While the article below is quite good, it should be noted that fruits and vegetables, whole cereals, and fats are good for you as well. What apparently aren't good for you are transfats, poly unsaturated fats, and refined carbohydrates.
If you are going to eat more protein, you should see the movie "Food Inc." in order to see where your meat comes from, and where it could come from. We may eat meat, but we don't have to torture it before we kill it.
> Excellent review of the role and need for maintenance of more adequate > dietary protein.
> Importantly, the authors point out that as calories go down, protein > consumption must not decline.
> "Dietary Guidelines for Americans provide nutrition advice aimed at > promoting healthy dietary choices for life-long health and reducing risk > of chronic diseases. With the advancing age of the population, the 2010 > Dietary Guidelines confront increasing risks for age-related problems of > obesity, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, heart > disease, and sarcopenia. New research demonstrates that the meal > distribution and amount of protein are important in maintaining body > composition, bone health and glucose homeostasis. This editorial reviews > the benefits of dietary protein for adult health, addresses omissions in > current nutrition guidelines, and offers concepts for improving the > Dietary Guidelines"
-- ³When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist.² -Archbishop Helder Camara
Every study about whole cereals has compared them against refined cereals. If you want to claim that grains are beneficial to human health - independent of world economic issues that make them madatory which isn't the same thing as beneficial to health - we need a study that compares a diet with grain against a diet free of grain that puts veggies in their place. Needless to say no grain advocating scientist is going to conduct such a study as the outcome is obvious but would be disliked.
> and fats are good for you as well. What > apparently aren't good for you are transfats, poly unsaturated fats, and > refined carbohydrates.
Certain polyunsaturated fatty acids are essential.
> If you are going to eat more protein, you should see the movie "Food > Inc." in order to see where your meat comes from, and where it could > come from. We may eat meat, but we don't have to torture it before we > kill it.
So hunting should be more popular. Check. There are bow hunters who sing to their prey as the prey dies. Hunting is more gentle than ranching and more spiritual an activity among any hunter in my family.
>> So hunting should be more popular. Check. There are bow hunters who >> sing to their prey as the prey dies. Hunting is more gentle than >> ranching and more spiritual an activity among any hunter in my family.
> I only buy grass fed, pastured beef, no grain or corn in feedlots. Kinder > to animals, healthier for us.
> Susan
The deers I see running loose around here, in the early am, must be grass fed too and I sure wouldn't mind hunting them. I don't think it would be legal, though.
>> I don't hunt, my guys don't, either, so we've no interest in it at >> all. And the last time I tried to eat venison . . . ugh. I don't >> "get it," but I understand that my neighbors do. While I do wish they >> were hunting to feed their families, most of them aren't.
> The thought of someone enjoying hunting or doing it for sport grosses me > out, but the reality of it isn't nearly as cruel as the life of feedlot > animals. So I guess if hunters eat the meat, rather than waste the life > of an animal, I'm good with that.
> But not with them enjoying it.
I agree. Don't kill something unless you plan to serve it up on a plate. Then you can enjoy it.
That was my rule when I was into fishing on LA. And there were always people who would happily accept certain sea critters that I didn't enjoy eating (barracuda comes to mind).
Roger Zoul wrote: > "Susan" <su...@nothanks.org> wrote: >> BlueBrooke wrote:
>>> I don't hunt, my guys don't, either, so we've no interest in it at >>> all. And the last time I tried to eat venison . . . ugh. I don't >>> "get it," but I understand that my neighbors do. While I do wish they >>> were hunting to feed their families, most of them aren't.
As hunting becomes less popular something's happening to the animals in suburban and even urban areas - They are flourishing and losing their fear of humans.
With coyotes who hunt at night and a so concealed many don't even know they are their it doesn't matter. I've seen 4 coyotes in suburban Chicago in the last 6 years but I hear them constantly. My Dad reports that there are now few wild turkeys near his house. Turkeys nest on the ground and coyotes love turkey eggs.
Collisions between deer and cars have gotten so common there have been police assigned to cull deer in some counties. What a waste of venison IMO.
Bears without fear of humans are a *very* bad idea. Reports of bears in suburbs are gradually becoming more common. Not good news.
>> The thought of someone enjoying hunting or doing it for sport grosses me >> out, but the reality of it isn't nearly as cruel as the life of feedlot >> animals. So I guess if hunters eat the meat, rather than waste the life >> of an animal, I'm good with that.
>> But not with them enjoying it.
Sport is not inconsistent with a spiritual view of hunting. I get that someone not raised with hunting will not get that. Sport is enjoyment by way of taking joy in an experience. Joy is a religious thing. But sport without eating what you kill is inconsistent with a spiritual view of hunting.
I get that there are some hunters who do not view hunting as a spiritual exercise. I do not get them. Never will. In the stone ages human religion evolved out of hunting practices so it should be so deep in our blood we can't see it otherwise. And yet there are people who drink and hunt. It's like they aren't the same species as my family. Aliens.
> I agree. Don't kill something unless you plan to serve it up on a plate. > Then you can enjoy it.
If you kill it, you eat it. This is a very strict rule in my family. The closest I've seen is hunting on a reservation where the hunter gets a box of the meat and the tribe members get the rest of the meat. But waste a bite and I'm against it.
This is why I don't like fishing for northern pike. If something goes wrong and I can't catch and release because the fish swallowed the hook and was too injured to return to the water, I will have to eat that nasty tasting thing.
> That was my rule when I was into fishing on LA. And there were always > people who would happily accept certain sea critters that I didn't enjoy > eating (barracuda comes to mind).
> I like fruits. Especially cucumbers and tomatoes.
> > and vegetables, whole cereals,
> Every study about whole cereals has compared them against refined > cereals. If you want to claim that grains are beneficial to human > health - independent of world economic issues that make them madatory > which isn't the same thing as beneficial to health - we need a study > that compares a diet with grain against a diet free of grain that puts > veggies in their place. Needless to say no grain advocating scientist > is going to conduct such a study as the outcome is obvious but would be > disliked.
Not whole grains, Doug, refined grains, where, in the case of wheat flour, 26 or more nutrients are removed with the germ and the bran and 5 are legislated back in, and voila, enriched flour.
> > and fats are good for you as well. What > > apparently aren't good for you are transfats, poly unsaturated fats, and > > refined carbohydrates.
> Certain polyunsaturated fatty acids are essential.
True, and others aren't. Polyunsaturated fats, like refined carbohydrates are fairly new in the human diet, at least in the quantity that they are now eaten. No previous culture has survived on a diet that relied on polyunsaturated fats for their lipids, but many have that relied on animal fat and protein.
Metabolism Syndrome (Western disease) with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer seems to always manifest itself when a culture takes on the western diet.
> > If you are going to eat more protein, you should see the movie "Food > > Inc." in order to see where your meat comes from, and where it could > > come from. We may eat meat, but we don't have to torture it before we > > kill it.
> So hunting should be more popular. Check. There are bow hunters who > sing to their prey as the prey dies. Hunting is more gentle than > ranching and more spiritual an activity among any hunter in my family.
Should be, but nature is out of balance now. But, yes, wild animals would be better for you than the poor tortured beasts that are raised and slaughtered in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO). See the movie "Food Inc." -- "When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist." -Archbishop Helder Camara
BlueBrooke <bluebro...@invalid.invalid> wrote: > On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:40:19 +0000 (UTC), Doug Freyburger > <dfrey...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > So hunting should be more popular. Check. There are bow hunters who > > sing to their prey as the prey dies. Hunting is more gentle than > > ranching and more spiritual an activity among any hunter in my family.
> It's deer season here and they closed the school on Monday and Tuesday > because of it. So I guess you could say it's popular. Gentle or > spiritual, though, not really. These guys are bored with tin cans and > just want to shoot something that bleeds.
> I don't hunt, my guys don't, either, so we've no interest in it at > all. And the last time I tried to eat venison . . . ugh. I don't > "get it," but I understand that my neighbors do. While I do wish they > were hunting to feed their families, most of them aren't.
Agreed, killing as sport is sick, but if you eat meat, somebody killed it for you. We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our own. -- "When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist." -Archbishop Helder Camara
> >>> I don't hunt, my guys don't, either, so we've no interest in it at > >>> all. And the last time I tried to eat venison . . . ugh. I don't > >>> "get it," but I understand that my neighbors do. While I do wish they > >>> were hunting to feed their families, most of them aren't.
> As hunting becomes less popular something's happening to the animals in > suburban and even urban areas - They are flourishing and losing their > fear of humans.
> With coyotes who hunt at night and a so concealed many don't even know > they are their it doesn't matter. I've seen 4 coyotes in suburban > Chicago in the last 6 years but I hear them constantly. My Dad reports > that there are now few wild turkeys near his house. Turkeys nest on the > ground and coyotes love turkey eggs.
> Collisions between deer and cars have gotten so common there have been > police assigned to cull deer in some counties. What a waste of venison > IMO.
> Bears without fear of humans are a *very* bad idea. Reports of bears in > suburbs are gradually becoming more common. Not good news.
> >> The thought of someone enjoying hunting or doing it for sport grosses me > >> out, but the reality of it isn't nearly as cruel as the life of feedlot > >> animals. So I guess if hunters eat the meat, rather than waste the life > >> of an animal, I'm good with that.
> >> But not with them enjoying it.
> Sport is not inconsistent with a spiritual view of hunting. I get that > someone not raised with hunting will not get that. Sport is > enjoyment by way of taking joy in an experience. Joy is a religious > thing. But sport without eating what you kill is inconsistent with a > spiritual view of hunting.
> I get that there are some hunters who do not view hunting as a spiritual > exercise. I do not get them. Never will. In the stone ages human > religion evolved out of hunting practices so it should be so deep in > our blood we can't see it otherwise. And yet there are people who drink > and hunt. It's like they aren't the same species as my family. Aliens.
> > I agree. Don't kill something unless you plan to serve it up on a plate. > > Then you can enjoy it.
> If you kill it, you eat it. This is a very strict rule in my family. > The closest I've seen is hunting on a reservation where the hunter gets > a box of the meat and the tribe members get the rest of the meat. But > waste a bite and I'm against it.
> This is why I don't like fishing for northern pike. If something goes > wrong and I can't catch and release because the fish swallowed the hook > and was too injured to return to the water, I will have to eat that > nasty tasting thing.
> > That was my rule when I was into fishing on LA. And there were always > > people who would happily accept certain sea critters that I didn't enjoy > > eating (barracuda comes to mind).
Susan <su...@nothanks.org> wrote: > x-no-archive: yes
> Doug Freyburger wrote:
> > So hunting should be more popular. Check. There are bow hunters who > > sing to their prey as the prey dies. Hunting is more gentle than > > ranching and more spiritual an activity among any hunter in my family.
> I only buy grass fed, pastured beef, no grain or corn in feedlots. > Kinder to animals, healthier for us.
> We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our own.
Societies that hunt for their meat tend to eat a higher percentage of their calories from meat than a lot of modern cultures. With the existance of "modern" ideas (under 5K years old ;^) like vegitarian eating the trend is the opposite of your suggestion.
>> Every study about whole cereals has compared them against refined >> cereals. If you want to claim that grains are beneficial to human >> health - independent of world economic issues that make them madatory >> which isn't the same thing as beneficial to health - we need a study >> that compares a diet with grain against a diet free of grain that puts >> veggies in their place. Needless to say no grain advocating scientist >> is going to conduct such a study as the outcome is obvious but would be >> disliked.
> Not whole grains, Doug, refined grains, where, in the case of wheat > flour, 26 or more nutrients are removed with the germ and the bran and 5 > are legislated back in, and voila, enriched flour.
You don't appear to get what I wrote so i'll try again.
All current studies about whole grains -
Compare eating refined grains against eating whole grains, conclude that eating whole grains is beneficial. Since grains are common to both groups the conclusion is far more limited than that. It should be phrased as "eating refined grains is harmful" not "eating whole grains is beneficial". There's no grain-free control group to establish that bit.
The real way to decide if eating grain is beneficial -
Compare a grain-free diet against a whole-grain diet against a refined-grain diet. Anyone who studies nutrition will quickly understand that the group that eats the most veggies wins, and that's the grain-free group.
>> Certain polyunsaturated fatty acids are essential.
> True, and others aren't. Polyunsaturated fats, like refined > carbohydrates are fairly new in the human diet, at least in the quantity > that they are now eaten. No previous culture has survived on a diet that > relied on polyunsaturated fats for their lipids, but many have that > relied on animal fat and protein.
Animal fat is filled with polyunsaturates. Especially common in fish animals so any fishing culture ate them as far back as they go. The "aq uatic ape" theory of human evolution says that could be a very long time ago.
Nuts are high in polyunsaturates. Hunter gatherer societies often eat nuts to the exclusion of meat when nuts are available. Since nuts appear in the African savannah people have been eating a lot of nuts for longer than we'd be considered humans.
Refined carbs are a different story. Honey has been available forever, but only in quantity since bee keeping was started. Other high carb sources are even newer than that. Fruits have been eaten for so far back in evolution that our ancestors had tails back then, but those fruits were not sweet enough to count as refined.
> Metabolism Syndrome (Western disease) with high blood pressure, > diabetes, heart disease, and cancer seems to always manifest itself when > a culture takes on the western diet.
Check out articles on Egyptian mummies. They ate high grain diets and they suffered from heart attacks and such. Rather like western diets the rich ancient Egyptians ate a lot of grain and a lot of meat. Unlike modern westerners refined grain had not yet been invented. Mixed high carb and high fat has been deadly for a very long time and refined grains are not a mandatory part of the combination.
BlueBrooke <bluebro...@invalid.invalid> wrote: > On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:07:01 -0800, Wildbilly <wldbilly@without_a.net> > wrote:
> > In article <n189g5d0050doa3s7kke19unlqpe15s...@4ax.com>, > > BlueBrooke <bluebro...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> > > On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:40:19 +0000 (UTC), Doug Freyburger > > > <dfrey...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > So hunting should be more popular. Check. There are bow hunters who > > > > sing to their prey as the prey dies. Hunting is more gentle than > > > > ranching and more spiritual an activity among any hunter in my family.
> > > It's deer season here and they closed the school on Monday and Tuesday > > > because of it. So I guess you could say it's popular. Gentle or > > > spiritual, though, not really. These guys are bored with tin cans and > > > just want to shoot something that bleeds.
> > > I don't hunt, my guys don't, either, so we've no interest in it at > > > all. And the last time I tried to eat venison . . . ugh. I don't > > > "get it," but I understand that my neighbors do. While I do wish they > > > were hunting to feed their families, most of them aren't.
> > Agreed, killing as sport is sick, but if you eat meat, somebody killed > > it for you. We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our own.
> Yes, someone killed it for me. Thank goodness. There has always been > someone else to do that. Thank goodness. If all the feedlots were > shut down tomorrow, there would still be someone else to do that. :-)
Hopefully, it would be a lot more humane than the nightmare that is CAFO. See the movie. -- "When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist." -Archbishop Helder Camara
In article <he4dgn$8q...@news.eternal-september.org>, Doug Freyburger <dfrey...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Wildbilly wrote:
> > We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our own.
> Societies that hunt for their meat tend to eat a higher percentage of > their calories from meat than a lot of modern cultures. With the > existance of "modern" ideas (under 5K years old ;^) like vegitarian > eating the trend is the opposite of your suggestion.
You didn't read the article by Jared Diamond, did you? Hunter-gatherers were healthier than we are, but then we have antibiotics and surgical intervention and they didn't. Which has nothing to do with what we eat. There isn't anything wrong with eating meat. As a species, we have been doing it for a long time. Refined carbohydrates are about a hundred and fifty years old, and they seem to be killing us. -- "When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist." -Archbishop Helder Camara
>> > We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our own.
>> Societies that hunt for their meat tend to eat a higher percentage of >> their calories from meat than a lot of modern cultures. With the >> existance of "modern" ideas (under 5K years old ;^) like vegitarian >> eating the trend is the opposite of your suggestion.
> You didn't read the article by Jared Diamond, did you?
Standard issue rule for any on-line activity - Don't follow any URL you didn't ask for unless there is enough quoted from it to know following it will be safe from malware and through the reading effort.
When posting any URL never expect anyone to follow it without posting enough exerp from it to justify folks follow the link. In a world of spyware and computer viruses that's how it works. you did not post any justification at all for following the link and you posted the link more than once making it even more problematic.
So - Is that the Diamond of "Fit for Life"? He has his good points and bad points. I think he's intolerant of milk proteins given his vociferous objection to all dairy. If I were intolerant of milk proteins I might be a low fatter with an attitude against dairy. Instead I'm wheat intolerant and an inconsistant low carber with an attitude against viewing grass seeds as a necessary staple.
> Hunter-gatherers were healthier than we are,
Yet more reason to doubt any claim that eating grain is beneficial - Societies that start eating grain as a staple see a large decrease in health levels. The reasons for grain are economic not medical.
> >> Every study about whole cereals has compared them against refined > >> cereals. If you want to claim that grains are beneficial to human > >> health - independent of world economic issues that make them madatory > >> which isn't the same thing as beneficial to health - we need a study > >> that compares a diet with grain against a diet free of grain that puts > >> veggies in their place. Needless to say no grain advocating scientist > >> is going to conduct such a study as the outcome is obvious but would be > >> disliked.
> > Not whole grains, Doug, refined grains, where, in the case of wheat > > flour, 26 or more nutrients are removed with the germ and the bran and 5 > > are legislated back in, and voila, enriched flour.
> You don't appear to get what I wrote so i'll try again.
> All current studies about whole grains -
> Compare eating refined grains against eating whole grains, conclude > that eating whole grains is beneficial. Since grains are common to both > groups the conclusion is far more limited than that. It should be > phrased as "eating refined grains is harmful" not "eating whole grains > is beneficial". There's no grain-free control group to establish that > bit.
> The real way to decide if eating grain is beneficial -
> Compare a grain-free diet against a whole-grain diet against a > refined-grain diet. Anyone who studies nutrition will quickly > understand that the group that eats the most veggies wins, and that's > the grain-free group.
Since this feeding study is totally impractical, let me suggest a study of cultures introduced into the western diet, and the medical changes that followed it. Look for "Western disease" or Metabolic Syndrome".
> >> Certain polyunsaturated fatty acids are essential.
> > True, and others aren't. Polyunsaturated fats, like refined > > carbohydrates are fairly new in the human diet, at least in the quantity > > that they are now eaten.
<< No previous culture has survived on a diet of polyunsaturated fats for their lipids, but many have that relied on animal fat and protein.>>
> Animal fat is filled with polyunsaturates. > Especially common in fish > animals so any fishing culture ate them as far back as they go. The "aq > uatic ape" theory of human evolution says that could be a very long time > ago.
> Nuts are high in polyunsaturates. Hunter gatherer societies often eat > nuts to the exclusion of meat when nuts are available. Since nuts > appear in the African savannah people have been eating a lot of nuts for > longer than we'd be considered humans.
> Refined carbs are a different story. Honey has been available forever, > but only in quantity since bee keeping was started. Other high carb > sources are even newer than that. Fruits have been eaten for so far > back in evolution that our ancestors had tails back then, but those > fruits were not sweet enough to count as refined.
> > Metabolic Syndrome (Western disease) with high blood pressure, > > diabetes, heart disease, and cancer seems to always manifest itself when > > a culture takes on the western diet.
> Check out articles on Egyptian mummies. They ate high grain diets and > they suffered from heart attacks and such. Rather like western diets > the rich ancient Egyptians ate a lot of grain and a lot of meat. Unlike > modern westerners refined grain had not yet been invented. Mixed high > carb and high fat has been deadly for a very long time and refined > grains are not a mandatory part of the combination.
Is this going to be a game, or are you sober?
"Atherosclerosis is ubiquitous among modern day humans and, despite difference in ancient and modern lifestyles, we found that it was rather common in <<ancient Egyptians of high socioeconomic status>> (brackets are mine) living as much as three millennia ago," said Gregory Thomas, a cardiology professor at the University of California, Irvine.
"While we do not know whether atherosclerosis caused the demise of any of the mummies in the study, we can confirm that the disease was present in many of them," Thomas said.
The ancient Egyptians, however, rarely suffered from the diseases the western world knows best: cancer and heart disease. And that points out one of the best reasons to study the diseases of the ancients, Dr. Sullivan says. "Today we are very tied up with modern diseases like coronary heart disease and cancer, which are really the products of the fact that we actually live too long. But if you look at the rest of the developing world, you are looking at infectious diseases that have been around for millennia and that relate to the development of civilization." http://www.pbs.org/wnet/pharaohs/secrets4.html
Most of us have some degree of arteriolosclerosis, few of us die from it. To make your argument, you refer to the one segment of Egyptian society who could have enjoyed honey dipped fruits and chicken, among other dishes.
BlueBrooke <bluebro...@invalid.invalid> wrote: > On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:07:01 -0800, Wildbilly <wldbilly@without_a.net> > wrote:
> > In article <n189g5d0050doa3s7kke19unlqpe15s...@4ax.com>, > > BlueBrooke <bluebro...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> > > On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:40:19 +0000 (UTC), Doug Freyburger > > > <dfrey...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > So hunting should be more popular. Check. There are bow hunters who > > > > sing to their prey as the prey dies. Hunting is more gentle than > > > > ranching and more spiritual an activity among any hunter in my family.
> > > It's deer season here and they closed the school on Monday and Tuesday > > > because of it. So I guess you could say it's popular. Gentle or > > > spiritual, though, not really. These guys are bored with tin cans and > > > just want to shoot something that bleeds.
> > > I don't hunt, my guys don't, either, so we've no interest in it at > > > all. And the last time I tried to eat venison . . . ugh. I don't > > > "get it," but I understand that my neighbors do. While I do wish they > > > were hunting to feed their families, most of them aren't.
> > Agreed, killing as sport is sick, but if you eat meat, somebody killed > > it for you. We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our own.
> Yes, someone killed it for me. Thank goodness. There has always been > someone else to do that. Thank goodness. If all the feedlots were > shut down tomorrow, there would still be someone else to do that. :-)
In article <he4dgn$8q...@news.eternal-september.org>, Doug Freyburger <dfrey...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Wildbilly wrote:
> > We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our own.
> Societies that hunt for their meat tend to eat a higher percentage of > their calories from meat than a lot of modern cultures. With the > existance of "modern" ideas (under 5K years old ;^) like vegitarian > eating the trend is the opposite of your suggestion.
Doug, stop posturing, it isn't helping.
I am writing about whole grains verses refined grains.
As a species, we are omnivores. We eat what is available.
What do you have to say against saturated fats and/or meat as food? I think vegetables are wonderful, and we should eat more of them, BUT the calories aren't there. The calories are in fat, and grain. Fat because it is energy dense, and grain because it is plentiful.
If you want to promote vegetarianism, fine. Like organic farming, vegetarianism promotes many fine goals. But for me, at some point, I have to say, I'm sorry Mr. Pig/Chicken, but you have had a good life, we have had some good laughs, and you have had many children. I'm sorry Mr. Pig/Chicken, but now I, and my family, must eat you. Sorry Mr. Pig/Chicken. That, of course, is not the nightmarish way most of our meat dies. See the movie "Food Inc."
> >> > We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our own.
> >> Societies that hunt for their meat tend to eat a higher percentage of > >> their calories from meat than a lot of modern cultures. With the > >> existance of "modern" ideas (under 5K years old ;^) like vegitarian > >> eating the trend is the opposite of your suggestion.
> > You didn't read the article by Jared Diamond, did you?
> Standard issue rule for any on-line activity - Don't follow any URL you > didn't ask for unless there is enough quoted from it to know following > it will be safe from malware and through the reading effort.
Whatever. This is a PDF from my own computer.
> When posting any URL never expect anyone to follow it without posting > enough exerp from it to justify folks follow the link. In a world of > spyware and computer viruses that's how it works. you did not post any > justification at all for following the link and you posted the link > more than once making it even more problematic.
> He has his good points and > bad points. I think he's intolerant of milk proteins given his > vociferous objection to all dairy. If I were intolerant of milk > proteins I might be a low fatter with an attitude against dairy. > Instead I'm wheat intolerant and an inconsistant low carber with an > attitude against viewing grass seeds as a necessary staple.
> > Hunter-gatherers were healthier than we are,
> Yet more reason to doubt any claim that eating grain is beneficial - > Societies that start eating grain as a staple see a large decrease in > health levels. The reasons for grain are economic not medical.
"The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race" by Jared Diamond, Prof. UCLA School of Medicine Discover-May 1987, pp. 64-66 To science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy taught us that our Earth isn't the center of the universe but merely one of billions of heavenly bodies. From biology we learned that we weren't specially created by God but evolved along with millions of other species. Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism,that curse our existence. At first, the evidence against this revisionist interpretation will strike twentieth century Americans as irrefutable. We're better off in almost every respect than people of the Middle Ages who in turn had it easier than cavemen, who in turn were better off than apes. Just count our advantages. We enjoy the most abundant and varied foods, the best tools and material goods, some of the longest and healthiest lives, in history. Most of us are safe from starvation and predators. We get our energy from oil and machines, not from our sweat. What neo-Luddite among us would trade his life for that of a medieval peasant, a caveman, or an ape? For most of our history we supported ourselves by hunting and gathering: we hunted wild animals and foraged for wild plants. It's a life that philosophers have traditionally regarded as nasty, brutish, and short. Since no food is grown and little is stored, there is (in this view) no respite from the struggle that starts anew each day to find wild foods and avoid starving. Our escape from this misery was facilitated only 10,000 years ago, when in different parts of the world people began to domesticate plants and animals. The agricultural revolution gradually spread until today it's nearly universal and few tribes of hunter-gatherers survive. From the progressivist perspective on which I was brought up to ask "Why did almost all our hunter-gatherer ancestors adopt agriculture?" is silly. Of course they adopted it because agriculture is an efficient way to get more food for less work. Planted crops yield far more tons per acre than roots and berries. Just imagine a band of savages, exhausted from searching for nuts or chasing wild animals, suddenly gazing for the first time at a fruit-laden orchard or a pasture full of sheep. How many milliseconds do you think it would take them to appreciate the advantages of agriculture? The progressivist party line sometimes even goes so far as to credit agriculture with the remarkable flowering of art that has taken place over the past few thousand years. Since crops can be stored, and since it takes less time to pick food from a garden than to find it in the wild, agriculture gave us free time that hunter-gatherers never had. Thus it was agriculture that enabled us to build the Parthenon and compose the B-minor Mass. While the case for the progressivist view seems overwhelming, it's hard to prove. How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming? Until recently, archaeologists had to resort to indirect tests, whose results (surprisingly) failed to support the progressivist view. Here's one example of an indirect test: Are twentieth century hunter-gatherers really worse off than farmers? Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of socalled primitive people, like the Kalahari Bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only twelve to nineteen hours for one group of Bushmen, fourteen hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn't emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, "Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?" While farmers concentrate on high-carbohydrate crops like rice and potatoes, the mix of wild plants and animals in the diets of surviving hunter-gatherers provides more protein and a better balance of other nutrients. In one study, the Bushmen's average daily food intake (during a month when food was plentiful) was 2,140 calories and ninety-three grams of protein, considerably greater than the recommended daily allowance for people of their size. It's almost inconceivable that Bushmen, who eat seventy-five or so wild plants, could die of starvation the way hundreds of thousands of Irish farmers and their families did during the potato famine of the 1840s. So the lives of at least the surviving hunter-gatherers aren't nasty and brutish, even though farmers have pushed them into some of the world's worst real estate. But modem huntergatherer societies that have rubbed shoulders with farming societies for thousands of years don't tell us about conditions before the agricultural revolution. The progressivist view is really making a claim about the distant past: that the lives of primitive people improved when they switched from gathering to farming. Archaeologists can date that switch by distinguishing remains of wild plants and animals from those of domesticated ones in prehistoric garbage dumps. How can one deduce the health of the prehistoric garbage makers, and thereby directly test the progressivist view? That question has become answerable only in recent years, in .part through the newly emerging techniques of paleopathology, the study of signs of disease in the remains of ancient peoples. In some lucky situations, the paleopathologist has almost as much material to study as a pathologist today. For example, archaeologists in the Chilean deserts founds well preserved' mummies whose medical conditions at time of death could be determined by autopsy (Discover, October). And feces of long-dead Indians who lived in dry caves in Nevada remain sufficiently well preserved to be examined for hookworm and other parasites. Usually the only human remains available for study are skeletons, but they permit a surprising number of deductions. To begin with, a skeleton reveals its owner's sex, weight, and approximate age. In the few cases where there are many skeletons, one can construct mortality tables like the ones life insurance companies use to calculate expected life span and risk of death at any given age. Paleopathologists can also calculate growth rates by measuring bones of people of different ages, examine teeth for enamel defects (signs of childhood malnutrition), and recognize scars left on bones by anemia, tuberculosis, leprosy, and other diseases. One straightforward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunter-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5'9" for men, 5'5" for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B.C. had reached a low of 5'3" for men ,5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors. Another example of paleopathology at work is the study of Indian skeletons from burial mounds in the lllinois and Ohio river valleys. At Dickson Mounds, located near the confluence of the Spoon and lllinois rivers, archaeologists have excavated some 800 skeletons that paint a picture of the health changes that occurred when a
...
> > > > > > So hunting should be more popular. Check. There are bow hunters > > > > > > who > > > > > > sing to their prey as the prey dies. Hunting is more gentle than > > > > > > ranching and more spiritual an activity among any hunter in my > > > > > > family.
> > > > > It's deer season here and they closed the school on Monday and > > > > > Tuesday > > > > > because of it. So I guess you could say it's popular. Gentle or > > > > > spiritual, though, not really. These guys are bored with tin cans > > > > > and > > > > > just want to shoot something that bleeds.
> > > > > I don't hunt, my guys don't, either, so we've no interest in it at > > > > > all. And the last time I tried to eat venison . . . ugh. I don't > > > > > "get it," but I understand that my neighbors do. While I do wish > > > > > they > > > > > were hunting to feed their families, most of them aren't.
> > > > Agreed, killing as sport is sick, but if you eat meat, somebody killed > > > > it for you. We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our own.
> > > Yes, someone killed it for me. Thank goodness. There has always been > > > someone else to do that. Thank goodness. If all the feedlots were > > > shut down tomorrow, there would still be someone else to do that. :-)
> > That could appear as hypocritical :O(
> Not sure how you arrived at that. But then, I'm not sure how you come > to most of your conclusions.
Encouraging killing by proxy, so that you can avoid the messy details, seems to me to be hypocritical, but you certainly aren't alone. -- "When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist." -Archbishop Helder Camara
Susan <su...@nothanks.org> wrote: > x-no-archive: Yes
> BlueBrooke wrote:
> > I don't hunt, my guys don't, either, so we've no interest in it at > > all. And the last time I tried to eat venison . . . ugh. I don't > > "get it," but I understand that my neighbors do. While I do wish they > > were hunting to feed their families, most of them aren't.
> The thought of someone enjoying hunting or doing it for sport grosses me > out, but the reality of it isn't nearly as cruel as the life of feedlot > animals. So I guess if hunters eat the meat, rather than waste the life > of an animal, I'm good with that.
> But not with them enjoying it.
> Susan
Men are going to enjoy hunting, it in the genes. Even stalking the wild mushroom.
-- A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
> > > > > > > So hunting should be more popular. Check. There are bow hunters > > > > > > > who > > > > > > > sing to their prey as the prey dies. Hunting is more gentle than > > > > > > > ranching and more spiritual an activity among any hunter in my > > > > > > > family.
> > > > > > It's deer season here and they closed the school on Monday and > > > > > > Tuesday > > > > > > because of it. So I guess you could say it's popular. Gentle or > > > > > > spiritual, though, not really. These guys are bored with tin cans > > > > > > and > > > > > > just want to shoot something that bleeds.
> > > > > > I don't hunt, my guys don't, either, so we've no interest in it at > > > > > > all. And the last time I tried to eat venison . . . ugh. I don't > > > > > > "get it," but I understand that my neighbors do. While I do wish > > > > > > they > > > > > > were hunting to feed their families, most of them aren't.
> > > > > Agreed, killing as sport is sick, but if you eat meat, somebody > > > > > killed > > > > > it for you. We would probably eat less meat, if we had to kill our > > > > > own.
> > > > Yes, someone killed it for me. Thank goodness. There has always been > > > > someone else to do that. Thank goodness. If all the feedlots were > > > > shut down tomorrow, there would still be someone else to do that. :-)
> > > That could appear as hypocritical :O(
> > Not sure how you arrived at that. But then, I'm not sure how you come > > to most of your conclusions.
> Encouraging killing by proxy, so that you can avoid the messy details, > seems to me to be hypocritical, but you certainly aren't alone.
Perhaps a license to buy meat should require so many hours working in the slaughter house; this would be similar to food co-ops today. Likely the slaughter houses would be less inhumane.
-- A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
In article <wildbilly-D2A320.21233720112...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au>,
Wildbilly <wildbi...@withouta.net> wrote: > Most of us have some degree of arteriolosclerosis, few of us die from it. > To make your argument, you refer to the one segment of Egyptian society > who could have enjoyed honey dipped fruits and chicken, among other > dishes.
> Enough already. Do you know of any cultures that have been exposed to > refined carbohydrates that hasn't developed Western "Metabolic Syndrome"? > --
Gary Taubes speculates that fructose may be 90& of the problem in his lecture at Dartmouth.
> I'm talking about refined carbohydrates (white flour, white rice, and > sugar). What are you talking about?
White rice is a few thousand years old. White flour is a result of industrial milling invented under 300 years ago. Large amounts of refined sugar have been available for under 500 years and has exploded in the last century.
The article you quoted was about the 10,000 year old transition to agriculture and how that led to poor health. Thus the article is about the ill effects of eating whole grain.
Looks to me like what I'm talking about is what the article states - Refined carbs are only the most recent and most extreme feature but the long term trend of ill health caused by whole grain is illustrated in the article.
Interesting point - Agriculture has been pushing human evolution for millenia. That's a short time on evolutionary time scales but the pressure has been immense. Check the selective breeding implications in the number of people who have died from the evolutionary pressures of an agriculture based culture. While humanity evolved during the stone ages less than the 5 million years it takes to evolve an ideal diet, the evolutionary pressure has been extreme since then. The arguments for adopting a paleolithic diet aren't as strong as some would like. But ten millenia is an evolutionarily short time span any ways. The arguments for a grain based diet are weaker still except for economic reasons.
> > I'm talking about refined carbohydrates (white flour, white rice, and > > sugar). What are you talking about?
> White rice is a few thousand years old. White flour is a result of > industrial milling invented under 300 years ago. Large amounts of > refined sugar have been available for under 500 years and has exploded > in the last century.
> The article you quoted was about the 10,000 year old transition to > agriculture and how that led to poor health. Thus the article is about > the ill effects of eating whole grain.
> Looks to me like what I'm talking about is what the article states - > Refined carbs are only the most recent and most extreme feature but the > long term trend of ill health caused by whole grain is illustrated in > the article.
> Interesting point - Agriculture has been pushing human evolution for > millenia. That's a short time on evolutionary time scales but the > pressure has been immense. Check the selective breeding implications in > the number of people who have died from the evolutionary pressures of an > agriculture based culture. While humanity evolved during the stone ages > less than the 5 million years it takes to evolve an ideal diet, the > evolutionary pressure has been extreme since then. The arguments for > adopting a paleolithic diet aren't as strong as some would like. But > ten millenia is an evolutionarily short time span any ways. The > arguments for a grain based diet are weaker still except for economic > reasons.
OK, so you finally read the Jerod Diamond article.
Try reading the article again. The problem, IIRC, was the lack of variety in the crops (nutrition) in the farmers diets, occupying the same area over a period of time, population density, which in turn gave rise to communicable diseases (There are reasons why we refer to bird flu and swine flu.), and the rise of government with its' establishment of the hierarchy of social classes (the hunters and gatherers being egalitarian).
IIRC, in the early 20's a study was done on cadavers of people who died from accidents, that came to a N.Y. morgue. Most of them showed signs of arteriosclerosis, but that isn't what they died from. I'll look up the citation over the Thanksgiving break.
Sugar cane workers consume the most sugar of any demographic, and show little sign of CVD, but they work like burros.
My points were that the elite of Egypt were the most likely to have a sweet diet, and as the article stated, there is no way to know if they died because of heart disease.
Gotta go get some sleep now, but I'll be back. -- "When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist." -Archbishop Helder Camara
>> The article you quoted was about the 10,000 year old transition to >> agriculture and how that led to poor health. Thus the article is about >> the ill effects of eating whole grain.
> You realize that once a grain is milled into flour or cereal, it ceases > to be a whole grain?
I don't realize that because it was not true until recent centuries.
For millenia grain was tossed into the air to rid it of the husk and what remained was fertile particles that have bran, endosperm and germ. That is to say whole grain. These whole grain particles were stone ground by hand then allowed to rise and baked into bread within two days. Then for centuries the whole grains were ground using water powered stone mills rather than hand ground. Hand ground or water power ground the result was still whole grain flour not refined flour so it did not cease to be whole grain. The problem with this fresh ground whole grain flour is retaining the germ means the flour spoils in a few days so milling needs to be local.
A couple of centuries ago a different kind of milling process was invented. This modern refining method separates the bran (which was mostly fed to pigs until the oat bran crazy a few years ago), the endosperm (which becomes the refined white flour that is so problematic) and the germ (which is available dried in may stores). The ground endosperm starch is lower in nutrients but it also lasts *much* longer. Refined grain is now milled in very large mills and shipped long distances. Before the refining process was invented the whole grin flour would spoil in a few days.
The ill health effects resulted when argiculture was invented millenia before refined milling was invented. The ill effects accelerated greatly when the refined milling process was invented.
>> Looks to me like what I'm talking about is what the article states - >> Refined carbs are only the most recent and most extreme feature but the >> long term trend of ill health caused by whole grain is illustrated in >> the article.
> This is why scientific historians refer to the "diseases of > civilization" diabetes and CVD. Grains developed civilization, but at a > cost to health.
The article points out why agriculture eventually dominated the globe replacing hunter-gatherer societies almost completely. In spite of the ill health effects and the hard labor involved, argiculture allows more people to live. With large enough populations quantity *does* beat quality. Even with the lower mean and medians of agricultural societies compared to hunter-gather societies the variance and total populations ensure that there are more high production people in an agricultural society than in a hunter gatherer society. And so no hunter-gather society has ever developed metal smelting and thus no hunter-gatherer society has ever moved towards industrialization.
It's true that it was done on the backs of millenia of heavy labor misery, but civilization has advanced to the point where many can now eat better than people do in hunter-gather societies. Over time the percentage of the total world population in poverty shrinks. The dream that the total number will shrink becomes realistic as the percentage continues to decline. The dream that few will be poor remains a dream but the direction is clear. The question becomes whether human society can pull that off. Build hot houses and grow veggies. Plant trees to maintain forests.
|
