this link out! This guy was ahead of his time! HaHa!
Replyhttp://www.angryman.ca/monkey.html
Dr. J: My father and I came up with that idea about 10 years ago; we called it the "Dog Food Diet". Find some fairly complete food (supplements allowed) and eat only that. Eventually, you get tired of it and eat only what you need, not what you want.
ReplyYea, but this diet is lacking in protein, something that humans need. Also, apes do eat meat and eggs, as well as vegetables.
Humans need meat for B12 vitamins, and moderate amounts of red meat for heme iron. But Fruits and veggies should still be part of the diet, and honey (as well as plant syrups) is a nutritive sweetener that makes great alternatives to sugar and artificial sweeteners that humans are eating today.
What wrecks cholesterol levels? Trans fats, sugar, and too much saturated fats (though you need some for D vitamin absorption, cell membrane function, and bone health). And humans are eating doughnuts, fried foods, burgers, pastries and baked goods, and fatty, sugary drinks like Pepsi, Coke, and frappes. These foods contain sugar, refined carbohydrates, and trans fats.
But this diet sure do go in the right direction. Eat more natural foods...foods that come from nature.
Again, It's not too much meat that America is consuming, we are consuming too much junk food.
ReplyLooks pretty healthy to me!
ReplyProtein 23.9%
Fat 10.7%
Fiber 10.0%
Ash 5.6%
Moisture Carbohydrate 40.3%
And I like the name: Banana and Marshmallow Softies!
If we behave, they also have this reward!:Mini Marshmallow / Pina Colada / Chocolate / Banana Treats!
Ryan! Sounds like you and your Dad have fun together!
James
are you unaware that nuts are high in protein?
Apes eat very little meat and eggs - certainly not at every meal.
I haven't ate meat/fish/eggs for over 25 years....somehow I am surviving!
ReplyAngie! James has a very enigmatic agenda! I have a parable for him...The last Just Eating Man
When the last Just Eating Man came to Diet Blog, the people there horrified him. He had never seen such a poor eating place! Nonetheless, he bargained The Great Food Provider down to sparing the Blog for the existence of one good eating person. He preached day after day in the Blog. One day, a Blog dweller approached him and asked.” I have seen you preach day after day, yet no one pays any attention to your words. Why do you continue?” The Just Eating Man thought for a moment then answered,:” When I first came to your Blog I preached in order that I might change you, now I preach in order that you do not change me!”
ReplyEating animal food in zoos is much safer than eating human food in grocery stores.
ReplyA lot of the bigger primates actually hunt and eat the smaller primates, they do eat meat more often than people think.
ReplyIt does indeed look like a fairly good, complete diet. Sure it lacks a bit in animal protein, but I'm guessing that they didn't include all the bugs and grubs that chimps and apes usually eat in the wild. The farting was probably due to the fact that volunteers weren't used to all those vegetables and fruits, especially if they usually ate lots of refined carbs.
And yeah, nuts are a great source of protein! Plus they taste great :)
ReplyAs for James - he's come a long way in learning moderation - and for that I congratulate him.
Monkeys are great and pulling out tics and fleas from each other - something I can't imagine humans getting into. Reply"poor in dairy" - and so it should be. The only milk humans can readily digest and derive nutrients from is mother's milk - while we're infants - it is a substitute for the leafy greens and (limited) flesh from which we derive (should derive) our calcium, magnesium, etc from once we have teeth. What I think is missing from this diet is the scorpions and bugs and bush meat that some of the apes eat, and leafy greens.
ReplyJim!
ReplyThose dietary percents come from another primate food company. It is a soy protein. I couldn't find the info. on Monkey Chow. Besides, the other company had more attractive names for their products and as we all know, presentation is everything! :-)
To these people who are bashing me to go to vegetarian, look at the facts:
Americans are only consuming 10 to 13 percent of their caloric intake in protein, and consuming about 30 percent fat in the diet.
Plus, these apes were kept in zoos, and they do poorly in captivity. So, therefore, following that "Evo" diet isn't exactly healthy. Apes in the wild has since eaten
meat and eggs (small mammals, birds, fish, and eggs).
I saw chimpanzees on TV eating a meat from a bone. We ate meat back in 1900. In fact, we used coconut oil, olive oil, butter, and tallow back in 1900, yet diabetes and heart disease was a rarity. Heart disease started to creep on up in the 1920s when crisco introduced shortening to the public, when they patented a technology that hardens liquid vegetable oil when they added hydrogen atoms to vegetable oil. This processes creates eladic acid, a common trans fat found in the hydrogenated oil, and it's put in almost every processed foods out there (except for some organic processed foods on the shelves). Furthermore, we phased out fish oil and flax oil from our shelves during the mid 1950s. Today, we use cheap, junk oils that are high in omega 6 fatty acids and contain some trans fats. Furthermore, all that butter, coconut oil, and lard has either been altered and processed, or have been replaced with hydrogenated oil shortenings. Butter, once came from clean, organic pasture-raised, grass-fed cattle now comes from dirty factory farms with feed-lot cows fed grains, garbage, and antibiotics. This has significantly deteriorated the quality of the milk fat and butter. Our meat quality has also deteriorated due to how the cows were raised. In fact, some cows were sick at the time of slaughter.
But our meat is not the only problem.
Vegetation has also changed. We've gone from high-quality naturally grown and preserved fruits and vegetables to vegetables laced with pesticides and grown on synthetic fertilizers. This alters the nutrient content as well as adding harmful ingredients that can cause harm to the environment. Today, our agriculture practice has caused many fruits and vegetables to be tainted with bacteria. Last year, we've seen how bad agriculture can infect our spinach and lettuce supplies, making hundreds sick and shuttering down outlets like Taco Bell. We are also over processing grains to make bread, and many outlets and restaurants used processed dough to make breads, cakes, and crackers. We also have changed our consumption from honey and maple syrup to sugar and saccharin, to sugar, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, and sucralose. We went from water and unrefined juices to sugary sodas; fatty, sugary frappes; and alcoholic beverages, except that we have consumed wine in moderation hundreds of years ago. We boiled, grilled, and stir-fry our foods hundreds of years ago, using water or olive oil, and baked using butter, coconut oil, and lard. Today, we deep-fry our foods using processed, hydrogenated soybean, canola, and corn oil, as well as margarine and shortening.
In other words, not only we are consuming processed foods, we are consuming meat from sick animals and vegetables from contaminated locations. Right now, what the most important things that Americans should do is to eliminate trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils from their diet, as well as deep-fried foods (french fries, chicken fingers, fish and chips, etc). Next, increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables, as well as un-fried fish and poultry, and moderate amounts of un-fried red meat, as well as adding more omega-3 based fatty acids and cutting down on omega 6s. We also have to eliminate processed grains and eat more sprouted grains, as well as sugar and artificial sweeteners and add back honey, natural syrups, and add herbal sweeteners like stevia. That's what we need to aim for now.
Reply"As for James - he's come a long way in learning moderation." Really?
ReplyJames, I really do not think anyone cares if you are carnivore, herbivore or omnivore. Personally, I wonder why you need to say the same thing regardless of the topic being discussed. In my opinion, several of your points are valid and useful, while others are absolutely incorrect. I also do not think you should incorrectly announce the death of an American president without following it up with a retraction, or explanation, or appology.
I agree with Dr. J on this. While I agree trans fats are bad and meat is good for you, there is no need to say that in every single topic, unless it is a topic about trans fats or about vegetarian diets.
ReplyJames honey, no one is bashing you or trying to get you to become a vegetarian. You just tend to say the same thing over and over, and while I'm sure we appreciate that you're excited about it, it does get to be a bit much.
ReplyVal... The homo genus evolved for 2.5 million years without grains or dairy. They do a lot of harm.
iFitandHealthy Generally folks attempting such an extreme diet by the standard perspective are suffering in some way. The Anecdotal evidence for reversal of many diseases is massive. That's why they do it. And then they begin to question the acceted 'wisdom' about nutrition.
ReplyThe protein connundrum is this: either you eat lots of veg or need some animal foods is my feeling, although not all would agree. Animal foods have always been part of the human diet but given the state of modern farming, a vegan approach would solve a lot of problems if it could be proved to work long term.
Not all apes eat as you suggest there James... I assume you're talking about Chimanzees? Have you thought of getting your own blog? Seem to have lots of ideas. :)
ReplyWhen I go to the Zoo I see people feeding their kids junk foods that, if thrown into the primate cages, would be considered animal abuse.
The ape diet sounds sensible to me. Humans, after all, are primates too (although we like to think we're something much more superior, the fact that Bush got elected sort of proves the point!). So eating like an ape sounds entirely reasonable to me.
And since when was drinking cows milk a necessary thing to do anyway? Think about it: drinking *bovine breast milk*!!! What in the weird is *that*! Yuck!
ReplyWell, unfortunately human breast milk isn't available for sale. If it ever becomes appears on supermarket shelves, count me in, it's an even more complete, nutritious food than bovine breast milk (given that the 'donor' has the right diet of course)
ReplyHuman breast milk isn't for sale because not many babies do the shopping for the household. They usually have very little cash and bad credit. Breast milk is a brilliantly designed natural food...for babies.
ReplyThe diet sounds great.
ReplyOur ancestors ate fruits,vegetables and nuts.It is diffcult for us to accept since we are so used to eating junk food-chips and sweets are a staple for us.Our diets are disgusting,I am trying to get myself to eat healthier adding milk,yoghurt and whole wheat bread to the apes diet.
They lost on average 10lbs on that diet.
That is impossible because they consumed 2400 calories a day, did little exercise and did not have dysentery.
Therefore they are lying.
To lose 1lb a day they'd have to have a calorie deficit of 2500 calories minimum and that did not happen.
They lied to get the programme off to a good start.
Reply
ReplyPlant-based calories metabolise much faster than a calorie from starches, meats, or dairy. Although they did get all their daily caloric requirements, they still lost weight because of a speeded up metabolism. Some vegetables are even negative-calorie foods: i.e. you burn more energy digesting them than the calories they contain. Some great ones are green beans and asparagus and cabbage.
Quote: According the producer: "There was a lot of farting going on."
ha ha! Funny!
Mouse &hearts
ReplyThey could lose that much, certainly-- just depends on what their calorie intake was to start with. Considering that at least one admitted to ( a day's diet of) eggs/sausage + fish&chips + chinese take-out as their standard fair, that kind of weigh loss seems altogether plausible. However, the duration of the experiment makes it amount to a typical crash diet effort.
Reply