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Scroll down to just above the bottom paragraph. There's a nice little table there showing our very earliest ancestors (6 million years ago), Australopithecus afarensis to have had an average weight amongst men of 92 lbs (42 kg), and amongst women of 64 lbs (29 kg). Male average height was 4 ft 11 in, female average height was 3 ft 5 in.
From 6 million years ago, that link will show you how we get gradually bigger over the next 4 and a half million years, and eventually end up with the earliest real human-ancestors, homo habilis. These had males with an average weight of 114 lbs (52 kg), females 70 lbs (32 kg). Males, on average, were 5 ft 2 in, females 4 ft 1 in.
Or how about this website, [link] that shows a whole range of average heights and weights, again from 6 million years ago to the modern day. I won't go into them all, but neanderthals (a bigger and physically stronger species than our direct ancestors) only averaged 5 ft 5 inches for males, 5ft 1 for females, and averaged about 10lbs less than us in weight.
Modern day homo sapiens however, have an average weight of 144 lbs (65 kg) for males, and 119 lbs (54 kg) for females. Men are an average of 5 ft 9 in, women an average of 5 ft 3 in. And that's taking into account everyone in the world - African and European/Americans are often a lot taller than this and/or heavier on average too.
So 6 million years ago we were MUCH smaller, and 20,000 years ago we were only quite a lot smaller! Our skeletons and skeletal frames are indeed smaller than our very earliest ancestors. However, homo sapiens (ie; us and our earliest "proper" ancestors that you can draw a straight line back from us to) developed this lighter skeletal frame to adapt to our surroundings and climate. We have been like that for 200,000 years - nothing to do with farming and crops!
As for "crops and farming were the worst thing to happen to humanity"... I'll try not to get into too much of a proper history lesson (as opposed to one with 'facts' and 'stats' picked out at random to suit your argument about this diet) for you as it's not really relevant here, but what about the ridiculous amount of famine that killed huge proportions of the population, or at least meant that some would go malnourished and become weak, brittle and die, before we had crops and the like that could sustain people all year round? And there is also disputed and non-definite discussion on how exactly brain size corresponds to intelligence.
Bottom line is - this diet isn't a bad thing. I think there's a lot to be said for eating natural and how we originally ate. Trying to compare sizes of our ancestors is pretty flawed though. Instead, I'd probably look at things like the large number of people who have intolerances to things such as dairy or wheat, or how too much processed food and too much of certain substances we have developed even in the past 50 years or so has been proven to increase links to all sorts of illnesses and the decrease in function of bodily systems.
We have grown bigger for evolutionary purposes and, when looking at averages, for better nutritional reasons. Our ancestors didn't have a steady supply of food, they often went hungry for long periods, or didn't have a rounded nutritional intake - how often do you think hunter gatherers were able to get all of those elements of food you discuss in the opening post into one meal? Not very is the answer. They often got up and moved camp because they had not had any meat for weeks, even months. They may have been living off nothing more than berries for a while, until they found a more sustainable food supply. Even then, weather conditions, competition and animals moving meant that an every day meal was unlikely to have all of the food stuffs you mention in it at the same time.
And whilst out ancestors may not have trained for MMA or similar, they did train for survival. Again your "there was no war before politics" is probably a fair enough reflection, but "politics" was happening before we even began to evolve. You see "politics" in wolf packs, lion prides, hundreds and thousands of species of animal - us included - have currently, and always have had - a hierarchical system where different people within the clan fight for supremacy, and where different clans fight over territory. And although you may take a good beating in MMA if you haven't trained as well as your opponent, he isn't going to kill you if you lose, which was the case 20,000 plus years ago. Yet, they were still smaller than us.
Also, this diet doesn't really say anything amazingly new - if you want to lose body fat, cut down on carbs, eat more "good" fats, fruit and veg. I could have told you that, and I'm not a dietician by any stretch of the imagination.
Sorry for the rambling post, but I don't like things that use false stats and information to try and sell something to people! There are plenty of ways that this diet could have been shown in a positive light (I think ultimately, it has got good principles), but why waffle on about a load of wrong science and history to try and prove it, and in the process try to mislead loads of people?
For starters, I guess every single academic source says something entirely different. My anthropology professor said that height CRASHED after agriculture, and as you've stated, theres no sense in pulling up a billion different sources. But I will bring up Jared Diamond, who is not an anthropologist by nature, but a brilliant academic for his ground breaking work "Guns, Germs, and Steel".
http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html
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One straight forward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5' 9'' for men, 5' 5'' for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5' 3'' for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors.
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That paragraph is about midway through that article. I have a bunch more, but once again, let us argue within our own merits, as there is a source for everything under the sun.
Although I did bring up height and weight, I did not say it was the end all, be all, just one indicator of many. Location and climate is obviously a factor in height and weight (i.e. Neaderthals lived in cold climates, so a stocky body was an advantage for trapping heat) Obviously when we became bi-pedal 6 million years ago, we were much smaller. But c'mon, we had just came from tree swinging quadrupeds for christ sakes, of course we were small at that time. Something also to be said is to take a look at modern hunter gatherers like the aborigines who suffer virtually no chronic illnesses. Or how about the eskimo who eat ONLY meat and animal fat. The health of these societies are superb. Look it up yourself.
Second point: I am not suggesting that we should run around naked with spears in our hand. Obviously I enjoy a quality of life only made possible through agriculture, so I wouldn't have it any other way; but then again, how would I know the difference if nothing changed? Yes there was politics all the time, but never open warfare. NEVER. Ask any anthropologist, and you will see that there was almost never any clan to clan fighting done. All violence happened within small communities and was merely instinctual for dominance. It was only with the establishment of cities that there became a need to raise an army. Once you raise an army, you need rulers, and the so the scourge of mass politics as we know it ensued. Hierarchies, class structure, racism: all a direct product of this. Agriculture certainly had it's benefits, but it was a double edged sword.
Third: I never said that our hunter gatherer ancestors had access to the long menu I presented in one sitting. I simply stated that those were the ONLY things they ate IF they got a hold of food. Does it not make complete logical sense that our DNA is best suited to eat like them? Maybe agriculture wasn't such a bad thing, it indirectly gave us the technology and means to be able to go to the supermarket and buy a whole pantry of genetically agreeable food sources
Combining this with the fact that agriculture itself is more physically demanding than hunting and gathering proposes an interesting quandary.
Fourth: Your point about MMA is completely erroneous. I brought it up to demonstrate the unnatural demands that modern sports place on athletes, which indeed DOES require higher carbohydrate intake. Although our ancestors may have "trained" per se for survival, do you really think their schedule looked like this . . .
MONDAY: A.M.- Weight Training P.M. Muay Thai
TUESDAY: A.M. - Grappling P.M. Boxing
WEDNESDAY: A.M. - Weight Training P.M. Muay Thai
ETC ETC ETC
No it didn't. They did not have such specialized and drawn methods of physical conditioning.
To top it all off, you are correct to a degree. This diet doesn't say anything amazingly new, but it does in its CONTEXT and RELATION to its foundation. Eat quality meats and fats with little starch and some fruit because THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE MEANT TO EAT. To say otherwise is denying that evolution ever took place, which is asinine.
This diet is not crap, it's not a fad, it's here to stay, and is becoming increasingly popular. Our food pyramid is a myth predicated on faulty studies done in the 50's to enable gigantic agricultural organizations to make a KILLING. Diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, dementia . . . . these are all modern scourges on humanity that are the result of eating loads and loads of grains. I can once again pull out a thousand and one success stories and sources pointing out this fact in clear daylight, but why don't we refrain from that, as we've already established it won't do anything.
CHAT