Paleo diets, in which one eats how early hominids (human ancestors) did, are becoming increasingly popular. Proponents claim our bodies evolved to eat these types of food, especially bone broth, a soup made by cooking animal bones for several hours. They believe it has many health-promoting nutrients, such as cartilage, which can heal our joints, and chondroitin, which promotes nerve regeneration. Skeptics point out that ingested cartilage can’t replenish cartilage in your knees or elbows and ingested chondroitin doesn’t make our brains any healthier. Yet, there is strong anecdotal evidence that people who consume bone broth have fewer metabolic and inflammatory diseases than those who don’t. Therefore, ancient humans knew something about our physiology that we don’t, and that by emulating the way they ate, we can cure many chronic illnesses.
In the argument given, it is stated that emulating the way our hominids did, will cure many chronic illnesses. Author has come to this conclusion based on an anecdotal evidence that people who consume bone broth have fewer metabolic and inflammatory diseases compared to the rest. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, the following assumptions made by the author needs to be warranted and it's implication on the argument needs to be addressed.
First of all, the author has assumed that the body of ancient human and the present day human is similar. In other words, they have disregarded the continuous evolution of human body from generation to generation. Perhaps the present day human body is exposed to different kind of environment, germs and health issues compared to our ancestors. Maybe the use of cartilage in today's world is not as much as in our history, since our ancestors had to hunt on a daily basis for the survival whereas in the present day extraneous physical activity is not expected from humans for their survival. If either of these above assumptions has merit, then conclusion drawn in the original argument is significantly weakened.
Secondly, the anecdotal talks only about consumption of bone broth, not the complete consumption pattern of hominids. In other words, it is wrong to generalize effects of intake of one particular food item to the complete spectrum of food consumption pattern. For example, if ancestors had the habit of eating uncooked meat or eating just once a day based on their hunting results, then following the same in present day scenario would imbalance the metabolism. Maybe ancestors ate certain flowers or plant products which might be poisonous to the human digestive system today. Thus, it is not possible to extend the claim of beneficial effects of bone broth to all the food items that ancestors consumed.
Thirdly, the anecdotal talks about consumption of bone broth leading to fewer metabolic and inflammatory disease, not the entire spectrum of chronic illnesses. Perhaps consumption of bone broth might lead to unknown side effects which might be incurable. Maybe, the people who showed fewer chronic illness on consuming bone broth had a healthier lifestyle and better living standards compared to those who didn't. There are many factors which determine the advent of chronic illness in a human. Narrowing it down to just consumption of one food item would be insufficient conclusion. If the above possibilities are true, then the argument does not hold water.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now, is considerably flawed due to it's reliance on several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to consider and evaluate the above stated possibilities and offer more evidences (perhaps in the form of a systematic research study), then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of reduction in chronic illnesses by emulating the way hominids consumed food.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 483 350
No. of Characters: 2443 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.688 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.058 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.769 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 172 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 147 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 108 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 70 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.15 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.926 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.7 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.301 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.526 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.064 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 407, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: didn't
... living standards compared to those who didnt. There are many factors which determine...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, third, thirdly, thus, whereas, for example, in conclusion, kind of, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 19.0 19.6327345309 97% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 12.9520958084 62% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 28.8173652695 80% => OK
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 21.0 16.3942115768 128% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2499.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 482.0 441.139720559 109% => OK
Chars per words: 5.1846473029 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.68556276237 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.83573227913 2.78398813304 102% => OK
Unique words: 235.0 204.123752495 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.48755186722 0.468620217663 104% => OK
syllable_count: 795.6 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.0728331972 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.0 119.503703932 100% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.9523809524 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.09523809524 5.70786347227 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 8.20758483034 49% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.217686388048 0.218282227539 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0620680952094 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0329018398215 0.0701772020484 47% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.11030367599 0.128457276422 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0525158110693 0.0628817314937 84% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.06 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.76 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 98.500998004 125% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 12.3882235529 93% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.