Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
passed a billion in 2009. Since then the global financial crisis has seen this num-
ber remain at a record level, although it is important to note that the number of
people deprived of a minimum supply of micronutrients is higher, affecting approx-
imately half of the global population (Butler, in press[a]). Children and women are
especially vulnerable, with undernourished hildren becoming disadvantaged adults,
themselves frequently trapped in impoverished communities that face systematic
discrimination.
he main purpose of this hapter however, is not to focus on macronutrient or
micronutrient deficiency, but to discuss and integrate some lesser appreciated as-
pects of nutrition with perspectives from evolution, ecology and economic history.
Two lineages of evidence support our focus. The first uses an evolutionary perspect-
ive to infer that large, rapid hanges to the dietary milieu in whih humans and their
hominid precursors evolved are unlikely to be beneficial (Boyden, 1973; Ulijaszek,
2002; Cordain et al. , 2005). The second stream of evidence relies on observations that
diets high in diverse forms of plants (and perhaps insects) appear to be health pro-
moting (Ogle et al. , 2001;Hoddinot and Yohannes, 2002). Suh a diet appears safer
and more beneficial than more limited fare.
The ecology of past and modern diets
Three eras of food supply
For millions of years Homo sapiens and its ancestors co-evolved with their environ-
ment in order to try to maximize reproduction, lifespan and well-being. These people
cared about food, and they cared about reproducing themselves and their cultures. It
is likely that they had a good understanding of some plant poisons, but it is unlikely
that they had any intellectual understanding of nutrition, as we call it today. Human
numbers slowly increased, as did the surface area they colonized and influenced. In
some coastal hunter-gathering communities, resources were so abundant that highly
stratified communities developed, with some even including slavery. It is plausible
that elites in suh areas may have been able to accumulate a suiciently positive en-
ergy balance to become obese. Peoples living inland, especially if away from rivers
and lakes, would often experience a less diverse, harder to obtain diet.
Until fairly recently the lives of most indigenous peoples have been regarded
by the dominant global cultures as deprived, nasty and brutish. Perhaps some were,
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