Egg solution

[tickyul]

I ocassionaly take 3 eggs and crack them into a glass and drink them Rocky Style........have never gotten sick.

I have read that 60-70% of the Salmonella originating from eggs is on the shell. So if you are a scaredy cat about getting this bug from raw eggs, just wash the shells really good............erm.......or cook the darn things.

[Badger]

Originally Posted by stepka

Mmm, I don't buy the theory that our bodies are built for eating fruit. I went on a kick of reading about cavemen this summer and the main item in a primitive diet was meat with a small amount of fruit, nuts, and veggies to round it out. There was very little carbs in the caveman diet and fruits had little sugar, unlike the stuff we get today. Think wild blackberries w/o sugar. Honey was a once in a great while treat. Don't think of juicy pears dripping juice down your chin--they didn't have 'em.

I think the reason why we have so many health problems today is b/c for over 95% of our history we had to go catch something if we wanted to eat. Of course, by 30, you had the body of a bullrider in the rodeo who's been on the circuit for 15 years--if you were lucky enough to live that long. But my point is, we didn't evolve to eat this much sugar and even those who try to completely avoid eating desserts and candy bars and soda still get too much. One ear of corn on the cob has probably the same amount of sugar that a caveman ate for a week. Maybe even a month, since I'm not measuring here.

I'm not saying you shouldn't eat fruit, but in moderation like everything else. And real eggs please--if you can get them at a farm where the hens know what dirt is, so much the better.

there's a huge difference b/t factory farmed animals with all their fat, cholesterol, additives, growth hormones, antibiotics and true wild, caveman like animal flesh.

reindeer/caribou in the arctic for instance avg. b/t 6-11% fat year round, differs only b/c of seasonal vegetarian food
available to them. This is a far cry from factory farmed animals.

Originally Posted by Mercury Cougar

Gorillas' digestive tracts also manufacture essential amino acids and other vital nutrients...unlike human beings who can only get certain amino acids from animal proteins. So to say that a human being can get everything they need from a "gorilla diet" is frankly misleading.

let's talk biology!

we don't have canine teeth, at least not like a tiger or lion do. Because one pair of teeth superficially resembles the shape of true canine teeth doesn't make us carnivores. Our teeth are almost exclusively uniformly blunt and dull, b/c 2% of our teeth have a somewhat pointed look to them doesn't qualify for meat eating.


and what about intestine length? all true carnivores have very short intestine length so as to eliminate animal flesh quickly due to the rotting process. Ours are not. We have different bacteria in our intestines and they are designed for foods that give up nutrients slowly.

if you further would like to talk biology then why don't we have retractable claws like many carnivores?

carnivores jaws move up and down to rip large chunks of flesh to gulp down but not for chewing, vegetarian animals all have jaws that allow for slight lateral movement , thus facilitating the chewing process. We have such a jaw. And our saliva contains the ferment ptyalin which aids in pre-digestion, carnivores lack this.

Mammalian carnivores don't sweat thru their skin but pant, vegetarian animals all sweat. Do you sweat?

Carnivores lap water with their tongues, vegetarian animals suck up water with their lips pursed.

Hydrochloric acid - carnivores secrete 10x's as much as we do, this helps to break down bones in the digestive tract.

Kidneys - carnivores kidneys can convert uric acid into allantoin , humans and apes cannot. Uric acid is a poison to us, it leads to gout, arthritis, rheumatism and fibrositis.

if it's so natural to eat meat why cook it to disguise it? why not just eat things raw?

at best you could say, looking at our biology, that we are in between the grass and meat eaters, pretty much like all the great apes and monkeys, in between but certainly not designed to eat copious amounts of meat, certainly not like we've been programmed to by corporate media.

the strongest animals on the planet are all herbavors. Elephants, Oxen, the like. Gorillas and moneys are 99% similar to us but many times stronger.

protein is not built in the body from eating protein but from the amino acids in food. Even if you eat animal protein it first must be broken down into amino acids. The real measure of a food should be it's AA composition, not it's protein component.

Plants synthesize amino acids from air, earth, water, but animals, including us, need plant protein -- either directly by eating plants, or by eating an animal that's eaten a plant. There are no "essential" amino acids in flesh that the animal did not derive from plants, and that humans cannot also derive from plants. This is why the elephant has all the muscle it needs, it builds it from the amino acids they get from plants.

this is why carnivores generally don't eat other carnivores.

throw in the fact that protein may be the single most overrated part of any Americans diet, in terms of quantity needed, where it can come from, harmful effects of too much (gout, uric acid build up, kidney problems) and you could at best argue for small infrequent servings (a serving of mean is what fits into the palm or your hand or the size of a deck of cards) of meat.

[AnonChick]

Except, Badger, we're not carnivores. No one here on this forum has claimed or implied that humans are carnivores. We are OMNIvores. That means, our bodies are able to accommodate a *variety* of food sources, including meat and plant matter. That doesn't mean that people who eat only meat are going to be healthy; it is more efficient, nutritionally, for us to mix it up a bit and get our food from more than one source. It also doesn't mean that people who eat only fruits are always going to be healthy; it is more efficient, nutritionally, for us to mix it up a bit and get our food from more than one source.

That is why humans get their foods from more than one source; because it is more efficient, nutritionally, to do so.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by Badger

there's a huge difference b/t factory farmed animals with all their fat, cholesterol, additives, growth hormones, antibiotics and true wild, caveman like animal flesh.

reindeer/caribou in the arctic for instance avg. b/t 6-11% fat year round, differs only b/c of seasonal vegetarian food
available to them. This is a far cry from factory farmed animals.

That's mostly true. Most off-the-shelf meat is nutritionally inferior to wild caught game meats, however, grass fed beef and bison are far more similar to wild caught game than to feedlot beef. If you buy grass-fed (or just eat what you can hunt) you are getting pretty close to the stuff our predecessors got.

Originally Posted by Badger

let's talk biology!

we don't have canine teeth, at least not like a tiger or lion do. Because one pair of teeth superficially resembles the shape of true canine teeth doesn't make us carnivores. Our teeth are almost exclusively uniformly blunt and dull, b/c 2% of our teeth have a somewhat pointed look to them doesn't qualify for meat eating.

and what about intestine length? all true carnivores have very short intestine length so as to eliminate animal flesh quickly due to the rotting process. Ours are not. We have different bacteria in our intestines and they are designed for foods that give up nutrients slowly.

if you further would like to talk biology then why don't we have retractable claws like many carnivores?

carnivores jaws move up and down to rip large chunks of flesh to gulp down but not for chewing, vegetarian animals all have jaws that allow for slight lateral movement , thus facilitating the chewing process. We have such a jaw. And our saliva contains the ferment ptyalin which aids in pre-digestion, carnivores lack this.

Mammalian carnivores don't sweat thru their skin but pant, vegetarian animals all sweat. Do you sweat?

I have some issues with the above. Dental morphology is a pretty weak argument for human diet either way. We don't have natural killing weapons (apart from the brain, that is) but nor do we have enamel optimised for a lifetime of grinding cellulosic material. What we have is a set of generalist teeth. It's the swiss army knife between a Ka-Bar and a mortar & pestle.

Our intestines are consistent with other omnivores and, when contrasted against those of other primates, you can see that we have undergone considerable adaptation towards a diet laden with animal protein. Part of the reason that we've been so successful as a species is that we can eat almost anything.

Retractable claws - we also lack chambered stomachs or sacculated caecums for maximum extraction from poor quality foods.

Our jaws are optimised for speech, not grindage. (Pauly Shore allusion) Looking at the components of our saliva is interesting. We have enzymes that act on starches and sugars, so we're supposed to be eating tubers and fruits, but we also have taste receptors for glutamates - which is why meats, poultry, eggs and dairy taste good; it's hardwired.

Sweating: That's kinda' patently false. I'm not aware of any canids or felids that sweat for evaporative cooling (dogs and cats do have sweat glands over limited portions of their bodies, but I think that this is more for olfactory marking) but nor am I aware of any of the ruminatae that sweat for evaporative cooling. Offhand, the only other animals I can think of that sweat to cool the body are horses and other primates.

Originally Posted by Badger

Carnivores lap water with their tongues, vegetarian animals suck up water with their lips pursed.

What about animals that cup water with their hands naturally or fashion tools for the purpose?

Originally Posted by Badger

Hydrochloric acid - carnivores secrete 10x's as much as we do, this helps to break down bones in the digestive tract.

Kidneys - carnivores kidneys can convert uric acid into allantoin , humans and apes cannot. Uric acid is a poison to us, it leads to gout, arthritis, rheumatism and fibrositis.

if it's so natural to eat meat why cook it to disguise it? why not just eat things raw?

at best you could say, looking at our biology, that we are in between the grass and meat eaters, pretty much like all the great apes and monkeys, in between but certainly not designed to eat copious amounts of meat, certainly not like we've been programmed to by corporate media.

I agree that we're not meant to eat bone, but I think that the inflammatory response to meat in the diet is essentially moot in individuals that take good care of themselves. I've never met a fit individual who consumed alcohol and salt in healthy moderation that suffered from gout. I think gout is really a marker for a diet of excess rather than a diet including meat.

I would have no problem whatsoever eating raw meat so long as I could personally account for how long the animal has been dead and how clean the butchery and handling was. As a species, we haven't had any selection pressure for the individuals with the most robust immune systems for a very long time, we're not as tough as we used to be and roadkill isn't safe anymore. Also, barbecues predate modern humans; the combination of meat, fire and bad b.s. has been around far longer than anyone who would be recognizeable as a modern human. In that sense, cooking is natural for us.

I agree that we fall somewhere between grazing animals and obligate carnivores, but we are able to study the diets and lifestyle of contemporary humans that essentially live in a way that preserves our prehistoric heritage. Humans that still live "wild" typically consume about 80% of their calories from animal protein and I'm pretty sure that McDonalds hasn't programmed them.

Originally Posted by Badger

the strongest animals on the planet are all herbavors. Elephants, Oxen, the like. Gorillas and moneys are 99% similar to us but many times stronger.

If you lived with elephants, oxen or gorillas and tried to go where they go and eat what they eat, you would starve. We don't have adaptations for a nutrient poor diet and it would virtually (or actually) be impossible to eat the volumes of grass necessary for you to stay alive. We need concentrated carbs from fruits, tubers and dense succulents. I realize that a raw vegan diet is perfectly sustainable for many or most individuals with a whole foods / central market / trader joes nearby, but wild humans would have a very, very limited geographic range if they had to find enough nutritious vegetable matter every day to support themselves and the maximum number of people that could be supported would be extremely small.

Originally Posted by Badger

protein is not built in the body from eating protein but from the amino acids in food. Even if you eat animal protein it first must be broken down into amino acids. The real measure of a food should be it's AA composition, not it's protein component.

Plants synthesize amino acids from air, earth, water, but animals, including us, need plant protein -- either directly by eating plants, or by eating an animal that's eaten a plant. There are no "essential" amino acids in flesh that the animal did not derive from plants, and that humans cannot also derive from plants. This is why the elephant has all the muscle it needs, it builds it from the amino acids they get from plants.

this is why carnivores generally don't eat other carnivores.

throw in the fact that protein may be the single most overrated part of any Americans diet, in terms of quantity needed, where it can come from, harmful effects of too much (gout, uric acid build up, kidney problems) and you could at best argue for small infrequent servings (a serving of mean is what fits into the palm or your hand or the size of a deck of cards) of meat.

While a diversified vegan diet (diversified meaning you aren't just eating potatoes with black pepper) that is calorie sufficient will certainly provide everything that you need, you do not need vegetable matter in your diet either. A diversified 100% carnivorous diet (diversified meaning that you aren't just eating pork belly) that is calorie sufficient also provides everything that you need. The Ainu have a longterm feasibility study on this. To me, the fact that both extremes work just fine tells me that the middle is also just fine.