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Plains Indians lived on little else than buffalo and other game, and lived longer than the Southwest Indians who got most of their calories from corn (according to an anthropologist I conversed with, who nonetheless loved his corn).
No they didn't, plains Indians consumed a number of plants. There are no human societies living in terrestrial environments that subsist on a diet of mostly meat, its biologically impossible. Terrestrial animals are lean, especially in the winter, and there is a hard limit to how much protein the human body can metabolize.
The only societies that consume a diet high in meat are those consuming marine life, marine life is very high in fat so they avoid the protein issue. But even here, they have problems with the animals become lean. These societies also consume the whole animal, organs and all, that is the only way to get critical vitamins from an animal. Just eating the meat doesn't cut it.....
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Originally Posted by user_id
No they didn't, plains Indians consumed a number of plants. There are no human societies living in terrestrial environments that subsist on a diet of mostly meat, its biologically impossible......
If you've ever looked at the plains where they lived, you wouldn't see much of anything edible except sage, especially not over the long winters. Also inland natives such as in Alaska have never had any access to marine foods except what little might be had through trade. Even now many of the subsistence level Alaskans (aborigines AND whites) depend mainly on meat, and somewhat on freshwater fish. There's only a short berry season to add a small amount of plant food during summers.
The Masai of Africa also lived mostly on blood and meat.
No, it's not at all impossible to live on meat. The only exception to that is when the meat animals are so extremely lean (such as hares and birds only) that the small amount of absolutely required fatty acids aren't available.
If you've ever looked at the plains where they lived, you wouldn't see much of anything edible except sage, especially not over the long winters.
You mean today? After Americans have cleared vegetation for crops and cattle? Plain Indians grew a number of crops and gathered fruits and vegetables. Drying foods for the winter was common throughout the Americas.... Your claims about the plains Indians aren't accurate, sure they hunted but they also consumed numerous plant foods.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woof
The Masai of Africa also lived mostly on blood and meat.
The Masai herd cattle and consume their blood, milk and meat and its the fatty/sugary milk they drink along with some plant-foods that avoid the issues with too much protein.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woof
No, it's not at all impossible to live on meat.
Yes it is, the human body can only obtain around 1,000~1,200 of its daily calories from protein, the rest has to come from fat or carbohydrates. Terrestrial animals are too lean to supply the rest of the calories in fat, especially for an active society. The only cultures on the plant that has had a diet of mostly meat are those consuming fatty marine animals.....and it wasn't without health consequences.
No they didn't, plains Indians consumed a number of plants. There are no human societies living in terrestrial environments that subsist on a diet of mostly meat, its biologically impossible. Terrestrial animals are lean, especially in the winter, and there is a hard limit to how much protein the human body can metabolize.
The only societies that consume a diet high in meat are those consuming marine life, marine life is very high in fat so they avoid the protein issue. But even here, they have problems with the animals become lean. These societies also consume the whole animal, organs and all, that is the only way to get critical vitamins from an animal. Just eating the meat doesn't cut it.....
I think this is right b/c I've read numerous times that if you were to find yourself in a survival situation you would not be able to live off of rabbit, though they're easy enough to trap. The reason is that they're too high in protein and too low in fat--you must supplement with veggies or other animals with a higher fat content. Also, hunters in the wild will kill a large animal and split it open and eat the liver raw first--they crave it and it's a treat. They also love the brains since that's where the fat is. Most traditional societies leave the muscle meats for last and tend to cook those into a nourishing meat broth with bones, which has the fatty and nutritious marrow.
I guess the lesson in all of this is that if you're going to restrict your diet that much then you need to learn as much about it as you can and make sure that you're as anxious as a vegan to get your proper nutrition and don't just listen to folks who tell you what you want to hear.
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I'd like to repeat that I'm not promoting a heavy meat diet, I'm just saying that it doesn't make all that much difference about what you eat (except for some highly processed foods), and that it's possible to live on such a diet and even be quite healthy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by user_id
You mean today? After Americans have cleared vegetation for crops and cattle? Plain Indians grew a number of crops and gathered fruits and vegetables. Drying foods for the winter was common throughout the Americas.... Your claims about the plains Indians aren't accurate, sure they hunted but they also consumed numerous plant foods.
The Masai herd cattle and consume their blood, milk and meat and its the fatty/sugary milk they drink along with some plant-foods that avoid the issues with too much protein.
Yes it is, the human body can only obtain around 1,000~1,200 of its daily calories from protein, the rest has to come from fat or carbohydrates. Terrestrial animals are too lean to supply the rest of the calories in fat, especially for an active society. The only cultures on the plant that has had a diet of mostly meat are those consuming fatty marine animals.....and it wasn't without health consequences.
The plains were always plain, read any historical account from before settler times. No, they didn't have extensive gardens like the East Coast Indians. Most of their diet was buffalo meat, fresh or dried.
Whether the Masai drink milk isn't the issue, which is that they're healthy on a mostly animal food diet.
Your comments are summed up by your statement that only 1000-1200 calories can come from protein ....... that's simply wrong, and I haven't even touched on all the evidence that it's wrong. In addition to numerous high protein consuming aboriginal tribes, there are quite a few individuals on sites such as the one I linked to above, who have testimonials about good health after being on such diets for a long time, often including hard data from medical tests. Even before the internet, a few people had been following Stefansson's diet, which included a formal medical experiment of him and other volunteers being watched closely for a year while consuming nothing but meat, with no harmful effects.
On the other hand, I've known some vegetarians who lived long healthy lives. Even in my own family, one vegetarian brother is still very healthy in his mid sixties, while another vegetarian brother died of a massive heart attack in his fifties, after having been on a "healthy" partly organic diet of largely unprocessed foods.
In my opinion, diet simply is not that important a factor in health. People resist that idea because diet is one of the few health factors that can be changed, and they want to have some control over their well-being.
The plains were always plain, read any historical account from before settler times. No, they didn't have extensive gardens like the East Coast Indians.
Please do read historical accounts, you'll find that the plains Indians consumed a number of plant foods. Looking at the plains today doesn't tell you about what sort of life they supported 100+ years ago, things have changed. Indeed, the "Dust bowl" was caused by excessive plowing of these regions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woof
Whether the Masai drink milk isn't the issue, which is that they're healthy on a mostly animal food diet.
Of course it is, milk isn't meat.... We were talking about about societies consuming meat. As for there general health, they aren't necessarily "healthy" the reason people bring them up is that they have low rates of cardiovascular disease despite a high fat diet. Why people take these isolated cases and make wild general conclusions from them about human diet is beyond me, the question should be why? Why do they have low cardiovascular disease when numerous studies link high fat diets to it? Well, they routinely consume a plant that have saponins in them which is known to lower cholesterol. They have extremely active lifestyles. Real scientists try to find answers, authors pushing low-carbohydrate diets use them to support their agenda.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woof
Your comments are summed up by your statement that only 1000-1200 calories can come from protein ....... that's simply wrong
Actually, its simply true and you can find this in any book on human biology. Protein cannot be used in the body as energy nor can be it be directly stored, instead excess protein (protein not used to rebuild tissue, etc) has to be converted into usable energy (e.g., glucose) before it can be used by the body. This is done in the liver, but there is a limit to how much the liver can process on a daily basis....it amounts to around 250~300 grams of protein: 1000~1200 calories worth. If you eat more protein than that it can't be used to fuel the body, but even at 200+ grams it produces many undesirable side-effects. For example, it leeches the body of calcium. Interestingly, the Inuit have a very high calcium diet to offset this fact, they consume fish bones and eat around 2,000 mg of calcium a day. Still, the Inuit have high rates of Osteoporosis.
The body was not "designed" to consume a high protein diet on a continued basis and only a very few select cultures around the world have figured out how to make it work and even there, it isn't without consequence. For example, if the Inuit didn't routinely consume fish bones their spines, etc would collapse at relatively young ages. If an America tries a similarly high protein diet without the corresponding protective dietary factor, they are looking at developing Osteoporosis at a young age. Additionally, without consuming raw organ meats they will develop vitamin deficiencies.
Looking to these fringe societies for dietary information is dangerous, in all cases there is a reasonable explanation for their supposedly paradoxical diet and its found in other foods they consume that end up being protective. Consuming similar diets, without the protective factors, will end to poor health.
As for vegetarians, a vegetarian diet is not necessarily a healthy diet. There are plenty of unhealthy foods that aren't meat-based. Anybody that adopts a vegetarian diet and thinks its automatically going to be healthy, because it lacks meat, is fooling themselves.
And sure, diet isn't an important factor, that would explain why 2/3 of America is now overweight and the rates of diabetes, etc are growing rapidly. Its genetic, some how our genes are rapidly changing.....
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User ID, I've read plenty of historical texts AND nutrition texts. First of all, if you mean "high fat diet", you shouldn't confuse that with "high meat diet". Even in supermarkets there are plenty of lowfat meats such as chicken or turkey breast. Secondly, protein IS metabolized for calories - any excess amount over the protein needed for metabolic processes is changed into glucose and ATP, just as carbs and fats are, and either used for immediate energy or stored as fat. That's basic biology/physiology which you should have gotten in high school. As I recall, protein has 7 calories per gram, while carbs have 5? and fats have 9(?). Something like that.
The reason why Americans are so obese is indeed something of a mystery, but yes in that sense diet is important. I think processed foods have something to do with that, in addition to labor-saving devices and the ubiquitous use of cars instead of walking. Processed foods contain appetite stimulants and taste enhancers such as salt, sugar, and the many different forms of MSG (which can legally have many names, even "natural spices"!)
I keep thinking of my extended family, who in Switzerland on a traditional but natural high-fat diet stayed lean, while the members who moved to the US got fat - all except for two who kept a natural diet. Something changed to make them gain weight, and it wasn't the amount of fat.
First of all, if you mean "high fat diet", you shouldn't confuse that with "high meat diet".
I'm not confusing them you are. You brought up the Masai as an example of a terrestrial culture with a high meat diet, but they are no such thing. They are a culture with a high-fat animal based diet. They have a high fat diet due to the daily consumption of milk, also, they are consuming a domestic animal which are higher in fat than wild animals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woof
Secondly, protein IS metabolized for calories - any excess amount over the protein needed for metabolic processes is changed into glucose and ATP, just as carbs and fats are, and either used for immediate energy or stored as fat. That's basic biology/physiology which you should have gotten in high school. As I recall, protein has 7 calories per gram, while carbs have 5? and fats have 9(?).
That isn't basic biology, its just wrong. You appear to be ignoring the nuance, protein can't be directly used for energy in the body, instead it has to be first converted into glucose and then the glucose can be used. But there is a limit to how much the body can convert and that limit is around 250~300 grams a day.
Your numbers aren't right, protein and carbohydrates have 4 calories while fat as 9. Protein has the same caloric value as carbohydrates for precisely the reason above, its converted into glucose...the very thing contained in complex carbohydrates. This also points to an irony of low-carbohydrate diets, protein is actually converted into carbohydrates.....the very thing you're suppose to limit
The body runs most efficiently on glucose from carbohydrates and secondly from protein, the body can run (with the exception of parts of the brain) on fat but this is a secondary mechanism that allows for the burning of body fat for energy during periods of food deprivation.
There is no mystery in Americans obesity problems, its due to the combination of a diet high in refined carbohydrates, sugars and fat.
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The Masai have little heart disease, and most of their food (the men anyway) is from meat. It's as simple as that. A diet of mostly meat can be healthy.
Quote:
That isn't basic biology, its just wrong. You appear to be ignoring the nuance, protein can't be directly used for energy in the body, instead it has to be first converted into glucose and then the glucose can be used. But there is a limit to how much the body can convert and that limit is around 250~300 grams a day.
That's just what I'm saying (except for the last sentence). Whatever you eat, it has to be turned into glucose then ATP before it can be used for energy, so it doesn't matter much whether you eat proteins or carbs. As for the limit, I'd need to see a good source for that, especially seeing as how there are so many tribes and individuals that subsist on a high protein diet, and some of them are quite low in both carbs and fats.
But if it's true, then an almost-exclusive meat diet would be perfect for dieters, they could eat turkey breast or london broil steak to their heart's content and still lose weight.
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