Precipititous Pessimism Pervades Primalism

or: the primal diet, worth following?

I've recently perused some of the 'Primal Diet' information, primarily my sources have been Mark's Daily Apple and Nerd Fitness, two blogs I quite enjoy.

The premise is this:

If human beings have existed (and, presumably, evolved) for a really long time, and we've been hunter gatherers for all but the last 10,000 years or so, then our biology is tuned to consume hunter gatherer foods, not farmed foods. 

It's supposed that many of our first world problems (think obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease) are resulting from our propensity to eat 'nutrient poor' carbohydrate heavy, grain derived foods.

I'm inclined to agree with this for the most part. Eating shallow root vegetables, fruit/berries, and nuts  with little bits of lean meat thrown in seems like a great idea. Certainly it sounds healthy.

However where I'm not sure I agree is when primal proponents vilify grains.

Unfortunately proponents seem to discount any natural selection that may have happened since we practiced farming. It's not hard to conceive of a hypothetical small tribal population 3000 years ago during a famine having nothing but grains to subsist on, resulting in many of those who aren't able to digest it properly dying before they could pass on their genes to the next generation.  It stands to reason that this (natural selection) must have been happening consistently over the past 10,000 years.

There are vegetarian populations that have thrived (think many Indian Hindus/Hare Krishnae). Certain Italian and Japanese populations live long & fulfilling lives with pasta and rice forming the better part of their caloric intake. This has gone on for generations and during quite a few lean years. It might very well be the case that people  descended from rice & wheat rich regions  could be better suited for grain consumption than someone descended from Inuit or Viking Populations.

Does this mean that if I'm Irish I'm better off eating potatoes than pasta? If I'm Japanese then fish and rice instead of potatoes or oatmeal? If I'm a first nations person from Northern Russia I'm better off sticking with seal meat? Maybe that's the case. However there's been so much inter-racial mixing that we might never know.

There are many methods to identify the types (alleles) and levels of expression of key genes that aid us in digesting these foods. Perhaps in the near future a simple test at the clinic will let us know if we should eat that or meat or not worry about it?

 It may be the case that there's a co-occurence of fat people and over-servings of corn syrup, but correlation is not causation. In my opinion there's not one answer for everybody, but presumably science will offer up better ways that we can tell what's best for each of us.