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Originally Posted by pdupiano /img/forum/go_quote.gif
1) Your source (or link you listed above) disproves your statement so I'd either remove the link or use a different one.
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Did you read more than the title and the first half of the first paragraph?
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Originally Posted by pdupiano /img/forum/go_quote.gif
2) Any and all dietary effects on an individual's "Productive" cells, in other words cells that will lead to children (the ones in your balls/ovaries), are unaffected by what you eat, or if they are affected by what you eat the effect could very easily be different from say "I love burgers so my kids will love burgers too"
3) Epigenetics refers to the difference of gene expression (Assuming #2 does not occur so same DNA sequence) of the particular individual's genes. This once again is in no way specific to tastes or what you eat -it goes along with what your kids eat and what your kid's kids will eat. If you argue that kids eat what parents eat, there are enough counter examples (kids that don't agree with their parents) to show you that this simply isn't the case.
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I didn't argue that kids eat what parents eat. I said that a person's diet can have an effect on his or her children and their progeny. That's what the early science on epigenetics is saying, anyway.
Epigenetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nutrition and the Epigenome
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Originally Posted by pdupiano /img/forum/go_quote.gif
And to be blunt, this is nonsensical because if you can find food without chemicals in it, you should write a paper, document it, put it in the museum and get the nobel prize for finding the greatest thing on earth.....
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Not sure where you got the idea that I think chemicals are inherently bad. That's obviously quite silly. My issue is with the practice of disguising nearly valueless food with lab-created additives. The additives themselves may or may not have negative health consequences; I would guess that in the vast majority of cases they do not. The smoke flavoring in a McDonald's hamburger, for instance, is probably no more carcinogenic than the charring on a real hamburger.
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Originally Posted by marvin /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Unless you have a fetish for the "natural" or are a vegetarian looking to avoid meat derived products, it's hard to get worked up about artificial flavoring. Same chemical compound, just in very pure form. Mankind has only been using flavoring to make food more palatable for about forever. Artificial flavoring just gives us a more precise targeting capability at lower risk and lower cost. About the worst thing I can say them is that their use promotes overly simplistic flavors.
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I do not. Digitalis is natural, and I don't want to eat any. And I am not. I've considered it deeply, and I believe we would actually be forsaking the bounty of our evolution not to consume at least some animal. Again, I do not care much about the additives themselves, though they're hardly equivalent to the flavoring mankind has been using for thousands of years. Many spices and herbs have significant health benefits, and they tend to be used to creatively modify the flavor of food that already tastes good. When people cook in their homes, few if any resort to artificial flavors. Same with any restaurant worth frequenting. The best, most nutritious food doesn't need lab additives to taste good--it's delicious all on its own. The only reason I can see for the marriage of fast/processed food and lab-derived flavor additives is that fast/processed food
barely qualifies as food, i.e., it would be completely uninteresting to your senses if not for being propped up with additives that have no relation whatsoever to the nutritional benefit of the "food" itself.
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Originally Posted by marvin /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Seriously doubt that would have much of an effect on "natural selection". Even people with terrible diets and gaping nutritional deficiencies are capable of having as many offspring as they wish. (See: Pretty much every third world country.) It's certainly likely that a better diet would increase fertility and offspring health, but that's one of those things that come with greatly diminishing returns in humans. You don't see many women expressing the full extent of their reproductive capabilities by having 20+ kids, a feat that's entirely possible with modern medicine and the welfare state.
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No, you're right, probably not for the species, and probably not for populations living in modern regions of the world. But it could easily be true for the individual or line. If your paternal grandfather pigged out, he may have left you with a shorter lifespan, or increased your propensity toward obesity, potentially--but not necessarily--hindering your chances of propagating or flourishing. Whether you flourish or not may not affect your chances of having children. But take a line and gradually compromise its epigenome over time, and you could possibly see a natural selection-type effect. Diabetes is readily managed today, but it could have been morbidly crippling in the past. In the days of old, if it was evident to potential mates that you were sickly or in poor condition, your genes may have died on the vine. Even with modern variables, there could be an effect. Let's say your genes are ugly and you only live to be 45, and you never have a chance to amass the money you would have otherwise earned had you lived to be 75. Let's say it devastated your wife's finances, and she was unable to properly educate your children or pass any sort of inheritance onto them. Assume they do not flourish, and tend to eat large quantities of unhealthy foods, and then pass negative epigenetic effects onto their children. It could turn into something like a downward spiral. Of course, the human epigenome is decades away from being studied fully, so my scenario is pure speculation.
What I took away from Nova's
Ghost In Your Genes: "You live your life as a sort of ... guardian of your genome."
