Modern civilization and the "Diseases of Kings"
Nothing will benefit human health and increase the
chances for survival of life on Earth as much as
the evolution to a vegetarian diet. —Albert Einstein
The history of animal life tells a tale of endless struggle. Creatures throughout the millennia have always spent the majority of their lives facing the crucial adaptive problem of getting enough to eat. Often, those that merely seek to survive end up being eaten. Their bodies become temporary solutions to the adaptive problems of other creatures. It has been this way since the beginning, and it is a drama without end.
The drive to eat is central to any creature's motivation. Without adequate nutrition, health is compromised and life may be forfeited. Dietary preferences are part of the natural psychology of all creatures; thus animals normally choose wisely and do so automatically. It has always been in an animal's best interest to eat the most pleasurable food available, and to eat as much of it as desired. But for people in our modern environment this is no longer true, because our pleasure-seeking system can no longer be trusted. Unbridled dietary pleasure-seeking will lead us astray, into a dietary pleasure trap that can destroy health and well-being.
Today we consume far too much high-fat, high-calorie animal and processed food products. Yet these unhealthy products taste great. Their artificial allure disguises an important truth: we were not designed by nature for a high-fat, high-animal-content, processed food diet. And many of us suffer unnecessarily, and gravely, as a consequence. After thousands of generations where people spent their lives struggling to get enough to eat, we now sabotage ourselves by getting too much. Our modern diet—excessive in fat, protein, and refined carbohydrates—is the primary cause of disease and disability within industrialized civilizations.
Understanding how and why this has happened can help us get some perspective and effect healthy change.
For hundreds of thousands of years, our human ancestors struggled to survive. While our ancient ancestors faced many adaptive challenges—injury, disease, and periodic tribal warfare—their greatest challenge was getting enough to eat. They worked as hard as other natural omnivores, gathering and occasionally hunting. Our ancestors were pitted against other species and against each other in nature's survival-of-the-fittest contest. Some ancient peoples were victorious. Others were not. Anthropologists estimate that about one-sixteenth of our ancient ancestors ended their lives as food for large predators.1 Many of the rest were victims of the microscopic predators we now know as microorganisms.
Our ancestors of 500,000 years ago lived as hunter-gatherers throughout Eurasia and Africa. They were an unusual life form for one reason: compared to other animals, they were extremely intelligent. They fashioned stone blades and other tools, and they used fire. But, despite their large brains and remarkable mental abilities, they had no language, no agriculture, and no complex weaponry. They roamed the earth with their limited knowledge, simple tools, and very primitive communicative abilities, struggling against a harshly competitive environment just to survive.2
Language: A New Ability It wasn't until 100,000 years ago that the first anatomically modern humans appeared. Skeletal and other anthropological studies of these "modern" humans suggest the emergence of a striking new adaptive ability, unlike anything the world had ever seen.3 That ability was language.
Many creatures have communication capabilities, and some are quite sophisticated. A mother bat returning to a cave housing a million other bats is able to locate her offspring through vocal communication. Birds and other animals may give each other warning calls. But it is believed that no creature has ever had the ability to transmit and receive abstract information—except humans. When birds warn each other, it is about a specific, present threat. A specific tone and sound communicate a narrowly defined message. Two people, in contrast, can discuss threats that may or may not happen, with no specific stimulus eliciting the communication, and hold the discussion in any number of languages. This allows for the communication of an extraordinary array and amount of information.
Linguistic abilities gave our ancestors a decided advantage over lesser-endowed competitors. An accumulation of know-how that took one person a lifetime to learn could be passed on to another in a matter of hours or even moments of conversation. This ability allowed for geometric increases in human adaptive ability.
Our current knowledge of prehistory suggests a remarkable situation. Early peoples had a tiny knowledge base compared to what we have today, and for several centuries, remarkably little information was passed on. For thousands of years at a time, the tools did not improve and survival capabilities and strategies remained about the same. For example, in Aboriginal Australia, a stone blade affixed to a spear was the main hunting tool until the 1800s, apparently having had no improvement for 80 centuries.
Our ancestors, with large brains relatively devoid of useful information, were often successful—but not necessarily dominant—competitors in the natural world. For much of this time, they were barely getting enough to eat, and often were getting eaten. The enormous advantage of language was, surprisingly, of limited benefit for most of human history.
It would take a second major development for humans to emerge as the planet's dominant species. But in this case, it was not the addition of a physical, genetically-based adaptive ability such as better eyes or wings or even linguistic ability. The second major development was not physical, but informational, as humans learned of a revolutionary possibility.
Historians tell us that our early ancestors were nomadic hunter-gatherers. But, due to cleverness and luck, this grim reality would change. In about 8500 B.C., in a land known as the Fertile Crescent (modern-day Iraq and Syria), human beings discovered how to gain greater control of their food supply by planting the seeds of wild crops. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond tells the remarkable story of how human history has been shaped by advancements in food production, beginning with revolutionary innovations in this once-fertile area of the Old World.4
As a result of a few fortuitous twists of fate, people of the Fertile Crescent discovered how to seize increased control of their destiny. Until that time, people had to struggle to find enough food for their own survival. Agriculture revolutionized this reality. Early agriculture was a highly efficient method of obtaining life-sustaining calories, as compared to hunting and gathering. As a result, it was no longer necessary for each individual to obtain his own food. With farming techniques, one person could effectively produce enough food for many people. This allowed others to create wealth by producing other goods and services. Farmers could trade for these other goods and services, setting the stage for a diversified economy. The efficiency of agriculture made this diversification possible.
There was a second major consequence of the development of agriculture. Agriculture was not only more efficient, but more intensive as well. An acre of tilled land could produce up to 100 times the calories that could be obtained from that same land by a hunter-gatherer. Hunter-gatherers needed large roaming ranges, as the caloric yields per acre were small. A farming economy, in contrast, could support a much larger population within a small local area.
These two features of farming—increased efficiency (more calories per time and effort expended), and increased intensity (less land per person needed to sustain livelihood)—made possible the development of civilization, specialized labor, and a market (trade) economy. As a result, people had more time and motivation to develop a wide range of skills. Increased intensity of land use also made it possible for populations to congregate more closely than ever before. This close living greatly enhanced the formation of a trade economy, as finding others with complementary needs became a comparatively simple matter. And with the newfound ability to repeatedly farm the same soil in a predictable fashion, people could finally settle down in the same place. For early humans who adopted agriculture, their days as homeless hunter-gatherers came to a welcome end.
Getting Wealthier Agricultural efficiency made it possible for more time to be spent on tasks other than hand-to-mouth living, such as craftsmanship, trade, and increasingly sophisticated food processing. People with specialized skills could more easily find and interact with other talented people, facilitating the process of innovation. One such area of technological development was food production and food processing.
As civilizations became wealthier it became feasible to raise animals. Cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep could be domesticated, supported by the bounty provided by efficient agricultural techniques. Milk products were soon added to animal flesh as regular components of the human diet. The percentage of animal products in the human diet probably increased substantially with the advent of agriculture. Instead of the hit-and-miss hunter-gatherer lifestyle, early animal husbandry provided a consistent supply of high-protein, high-fat animal food in addition to cultivated grains and produce. But while this new ability to exploit animals may have seemed like a blessing, there were unforeseen consequences.
Animal Troubles Though we take it for granted today, the domestication of animals by early peoples represents one of the more incredible stories in the history of life on earth. Our ancestors learned how to control and exploit other animals in astonishing ways, caring for animals while appropriating their milk, flesh, and eggs at the most opportune times. It is notable that no other creature has ever attempted to control other species in the many ways that humans have. However, this exploitation did not come without a heavy price.
The major killers of humanity since 8500 B.C. have not been starvation, warfare, accidents, or large predators. While these were major threats in our hunter-gatherer days, the dawn of civilization brought about new problems. The major threats to human life since 8500 B.C.—microorganisms and viruses such as smallpox, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—have been literally invisible. These infectious agents, which we may refer to as "micropredators," all have something of importance in common: each evolved from a disease in domesticated animals that then adapted to, and infected, human societies.5
The controlled exploitation of animals seemed like a great idea, but it exacted costs that were difficult or impossible to appreciate without modern scientific analysis. These costs were major determinants in the unfolding of human history all over the world. For example, many more Native Americans died as a result of European animal-based diseases than were ever killed in armed combat.
PLAGUES IN PARADISE
The Hawaiian Islands were first colonized in about 1200 A.D. by immigrants from Micronesia. Two centuries later the Polynesians arrived, conquering and assimilating the native population. During the period from 1200 A.D. to the late 1700s, the rich land allowed for a steady population expansion, increasing to 400,000 by the time British explorers arrived in 1787. Along with the British came a contingent of diseases associated with micropredators, including smallpox, measles, whooping cough, influenza, and gonorrhea. By the close of the nineteenth century, barely one hundred years later, the native population had been devastated, shrinking to about 30,000 by 1900.6
In the early years of animal domestication, many people died from contact with animal-derived diseases. Those individuals who survived exposure were able to resist the assault of these dangerous micropredators due to their natural resistance. Disease-resistant individuals and their offspring were then still able to continue to make use of the bounty provided by the systematic control of animal products.
But while infectious diseases were by far the most serious problem faced by early peoples as a result of animal domestication, there was another important development: a new class of diseases. This was a novel set of problems never before faced by any animal or human population. For the first time, a select group of people began to suffer the effects from a previously unimaginable problem: getting too much.
The agricultural revolution eventually led to stratified societies. No longer did each and every human need to hunt or forage to get enough to eat. The bounty provided by agricultural efficiency resulted in both increasingly concentrated populations and greater material wealth. That wealth required military protection, and that protection required leadership and resources. For the first time, large human populations became governed by military-dominant ruling classes.
Those fortunate enough to rule did so for reasons straight from the "motivational triad": they could get more pleasure, with less pain and for less effort, than was ever previously possible for members of our species. This made inevitable the development of a novel set of disease processes: the diseases of dietary excess.
A key component of the hunger drive is a tendency to prefer the most calorically dense foods available. Foods with greater caloric densities tend to be more pleasurable, as this preference is woven into our motivational architecture. For example, most people find that meat, at about 1,200 calories per pound, is more pleasurable to eat than raw salad vegetables, which contain about 100 calories per pound. This innate preference tendency helped to guide our hunter-gatherer ancestors toward finding and consuming the most life-sustaining foods available. It helped them to naturally avoid the ultimate disease of deficiency—death by starvation.
Stratified society, made possible by the newfound efficiency of agriculture, often allowed an elite group to indulge their natural preference for calorically dense foods. Two general types of such foods were problematic: animal foods and processed foods. Calorically-rich animal foods—as well as expensive, ingenious new types of concentrated food products, such as oils and refined sugar—made it possible for the wealthy and powerful to consume a high-fat, high-protein, artificially concentrated diet. History tells us that many of the ancient elite chose to do so, resulting in the emergence of the dietary pleasure trap.
Periodic feasting on calorically dense foods did not constitute a problem for hard-working farmers and tradesmen, still struggling to get enough. But for the power elite, the possibility for continuous feasting led to the appearance of a new set of diseases—heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, arthritis, gout, and cancer. These diseases, often described as the illnesses of affluence or the "Diseases of Kings," are now the leading causes of death and disability in the industrialized world.
Royal Road to Self-Destruction The Diseases of Kings opened a new chapter in the story of human progress. For all of history humans had struggled, often barely meeting their minimum requirements for survival. Then, with the development of agriculture, our species began the most aggressive and successful expansion that our planet has ever seen. In the space of just a few thousand years, a mere moment in the book of life, humans went from a struggling population of perhaps 10,000 individuals in 65,000 B.C., to a horde of 150 million by the time of Christ.7-8 Thus, in the span of perhaps 65,000 years, our population grew by a factor of 15,000 to one. While our population had grown steadily as hunter-gatherers, it was agriculture that ignited the most extraordinary portion of this population explosion.
There have been many twists, turns, and surprises over the past few thousand years of human history. But one of the most puzzling has been the emergence of the Diseases of Kings. Few suspected that eating too much pleasurable food could be a cause of disease. After all, eating as much as possible of the most pleasurable foods available feels only natural and right. And it is, in a natural setting. But with the advent of agriculture, unnaturally high quantities of animal products as well as unnaturally concentrated processed foods became available and led our ancestors' natural preferences astray. Their senses were fooled, as ours are today. These changes have led us into the dietary pleasure trap, where excesses can be, and often are, deadly.
As scientists have searched for the truth about diet and health, their findings have pointed us in a surprising direction—toward the knowledge that our instincts can no longer be fully trusted. In the next chapter, we will examine the havoc our modern dietary habits have wrought, and the direction we must take to heal ourselves.
With the advent of agriculture, beginning in about 8500 B.C., humanity began a new way of living. No longer destined to face the constant uncertainties of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, our ancestors were able to begin efficiently producing needed calories through agriculture and animal husbandry. These changes had many beneficial effects, including the congregation of large numbers of people into small areas, giving rise to modern civilization.
There were also harmful effects resulting from these changes, though these are less well appreciated. The close proximity of large numbers of domesticated animals to humans led to plagues and pestilence. In fact, the most potent killers of humanity since the dawn of civilization have not been warfare, natural disaster, or starvation; they have been epidemics resulting directly from animal husbandry. The desire for meat, fish, fowl, eggs, and dairy products has been one of humanity's most dangerous desires.
A second important result of increased animal product and processed food consumption was the birth of a new class of diseases, the "Diseases of Kings." Throughout history, these disease conditions—the diseases of dietary excess—were almost exclusively reserved for the wealthy classes, as animal and processed foods remained expensive delicacies. With modern food production techniques, however, the modern diet has shifted consistently in the direction of our innate preferences toward greater and still greater caloric density. This has resulted in the consumption of more animal products and other high-fat, high-sugar processed foods. As a result, the common man and woman now suffer from the Diseases of Kings.
Choosing to consume a diet that is more consistent with our natural history will help you to avoid the predictable consequences of an overly rich diet. The proper diet for humans consists predominantly of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts and seeds, and is the foundation of good health.