Friday, June 06, 2008

Protein Drinks

In opposing post-workout protein drinks, Arthur De Vany says this:
Feeding does little to alter the balance of protein wastage versus protein retention. Why? Evolution designed our regulatory mechanisms to conserve protein through many mechanisms I have mentioned over the years on this blog. Our ancestors did not have supplements, yet they were as muscular as any one of us should be in a healthy state.
As I've suggested before, I'm skeptical of this whole notion that "evolution designed" our bodies to be optimally healthy when eating or exercising as did our ancestors. To be sure, our ancestors were able to survive without protein drinks -- just as they (or at least enough of them to produce marvelous offspring like you and me) were somehow able to survive without eating any vegetables or fruit for most of the year, as there were no freezers, canners, or ships bringing food from Chile. That doesn't imply that it is optimal for us all to avoid vegetables and fruit for most of the year.

1 Comments:

Blogger "Q" the Enchanter said...

Evolutionary thinking like this can be useful for developing hypotheses to be tested. But they don't hold up as an a priori argument against extant evidence. The nutrition science on this particular point seems pretty overwhelming.

9:57 AM  

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