From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon May 13 2002 - 15:19:46 MDT
Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>>Brian D Williams wrote:
>>>
>>>>This was largely guarenteed by the conditions of the show,
>>>>specifically the no hunting clause. Vegans wouldn't have lasted
>>>>long.
>>>>
>>>>
>>Uh, how do you explain that the large and relatively primitive
>>populuations have been and are largely vegetarian? I don't
>>understand why people feel the need to take occassional pokes at
>>folks who don't eat meat. You can live just fine off of nothing
>>but a good vegetable garden and a bit of flax-seed oil now and
>>then for B-12. Not exactly hard to do out in the woods.
>>
>
> This is absolute rubbish. Name one 'relatively primitive' population
> that is vegetarian exclusively. While it may be easier to do so in a
> warmer climate, it is absolutly impossible to do in any climate with an
> appreciable winter, and the further to the poles you go, the more
> carnivorous cultures seem to be. An exclusively vegan diet does not give
> a person the energy they require to perform the exhausting labor that
> primitive cultures require to build and maintain shelter, food gathering
> and processing, and sanitary conditions.
You are mistaken. The Far East traditionally is very largely
vegetarian. Most cultures wer not that strict about it but most
of the diet is vegetarian with occassional fish and other meats
in China for thousands of years. India comes the closes to a
full lacto-vegetarian diet among some sects of Hindus and
Buddhists. It is certainly not impossible to be vegetarian in
climates with cold winters (but not subzero all year long) if
sufficient stores are kept. It does not take a lot of
sophisitcation to do this. I did not speak of an exclusively
vegan diet but that do is quite possible. There is no lack of
energy or body heat from a vegetarian diet. I don't know why
you think there is, but your information is faulty. And I am
absolutely lost as to what you believe vegetarianism has to do
with sanitary conditions. Veggie food is a hell of a lot more
sanitary in its production, consumption and storage than meat.
There are also several diseases that vegetarians can't catch as
they are exclusive to meat eaters.
>
> In the Frontier House show, the most glaring omission by all of the
> families was their lack of woodcutting they had prepared. It was
> estimated that they were on average 90% short of the firewood they'd
> need to get through the winter. What this means is that the families
> were all guarranteed to freeze to death in the middle of winter, no
> matter how much food and hay they had stored up. A primitive, poorly
> insulated shelter like the cabins in the show would require between 4-10
> cord of wood a winter to heat, at a minimum, assuming they had a cast
> iron stove technology. An open fire or fireplace technology would
> require three to seven times more wood to maintain through the same
> period.
>
> To cut this amount of wood requires not just immense stores of energy
> food (carbohydrates or fats) but also proteins to maintain the muscle
> needed to do the work.
>
Veggies are full of carbs. Some of them are 100% fat (avocado
for instance, nuts for another are quite high in fat for their
weight. Some veggies (legumes primarily) have *more* proteien
than beef does. So what is your gripe?
- samantha
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