From: J.W. Harris (index@cox.net)
Date: Wed May 15 2002 - 11:31:50 MDT
Yes, I know some of these points were answered, at least in part, in
later emails. My MUA makes it difficult to reply to an entire thread.
(OT: Is mutt better than pine in this regard?)
(OT: I'm actually editing ~/mail/postponed-msgs with vim to get
around this problem.)
I've deleted several of my points that are covered in later points in
this thread. I have not deleted points that IMO are mostly but not
completely covered in later postings.
I would have broken this up, but there's a limit on how many postings we
can make per day. :-)
On Mon, 13 May 2002, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> On another note, I'll note that there are diseases which vegetarians can
> catch, which exclusive meat eaters are immune to.... anemia for one,
> diabetes is another.
? I thought the only pure carnivore humans were traditional Inuit
such as Eskimo. Many people eat a mostly carnivorous or mostly
vegetarian diet, but note that 'mostly'. We are omnivores, and it's
difficult to stay healthy at either extreme.
Inuit don't suffer from gout like king Henry VIII because they get
most of their calories from fat, not protein.
I prefer a low meat diet myself but I will never willingly become pure
vegetarian. (I may have to amend that if genetic engineering of
plants makes for big changes in food production before MNT makes old
methods of food production obsolete. I'm still waiting for Spirulina
to become cheap enough to try out. Is there any reason for it to be
as expensive as it is?)
(Aside: humans did not settle the polar regions until fishing was
developed due to vitamin D deficiency.)
> As to sanitary storage, I'll simply note that all epidemic diseases
> have originated in areas which are far more vegan than not,
> primarily due to rodents and other animals which parasitize on human
> cereal stores.
I believe the link between epidemic disease and domesticated animals
is stronger than the link between epidemic disease and low meat diets.
Read 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' by Jared Diamond?
Mike (?):
> > > 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.
I never watched the show, but I'd guess there were two factors here.
The Midwest simply does NOT have the resources it did when Caucasian
Americans first settled it. Log cabins? Good grief. Any intelligent
authentic settler would have stacked lots of sod on the outside, if it
wasn't built of sod in the first place. But that's no longer
practical -- few places in the Midwest have ten feet of topsoil laced
with grass roots any more.
(Montana? Did Montana ever have significant sod? I bet it doesn't
have the rifle-ready wildlife it did then.)
An opposing trend is we know more about technology then the original
settlers did. What is the name of the heating system where the
exhaust from the wood (or peat or dried dung) stove feeds through
hollow ceramic tiles in the floor? How much would that increase the
effectiveness of the gathered fire wood?
Many American settlers of the Midwest carried iron stoves with them
over the Appalachian mountains because they had learned from previous
settlers' mistakes.
I've read other messages in this thread about what the families packed
in their wagons. I agree it seems stupid. I would have backed out
rather than participate in such a show, unless I was sure I'd have a
chance to complain^W explain on-camera about it.
> > > 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.
Many authentic American settlers did NOT adequately heat their homes
in winter. Siblings would sleep together in one bed with many quilts
piled on top -- people had to wake up to turn over 'in their sleep'.
And many early settlers did die.
As far as not freezing during the day, my personal experience suggests
that IF one has enough food to perform physical labor, overheating is
often a bigger problem than cold! (Yes that's a big if.)
Mike:
> > > 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.
Samantha:
> > Veggies are full of carbs. Some of them are 100% fat (avocado
100%? You exaggerate. I notice both sides exaggerating here.
> > 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?
>
> My gripe is the claim that anybody can life off such diets. They can't.
Wrong Mike. People can and do live on pure vegetarian diets. BUT
most don't THRIVE on such diets. Vegans are often (not always)
visibly malnourished, but that is not the same thing as dead.
> How many Olympic athletes or bodybuilders achieve their victories on
> vegan diets? Zero. In an environment which is very physically demanding,
> a vegan diet doesn't provide what is needed.
This I believe to be correct. OTOH, many body builders get a lot of
protein from whey powder, casein, and other lacto-vegan sources, and
take many supplements that came from a chemistry vat rather than a
plant or animal -- so I wouldn't bet money that it's never been done.
I don't I want to start a discussion on vegan vs. lacto-vegan. There
are also some people who say they are vegetarian even though they eat
eggs.
What about the theory that the natural pesticides in various plants
are enough to harm human health? Has such an effect actually ever
been measured, or has the theory been discredited?
A later email in the same thread:
Brian D Williams wrote:
> In a survival situation you
> can starve to death eating all the fish you can catch.
Yep. I've seen varying estimates for the most calories a human body
can process in one day. The most common estimate seems to be about
8000, but no researcher in the field really agrees. Exercise more
than that day in, day out, and one loses body mass, no matter how much
one eats. We can burn fat calories better than carb calories -- a
high carb diet has two different problems: (a) at low exercise levels,
calories are more likely to be stored as body fat than burned, (b) at
high exercise levels, calories are more likely to be wasted, so that
body mass is lost. Since I have a moderate exercise level, I don't
care that most of my calories are carb -- and diets high in SATURATED
fats have even worse (IMO) problems.
<irony>
So perhaps a diet of poly-unsaturated vegetable oil, whey protein
powder, fiber to prevent colon cancer, and vitamin/mineral pills is
ideal?
</irony>
(Somehow I doubt it.)
Here I reply to a later email in the thread:
On Tue, 14 May 2002, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Harvey Newstrom wrote:
<snip/>
> > The concept of eating meat every day is largely a modern Americanism.
<snip/>
>
> Yes, this was the traditional diet for the serf classes. Then again,
> they also averaged around 5 feet high and had an average life
> expectancy of 35 as well. I don't suppose you want to emulate that,
> do you?
And the traditional aristocrats of 12th century England averaged 5'2"
-- not a lot of difference. I don't dispute the 'average life
expectancy of 35', but what happens to the statistics when you exclude
people who died as children? (Not really relevant to this discussion,
but I'm curious.)
(aside: I figure the most accurate thing we can say about low-tech
life-styles is: they suck.)
Harvey Newstrom:
> > There are many veggie sources of protein that are more protein
> > dense than meat. Soy protein isolate(82%), soy protein
> > concentrate(64%), spirulina seaweed(58%), peanut flower(53%),
> > soybean flour(51%), soy meal(49%), freeze-dried tofu(48%), wheat
> > gluten(41%), almond meal(40%), soybean nuts(40%), yeast(39%),
> > soybean flour(38%), roasted pumpkin or squash seeds(34%), etc.
Mike Lorrey:
> I notice that you are listing all processed goods, not the raw goods
> they came from. I am sure that chicken and beef can both be
> processed to extract pure protein.
>
> Now, since this discussion is dealing with living in the 1880's, how
> many of those you've listed above were commonly available on the
> frontier in the 1880s? I'd say likely only the pumpkin and squash
> seeds.
High-tech processed plants vs. low-tech meat? I think the difference
in nutritional quality is more a matter of technology than biological
kingdom. I favor hot dogs as a meat source: cheap, convenient to
microwave, and FDA regulations require the manufacturers to explicitly
note how much protein and what chemicals they contain. (Yes, ordinary
hot dogs contain lots of saturated fat and chemicals -- BUT it's not
difficult to find healthier ones if one actually takes the time to
read the labels, and they're usually not significantly more
expensive.) I'm not a body builder. If I was, I'd probably be making
whey powder shakes and eating egg whites (not many yolks).
(Aside: I pity the children when I see families in supermarkets, with
the parents tossing food in the cart without bothering to read the
labels. Don't they CARE what chemicals they're sticking in their
offspring?)
Mike Lorrey:
> Finally, it's rather clear that the modern US problem with obesity
> is not because of meat eating, it is specifically because of too
> much sugar and starch in the diet with no exercise to burn them off.
I like that you mentioned sugar and starch but not fat. Was that
intentional? (Note: I think getting most calories from carbohydrates
is fine for people with medium exercise lifestyles -- I believe such a
diet fails mostly at the low and high exercise extremes.)
I also like that you explicitly mentioned low (no) exercise. This is
a much bigger (pun intended) problem than the average American
realizes.
Yet another email:
On Tue, 14 May 2002, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 14, 2002, at 09:45 am, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> > Yes, this was the traditional diet for the serf classes. Then again,
> > they also averaged around 5 feet high and had an average life expectancy
> > of 35 as well. I don't suppose you want to emulate that, do you?
>
Harvey:
> I'm not. I have been a vegetarian for 16 years. Since turning
> vegetarian at the age of 23, I have grown even taller than before,
How much taller, and when did you finish growing? I didn't finish
growing until I was 23, and according to medical charts I've seen this
is expected, yet many men I've talked to claim they finished growing
at about 18. I wonder if perhaps most men simply stop paying
attention to their height once they become average, especially since
the medical charts I've seen imply most men would grow only about an
inch between 18 and 23.
> compared to my twin and older brother who are now at least an inch
> or two shorter than I am. You are assuming a cause-and-effect that
> isn't there. I have seen many medical comparisons of vegetarians
> and omnivores. None of them mentioned height differences, only
> weight differences.
<snip/>
> .... Ground flour, tofu, wheat gluten, and seeds are ancient foods
> that do not require any more processing than butchering an animal
> would take. I know that we tend to imagine wheat or corn for bread
> in modern America, but many cultures ground other seeds, legumes,
> nuts and beans for bread. These "high-processed" flours and meals
> simply became a peasant's home-made bread. Their poor-bread had a
> lot higher protein content than we imagine given today's bread
> content.
I still think 'white' bread is disgustingly bland. There's something
seriously wrong with 'processing' a food so much that governments feel
they have to require the addition of vitamins. Even the rice most
Americans eat is wrong. I prefer brown, unhulled rice myself, always
will. So what if it takes almost twice as long to cook? (Still low
labor.) Not only does it taste better, it's also higher in nutrients
and protein.
> A peasant gathering grain could easily get as much protein as
> equivalent hunting could provide.
I still say Jared Diamond had interesting things to say about hunting
versus gathering in 'Guns, Germs, and Steel'. One of his points is
that either (or more preferably, both together) is nutritionally
better than agriculture, until our modern understanding of nutrition
makes it easier to avoid nutritional deficiencies. His theory
(strongly supported IMO) is that agriculture spread because ten runty
farmers can usually beat one healthy hunter/gatherer.
Harvey, how carefully do you have to be about balancing different
amino acids? One advantage people on a high meat diet have is that
pretty much any animal is going to supply all the amino acids a person
needs.
Why did you decide on a vegetarian diet versus low meat diet, Harvey?
Vegan or lacto-vegan, or am I mis-using the terms?
Mike:
> > Furthermore, not all protien is equal. People with certain blood
> > types cannot follow a vegan lifestyle specifically because of the
> > difficulty in digesting plant protiens, among other problems like
> > iron digestion.
>
Harvey:
> I personally don't believe in the blood-type diets. Blood-types are
> pretty specific to antigens on the surface of red-blood cells that
> reject foreign blood cells only.
<snip criticism I mostly agree with/>
It seems to me Harvey is more likely to be correct on this point, but
I don't know enough to deserve an opinion. References pro or con
would be appreciated.
Perhaps Mike is talking about something other than A/B/O +/-?
Something like the (loose) genetic predisposition toward certain blood
cholesterol levels? That's the only way it'd make sense to me.
Yet another email in the thread:
On Mon, 13 May 2002, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> On Monday, May 13, 2002, at 06:07 pm, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> > My gripe is the claim that anybody can life off such diets. They can't.
> > How many Olympic athletes or bodybuilders achieve their victories on
> > vegan diets? Zero. In an environment which is very physically demanding,
> > a vegan diet doesn't provide what is needed.
>
> Sorry, Mike, but you are misinformed on this one. Dr. David Ryde is a
> longtime vegetarian spent 15 years as medical adviser for the British
> Olympic teams. His and other studies shows that vegetarian diets
> increase strength, stamina and endurance. Many olympic athletes go
> veggie because of the increased performance. Even those that don't do
> carbo-loading and forgo meat just before a big event.
>
> A quick Google search finds this list of vegetarian olympic and other
> athletes:
> <http://www.afpafitness.com/Vegetarians.htm>:
<snip ~22 athletes/>
Interesting. Pure vegetarians? Lacto-veggies? Whey powder
supplements? I'm curious now. (Whey protein supplements would not be
unexpected -- many omnivorous athletes use it.) I may have to take
back my joke about vegetable oil, whey powder, metimucil (sp?), and vitamin
pills.
And yet another email in the thread:
On Tue, 14 May 2002, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> To be clear, I do not think vegetarianism is automatically superior. It
> is very easy to become protein deficient of B12 deficient. But it is
> also very easy to eat a proper vegetarian diet as well. Just as it is
> easy to eat a high-cholesterol low fiber meat diet, while it is also
> easy to eat lean meat with veggies on the side. I am not arguing that
> one is superior, but that either can be made healthy or unhealthy, and
> both have been historical norms for different groups at different times.
Thank you for a balanced viewpoint. I'm still curious why you chose a
vegetarian diet over low meat.
One of my reasons for a low meat diet is I'm painfully aware of how
many of the costs of the American beef industry are externalized
rather than internalized. Same applies to (American) plant
agriculture, but (I believe without proof) to a much lesser extent.
Also I'm moderately overfat (I hate the term overweight). It's taken
me four years to cut my excess fat down to ~10 or ~15 pounds. (I'm
not sure of the exact amount for several reasons -- the US Army (and
National Guard) 'tape' test is notoriously inaccurate, and even when I
was my heaviest, I'd sink in swimming pools due to hefty bones.)
(The disgusting part is it took only three months to put the 30+
pounds on. I wrecked my knees in the US Army too bad to run. It took
three months to adjust my eating habits and metabolism to the fact I
was no longer jogging five days a week.)
(Aside: More on hating the term overweight vs. overfat: I gained 25
pounds of muscle (!) in Basic Training, thereby putting me over the
US Army weight limit, so that every single fitness test, I had to
waste time getting 'taped'. I actually had one commander that
instituted a program of extra exercise for everyone who was
'overweight' without regard to whether or not they passed the tape
test. Fortunately I transferred out of that unit two weeks later.)
(Aside: Tape test: The US Army (and National Guard) uses a tape
measure to measure the neck and waist circumference of 'overweight'
soldiers, in the belief this tells something useful about body fat
percentage. Yeah right. That's why my measurements varied so much
from test to test even though my weight and physical conditioning
didn't.)
Another email:
On Tue, 14 May 2002, spike66 wrote:
> The train didn't go thru until the following year. That is why
> they chose to sim 1883.
>
> With 1883 technology but modern wisdom, I think we could
> come up with a plan that would allow us to survive a Montana
> winter. It would involve loading the wagon with dried food,
> enough to sustain the families while they built a house and cut
> enough wood. The sim as they played it was too much of a
> mixed metaphor. Still I enjoyed the series. spike
Oh yes. At the very least, modern people can do more research on
conditions than authentic settlers could. Cold winters? Pile lost of
dirt on the outside of your log cabin in the fall, lots of thatch on
the roof. In areas without much sod, how many authentic settlers did
this?
Dried food vs. canned: Oh yes. The only reason reason to use
'canned' (actually glass jars in that time) food is if you have way
more transportation capacity than you really need, or if you're not
going anywhere.
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