Government “Shutdown” Juxtaposition (Real Hunter Gatherers: Hadza)
You just know I’m lafin’ atcha, dontcha?
Importantly, the Hadza don’t keep livestock or plant foods of any kind, and have limited access to modern medications like antibiotics (at least the more remote Hadza camps that we are studying). While some may argue that the Hadza are not perfect referents for the way it once was, it depends on the questions you are asking. For our purposes, studying how humans acquire microbes from birth throughout life (from others and the larger meta community of microbes in nature) in a group where babies are all still born naturally (no c-sections), are breastfed on average for 2+ years, where children still sleep with their mothers years beyond weaning, take no antibiotics, don’t drink water that has been treated with chlorine and fluoride, where multiple generations stay together (not separating the seniors into assisted living facilities), don’t eat processed foods, and newborns to the eldest in the community are still covered in nature’s blanket of everything that comes from living outside 24/7 and interacting in an intimate way with 100s of species of plants and animals.
That was Jeff Leach and I must get in contact with him, given my activity in the realm of gut-feeding resistant starch these last months. Yea, RS is pussy in comparison. We’re just trying to hobble along and I recognize that.
But, laf in the titular context. I heard that 800,000 non-essential federal employees were on some furlough or other in hopes of making them raise an awful stink, I guess.
But anyway, I was surprised to learn that there were only 800,000 non-essential employees.
I smell scamin’.
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Commence Phase 2 of operation gut microbe: Learn to Eat Raw Meat
there’s a film being made about the Hadza you might find interesting.
facebook.com/TheHadzaLastOfTheFirst
or see thehadzalastofthefirst dot com
cheers.
“learn to eat raw meat”
Hadza eat their meat cooked. They can start a fire in under a minute, anywhere, have been for a very long time.
Interesting Jeff thinks ’no antibiotics’ but also mentions they can eat 50+% calories from wild fresh honey, the best antibiotic for bad bugs, you can get. Also a probiotic for bifido.
rs + honey + dirt is a very powerful gut prescrption, and also likely a key factor in the brain’s evolution, especially now the ETH is debunk.
One of the most interesting things I’ve seen recently on the Hazda is their relationship to the Honeyguide bird. Apparently, the bird will find beehives with honey. It will then seek out the Hazda, and signal them with a certain song. The Hazda have special whistles to communicate with the Honeyguide. The bird leads them to the hive, and the Hazda use smoke to subdue the bees and gather honey and honeycomb. Afterwards, the Honeyguide dines on leftover honey and wax and grubs, without having to deal with angry bees. Awesome mutualy beneficial relationship.
And easy to see how that plays out over thousands of years in natural selection. Basically much like the self selection and domestication of wolves as hunting companions to mutual benefit. If dogs could fly, their level of domestication would probably be on par.
@Richard – Jeff Leach is behind many of those coprolite studies we talked about a while back, and is referenced in most of the others with these two papers:
Leach, Jeff D., Glenn R. Gibson, and Jan Van Loo. 2010. Human evolution, nutritional ecology and prebiotics in ancient diet. Bioscience and Microflora 25:1–8.
Leach, Jeff D., and Kristin D. Sobolik. 2010. High dietary intake of prebiotic inulin-type fructans in the prehistoric Chihuahuan Desert. British Journal of Nutrition 103:1558–1561
I think he would laugh at our potato starch experiments, but in reality, who can eat enough fiber/RS rich foods to compare to what’s found in coprolites? I guess you could if you really went out of your way, but I think that gut microbes do the happy dance when they get fed 4TBS of potato starch.
Also, what do you want to bet that the Hadza don’t lather, rinse, and repeat with Head and Shoulders every morning or lather up with Irish Spring?
I thnink my overall gut health isn’t too bad. Feels like it’s improving on a very varied and intermittent way of doing RS: everything changing all the time.
If it’s the case mine is largely OK, then I think I have to attribute it to what my wife calls my “gross habit” of cleaning under my fingernails with my teeth. All my life.
I just wanted to check Hadza demographics and PubMed is a victim of Washington Monument ‘syndrome’ or whatever you called it.
I found a couple of articles on demographics but surveys end with the age 45 group. So how many of them reach old fart age like us, Richard? Does anyone analyze their, um, fecal productions?
Day two potato starch: no gas, temp 7 a.m. 36.94C 3 p.m. 37.25C. So far no difference from before PS. I probably run at a higher normal temperature than some other people here.
I brought home the glucose meter on a whim. But I’m neither diabetic nor insulin resistant. HbA1c 5.2. So I’m not sure why I’m going to do this but I’ll take one (or many pokes) for the team anyway just for shits and giggles. Mind you I don’t think I can eat quite the fried rice load that tater tot consumed the other day. A few years ago when the HbA1c came back at 5.9 (!!!) I did do a bunch of glucose curves after eating nothing but white rice and those results did indicate a hyperinsulinemic response, (I.e. blood sugar levels were lower 1 hour after eating the rice. I would eat 1 cup of cooked rice every 2 hours and the blood sugar would keep getting lower) so I just modified the diet accordingly and have managed to lower the HbA1c successfully. My attitude is ‘don’t poke the sleeping bear’. Recently when I did check hourly on the blood glucose from 1 hour after breakfast it was serenely level at 5.8 and only started to come down after not eating for more than 8 hours. Fasting last time was 4.8. Not too bad for a pseudo-slob.
Seems even 1 tablespoon of PS has a TMI effect. On purpose yesterday other than the PS, the only source of any fibre I consumed were 2 medium sized apples and a red pepper. That wouldn’t do what happened.
I dropped in to visit my brainiac Bulgarian pharmacist today to discuss this PS business. They must educate them better over there because she knows all about butyric acid. She even had somethings to say about PS.
[…] Government “Shutdown” Juxtaposition (Real Hunter Gatherers: Hadza) […]
At 45, Hadza remaining mean life expectancy is 20-22 years. Hadza that make it to 45, can expect to live to 66, but many live much longer. Usual disclaimers re romanticing HGs, and still better off living in Sardinia etc apply.
humanfoodproject is doing gut bug analysis on Hadza