Japanese women live the longest; traditional "ama" divers catch crustaceans by hand.
This inspired my chicken soup of the sea:
rice, shrimp and mackerel.
Can you guess which causes the longevity?
PIC: How to tell when a shrimp is perfectly cooked
Ama (海女, "sea women") are Japanese divers famous for collecting pearls, though traditionally their main catch is seafood.[1] The vast majority of ama are women.
– Ama (diving) | Wikipedia
An optimal diet should imitate the diet of the world's longest-lived people: Japanese women. What sets Japan apart from runners-up such as South Korea is high shrimp consumption.
Longevity is sexy:
I cut the seafood-rice diet down to the absolute minimum:
An elimination diet, also known as exclusion diet, is a diagnostic procedure used to identify foods that an individual cannot consume without adverse effects.
– Elimination diet | Wikipedia
An optimal elimination diet follows the pattern of recovering from an upset stomach:
Take it one step at a time. These are sequenced in order of short-term priority to stay productive. Everything is low-FODMAPS except the nuts.
#1-4 are like a healthier version of chicken soup: Both are high in methionine, salt and rice.
Methionine stops hunger. Eating less extends lifespan dramatically:
The exact manner by which calories are reduced changes across studies, but the animals’ calorie intakes are generally reduced by as much as half their normal levels. Depending on the species, the most promising results have shown lifespan extensions between 50 and 300%.
– Can Calorie Restriction Extend Your Lifespan? | Harvard
This diet can probably cut your calorie intake in half without trying, and your food budget as well.
A strong baseline makes it easy to detect harmful foods. You can thrive on just this, but why limit yourself? Establish a performance baseline, then introduce a new ingredient.
When I was a young man, I regarded cooking as a chore and simply wanted to eat healthy to gain muscle without wasting time. As a result, I ate a lot of Campbell's Chunky Soup and crackers. Not great for my sodium intake.
I sympathize with those who insist that a "minimum viable diet" should mean something simple and repeatable such as beef, potatoes and greens. Sounds great! If you're looking for lazy cooking, just learn some simple pressure cooker recipes. It does get more complicated than "throw tasty things in pot".
I might've continued as a culinary barbarian, had I not made some bad life choices, chief among which was taking a light course of Accutane, which is proven to cause Inflammatory Bowel Disease by aging epithelial stem cells. This caused my gut lining to gradually age, until I must now eat mush like an old man.
The struggle to find foods that didn't incapacitate me lead me to elimination diets and a journey into true minimalism, the meaning of which I hadn't appreciated before: not minimum cooking effort, but minimum digestive difficulty.
My eventual solution happened to align with the diet of the longest-lived people in the world – the Japanese. (Well, the women are longest-lived. The men work and drink themselves to death.) Apparently, the secret to their longevity is eating a lot of shrimp and rice. White rice is considered hypoallergenic, and shrimp induces satiety via methionine, permitting calorie restriction.
Doctors have been unable to label my condition with any specific diagnosis, despite extensive tests and endoscopy. So I believe my solution is generalizable to those without specific problems, who nonetheless find themselves plagued with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).
The less energy the gut must spend on digestion, the more energy the brain has to focus productively. Ancestral hunter gatherers could afford to lie around after a big meal; office workers not so much.
Even healthy people may be interested in the productivity benefits of easy digestion. Soylent is popular for this reason. The aquatic ape diet is healthier, easier to digest, and much cheaper.
Soylent costs about $225 per month for 2000 calories per day. In a typical day I eat:
As you can see, the AA baseline diet is more expensive per calorie, but higher satiety so one eats less. If cost is a concern, you can easily cut to one or both small oranges, dropping the price to $84 per month. Or if you're active, eating 2000 calories doubles the price. Compared to variances in appetite, the price of the salt and lime juice is negligible.
I included the oranges even though I can’t eat them, because most people will want that, and it makes the budget more realistic.
Most people don't want to eat minimally, and that's fine. However, those who hate cooking can keep the minimal ingredients at home, then indulge at restaurants. Or travel with Soylent and never miss a meal.
Humans are omnivores. Thus a proper minimal diet will consume both plants and animals. Among mammals, even herbivores are usually opportunistic carnivores. Compensating for pure vegetarianism or carnivory complicates things considerably, as icebound Eskimos and smooth-brained koala vegans demonstrate.
Given omnivory, a minimal diet has three major requirements:
These are listed in order of priority.
One can get water-soluble vitamins from lightly-cooked meat, if one eats the right animals or organs in sufficient quantities. However, it is usually easier to get them from fruits and vegetables.
The Romans paid legionnaires in sea salt, leading to the expression, "Worth his salt".
Without sea salt, humans develop goiters. Selenium and iodine are human dietary requirements not available from terrestrial animals.
When sick, one often stops eating. That is fine, humans can fast for weeks. Just drink sea salt "tea" until your gut calms.
This staves off dehydration, but gets quite hungry. When ready to rise and cook, proceed to the next step. Until then, have a toothpick and relax. (Chewing on something is a good way to stop eating.)
The first step of recovery is to have some bland white rice congee. It is usually the easiest thing to digest. (If not, try soaking or pick another grain.) Starch fuel prevents starvation, conserving body fat on skinny chronic IBS sufferers. You need enough calories to stay active.
Put a 1-2 handfuls of rice and generous water into the pressure cooker, then cook until congee.
Plain white rice does get boring. So alternate white with brown rice. Brown rice has insoluble fiber, which is hardest to digest. So start with just a pinch of brown rice in white, which will change the flavor of the pot enough to fool your brain. If you can tolerate insoluble fiber, then increase the ratio. Gas is a key sign you can't.
If you're constipated, increase the ratio of brown rice. Fiber keeps you regular.
The next step is to consume healthy fresh meat. The healthiest sea meat is shrimp. Just a handful will induce satiety via methionine. Briefly auto-warm them in the pressure cooker until they curl into a c-shape, not o. (This is safe, because saltwater shrimp parasites can't transfer to freshwater hosts.) Eat the shrimp before cooling, and save the broth for the next rice pot.
Fat is the second hardest to digest, but the most rewarding. It's what puts a smile on your face and heat in your extremities. Fat soluble vitamins degrade slowly, so canned food is fine. Mackerel is incredibly cheap and delicious. At 13% fat, it is sufficient but not overwhelming to weak guts. The bones are easy to eat around. Save the broth for the next rice pot.
Watch the toxin accumulation. Maximum is 200g mackerel per day, due to arsenic. Try alternating with other fish, such as tuna, sardines and salmon.
If you have fat malabsorption, try putting cholestyramine powder in the rice pot preceding the fatty meal, and look into UDCA. Eating fat is essential to enjoy life. Hence the expression, "Fat and happy."
Fresh shrimp might have enough vitamin c to prevent your teeth from falling out, but it will leave you tired and vitamin-c deficient. Fresh fruit is historically the easiest source of vitamin c.
Unfortunately, fruit poses two digestive challenges: fructose and insoluble fiber. Lime juice eliminates both of these, and is how the British Navy, the greatest in history, earned the name "Limeys". Thus the safest way to get your vitamin c is to add some lime juice to your drinking water, diluting its acidity.
Unfortunately the British improperly preserved their lime juice, leading to disaster in the Arctic: Scott And Scurvy | Idle Words
As long as the lime juice is properly preserved, it should have plenty of vitamin c. Limes have less vitamin c than lemons, but since limes have no fructose, you can just drink more. Follow the percentage RDV listed on the label.
If you can tolerate fructose, then you can also use oranges to brighten your diet. They're low pulp, minimizing insoluble fiber. The sugar provides short term energy. Thus an orange complements a pot of white rice congee.
By itself, the congee is bland starch, which provides long-term energy and filling comfort. Eat the orange as appetizer, then the congee as main course. Having this twice per day is a treat.
One in three people have fructose malabsorption. The intestines limit fructose absorption to protect the liver, which must metabolize fructose first, unlike glucose. The fructose then ferments painfully in the lower intestine. Therefore even healthy people should limit their daily fruit consumption.
Fructose is likely an evolutionary adaptation to limit the amount of fruit animals can eat in one meal. The plant doesn't benefit by concentrating too many seeds in one pile of droppings; it wants to spread the seed distribution.
Plants are a riot of biowarfare, which is why it pays to be careful. They usually don't want to be eaten.
Limes are acidic enough not to need the fructose defense. The solution is dilution in drinking water. You can add it to congee too, after it's cooked. (Cooking destroys vitamin c.)
If for some reason you can't tolerate limes or oranges, a vitamin c pill is even cheaper.
Vegetables contain even more insoluble fiber than fruit. One solution is to cook them to mush, but this destroys their b-vitamins, the main reason to eat them.
The solution is to use a soft vegetable that can be eaten raw and is high in vitamin b. Parsley and spinach both work, and go nicely with shrimp. Just throw everything into the pot on auto-warm at the same time. Neither shrimp nor leafy greens should be cooked much.
There are other sources of vitamin b in this diet, so the veggie priority is lowest. If you can't tolerate undercooked vegetables and suspect you're vit b deficient, try a b multivitamin.
With diets, cheating is always a danger, so one should try to fulfill cravings with healthy snacks. Dried seaweed have the salt, crunch and complex flavor to satisfy the potato chip craving. A handful of mixed tree nuts soaked overnight satisfies the desire for something more substantial, and puts the pot to good use.
Congratulations, you've completed the Aquatic Ape diet! Now you can add whatever works for you.
Having a strong baseline means it's easy to tell when something makes you feel worse. Similarly, being malnourished makes it easy to tell when you eat something that was previously missing. Malnourishment is not a pleasant baseline, so I recommend the former!
I'm sure you're eager to get to the steak and potatoes. The Weston Price Foundation has many great recipes for healthy indulgence.
The shrimp induces satiety for intermittent fasting.
Travel is tough. Suggestions welcome. Here's what I've got:
When traveling, boil questionable water, and carry activated charcoal, Ivermectin and azithromycin. If you swallow something harmful, induce vomiting with salty water.
Topics below include:
Wild meat is healthier than farmed, and saltwater is healthier than terrestrial. Humans are primarily a littoral species, even today. Our hairlessness is an aquatic adaptation (hippos, elephants); chimps can't swim. Our other closest relative, the pig, is semi-aquatic like us, and shares many anatomical features such as nose shape and eye color. Pigs, not chimps, are the main animal source for organ transplants into humans.
fills me up for 1100 calories per day
How
by eating the semi-aquatic foods that diving-adapted humans evolved to eat.
There is much anatomical and archaelogical evidence to support the aquatic ape hypothesis, so why do mainstream scientists deprecate it?
Shell middens start with anatomically modern humans in South Africa:
Shell middens are a world-wide archaeological phenomenon, most frequently found on sites adjacent to marine shorelines and composed of marine shellfish remains (see SEASHELL), although shell middens composed of the remains of freshwater molluscs also occur in interior riverine locations in many places.
Once thought of as a hallmark of the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, following the end of the last glaciation (10 000-12 000 years ago), shell middens are now known to date from early in the Upper Palaeolithic (ca. 160 000 years ago) through to recent times. The earliest known shell middens have been found in South African near-shore caves and were accumulated contemporaneous to the emergence of anatomically and behaviourally modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) from archaic hominin populations.
– Shell Middens | Canadian Encyclopedia
Shellfish aren't included in the minimal diet because of higher risk of contamination and because they're too low-fat to survive on with just rice. (I tried.)
The Aquatic Ape theory is deprecated by modern science because it is unaware of the hybrid origin of humanity, which originated from the mating of a bonobo female with a red river hog. (Observe its human-like eye.) Their habitat ranges still overlap today. The mating was likely consensual, as bonobo females are notoriously promiscuous and cower when threatened. Boars are notoriously indiscriminate during rut, but red river hogs are surprisingly good lovers:
The male licks the female's genital region before mating, which lasts about five to ten minutes.
Whether one believes this hybrid cross was assisted with genetic engineering or occurred naturally is irrelevant. Either way, it explains the missing human chromosome pair.
Hybrids that luck into reproductive viability are main source of new species, not Darwinian gradualism. This should be obvious from examining the duckbill platypus.
Thus humans are aquatic because red river hogs are riparian:
The red river hog lives in rainforests, wet dense savannas, and forested valleys, and near rivers, lakes and marshes.
Humans were initially poor swimmers due to backbreeding with chimps, and to this day sub-Saharans dominate Olympic running but lose at swimming. However, humans subsequently evolved into their aquatic potential, specializing in littoral hunter-gathering, where bipedalism was an advantage, as it is for wading birds.
Hence the confusion between the savanna hypothesis and the less-obvious aquatic ape hypothesis.
Critics of AAH write:
John Langdon characterized it as an "umbrella hypothesis" (a hypothesis that tries to explain many separate traits of humans as a result of a single adaptive pressure) that was not consistent with the fossil record
Traits that the hypothesis tries to explain evolved at vastly different times, and distributions of soft tissue the hypothesis alleges are unique to humans are common among other primates.
This is true, because the aquatic aspects of human evolution happened before our speciation (in pigs) and after the early savanna phase. The AAH's strongest points are anatomical, not genetic, just as humans lack genetic relationship to pigs but share much anatomy – so much so that we take organ transplants from pigs instead of chimps.
What is the practical utility of this information? Selenium and iodine are both essential nutrients and aren't found on land-dwelling animals. By eating the coastal foods that diving-adapted humans evolved to eat, I'm able to feel full on a 700 calorie per day diet. The diet is "coincidentally" similar to what the longest lived people in the world eat: Japanese women. They eat a diet high in shellfish and crustaceans, and have a traditional culture of free diving to get them.
Question: "If this is true, then why do I prune when I’m in water for less than an hour?"
In fact, it's very rare that you will ever leave seawater pruny and water-logged.
– Ever wondered why your skin wrinkles up like a prune in the water? | Swim Jim
Objection: "This infographic is annoying, some parts are interesting like the reflexes of infants underwater, but most are innocuous like "floating titties". It wasn't made by a scientist who would apply parsimony to make a stronger case to another rational person, it was made by a r*ddit midwit to appeal to other midwits."
Upon closer inspection, floating tits appear to be a big reason that the vast majority of Japanese ama divers were female. Higher body fat insulates and adds buoyancy.
Japanese Ama divers, 1950s | r/OldSchoolCool
Floating tits would also assist nursing. Wading is a safe and relaxing environment for bipedal mothers to be, if there are dangerous terrestrial predators around, and no crocs. In Africa crocodiles infest the rivers but not the coast. So for early humans the coast was probably the safest place from predators, since humans can wade into the surf or dive.
The fact that babies like to bounce and can sort-of swim from birth suggests they may like nursing in the surf. Anyway, kids like the beach, it's not a secret.
Travis and kids Playtime at the Beach | YouTube
Wasn't this theory proposed and pushed by some feminist who felt the mainstream model was sexist or something? That was in the 1970s
Ha, sounds plausible. I definitely have a lot more respect for the functional performance of the female form in hunter-gathering now. These aren't defenseless sexually-selected fuckdolls; they're apex littoral predators with built-in flotation devices, amen. I always thought it was cute to watch a girl demolish a plate of crawdads; little did I know…
The Secret To Deep Freediving: Tips From 3 Female World Record Holders | DAN
Freediving as a sport is so unique, in that it's one of the only sports where women are up there at the top, achieving similar results as the men. At Vertical Blue 2021 we saw Alenka Artnik make a world record dive in CTW (constant weight) of 122m; just 9m shallower than the male champion, Alexey Molchanov.
8 reasons why women make better divers | Malibu Divers
They're probably behind the men in technical diving and setting freediving records, by a little. However, in primitive freediving they're obviously the superior gatherers, thanks to buoyancy and insulation, which give better endurance and carrying capacity. Hence why the overwhelming majority of Japanese ama divers are female.
Blacks run, Whites swim:
The Bajau in Indonesia are genetically-superior divers:
For hundreds of years, the Bajau have lived at sea, and natural selection may have made them genetically stronger divers
– 'Sea Nomads' Are First Known Humans Genetically Adapted to Diving | National Geographic
Human hybrids: a closer look at the theory and evidence | Phys.org
The author ably defends McCarthy. Nevertheless, McCarthy will find no mainstream traction, for his theory is too useful in explaining racial divergences as caused by further hybridization events.
what would we look like if we had stayed in water more?
pic of dolphin man
Dolphins already did that; we cannot take their niche.
Cetacea | Transition from land to sea | Wikipedia
Human digestion is surprisingly efficient:
The mean stool calorie loss as a percentage of ingested calories was 7.3% ± 1.6% (range, 6.6%-8.5%).
– Procedures for Measuring Excreted and Ingested Calories to Assess Nutrient Absorption Using Bomb Calorimetry | Obesity journal
However, the percentage wasted quickly increases with overeating and insoluble fiber. Obviously sawdust is indigestible yet calorie-rich.
Calories can be expended in multiple ways besides building fat, mostly as heat. Cold weather and exercise obviously burn more calories.
Bioavailability is key. Plants are good at providing sugars and starches; animals are good at providing protein and fat. Protein is expensive to digest but essential for building flesh.
The gut is not a furnace; calories are not interchangeable. One should focus instead on the ratio of a food's benefit to its digestive cost.
Outside of athletics and survivalism, the only time to count calories is when writing about diets. When comparing foods, calories are helpful to ignore varying water content. Dry weight would be better but is hard to find.
Longevity science is in its infancy. Excluding infant mortality, gains to date have mostly come from improved nutrition and sanitation, not modern medicine.
Vaccines Did Not Save Us – 2 Centuries Of Official Statistics | Child Health Safety
I doubt calorie restriction is the correct paradigm for longevity. Rather, one should minimize the dry weight of food consumed, while maximizing its nutritional benefit.
Think of your intestines as a tire. It's good for a certain number of highway miles. Once it starts failing, everything else goes too.
"All disease begins in the gut." ― Hippocrates
Cut gradually, discarding in order of least healthy, until you reach the minimal diet.
If you cheat and find it difficult to go back, binging until sick can convince your body that a bland diet is the better option. Tim Ferriss uses cheat days for this purpose.
Why not just use olive oil
Fat is harder to digest and carries fat-soluble toxins. Concentrated plant fats were not part of the ancestral diet. By contrast, storing carbs for winter is something even squirrels do. Acorns are half starch.
Fruits and vegetables are delayed to the last stages because plants have natural defenses against consumption (anti-nutrients). Ancestral humans could tolerate them better than we can, due to our unhealthy lifestyle. They also spent a lot of time lying around digesting their food. Insoluble fiber is obviously difficult to digest.
Rice
Enriched
Enriched rice has an irritating cheap processed powder added to it. It will be labeled as "enriched" somewhere, usually on the front or else under ingredients. Always read the latter.
Enriched/Fortified Food Product Labeling Requirements | r/FoodScience
The powder can be washed off somewhat, in a pinch.
Hypoallergenic
Rice is regarded as hypoallergenic, and rice hypersensitivity is not common.
– Rice Allergy | American Academy of Pediatrics Journal
Rice is the most digestible grain, so you won't gain much by adding other grains.
Objection: White rice contains antinutrients, which are by definition inflammatory.
If you are concerned about the minimal antinutrients in white rice, prepare it further:
How To Cook White Rice To Reduce Anti-nutrients | Heart to Kitchen
However, practically any other plant will have more. Cooking breaks down antinutrients. It is indeed important to fully cook the rice to maximal softness, as I do. I also use surplus water to create a gruel and prevent browning or burning.
Beriberi
Beriberi was very rare among people with an access to diversified diet, as vitamin B1 is quite common and can be found in meat, fish, grains and lentils that were commonly eaten
– People who ate mostly white rice would often get Vitamin B deficiency… | r/AskHistorians
White rice doesn't actually contain thiaminase, which depletes vitamin b. It just lacks the thiamin in brown rice. Beriberi affects people who eat only stored food, and white rice instead of wheat.
You can always try a b-vitamin, unless your gut is sensitive to pills. If you don't feel a boost, you probably weren't deficient.
Starch
Marsh starches (cattails, wild rice) were both part of the ancestral human diet. Potatoes and peanuts, less so.
Sugar
Honey is by far the healthiest sweet. Even diabetics can eat it. If you have a sweet tooth, buy honeycomb and chew the beeswax. Stir it in hot tea first, then use a spoon to scrape the beeswax and chew it like gum (that you can swallow).
Honey is half fructose though, so beware exceeding your daily limit.
In-shell macadamia nuts are difficult to eat and satiating, reducing the risk of binging. They make a good snack.
Tree nuts were part of the ancestral diet, but they have anti-nutrient preservatives until sprouted. If that's too tedious, soak a handful of mixed tree nuts in the pot (turned off) overnight, then eat them for breakfast with cold canned fish. Discard the nut broth.
Hunter gatherers manage their food forests by planting beneficial trees. Thus nut trees are symbiotic with humans (and squirrels).
Bottom feeders
many popular types of seafood are bottom feeders. From lobster to cod, these fish are tasty and healthy options for dinner, whether you’re finding them in the seafood section of your local grocery store or on the menu of your favorite restaurant. That’s because most bottom feeders aren’t just at the bottom of lakes and oceans—they’re at the bottom of the food chain as well. Their diet of algae and other detritus gives them plenty of Omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for human health. On the other hand, larger predatory fish end up with higher concentrations of pollutants and toxins, such as mercury.
– Bottom Feeders: What They Are, What They Eat, and Whether You Should Eat Them | The Healthy Fish
Fish
Heavy metals
That's a diet of heavy metals. A supremely shitty idea. Even the goddamned Eskimos don't eat that much fish, they eat sea MAMMALLS, not the same thing at all
This is a silly objection, since those sea mammals had even more heavy metals due to biomagnification. They were eating the same fish, after all.
Obviously the heavy metals in seafood do not outweigh the health benefits, since seafood-centric countries live longer than terrestrial ones. Just avoid biomagnification and polluted waters.
Top ten countries for women's longevity, vs their seafood consumption rank:
| country | seafood rank |
|---|---|
| Macao | 3 |
| Hong Kong | 5 |
| Japan | 13 |
| South Korea | 8 |
| Spain | 23 |
| Switzerland | 82 |
| Singapore | high |
| Faroe Islands | high |
| France | 26 |
| Australia | 58 |
Notice that more coastline = more purple, whereas red is half landlocked. Controlling for IQ would make the difference more dramatic.
It would also be interesting to distinguish shrimp per capita from fish, which might boost Australia's score, and definitely Japan's.
Pollution
Japan's problem is that they get much (most?) of their seafood from heavily-polluted Southeast Asia and China. The lesson is to avoid anything from there like the plague.
In 2021, Japan imported fish and shellfish valued at over 1.5 trillion Japanese yen, with Asian trade partners supplying almost half of imports. China accounted for the largest share on a value basis, with imports reaching almost 273 billion yen.
PIC: ocean polluting countries
Basically, the rule is don't eat fish from countries where you wouldn't drink the water. If you just stick to organic additive-free wild caught, then that should already avoid those countries, since an "organic" brand from there wouldn't sell anyway.
I'll take my chances with oceanic runoff over concentrated ag pollution any day. Supporting oceanic farming is a net benefit to the environment, since we can just plant seaweed and fertilize iron to make deserts bloom.
Shrimp
Happy crabs
Despite their lack of a hard shell, shrimp are actually crustaceans. They're the most popular kind of seafood in the US. (I couldn't find global consumption rankings.)
I suspect the reason shrimp are so popular is that they're the cheapest and easiest to eat crustacean.
Primitive humans could catch crustaceans without much more than a stick (to distract claws) and a rock (to break shell). The archaelogical shellfish middens lasted whereas the crab shells didn't, but I suspect crustaceans are anatomically-modern humanity's oldest protein source. Hence why we feel so happy watching them dance. Look at the incredible number of views on this video:
Noisestorm - Crab Rave [Monstercat Release] | YouTube
305 million views and 339k comments. That's a ratio of 900 views per comment.
Mainstream music videos get billions of views, but I suspect those are botted for brand. The most-viewed music video on YouTube is Ed Sheeran - Shape of You (Official Music Video). It has 6.27 billion views and 1.17 million comments. The ratio is 5384 views per comment.
So assuming the crab video went naturally viral, looks like Ed Sheeran views are 5:1 bots to human. Or maybe crabs are just 6x more interesting to talk about than interracial boxing couples? The crab song had no words…
Bug?
Humans diverged from insects 600 million years ago; crustaceans diverged from insects 500 million years ago.
Approximately 600 million years have elapsed since humans and insects shared their last common evolutionary ancestor.
– Chapter 1 – Insects and Humans on the Tree of Life | Insects & Human AffairsMolecular dating predicts that stem group Hexapoda should have diverged from their closest crustacean relatives by the mid-Cambrian to Early Ordovician
– Crustaceans and Insect Origins | Evolution and BiogeographyThe Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 Ma.
– Cambrian | Wikipedia
Humans diverged from chimps 5 million years ago. Thus humans are 100x more like chimps, which eat bugs, than shrimp are like bugs. Calling a shrimp a bug is just calling yourself a bug-eating chimp.
Commonalities of form between insects and crustaceans are due to convergent evolution – the same reason humans are bipedal but not birds.
What Bugs Look Like Crabs? | Pest Help
Carcinisation (American English: carcinization) is a form of convergent evolution in which non-crab crustaceans evolve a crab-like body plan. The term was introduced into evolutionary biology by L. A. Borradaile, who described it as "the many attempts of Nature to evolve a crab".
– Carcinisation | Wikipedia
Frozen
Objection: "there's no such thing as fresh shrimp at the market. it arrives frozen they just thaw it out before opening"
The relevant distinction in nutrition for seafood is between fresh (raw, unspoiled) and aged (canned, usually). Fresh has highly-bioavailable trace nutrients. Canned or dried, often doesn't.
There is a gourmet distinction that never-frozen seafood has a preferable texture, but that's not relevant in this context
Parasites
There is no parasite risk from saltwater shrimp.
human parasitism from raw shrimp pertains to freshwater prawns (and a parasitic worm, Opisthorchis), not saltwater ones.
– Ken Saladin, PhD Parasitology
Salt
Objection: "You realize the shrimp are heavily salted before freezing right?"
Most are, yes:
The Sneaky Salt Facts You Probably Don’t Know About Frozen Shrimp | MyRecipes.com
Whole Foods, however, promises that their shrimp are frozen without preservatives. Their frozen shrimp options show that to be true: Whole Catch’s cooked white shrimp have about 227 milligrams of sodium per 4-ounce serving.
That's another reason I've had trouble finding tolerable shrimp brands. Mainly it's the inflammatory reaction to sodium tripolyphosphate. However, excess salt has also caused problems.
I now autoheat a handful of shrimp in two fingers of water, diluting salt content, and eating the shrimp by themselves. Then I cook a 1.5 handfuls of rice in the broth. The result is not excessively salty.
My Ole Saltern Sea organic shrimp has 104mg of salt per 100g. The Whole Foods brand above has about twice as much. So the Ole brand is obviously frozen without excess salt.
Vitamins
The tragic tale of Scurvy: how beliefs trumped science | Bark Europa
Objection: "I started to get vitamin C deficiency when doing an elimination diet with beef after a while."
Yeah CAFO beef muscle, heavily cooked, probably doesn't have enough vit c. That's when you need to eat organ meat.
So in 1928, Stefansson and another explorer began their culinary experiment. Checking into New York’s Bellevue Hospital, the two spent several weeks under constant supervision as doctors did blood tests and observed for signs of dietary distress. After a brief control period of a varied diet, the two men ate only fresh meat: The cuts included steak, roast beef, brains, and tongue, with calf liver once a week to ward off scurvy. Perhaps inevitably, the study was funded by the Institute of American Meat Packers.
Vegetarianism
With very few exceptions such as koalas, there are no other strictly herbivores.
– Is it possible for a vegetarian mammal to become a meat eater (non-vegetarian)? | ScienceLine
Japan has the highest life expectancy of any country that's not a rich city state. This despite a culture of overwork and drinking that shortens male life expectancy by 6 years (in the top 10, only French men are slightly worse). Jap women live 1 year longer than Korean women, by far the largest gap in the top 10. That is total domination.
The Japanese secret, I contend, is a diet heavy in rice, seaweed, fish and shrimp:
The Japanese people love shrimp (here we refer to “kuruma ebi” or tiger prawn), and in 2019 they consumed more than 230,000 tons of shrimp annually, making them the second largest consumer per capita in the world, after the United States.
– 520. Three Major Farming Methods for Shrimp Imported to Japan | JIRCAS
Japan is only #13 in seafood consumption per capita. Other rice-based countries such as South Korea eat more. What sets Japan apart is shrimp, a low-toxin, low-fat superfood.
Is Shrimp Healthy? Nutrition, Calories, and More | HealthLine
The USA ranks 44th in female longevity, despite having the highest shrimp consumption per capita, due to low IQ minorities and gluttony.
Objection: "Those guys look 16. They could be living off scraps from dumpsters and still look relatively fine in their young age."
Older Japanese fishermen are similarly ripped, but exposure weathers their skin, so I picked a photo that shows the shrimp glow.
I highly doubt those workers are 16. East Asians mature more slowly, and are neotenous. This was 1964, before bodybuilding was popular. The shirtless guy especially looks adult.
The Japanese education system consists of 6 years of elementary school, 3 years of junior high school, 3 years of senior high school, and 4 years of university. Children usually begin elementary school at the age of 6, junior high at 12, senior high at 15 and university when they are 18.
Photos of Japanese high school boys, presumably seniors
Modern bodybuilders often look like disturbing musclefrogs. This 16-year old East Asian bodybuilder looks much younger than the workers.
Objection: "Calorie restrictionists are skinny miserable bores."
There's no evidence that miserable people live longer, AFAIK. From what I've seen, the longest-lived exercise moderately and are happy people.
This is a baseline elimination diet. It explicitly supports adding things that don't harm the baseline. Traveling and experiencing life are fine. Rice and canned fish are ubiquitous. Cheating by indulging while out encourages adherence at home via the hangover effect.
The biggest predictor of happiness is health. Yes, I'm happy to be focused and healthy. Longevity researchers claim quality of relationships is the biggest predictor of elderly health, but the causation is obviously backwards. Anyone who has recovered from a long-term health decline knows that the quality of one's relationships depends substantially on whether one is healthy enough to be sociable. The better one feels, the warmer one can be.
I lifted and played soccer and MMA before health decline. Will start again now that I'm feeling better. Obviously moderate exercise is healthy.
My Complete Anti-Aging Workout | Bryan Johnson | YouTube
Use the minimal diet to establish a baseline, then judge whether adding additional ingredients is worthwhile.
To evaluate performance, use a rapid arithmetic cognitive test such as that designed by Seth Roberts (deceased). Use common sense; don't eat so much butter you die of a heart attack like he did, even if it raises your IQ a point or two.
Some other quick minigame that tests reaction speed would also work.
Matt Riggsby
BA Anthropology, U.C. BerkeleyAuthor has 20.1K answers and 87.6M answer views
6yHow did the ice age homo-sapiens avoid scurvy?
Easily.Scurvy is essentially a product of eating preserved and otherwise extensively processed foods. For example, sailors eating mostly hard bread and dried meats consumed foods which had their already modest vitamin C content destroyed by extensive exposure to heat and air and leached out by water while cooking. However, fresh and/or lightly cooked foods don’t have this problem. Most plant foods contain more than enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy, and even many meats contain enough to stave it off. Hunter gatherers, who eat fresh food pretty much all the time, get more than enough vitamin C to stay healthy.
– Quora
FN57
I've never done rice and shrimp. But I have done very strict keto (less than 15g carbs per day). About a week of that and suddenly carrots taste sweet. Raspberries and blueberries become sweet post dinner dessert - and a whole bowl of the things costs 150 calories.
I'd recommend everybody do a reset of their palette like this at least once.
Agreed. It's amazing what you can taste when you stop eating doritos.
Or just eat beef? Way simpler and very few people are allergic to it. On the overeating part, you won’t over eat beef as long as you eat the right fat/protein ratios. Fat makes you full more than protein.
Yes, I ate beef for years until it stopped working for me. It was always an inferior solution.
Beef is not "way simpler".
Beef is great for comfort food and bulking up when lifting. It's just not specialized for minimalist IBS nutrition.
nutrient deficiency
It's not hard to vary between beef and liver, and that's really almost all you need. The only exception would be the omega-3s, which I agree, are difficult to get from land animals.
Also, unless you are eating something incredibly fresh, you are probably going to cook the fish until it turns into a mass of denatured protein with little to no water-soluble vitamins. I also find rare meat much more satiating and easier to digest than basically anything well-done.
grain-fed
It will depend on where you live. Almost all the meat produced in my country is grass-fed.
prep
Usually takes less than 5 minutes for me.
satiety
It's not only about satiety, there's also the fact that fish is less appetizing than red meat, which I think is due to its inferior aminoacid profile.
IBS
Maybe, but I guess it would vary a lot depending on the individual. Red meat, potato and fruit juice works well for me.
5-min prep sounds like refrigerated steak to grill, which requires regular purchasing.
Obviously the amino acid profile of fish is not inferior, since those who eat it live longer than the beefeaters. Maybe you're eating farmed fish, which is gross.
Got a version of this that doesn't use seafood? I know it's healthy but i'm not a fan. I don't think I could bring myself to eat shrimp.
Good question, I'd forgotten that I used to not like it. You might try resetting your palate by breaking a fast with shrimp, or during/after an illness.
Seafood is often served in an overly-rich way; this is quite different. I use shrimp between the size of my thumb and pinky, which strikes a good balance between lean and fatty.
I suspect people may overeat fried seafood and develop a methionine-overdose revulsion, or encounter it stale. Low-quality seafood is disgusting because it spoils quickly. However, perfectly-cooked shrimp is the quintessence of freshness - more digestible than raw, but not depleted by overcooking. When diluted by boiling, the taste is quite faint.
Anyway, for a terrestrial version of the aquatic ape diet, try organic chicken and eggs, which are high in methionine to discourage overeating. (Much of the benefits come from moderation.) You will need to cook the chicken much longer, but otherwise the same template should work.
Food Science: Methionine | ScienceDirect
PolandCanIntoSpace
It's not a matter of palate. Honestly, I have no idea what shrimp taste like but I look at it and see some kind of underwater cockroach. I've had an aversion to any sort of fish or seafood since I was little - maybe I was served bad fish when I was 4 or 5 or something and it left some kind of trauma…. I can't eat sushi, octopus, shrimp, absolutely anything that lived in water at any point - the very idea is as revolting as eating bugs. I would gladly try any terrestrial animal meat but I cannot bring myself to eat seafood…
I'll check out the chicken thing, or maybe use Turkey as that's easier to find and tends to have less garbage pumped into it as it's already much larger then a chicken.
Ok, good luck. Insects are part of the ancestral human diet, especially grubs. Irrational phobias can be overcome by gradual acclimation; that's how kids learn to swim. Shelled frozen shrimp don't look like anything. Try adding one to a veggie rice stew with some other meat. Even a little ocean meat is a major boost to a terrestrial-only diet. Shellfish also works.
weebs are like religious fanatics
I prefer the term, "sanitary samurai."
/Me laughs in porterhouse finished in butter, garlic, and thyme with a side of grilled asparagus and garlic toast.
He who restricts calories, laughs last.
long pig theory
chimps can't swim. Our other closest relative, the pig,
lol what
gorillas are after chimps and bonobos, orangutans are probably next
we're the only hairless ape
The backbred hybrid parent is genetically obvious; the other is not. Anatomically, our pig parentage is still apparent. Hence transplants.
The Hybrid Hypothesis | 1: Human origins: Are we hybrids? | Dr. Eugene McCarthy
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