Not entirely accurate. The Inuit of North American who are living in their traditional lifestyle eat ONLY meat and do not suffer scurrvy. White settlers in the early days who tried to emulate their diet, did get scurrvy.

The difference is, the Inuit ate a diet that consisted entirely of raw meat. Vitamin C is still readily available to the body while meat remains uncooked.

Muscle tissue, whether cooked or raw .. doesn't contain a lot of vitamin C. However, organ meats in particular the liver, heart, some mollusks (oysters) and fish roe are good sources of this vitamin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C#Animal_sources


Doreen

This analogy is silly. No matter how genetically close we are to animals our diets cannot be compared to animals. We need to look at genetics from a human standpoint. Native-Americans, for expample, were hunter/gatherers. Many of these cultures survived and flourished on a high protein diet. When did they become obese, diabetic? When did they begin losing bone mass? These things happened after their diets became filled with carbs.

Do animals look at their genetics before going after food?

I guess not...so why wouldn't I try to eat intuitively? :yum:

Warrior Diet!

I know why I shouldn't eat intuitively. Two words... Krispy Kreme. :)

They also eat smaller monkeys, pigs, baboons, and deer, whenever they get the opportunity. They also live half as long as we do, and they like to throw their poop.


If you look at the typical diet of the lifetime maintenance plan on Atkins, you'll see people eating mostly salad, with a bit of meat, with berries, whole grains, and dairy for variety. Atkins really isn't a high protein diet. It's high fat, yes, but protein is only high during induction.

Didn't people tend to get scurvy when they were on ships for long periods of time with no fresh veggies OR meat? Living on biscuits and heavily smoked jerky?

OK, but that is an addiction, even animals are known to be able to get addicted to stimulation.

Sugar is to be removed from your feeding habits ;)

I don't know exactly where on the evolutionary record we became seperated from chimps by a mere fraction of DNA...but I'd be willing to bet that's when we left their hairy butts in the woods and moved out on the plains where we could hunt buffalo....:D

hello everybody,
i have read so much about food that i am almost sick of it! having read about nutrition from the age of 16, i can say, i must know something! One of the reasons the AT/diet works is that ur carbs are low! fat is not the ememy, not in its raw form!
nuts and seeds etc. carbs in the form of bread , pasta ect, are man made and most things man has made seems to come back and bite us on the ass! food is meant to be eaten not cooked!
but i must admit that i do have to eat some cooked food, it taste better. other and that i eat as much raw food as possible and i find it hard to gain weight when i do. so forget all these fad diets and eat as naturualy as possible.
"you are what u eat! "

Uh...not so. In fact, Artic/Antartic expeditions quickly found that the best way to prevent scurvy was to eat freshly killed meat. In the Antartic, penguin meat was prized for its ability to combat scurvy.

Another reason why native americans didnt get scurvy even though eating mostly meat and fats, is that even in the winter they made a tea out of the bark of birch trees that is extremelly high in vitamin c.

My thoughts exactly....... :wave:

The reason that the native people in the far north of the Scandanavian countries don't get scurvy in the winter is that they eat the contents of their reindeers' stomachs which is partly digested reindeer moss.

Just thought I'd throw that in for good measure and something to think about when we next see Santa and his reindeer on someone's roof!

P.S. I've been doing some research. Yes, it is true. Fresh meat contains enough vitamin C, canned meat doesn't. Polar explorers who ate fresh seal meat did not get scurvy.

My problem is that there is an underlying assumption that just because s certain way of eating was/is more "natural" to a pre-evolved version of ourselves (neanderthals, chimps, you name it) necessarily means it is better for us. Species evolve to the easiest way to survive, and they eat what is available and most efficient, and their digestive systems adapt. Now that we can eat whatever we want whenever we want maybe its not the best thing for our waistline to eat the 'Most efficient" food (carbs) energy wise. even though it keeps the monkeys running. As twisted as it is, nowadays we want don't WANT our bodies to be able to easily digest things...and store them as fat. And additionally, just because chimps eat lots of carbs, and not much protein, doesn't mean its even necessarily "natural" for us-- they are actually a different species even if they're the same genus. And even if it were natural for us....I take issue with "natural" always equating to "healthy."

There is the same fallacy in the beauty industry that "natural" is always better-- that's why women by exfoliants with harsh crushed seeds and shells in them that damages their skin, when the synthetic exfoliants are much better. I know skn products aren't exactly like food, but still, its the same idea.

Maybe we just live in a civilization that has evolved faster than our bodies have been able to keep up. I mean, we all still have little toes, and they are a "natural" phenomenon..but we don't NEED them and they are senseless. Nature doesn't have a brain, it is a machine always creating the most efficient process.

Hey,

Without my little toes, I could only count to 18!

I thought we need our little toes for balance? (sorry I didnt read this entire thread, just the last page)

The little toe example shows that we have not had enough time to evolve without one even if we don't use it. Same goes for food. Our bodies can't handle food that was invented/created by the agricultural age. Indirectly proves the theory that we need to eat paleo.

Follow a Genetic Diet ...
 

[QUOTE=captxray]we must eat something dead which was once alive...plant, animal, whatever, but it must be from living organisms. We don't do well eating dirt, or rocks. /QUOTE]

I have to ask, because it popped into my mind as I was reading this post ... and this is asked both on a serious level and tongue in cheek ...

Do militant vegans aspire to the nobility of worms and dung beetles because their lifestyles harm NO living thing ...

I think only the fruitarians harm no living thing. Vegans dont seem to feel that plants hurt. Fruitarians will only eat fruit that naturally falls off the tree. They dont even believe in picking it.



but I thought we do use our little toe? We use our big toe to push off when we walk or run, and our little toe to keep us balanced. So why would we not have it?

Our appendix is a better example I think. As far as we know its completely useless in humans (and can be dangerous if food gets in there). But in many herbivores the appendix is enlarged and called a caecum, it is used to ferment vegetable matter in the intestines to absorb a few extra nutrients from it. The fact that ours is just a vestigial remnant suggests that our long-departed ancestors used to eat primarily plants, but that humans haven't done that in a long, long time.

Wisdom teeth are another. These back molars were intended for grinding plants up. But some people only get one or two, or have none at all - like me. I've had my jaw x-rayed and they are just not there and never will be!

An alternative theory could be that the appendix is not fully developed as we have not been eating vegetable matter long enough for the evolution to be completed. Maybe in the future, humans will have fully functioning appendixes and be grazing like cattle!

Long thread, dunno if anyone pointed it out yet, but chimps eat meat including... ew, other chimps. So I think I'll refrain from emulating chimps.

Hmmmm...I wonder....
 

:yum: I wonder what chimp tastes like? Might not be bad. As long as he hasn't had too many veggies the day he becomes part of my food chain! :lol:

Native American Diet and other things...
 

While I get the basis for the argument, aboriginals did not subsist off of meat alone. They harvested wild rice, beans, fruit and various other foods. Yes, meat was undoubtedly the staple of the diet rendering it very high in protein, but unless it was just for effect, I don't think we should be redefining an entire culture's diet. I know that many of us bike/run/walk whatever to stay fit, but for ideal compatibility with their diet we would be racing around in arctic temperatures searching for food, often going without seal/deer etc. for considerable periods of time, something that fat storage would accomodate quite well. I too follow a variation of low carb in that I avoid the grass family. The thing is that the reason why traditional diets, be it the 'Med diet', 'Japanese Fisherman diet' or similar conventions are espoused as very healthy is due , in my opinion, to the gathering of indigenous foods. For example, if I eat tropical fruit I probably shouldn't be eating caribou. I think looking at the various 'families' of plants and animals reveals the proper approach. If we apply this approach to low carb things seem to work. The aforementioned grass family is comprised of barley, corn products, oats, sugar cane (...) which are generally forbidden. The mustard family encompasses broccolli, cabbage, cauliflower, mustard greens (...) things that, I think, are considered okay. The potato family includes eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and the obvious- things that are not considered good choices. Anyway certain families compliment each other better than others. I think this is key. Whilst writing this I have to keep questioning the absurdity of it. I mean, yeah we all want to follow the most appropriate diet, but talking about it seems so bizarre at times...

Just to throw something in there - it's not so much that eating meat is bad for you (although I've been on several vegan message boards since becoming vegetarian and there are many that disagree :D) - it's the way that modern corporate businesses that produce meat, chicken, pigs, and dairy that makes it unhealthy. I think a lot of us are by now aware of the kinds of drugs and antibiotics that are used on animals in the name of profit these days that make eating meat and even eggs and dairy just plain dangerous (in my opinion). Organic is better, but sometimes not by much.

Honestly, I know several vegetarians who admit that if we were still living in a simpler age where we could be sure that cows and pigs and chickens were untreated by crap drugs and raised on a farm as in the "old days", they wouldn't have a problem eating meat. It's our wonderful modern world that is in ever pursuit of the mighty buck that sacrifices the health of people (not to mention the animals!) that makes it a big issue.

Just a personal note - I don't eat meat mainly as a personal preference - it just doesn't appeal to me any longer - although organic dairy and free-range eggs I don't have a problem with.

Tam

Oh, forgot to mention... there was a discussion on a vegan board a while back on some finding of the remains of primitive man and there was some excitement generated about the possibility of this primitive man being vegetarian and even vegan - but the conclusion was that scientist had found from the jaws and teeth and analyzing the remains that this primitive man had at least eaten some meat :D.

Tam

I agree. Our teeth (which evolution takes a long time to change) show that we are historically omnivorous - that is eating meat and vegetables and berries and seeds and nuts and fruit. In other words, whatever was available. And I do agree that meat is not harmful per se, only because of what we add to it today. And so, unexpectedly I might add, I find myself agreeing totally with your vegetarian and vegan friends who have decided against eating meat because of the harmful additives. Our livers were not designed to cope with all these additives, and I think it more than coincidence that many of the personal and social problems of today were not present before all these additives starting being put into modern food. And finally I agree that a simpler and more basic lifestyle would be safer and probably more satisfactory too.

Andy

Holy thread necromancy, batman.

Oh geez, who bumped this thing?