From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Mon May 13 2002 - 09:37:43 MDT
>From: Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com>
>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.
I think you misunderstood me.
Actually most societies were largely omnivores, they ate mostly
vegetables and grains because meat was hard to come by. Native
Americans and Aleut/Inuit lived primarily on meat. Vegetarianism is
a fairly modern phenomenon and an urban one at that. Leonardo Da
Vinci converted to vegetarianism but not veganism, but he was an
urban dweller, he wasn't pioneering in Montana.
One of the first things a good pioneer family did was to plant a
good garden, but you need something to survive on till it grows,
and wild edible sources are rarer than you might think, especially
in Montana. Plus the extremely hard lifestyle would be difficult to
maintain on a strictly vegetarian lifestyle, we're talking in
excess of 5000 cal a day in many cases. In a survival situation you
can starve to death eating all the fish you can catch.
The no hunting clause put these people at a potentially fatal
disadvantage.
That's all I meant, no disrespect intended.
Brian
Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
SBC/Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W
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