Staying Healthy

Don't forget the loss of ammonia to the atmosphere, and the very large amount of carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere from the methane belching…

But to be fair, in environments like Tibet, the land is not really up to growing much else that humans can eat.

And many of the comments made by Craig could also be said of modern crop growing practices, which are also not very sustainable (just substitute fertiliser companies for Pharma). However, there is a large difference in the magnitude of this impact on a 'per person fed' basis.

Of course, I would prefer to decrease long term population levels than to look for ever increasing methods to grow more, but less healthful food, on less and less land…

If you look at the Massai's neighbors the Hadzabe you can see a group who has been in the rift valley longer who has continually survived on a diet of wild game, roots, plants and berries quite well. And which at low population densities is likely more sustainable. They enjoy a life rich in leisure time and are quite healthy. The Massai model is one of several strategies in that part of Africa. Massai have been more successful probably because of their diet but that's not to say that theirs is the better diet.

"!!!Double HUH? I'm with Lynn on this one.
I'm not sure I even know where to begin with this.

Overgrazing?
Soil compaction?
MASSIVE waste runoff?
The thermodynamic insanity of using enormous inputs of water and acreage to raise the feed for animals that only feed a few people?
And let's not forget the chemicals, diesel fuel, antibiotics, and complicity of the pharmaceutical/chemical industries that allow us to grow and distribute this meat in record amounts…"

Triple HUH!!!???

It takes somewhere on the order of 8# of vegetable protein to produce 1# of beef. Thermodynamic insanity, indeed!!
Not to mention the methane wafting into the atmosphere from the manure pits, a major source of greenhouse gas(I'm trolling for Tallblokes here. I hear they've been biting on methane lately). ;-}

We're gonna run out of the luxury of getting away with this in the near future.

"Of course, I would prefer to decrease long term population levels than to look for ever increasing methods to grow more, but less healthful food, on less and less land…"

Patience, Lynn. Mother Nature will take care of it if we don't.

"Patience, Lynn. Mother Nature will take care of it if we don't."

But I want it all to myself, before I die. I'm selfish that way :0

"It takes somewhere on the order of 8# of vegetable protein to produce 1# of beef."

But nice, fatty beef has soooo many more calories in it ;) right?? Nope. Are you sure it's not 8 calories of grains to produce 1 calorie of beef???

What do goose farms look like? How many geese does it take to fill a 20 degree Western Mountaineering bag? Do the geese smell? Do they live on muddy ground? Are they noisy?

I live in hilly, rocky cattle country. I'd rather have pastures of cattle everywhere than live in the midst of rice, soybeans, cotton, corn, wheat, vegetable farms. I am glad there aren't any feedlots or chicken houses in my backyard though.

Mmmmmmm, goose fat.

I'm really lucky. I live near rocky, hilly cattle and sheep country, AND fertile flat land good for growing all sorts of fruit, grains, vegetables and dairy herds. Nice to have access to such a varied diet without having it shipped half way around the world ;)

And not a feedlot in sight!

Lynn I just don't agree with your assessment of life in a hunter gather society. You seem to have a kind of Hollywood view of a starving population forever desperate for food and thats just not what the records say. Like I said there are still people living a 'primitive" lifestyle to this day who clearly do not suffer from constant starvation unless modern war has devastated their lands.
Yes, cattle, pork, geese, chickens all live on a diverse farm community grazing and eating giving manure to the soil.
How is miles and miles of endless soy rice,and corn better for the environment? Go to a good farm and see animals grazing among trees and grass then go to Nebraska and see the wasteland that is corn,soy,and wheat ect. as far as the eye can see all using tons of chemicals. thats what I see.
better yet what if we let the 100's of thousands of anchors of grains go wild and most everyone hunted for their food in the forest? Not really that practical but Im making a point about how animals effect the environment compared to veggie/grain farming that is in effect clear cutting on a massive scale far worse than animal grazing lands. plus one cow can supply a family with dairy for decades before they become meat on the table.
And as far as cycled dieting – not having to eat all day is very liberating for a lot of people, It allows you to utilize fat stores for energy while your kidney and liver do their thing and cleans the body before the next meal.
It has little to do with starving for the winter, which civilized people in the Dark ages living on bread did – not how the Inuit or our ice age ancestors did.

"Go to a good farm and see animals grazing among trees and grass…"

In what reality does this exist?
So far as I know, it only exists in the cartoons on Farmer John labels.
Happy cows, happily grazing under the care of happy farmers…

Or how about a more accurate picture taken from fairly recent headlines:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhlhSQ5z4V4

One happy, well treated cow will happily supply a family with dairy for years and years…
Just like all the cows my millions of neighbors raise and milk in their own backyards…here in Los Angeles…yeah, those cows…

try here:http://www.mhof.net/farm/index.php
This is local to me. Ill show you videos of children and pets being abused too, are you against parents and pet owners? Try getting out of the city and see where your food comes from first hand.

wow- Califorinia is full of great organic farms! it was easy to find them. here are a few:
http://www.organicpastures.com/
http://claravaledairy.com/photos.html

"Yes, cattle, pork, geese, chickens all live on a diverse farm community grazing and eating giving manure to the soil."

Umm, no, the manure came from the soil and the insects and plants that soil supported to begin with. The animals merely transform it, some of it being lost along the way through evaportaion of urea in urine, and some loss of organic matter via CO2 emmisions from ruminants in particular.

"How is miles and miles of endless soy rice,and corn better for the environment?"

Well, I'm comparing apples to apples, assuming a 'monoculture' of crops versus a 'monoculture' of dense livestock farming. Plus I said above "Of course, I would prefer to decrease long term population levels than to look for ever increasing methods to grow more, but less healthful food, on less and less land…"

"better yet what if we let the 100's of thousands of anchors of grains go wild and most everyone hunted for their food in the forest? "

Well, yes, as above, I would, in SOME ways prefer that. But in other ways I really enjoy modern lifestyles. I don't want to live in a world where I have no control over my reproduction, will likely die in childbirth, if not even younger due to any number of bacterial infections, broken bones or many of the other conditions associated with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Aside from that is that we would first have to kill off easily 9/10 of humans as, again noted above, the 8 calories we get out of grains would now only produce 1 calorie of meat, and we are already struggling to feed the world with grains. This is NOT how I want the world to be, but is the way it is right now.

"Not really that practical but Im making a point about how animals effect the environment compared to veggie/grain farming that is in effect clear cutting on a massive scale far worse than animal grazing lands. plus one cow can supply a family with dairy for decades before they become meat on the table."

Again, you fail to take into account the scale of humanity we are trying to feed right now. The old Ma and Pa letting old betsy run free on many acres of land is not feasible on a large scale. even worse, in my country, most of the forests that have been cleared were cleared to plant pasture to raise livestock, not to grow grains. This is also what's happening at an alarming rate in most of the remaining tropical forests. Clearfelling to run cattle…and where do you think MOST of that corn, soy etc…in Nebraska goes? To feed cattle of course. and make lots of yummy HFCS for us humans ;)

"And as far as cycled dieting – not having to eat all day is very liberating for a lot of people,"

I feel liberated when I know I have three sqaures and a couple of snacks a day waiting for me. Glad to know you have found a way to feel liberated too. I know what most of the starving populations of the world would find more liberating.

"It has little to do with starving for the winter, which civilized people in the Dark ages living on bread did – not how the Inuit or our ice age ancestors did."

Oh, then it must have just been dedicated self-control of reproduction that prevented humans from over-populating themselves pre-agriculture. Or was it that living off of wild animals was extremely limiting to population growth before we learned to grow food crops and domesticate livestock?? Or maybe it was just lack of antibiotics…

Plus none of this is really relevant to what helps us stay healthy. There is a plethora of research in modern humans trying to lose weight that shows no benefit to a high fat low carb diet compared to a low fat high carb diet, either in fat lost, or cardiovascular health. As long as they can control their calorie intake, they will lose fat, and their cardiovascular health will improve. Yes, humans are very versatile and can live on very high fat diets, or very low carb (but even the Inuits got ~30% of their calories from glycogen in seal liver), or just about anything in between. The only thing they can't survive too long on is not enough essential fat, or not enough protein. Or not enough love :0

"Try getting out of the city and see where your food comes from first hand."

Ummm, yeah. I live, as I said earlier, in a very agrarian society. There is no missing where our food comes from, and the environmental and other costs associated with it. Right now dairy farmers in this region are being drummed out of the area by public uproar due to them taking more and more water away from our rivers to a)irrigate pasture and b)run milking sheds where once we grew wheat, corn, barley (and sheep!) etc…without much more irrigation than mother nature supplied.

I don't think I'm going to be able to get into this discussion without getting pretty worked up.

Take care folks.

'Umm, no, the manure came from the soil and the insects and plants that soil supported to begin with. The animals merely transform it, some of it being lost along the way through evaportaion of urea in urine, and some loss of organic matter via CO2 emmisions from ruminants in particular."

Ask a farmer if they can grow crops for long without adding manure to the soil.

"Oh, then it must have just been dedicated self-control of reproduction that prevented humans from over-populating themselves pre-agriculture. Or was it that living off of wild animals was extremely limiting to population growth before we learned to grow food crops and domesticate livestock?? Or maybe it was just lack of antibiotics…"

-it was modern medicine, more babies survive more unhealthy people kept alive with medicine/surgery..

"I feel liberated when I know I have three sqaures and a couple of snacks a day waiting for me. Glad to know you have found a way to feel liberated too. I know what most of the starving populations of the world would find more liberating."

It has nothing to do with starving, you eat all you want at night when your rested for the day. I would argue that eating in moderation is far more about self denial.

"There is a plethora of research in modern humans trying to lose weight that shows no benefit to a high fat low carb diet compared to a low fat high carb diet, either in fat lost, or cardiovascular health. As long as they can control their calorie intake, they will lose fat, and their cardiovascular health will improve."

I have never heard of a single credible study that said low fat high carb diets improved cardiovascular health. But of coarse calorie restriction will make you lose weight, but it will not necessarily make you healthy.

"Again, you fail to take into account the scale of humanity we are trying to feed right now."

– you haven't shown that massive clear cutting for crops is any better.

Brain, as a reference point for discussion, do you have access to this article?

Plant-animal subsistence ratios and macronutrient energy estimations in worldwide hunter-gatherer diets.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 71, No. 3, 682-692, March 2000

"- you haven't shown that massive clear cutting for crops is any better."

No need. If we converted all the land that has already been cleared to raise cattle feed, we would have more than enough land already.

"I have never heard of a single credible study that said low fat high carb diets improved cardiovascular health"

What would YOU call credible?

Actually I Do remember now that some people can do well on high carb fuel. I am not one of them so I kind of got tunnel vision there. -But they must have saturated fats in the diet, its just the ratio thats different- so I take that back.

"No need. If we converted all the land that has already been cleared to raise cattle feed, we would have more than enough land already."

-What if we converted all that land used for crops for animal grazing? Or better yet let it grow over and allow wild game to graze?

I take that reply to mean that you either don't have access, or don't care to read the above paper?

As an intorduction to the topic, they open with this, but the whole paper is a really good read on the subject:

Both anthropologists and nutritionists have long had an interest in the nutritional patterns of the earth's less-Westernized peoples and have recognized that the diets of modern-day hunter-gatherers may represent a reference standard for modern human nutrition and a model for defense against certain "diseases of civilization" (1–6). Although there is a vast and rich ethnographic record of many aspects of the diets of worldwide hunter-gatherers (7), there are few studies that have examined certain specific qualitative and quantitative aspects of the nutrient composition of these people's diets with modern analytic procedures (8–11). The hunter-gatherer mode of life, which sustained humanity for all (99.6%) but the last 10000 y of the 2.4 million y since the first appearance of our genus (Homo), is now probably extinct in its pure form (11–13). Unfortunately, not a single comprehensive nutritional study evaluating the macronutrient and trace nutrient contents of the wild plant and animal foods actually consumed in completely un-Westernized hunter-gatherer diets was ever conducted. Consequently, all future studies of the traditional diet of preagricultural humans must be evaluated indirectly by examining the ethnographic, fossil, or archaeologic records in conjunction with modern-day nutrient analyses of wild plant and animal foods.

The reconstruction of preagricultural human diets by using indirect procedures has only recently been attempted. In their seminal paper, Eaton and Konner (14) estimated the dietary macronutrient and trace nutrient contents of Paleolithic humans. These authors estimated the projected average dietary macronutrient composition (as % of energy) to be 21% fat, 34% protein, and 45% carbohydrate (14), which was recently updated to 22% fat, 37% protein, and 41% carbohydrate (15). Implicit in Eaton et al's (14–16) estimation of representative, or average, Paleolithic diets was an assumed ratio of plant to animal (P:A) energy subsistence of 65:35, which was based on Lee's compilation (11) of selected hunter-gatherer subsistence data taken from the Ethnographic Atlas, an ethnographic compendium of 862 of the world's societies (7). Because Lee did not sum animal foods derived from hunting and animal foods derived from fishing, P-A subsistence ratios of worldwide hunter-gatherers are not reported in Lee's analysis (11). Furthermore, the subsistence data from the Ethnographic Atlas are not reported as percentages of energy, but simply as a percentage of the subsistence economy (7). Eaton and Konner's (14) model for projected Paleolithic diets accommodates P-A energy subsistence ratios other than 65:35, and these authors suggested that many macronutrient combinations are possible (14). Many other researchers (17, 18) indicated that the average hunter-gatherer subsistence pattern would have included more animal food than the 35% of energy originally estimated by Eaton et al (14–16).

We analyzed the economic subsistence data for all 229 hunter-gatherer societies using all 3 subsistence categories (gathered plant foods, hunted animal foods, and fished animal foods) contained within the updated and revised version of the Ethnographic Atlas (19). From these data, we estimated the likely dietary macronutrient intakes (as % of energy) for environmentally diverse hunter-gatherer populations. Additionally, we showed how different percentages of body fat in wild animals will alter the amount of available energy from protein, and how a maximal protein ceiling will influence the selection of other macronutrients.

"What would YOU call credible?"

One not funded by the food industry or political special interest groups.

But I was confusing processed carbs and vegetable trans fats with diets high in good whole grains and saturated fats ( whether from coconut- avocado or animal.)

Like this one?
Effects of Low-Carbohydrate vs Low-Fat Diets on Weight Loss and Cardiovascular Risk Factors: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

Arch Intern Med. 2006;166:285-293.

Conclusions Low-carbohydrate, non–energy-restricted diets appear to be at least as effective as low-fat, energy-restricted diets in inducing weight loss for up to 1 year. However, potential favorable changes in triglyceride and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol values should be weighed against potential unfavorable changes in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol values when low-carbohydrate diets to induce weight loss are considered.

Not quite as good a read as the paper I cited just above, but I think we must have cross-posted. I would really like you to read the entire hunter-gatherer paper posted above, for a *reasoned* discussion.

That paper only estimates an average and says nothing about the health of tribes who are hight fat vs high carbs. except "Additionally, we showed how different percentages of body fat in wild animals will alter the amount of available energy from protein, and how a maximal protein ceiling will influence the selection of other macronutrients."
Witch seems to be hinting at the rabbit starvation thing. You need fat to utilize protein.

Heres some info available to laymen:
http://www.westonaprice.org/basicnutrition/characteristics.html

-some more good articles from the site:
http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/index.html

This discussion could go round and round practically forever, or we could all just read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food" and let the author bring just about every facet of the issue into detailed, literate, and entertaining account.

"But I want it all to myself, before I die. I'm selfish that way :0"

C'mon, Lynn, 50/50. ;)

"Are you sure it's not 8 calories of grains to produce 1 calorie of beef???"

No. It has to do with the amount of protein required to grow a calf to full size. A lot of protein is lost in the process.

"Additionally, we showed how different percentages of body fat in wild animals will alter the amount of available energy from protein, and how a maximal protein ceiling will influence the selection of other macronutrients."
Witch seems to be hinting at the rabbit starvation thing. You need fat to utilize protein.."

No, that's what the intro said. The full paper goes into great detail analysing the *actual* composition of what these people *actually* ate. It wasn't nearly as high in fat, and especially not saturated fats, as you seem to think is healthful or traditional.

I am well aware of Price's research too.

"In what reality does this exist?"

It's called Knotsberry Farm, Craig. Somewhere down in your neck of the woods, isn't it? :)

"No. It has to do with the amount of protein required to grow a calf to full size. A lot of protein is lost in the process."

Not as much as is lost to grow one human!