🦌 What happened with the shift from gazelles to gruel:
Before Agriculture:
People were limited to the items nature offered from its biospheric buffet.
There is little evidence for dental decay, gum disease, or orthodontic issues in fossils of hominins.
Today:
People are mostly limited to items nature never produced on its biospheric buffet. In the Americas the transition from wild foods to cultivated maize resulted in a 5X increase in caries (far worse today). Now it's rare if you don't have fillings, crowns, crowding, teeth removed, or gum disease.
The increased carbs and sugars feed bacteria in dental plaque ➡️ which produce lactic acid ➡️ which put holes in your teeth.
Further, the resultant toxins from bacterial colonies ➡️ inflammation ➡️ gums and ligaments that anchor teeth to the jaw under friendly fire ➡️ periodontal disease and tooth loss.
Not only did this diet shift result in more holes in our teeth, but also "stunted" jaw growth.
The shift from gazelles to gruel reduced the chewing stresses necessary for full jaw development. Our mush-based diets result in smaller jaws with insufficient space for all the teeth, leading to impaction, crowding, malocclusion, and decay. Ortho problems of the day are due to our softened, processed food diet.
