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Should we (humans) be eating Carbohydrates ?

Yes.

Heavily refined carbohydrates that make up a large proportion of the cheap foodstuffs many people eat cause far more harm than unrefined and very starchy carbohydrate.
 
There are places where mammoths were driven over the edges of cliffs or steep slopes on their migration routes - when Humans started to use fire it caused a large change in the size of animal they could tackle.
The change from hunter gatherer to farmer seems to have involved grains - the very first tiny clues start about 7 thousand years ago, with deposits in stone vats which look very like the silica covering of grains which are left at the bottom of mashing tubs - the locals had discovered beer. Gradually the cultivation of the grain took over more and more time and energy, ancient people liked to party.
Being able to change grains to have higher yields and fruits to be more sugary and so produce more alcohol, to keep yeasts which could work for longer obviously exercised our clever brains - but I should point out that the producers were most likely women and the consumers men. The organizers - probably men too, were able to gather up gangs and go and take over other peoples fields and granaries, and women too, and get more beer.
With their fires Humans could dry out grain and fruit and keep it through to the next year - the women must have known the number of pots full of each foodstuff so as to ration it through the winter time. Modern fruits are larger and sweeter, modern grains are totally artificial, with more concentration on the production than the product's suitability as a food.
 
Evolutionary diets are an interesting topic (well, perhaps).

In latitudes where there is a distinct cold season, with snow and virtually nothing growing, a lot of animals have evolved to cram on the fat in the summer then live on it in the winter. I suspect that many of us have a similar adaptation which can cause problems if there is no fasting period for part of the year.

However we are not quite like polar bears or dormice which hunker down in autumn to emerge in spring. Like wolves we can hunt all the year round which gives us an advantage because we don't have to store a full winter's worth of food.

One thing that puzzles me about evolutionary theory; if we all descended from a few people in Africa where (certainly in the tropics and sub-tropics) there was food available all year round then we wouldn't have started out adapted to long winters. Presumably there was natural selection of those who could survive the cold to allow them to populate new lands further north (and south in the Americas at least).

More puzzling is the greater risk of diabetes in the Asian and African populations. Perhaps they didn't evolve for boom and bust seasons and it is only now with highly developed agriculture which supplies a super abundance of carbohydrates that they are hitting problems. Growing and storing high energy foods was a survival strategy for cold weather tribes. No need in the tropics.

There is also the question of Neanderthal genes.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthal/
Noting that the Neanderthals migrated north out of Africa into Europe a long time before Homo Sapiens followed, perhaps the Neanderthals developed cold weather survival genes and contributed them to the modern gene pool. Something makes Northern Europeans less susceptible to diabetes.

TL;DR - stuff yourselves silly in the summer and then starve yourself back to a skinny frame in winter. You know it makes sense!
 
I am living proof that we don't need carbs to be healthy.
It is now going on five years that I found out that my body is literally carb intolerant.
I have a few problems with any type carb above a certain amount of them.
Of course even those foods which are very low carb do have a limited amount of carbs within them. So you cannot go carb free.
My threshold all depends on how much fat and portion size.
So after painstaking research, I can eat about ten (brand name) baked beans with the sauce drained and heated, left to stand and reheated. That is it! I can only eat that many because of the fibre in the bean.
I know most of you don't have to be so careful with carbs, but I do! Hence the example.
It is not only carbs but how your body reacts to insulin triggers such as there is a glucose index, there is an insulin index.
Because high circulating insulin can be the cause of prediabetes and T2, because the insulin resistance causes the remaining insulin to go into your organs as fat.
That is why very low carb works for some T2s.
Can we live without carbs, well, yes!
Do we have to. I do, but the majority don't.

I also believe that our ancestors ate what was there to eat, wether it was meat, vegetables, fruit, and all sorts of concoctions which we would turn our noses up at.
There is evidence of trade around the Mediterranean areas over a million years ago.
And most of it was cooked in olive oil!
How did the ancient Americans (indigenous if you want) get to the Americas?
I could say more but it is a personal lifestyle choice, and most believe that eating any type of food to excess is really bad for your health and even some poisons in moderation can be good for you.
For me, the food that is the British staple diet, is not healthy. (Except the meat!)
I had to find that balance that was healthy for me!

Final point, a lot of what the population eat in this country is what we can afford, not by choice, if you look at what most food banks receive and what they give to those that need the food, it is mostly refined, factory produced foods, or tinned vegetables in a liquid which has sugar in it!
A lot of convenience foods and take a ways are cheap and full of ingredients that are not recommended for certain conditions, but can they afford the pricey fresh food, fresh meat, fresh vegetables, non processed foods. A working class family, with both parents working would rather go the fast food outlets rather than cook from fresh.
No wonder the lower classes struggle with dietary options.
Would you have thought that in your twenties or thirties, you would get diabetes?
No, nor did I!
It was easier to have fish and chips!
Who would have thought that spuds are poisonous?
Well, they are to me!
Who would have thought that vegetable oils make me ill?
I know it does because I have done the experiment.
Even a tin of cream of tomato soup can be so bad for some of us!
The amount of preservatives and E numbers present in processed foods is unbelievable.
Only someone who can tolerate such things, most people would not notice the sugar rush these days.
Children affected by glucose drinks, going hyper in class and crashing in the classroom in the afternoon, ring any bells?
Most people would not know how starchy carbs affect diabetics, they have been brainwashed by the so called medical science of the last fifty years!

Sorry for the long post but it is not easy to sum up, wether carbs are the evil they can be painted on some posts.
Carbs are ingrained in our diet, unfortunately!
Only in moderation can they be as healthy as the person is intolerant to them at that time!
My food diary reckons that I should be able to up my bean portion after Christmas.
So I will check! (By experimenting)

Best wishes
 
Super glad I asked this question as its a really good subject - got some lots of useful, much of it I was aware of but had forgotten.

I truly believe its the heavily refined carbs that are the big issue here - I know I have to steer well clear of them as my BS easily gets into double figures yet each a small sweet apple and very little movement.

Thanks for the replies - keep them coming if you can add to what has already been said
 
Out of Africa, into America - small boats and on foot, on foot and small boats - travel when the weather is good or times are hard, settle down for a while, have kids and watch them either set up home a short walk away or go off over the horizon - then repeat for many generations.
 
Humans like all species evolve. Unfortunately our brain, and it’s ability to invent “Frankenstein” foodstuffs is evolving at a faster pace than the rest of our bodies ability to process them.
 
I think I'm better off without carbs or plants.
 
For sure we hunted mammoths:
http://www.newsweek.com/mystery-how-early-man-hunted-mammoths-using-their-own-tusks-revealed-691566
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...rs-Siberia-10-000-years-earlier-believed.html
 

Apparently mammoths weren't hunted by driving them off cliffs:

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/sci...didnt-chase-mammoths-cliffs-study-says-n46141

However, where I live the locals used to hunt bison that way as far back as 6,000 years ago. It was not an easy feat and involved the entire community.

http://history.alberta.ca/headsmashedin/
 
Just to introduce a little perspective, despite the 'unhealthy' diets we have in the last few decades particularly, and the fact that record numbers of people are 'overweight - as defined by ourselves', lifespans continue to lengthen. Perhaps we are more healthy as a population than is generally thought.

 
I'm almost certain it is advancements in drugs and control of childhood diseases such as polio and smallpox.
And also the past fifty years more people did come out of absolute poverty, like myself and lived to tell the tale.
It is a disgraceful indictment of the self serving Tories that absolute poverty and working class people are finding they can't even afford food in the eighth richest country in the world in the 21st century.
Shame on all politicians for allowing this to happen!
 
I think its also a case that modern medicine can keep people living longer but not necessarily living healthy old ages. The incidence of new cases of epilepsy among the elderly (over 65 year olds) is now 300% greater than the rate in children - largely related to changes in kidney / liver / general metabolic changes as we age leading to increased electrolyte imbalace, temperature dysregulation etc etc etc which can then trigger seizures in brains where scaring from ischeamia, high bp etc etc intefers with normal electrical activity and signalling
 
I am not sure we are ageing slower though. People seem to spend a lot of our last 20-30 years ill, or needing medications to maintain quality of life. And there is no indicator of quality of life continuing for longer for those who live longer.

Also, I suspect that graph would be different if it was split into different socio-economic groups within the same country, for example.

I was at a food bank the other day, dropping stuff off, and notice that it is almost exclusively carbs. Very little tinned veg except carrots and peas, very little protein except tins of ham or tuna. Its hard enough to low carb on a low income, but to low carb if dependent on a foodbank is impossible. And people are not using them just for a few days anymore, often its 6-8 weeks while waiting for universal credit to kick in.
 
An interesting chart. As others have said, there is the question as to whether the increasing old age is a good old age for some. I am of the belief that people of my mother's generation (she's 87 and pretty fit) will be one of the last who will live to a goodly age with not too many things wrong - she has friends in their 90s who are still going strong - but the diseases and conditions mentioned, the easily-obtained processed foods and generally our lifestyle, which is exacerbated by the way we have to live, e.g. sitting staring at a screen all day for work, will start to bring those lines in the downward direction, sadly. There is a name for this hypothesis: the Golden Paradox (I think that's what it's called).
 
Before mankind evolved to walking on two feet on the African plains and becoming scavengers/hunter/gatherers our ape ancestors would have mainly eaten fruits, leaves, nuts and tubers/roots, though chimpanzees and some monkeys do eat meat too.
 
If you look at life expectancy at say 20 instead of at birth you can get very different results. A lot of the improvement has been in childhood, along with long-term risks due to different types of work.
 
Your question: "How did the ancient Americans (indigenous if you want) get to the Americas?"

It is thought that human migrated out of Africa, gradually spread across Russia then walked across a land-bridge to Alaska which existed temporarily when sea levels fell. This is thought to have happened about 14,000 years ago (although estimates vary and some people believe it is a lot longer ago than that).
 
Humans are the only animals in existance that are clever enough to have grown and harvested grains.....

We are also the only animals stupid enough to eat them...(unless forced to by humans-ie pets)......
 
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