I'd like to say that I generally agree with your summary, with one addition: it's not merely about human evolutionary adaptation to diet, but the human microbiome—our gut population do a lot of pre-digestion.
In particular I note the use of antibiotics in animal feedstocks going back to the 1940s because they make animals put on weight, and that the obesity epidemic in humans post-dates the introduction of antibiotics (and spread around the world to some extent regardless of variations in local diet). I'd love to learn of a cross-cultural study of obesity rates against antibiotic prescribing in the under-5s: I suspect there may be a connection. And this is before we get into the existence of things like SMAM-1, Ad-36 and other obesity-inducing viruses.
Upshot: it's really complicated and we aren't close to understanding the relationship between food inputs and metabolism in anything but the crudest way—by implication the immune system, inflammatory response, our commensal gut bacteria, and possibly zoonotic infections are all involved to some (maybe little, maybe a lot) extent, and focusing purely on diet is to risk missing the point.
no subject
In particular I note the use of antibiotics in animal feedstocks going back to the 1940s because they make animals put on weight, and that the obesity epidemic in humans post-dates the introduction of antibiotics (and spread around the world to some extent regardless of variations in local diet). I'd love to learn of a cross-cultural study of obesity rates against antibiotic prescribing in the under-5s: I suspect there may be a connection. And this is before we get into the existence of things like SMAM-1, Ad-36 and other obesity-inducing viruses.
Upshot: it's really complicated and we aren't close to understanding the relationship between food inputs and metabolism in anything but the crudest way—by implication the immune system, inflammatory response, our commensal gut bacteria, and possibly zoonotic infections are all involved to some (maybe little, maybe a lot) extent, and focusing purely on diet is to risk missing the point.