Agriculture Is Bad for YouModern agriculture is having a bad time, particularly in Europe. “ Mad cow” disease, foot-and-mouth disease and fears of still-unspecified health effects from eating hormone-injected cattle or genetically engineered crops have all conspired to undermine the long accepted notion that “right off the farm” is synonymous with “good for you.” But what if the whole enterprise of agriculture, which first emerged 10,000 or 12,000 years ago, turns out to be deleterious to human health? At first, the idea seems absurd. After all, when inhabitants of what is now southeastern Turkey began cultivating naturally occurring einkorn wheat – one of several theories of where and how agriculture began – they were laying the foundation for what would become the first permanent human settlements, and thus for levels of social organization unknown in hunter-gatherer societies. But at the same time, say advocates of the “Paleolithic diet,” agriculture launched humankind into essentially unnatural dietary habits, for which millions of years of evolution had not prepared us. According to Staffan Lindeberg, a Swedish physician and scholar of evolutionary nutrition, ailments ranging from heart disease and diabetes to atherosclerosis, osteoporosis and rickets “can probably to a large extent be prevented by diets resembling those of hunter-gatherers.” In other words, we should eat more like our ancient ancestors: fruit, fish and lots of lean meat. Lindeberg contends that a typical European gets at least 70% of his or her calories from foods that were practically unavailable during human evolution: milk products, most oils, refined sugar, processed foods like margarine, and cereals. Those foods, he says are low in minerals, vitamins and soluble fiber, but high in fat and salt. “Eating more protein would benefit many overweight Europeans,” says Lidenberg. Loren Cordain, a professor of physiology at Colorado State University, thinks the widely accepted notion that carbohydrates are the foundation of a healthy diet leaves people short of nutrients and vitamins better provided through vegetables, fruit and meat. How much meat pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers consumed no doubt varied with its availability. Cordain contends that studies of hunter-gatherer societies show a mean caloric intake of two-thirds animal and one-third plant. Beyond that, California dietary guru Aajonus Vonderplint believes that the human body is best served by ingesting raw food – including raw meat. We took our wrong turn, it seems, with the taming of fire. No matter how rigorously individuals may embrace the idea of eating like a cave-dweller, it is clearly not a solution that can be applied on a broad scale. The relative scarcity of game may have been one of the factors that encouraged some hunter-gatherers to take up harvesting. If the cost of that adaptation shows up in health problems, its benefits are even more apparent. Through agriculture humankind has flourished, for better or worse, by the purest measure of evolutionary success: sheer numbers. (From ‘Time’, abridged) Expressions with ‘off’ How would you translate the expression occurring in the article: “right off the farm”? Remember other expressions with ‘off’: On and off (from time to time), to be off (The wedding if off), (10%) off all prices, a mile off the shore, to be off work, to be off colour, off the record, to be off one’s head, to go/be off. Choose one of the given expressions to translate the words in brackets. 1. Throw the meat away. It (испортилось). 2. It rained (с перерывами) all day. 3. Don’t try to get through to Jack at the office. He (не ходит на работу) with a cold. 4. The BBC reported that the ship sank (недалеко от побережья) of France. 5. I’ll take this coat. It is a real bargain as it (с 50% скидкой). 6. I can’t make head or tail of what the old lady is saying. – Forget it! She (не в своем уме). 7. Jane will hardly keep you company, she (неважно себя чувствует) lately. 8. I can tell you, (неофициально), that our deal will most likely (не состоится).
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