Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Relationship Between Our Health & Our Food

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Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Relationship Between Our Health & Our Food

by Geoff Bond

2.83 · rating details · 6 ratings · 3 reviews

With a record number of overweight people and an alarming increase in degenerative diseases, many of us find ourselves turning to meds or fad diets in an effort to drop excess pounds or recover our health. Since most drugs come with dangerous side effects, modifying our diet would seem relatively safe and simple. But what if our foods were doing more harm than good, and fa...more

Paperback, 325 pages

Published February 1st 2007 by Square One Publishers

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Jan 25, 2010

David rated it

I was particularly interested in this book because of my education in anthropology, specifically human evolutionary studies and primatology. I even studied under one of the author’s often-referenced resources, Katy Milton. The author hypothesizes that our health is best served by a diet similar to the one we had when our species evolved, which he calls the “savanna model.” Smartly, he then correlates this with information from nutrition science. He provides some good information and lots of ...moreI was particularly interested in this book because of my education in anthropology, specifically human evolutionary studies and primatology. I even studied under one of the author’s often-referenced resources, Katy Milton. The author hypothesizes that our health is best served by a diet similar to the one we had when our species evolved, which he calls the “savanna model.” Smartly, he then correlates this with information from nutrition science. He provides some good information and lots of references, and while I agree with much of what says, there are problems. His savanna model is based on environmental conditions that existed at the dawn of Homo sapiens, but the real distinctions in our morphology evolved at the transition from our Australopithecus progenitors to the Homo genus, when our brains became larger and our dentition smaller. Paleo-ecology studies now inform us that the African landscape changed dramatically during the past 2 million years, fluctuating back and forth from dry savanna to a much wetter climate with large inland lakes different from the savanna we know today. He identifies African bushmen and Aborigines as a proxy for a savanna-model human, pointing out how these groups eat mostly plants, have limited hunting success, and are routinely hungry. But these groups are remnant forager populations living on the margins, in reservations left to them by dominant populations who have sequestered the best lands and richest resources. I see the savanna model as a narrow and static depiction of paleo-human circumstances. Native Americans prior to European contact may provide a fuller picture of the early African situation over time and distance. This included a variety of ecological niches, diverse human populations and varying cultural adaptations in response to specific micro-conditions, all of which would have resulted in somewhat different diets. Granted, there would have been no processed foods, grains, tofu, dairy, and other post-agricultural foodstuffs. But food-group proportions (meat, vegetable, fruit, etc.) would have fluctuated by geography, season, generation, etc. Similarly, it is a mistake to use non-human primates for insights to the proper human diet. Nonhuman primates spend most of their day—more than eight hours—chewing. This is largely because they consume their food raw and they lack the proper dentition for chewing meat. Chimps like to eat meat, but, for them, it is like chewing bubble gum. We would have trouble eating much of the food that apes eat, which includes browse-type items and wild plants much different from our domesticated varieties. It is a well established principle that the evolution of all species and physical changes to the body are hugely influenced by the way food is acquired and consumed. In Catching Fire, Wrangham makes a compelling case that most, if not all, members of the genus Homo used fire to process food. This enabled us to more efficiently consume our food, spend less time eating and get more nutrition, which was necessary to feed our expanding brains.

There are other points that I would object to or find potentially misleading. On several occasions he noted that a certain food increases the risk of a certain disease by a certain percent. For example, men who consume more than 2.5 servings of dairy products per day have a 34% higher risk of developing prostate cancer. This initially sounds alarming. But since only one out of every 750 men get prostate cancer to begin with, eating dairy will only increase your chances of getting prostate cancer by about five one-hundredths of a percent. It’s the same way that buying two California lottery tickets may double your chances of winning, but actually only improves your odds from 1 in 18 million to 2 in 18 million.

He also notes that females in western societies enter puberty at a later age than in forager societies and suggests that “this is not how nature intended.” The fact of the matter is that nature doesn’t have “intentions.” If there is any intention in nature, it would be the other way: nature would actually favor younger puberty to the extent that it may increase the number of offspring the female could produce over her reproductive life. In its simplest definition, natural selection is differential reproduction. The success of a species is not how long its members live, but how effectively it genetically displaces competitors. Also, since reproduction requires greater reserves of energy, nature tends to shut down the reproductive system when an individual is undernourished.

In Chapter 8, the author goes off on a tangent about the savanna model lifestyle, where he steers away from diet and offers broad speculations about ideas as far off (and far out) as why men don’t cry and how men are best at physical warfare while women are best at psychological warfare. This was a fun and interesting digression, but overly ambitious in scope. He would have been better off saving that for another book where he could have given the discussion more thorough treatment.

There were other issues I could raise, but all these complaints don’t necessarily invalidate the basic premise and value of the savanna model diet or some close derivation of it. When I look at a typical diet, even my own to some extent, and certainly that of my child who lives on pasta, pizza, and milk, I can see great value in a re-alignment that minimizes consumption of post-agricultural products.
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Feb 24, 2010

Patrick rated it

Shelves: budo

An interesting introduction to the savanna model, one implementation of the paleolithic diet. Proposes reasons to eat and live close to savanna model, the ills conceived from straying from it, how to apply it to one's life, and in what stages one can introduce it into one's diet. Bond can be a little insane, but a competent, critical reader can pretty easily separate the quality stuff from the crazy.

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Sep 26, 2010

travelmel rated it

Shelves: own-it

Very similar to Life Without Bread. Has "diet models" to go by. Specific veggies in starchy group categories and connects disease's to eating habits. I bought this book before I realized I would be going on a library frenzy.

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