Relative human energy values

I was watching PBS on the swamplands in Florida.

They mentioned that when the Spanish explorers first reached the Florida
swamplands, they found the hunter-gather natives to be considerably
taller than themselves.

It is a common theme in historical/culture works to comment upon the
greater height of hunter-gatherers compared to agriculturists... This
work is usually based on skeletal remains and written records, such as
the Florida incidents above.

In an article on Oil/Agriculture in Fortune magazine, about a year ago,
it was mentioned that during the revolutinary war in the USA, the
American soldiers were considerably taller than the French soldiers. The
author attributed that to the higher protein diet of the American
Frontiersman compared to the higher carbohydrate (wheat) of the
Frenchmen. Protein eaten is essential to adding protein based mass to
the body such as muscle (nitrogen in the amino group of the amino acids
that constitute protein)

Diet deals with weight in _at_ _least_ two ways.

1) FAT GIRTH

2) HEIGHT

3)......

Work deals with weight in _at_ _least_ two ways.

1) FAT GIRTH

2) CALORIES BURNT

3).....

Uncle Enrico said:

If I lived 300 yrs ago and wanted a loaf of bread, I had to expend a lot
of energy to get it. Clearing a field, plowing planting, harvesting,
threshing, grinding, kneeding and baking would keep me lean and
muscular. Now I can drive to the market and buy a loaf with little
effort. Unfortuntely, my middle aged body isn't "worthy" of the bread's
food value because I haven't expended the human energy to produce it, or
do much physical labor of any sort. The human cost without the personal
energy effort is weight gain and poor health.

Meat required a lot less energy, even with crude hunting tools. Grass
fed venison was pretty healthy compared with grain fed beef. Vegetable
gardens produce a lot more food with less effort than a wheat field.
They're smaller and yield a lot of produce. Meats and vegetables don't
produce the weight gain that grains produce.

I could eat very small quantities of grain products, but they're so
enticing, and I crave them so much, that limiting myself to small
portions requires almost as much effort as plowing a field.

Damned carbs--why do I love thee?

Uncle E.
A Type II diabetic.

--
1) Eat Till SATISFIED, Not STUFFED... Atkins repeated 9 times in the book
2) Exercise: It's Non-Negotiable..... Chapter 22 title, Atkins book
3) Don't Diet Without Supplimental Nutrients... Chapter 23 title, Atkins
book
4) A sensible eating plan, and follow it. (Atkins, Self Made or Other)

However, looking at museum pieces, we know that people today are taller
in general than ever before. There weren't many 7 foot tall people
roaming even pre-colonial America , much less Europe (exaggerated
reports about William Wallace aside).

I think it has to do with general nutrition. Since people (in general)
aren't starving in the OECD nations, they can grow tall. If they eat
junk, on average they will get round. If they eat well, on average they
will be sticks. Not starving != eating well, obviously.

Interesting topic.

-Hollywood

jbuch said:

I was watching PBS on the swamplands in Florida.

They mentioned that when the Spanish explorers first reached the Florida
swamplands, they found the hunter-gather natives to be considerably
taller than themselves.

It is a common theme in historical/culture works to comment upon the
greater height of hunter-gatherers compared to agriculturists... This
work is usually based on skeletal remains and written records, such as
the Florida incidents above.

In an article on Oil/Agriculture in Fortune magazine, about a year ago,
it was mentioned that during the revolutinary war in the USA, the
American soldiers were considerably taller than the French soldiers. The
author attributed that to the higher protein diet of the American
Frontiersman compared to the higher carbohydrate (wheat) of the
Frenchmen. Protein eaten is essential to adding protein based mass to
the body such as muscle (nitrogen in the amino group of the amino acids
that constitute protein)

Diet deals with weight in _at_ _least_ two ways.

1) FAT GIRTH

2) HEIGHT

3)......

Work deals with weight in _at_ _least_ two ways.

1) FAT GIRTH

2) CALORIES BURNT

3).....

Uncle Enrico said:

If I lived 300 yrs ago and wanted a loaf of bread, I had to expend a lot
of energy to get it. Clearing a field, plowing planting, harvesting,
threshing, grinding, kneeding and baking would keep me lean and
muscular. Now I can drive to the market and buy a loaf with little
effort. Unfortuntely, my middle aged body isn't "worthy" of the bread's
food value because I haven't expended the human energy to produce it, or
do much physical labor of any sort. The human cost without the personal
energy effort is weight gain and poor health.

Meat required a lot less energy, even with crude hunting tools. Grass
fed venison was pretty healthy compared with grain fed beef. Vegetable
gardens produce a lot more food with less effort than a wheat field.
They're smaller and yield a lot of produce. Meats and vegetables don't
produce the weight gain that grains produce.

I could eat very small quantities of grain products, but they're so
enticing, and I crave them so much, that limiting myself to small
portions requires almost as much effort as plowing a field.

Damned carbs--why do I love thee?

Uncle E.
A Type II diabetic.

--
1) Eat Till SATISFIED, Not STUFFED... Atkins repeated 9 times in the book
2) Exercise: It's Non-Negotiable..... Chapter 22 title, Atkins book
3) Don't Diet Without Supplimental Nutrients... Chapter 23 title, Atkins
book
4) A sensible eating plan, and follow it. (Atkins, Self Made or Other)

Uncle Enrico said:

If I lived 300 yrs ago and wanted a loaf of bread, I had to expend a lot
of energy to get it. Clearing a field, plowing planting, harvesting,
threshing, grinding, kneeding and baking would keep me lean and
muscular.

Why wouldn't you just pop down to the corner store and buy it?

Three hundred years ago bakeries were quite common. I lived as a child
in a small village in Hampshire (UK) where the corner store had been
operating as a shop for four hundred years. Even in Biblical times, a
couple of thousand years ago bakers didn't have to grow their own grain,
it was a commercial product.

Perhaps a closer look at the history books?

You are correct in that we no longer expend the sort of energy in
everyday living that we once did although it is pointless to point a
finger at one single factor such as food shopping.

There are many factors, one of the biggest and most often ignored is
"labour saving" technology. People brag about walking a couple of miles,
but in the the quite recent past, people would walk those distances as
an everyday part of life. We have dishwashers, remote controls, clothes
dryers, automatic vacuum systems, automatic pool cleaners, car washes,
dry cleaners, elevators in almost all modern buildings. People tend to
drive even a few hundred yards to a store rather than walk. Our
employment is less physically demanding, usually seated and with far
fewer hours than in the past.

Look also at the incredible increase in areas covered by the service
industry. We pay other people to wash our cars, wash our dogs, mow our
lawns, clean our windows, gutters, etc. Many pay to have their pools
serviced weekly, have their ironing done, basic housekeeping,

Entertainment and recreation has also changed. Throughout much of the
last century we would go out and dance, and the dances were fairly
active. The Charleston in my grandparents time, jive and early rock in
my parents time, rock and disco in my time. Now many people on a dance
floor barely raise a sweat. They stand there swaying. They use
computers for recreation, as a form of entertainment, as well as a work
tool, so even more time is spent in a sedentary manner. We tend to watch
sport nowadays rather than become involved in it.

Modern lifestyle as much as diet is responsible. We eat more and are
*required* to move less. For most people exercise is now a choice, in
the past it was an everyday part of life.

Simply going back to a lifestyle common in the fifties, ditching all of
the modern labour saving devices, would make a massive difference in
expended energy levels. The reality is that most people would sooner
stick with their conveniences and pay money to regain a small quantity
of the lost exercise opportunity in a gym. Doesn't really make sense.

I saw a report about five years ago about the Amish and how they weren't
affected by modern problems. Maybe we should all become Amish? <g>

Regards

David

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Quoted message said:

However, looking at museum pieces, we know that people today are taller
in general than ever before. There weren't many 7 foot tall people
roaming even pre-colonial America , much less Europe (exaggerated
reports about William Wallace aside).

I think it has to do with general nutrition. Since people (in general)
aren't starving in the OECD nations, they can grow tall. If they eat
junk, on average they will get round. If they eat well, on average they
will be sticks. Not starving != eating well, obviously.

How about natural selection?

Taller men tend to able to physically dominate smaller men, they are
more likely to be the "alpha" males in any community and would have more
females available to them; so allowing their genes to predominate.

That is the generally accepted belief with regard to why the various
populations from our world history have consistently increased in height.

Regards

David

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J. David Anderson said:

Quoted message said:

However, looking at museum pieces, we know that people today are taller
in general than ever before. There weren't many 7 foot tall people
roaming even pre-colonial America , much less Europe (exaggerated
reports about William Wallace aside).

Quoted message said:

I think it has to do with general nutrition. Since people (in general)
aren't starving in the OECD nations, they can grow tall. If they eat
junk, on average they will get round. If they eat well, on average they
will be sticks. Not starving != eating well, obviously.

I think it has more to do with knowledge of micronutrients than total
calories available. Before the 20th century few knew about vitamins
and many were short. Kids from the early 20th century on were
given cod liver oil then daily multis and many were tall, a change that
happened in a generation or two and after agriculture could supply
large amounts of food.

Quoted message said:

How about natural selection?

It would take more than two generations unless there were a very
significant culling. This happened to the French when they lost
two consequative generations of tall men in WWI and WWII to
significant culling.

Quoted message said:

Taller men tend to able to physically dominate smaller men, they are
more likely to be the "alpha" males in any community and would have more
females available to them; so allowing their genes to predominate.

That is the generally accepted belief with regard to why the various
populations from our world history have consistently increased in height.

Agreed but your time scale is off. Selection across generations like
that would take several centuries. It explains why items a thousand
years old were for shorter people but not why items a hundred years
ago were.

Doug Freyburger said:

J. David Anderson said:

Quoted message said:

However, looking at museum pieces, we know that people today are taller
in general than ever before. There weren't many 7 foot tall people
roaming even pre-colonial America , much less Europe (exaggerated
reports about William Wallace aside).

Quoted message said:

I think it has to do with general nutrition. Since people (in general)
aren't starving in the OECD nations, they can grow tall. If they eat
junk, on average they will get round. If they eat well, on average they
will be sticks. Not starving != eating well, obviously.

I think it has more to do with knowledge of micronutrients than total
calories available. Before the 20th century few knew about vitamins
and many were short. Kids from the early 20th century on were
given cod liver oil then daily multis and many were tall, a change that
happened in a generation or two and after agriculture could supply
large amounts of food.

What about those that were taller than their forebears prior to the
twentieth century?

There has certainly been an above average increase in height in the past
hundred years or so that is attributed to better nutrition, but the
average height has been increasing (and sometimes decreasing) for many
centuries in a way that cannot be explained by simply by nutrition.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

How about natural selection?

It would take more than two generations unless there were a very
significant culling. This happened to the French when they lost
two consequative generations of tall men in WWI and WWII to
significant culling.

Where does two generations come into it?

People have been slowly getting taller for centuries. Look at the suits
of armour in museums. Since the Middle Ages they have become bigger and
bigger and as the centuries pass. Roman and Greek soldiers, by modern
standards, were midgets.

Remember that in the later parts of the first millennium AD men were of
a similar height to modern man, but for several centuries the average
height reduced, then began to grow again. This still fits in with the
natural selection theory as other factors than mere physical size began
to influence the selection of mates. A man could offer security that
didn't rely on height or physical strength.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Taller men tend to able to physically dominate smaller men, they are
more likely to be the "alpha" males in any community and would have more
females available to them; so allowing their genes to predominate.

That is the generally accepted belief with regard to why the various
populations from our world history have consistently increased in height.

Agreed but your time scale is off. Selection across generations like
that would take several centuries. It explains why items a thousand
years old were for shorter people but not why items a hundred years
ago were.

A thousand years ago, in fact from the end of the Roman dominance of
history, they grew until they were of a similar height to modern men,
then they "shrunk" for some centuries before again reversing the trend.

There may be and probably are many factors involved, but when I studied
biology, (quite a long time ago <g>😉 it was attributed to natural
selection with the selection criteria varying over time, but starting
with physical dominance.

Currently, if nutrition is the primary factor, people like me should be
extremely tall. I have always maintained what is currently held to be an
ideal diet with plenty of exercise. I was for many years a little over
six foot, but recently, since my accident and long convalescence, I
appear to have lost half and inch or so.

Most growth with regard to height is when the person is extremely young,
it is the nutrition of babies and toddlers that has the most noticeable
effect. Maybe the Dutch are the tallest Europeans because they breast
feed their babies for longer and tend to consume foods that supply
calcium for bone growth more than other nations. French women on the
other hand, breastfeed for the shortest time among most westernised
countries.

Regards

David

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J. David Anderson said:

Quoted message said:

However, looking at museum pieces, we know that people today are taller
in general than ever before. There weren't many 7 foot tall people
roaming even pre-colonial America , much less Europe (exaggerated
reports about William Wallace aside).

I think it has to do with general nutrition. Since people (in general)
aren't starving in the OECD nations, they can grow tall. If they eat
junk, on average they will get round. If they eat well, on average they
will be sticks. Not starving != eating well, obviously.

How about natural selection?

I'll buy, but with some small reservations.

Quoted message said:

Taller men tend to able to physically dominate smaller men, they are
more likely to be the "alpha" males in any community and would have more
females available to them; so allowing their genes to predominate.

I would accept this argument in polygamous societies, where you have
harem style set ups, and the poorer/weaker males get nothing. But in
Western Europe / the US, where you don't have a lot of harems, and a
lot of short guys marry and have kids, the natural selection argument
doesn't hold. Or it doesn't hold as well. With the advent of
accounting, short nerds became alpha males.

Quoted message said:

That is the generally accepted belief with regard to why the various
populations from our world history have consistently increased in height.

I think the lowered cost of food, in real terms, probably has something
to do with it. I also think that better understanding of early
nutrition has probably had an effect in very recent (on an evolutionary
time scale) increases in the trend.

I buy evol.ution as a macrotrend. I don't know that you can slightly
mutate your way to Yao Ming while the rest of Asia averages out to
under two meters. Maybe you can evolve the potential for that, and the
nutrition/science/abundance story activates the potential you evolved.
I'll buy that.

-Hollywood