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Author Topic:   Raw Food Diet
Max Power
Member (Idle past 6007 days)
Posts: 32
From: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Joined: 06-03-2005


Message 1 of 93 (424232)
09-26-2007 10:33 AM


A friend of mine has been on the raw organic food diet and I was wondering what you all thought about it. He has significantly decreased in size and everyone I know is worried about how thin he is. This diet consists of only raw organic fruits, vegetables and nuts. He considers food that has been (take a deep breath) blanched, irradiated, steamed, boiled, fried, cooked, baked, microwaved, enriched, fortified, altered with preservatives, additives, food colorings, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, genetic manipulation, tilled in chemical laden, mono-cropped, effete soil and transported across the country, continent, or planet dead or dieing food and thus does not eat any of it.
Also, this individual has been known to suffer from depression and his main motivation in life is to not be depressed. He doesn't have health insurance and doesn't like the idea of being dependent on drugs so will not take any antidepressants.
Here is his rationale:
1. Humans have been evolutionarily selected for to eat these types of food. More precisely human ancestors were selected for to eat these types of foods. This time period is much longer than the time we have been eating cooked and other "dead" foods.
2. Raw organic foods contain more nutrients and caloric density and therefore will give you more energy. This of course is offset by the extreme expense of organic food combined with the fact that he doesn't make a lot of money.
3. He explains that food enzymes which help you digest are killed when you heat food and therefore it costs you more energy to digest cooked food. (I haven't been able to get much scientific information about this other than that it occurs, according to raw food websites)
4. He cites experiments about mice with significant caloric depletion in their diet that live longer.
5. He distrusts the FDA (worried that the food and drug responsibilities are controlled by the same people) and big businesses in the food market. He likens the big food companies to big tobacco and anti-global warming with massive misinformation campaigns.
6. He also believes pretty firmly in the conscious living life style. He hates the big factory farms and all of the extra energy used in transporting goods etc.
Ultimately, what do you think about the raw organic food diet? Can it be done successfully, do you think it will help with depression (or hurt for that matter)? This individual responds to scientific data but unfortunately I haven't been able to find too much, apparently this diet is still in its infancy.
Edited by Max Power, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by crashfrog, posted 09-26-2007 11:04 AM Max Power has replied
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 Message 4 by Dr Jack, posted 09-26-2007 11:29 AM Max Power has not replied
 Message 5 by Jazzns, posted 09-26-2007 11:48 AM Max Power has not replied
 Message 6 by Modulous, posted 09-26-2007 12:16 PM Max Power has not replied
 Message 11 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 5:24 PM Max Power has not replied
 Message 16 by nator, posted 09-26-2007 6:17 PM Max Power has not replied
 Message 18 by molbiogirl, posted 09-26-2007 7:24 PM Max Power has not replied
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 2 of 93 (424245)
09-26-2007 11:04 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Max Power
09-26-2007 10:33 AM


Humans have been evolutionarily selected for to eat these types of food.
We can prove this wrong simply by observing the changes in our teeth. We're abundantly evolved, at this point, to cook and prepare our food.
This time period is much longer than the time we have been eating cooked and other "dead" foods.
This is irrelevant.
Raw organic foods contain more nutrients and caloric density and therefore will give you more energy.
This is false. There's no difference in nutrients or calories between organic and "regular" produce. Indeed, organic produce is often deficient in nutrients as a result of the poorer, non-fertilized soil its grown in and the plant stress that comes as a result of greater pest activity on non-pesticide treated crops.
He explains that food enzymes which help you digest are killed when you heat food and therefore it costs you more energy to digest cooked food.
This doesn't make any sense. For the first part, it's unlikely that an organism would help you eat it by producing enzymes that would break itself down for you. For the second part - enzymes are catalysts, which means that when they help promote chemical reactions (like the ones that break down food) they are not themselves consumed in the process. You have your own enzymes for digestion.
And even if the claim was true - isn't that a good thing? If you're using more energy to digest your food, isn't that reducing the net calorie gain you get from the same amount of food? And wouldn't that help you fight obesity?
He cites experiments about mice with significant caloric depletion in their diet that live longer.
Life expectancies for actual human beings that live under starvation and malnutrition conditions are less than one-half as long as humans who live in Western countries. Across the world, the largest causes of death are almost all vitamin deficiencies.
Starvation is not healthy for you, regardless of what is true in mice. We are not mice.
He distrusts the FDA (worried that the food and drug responsibilities are controlled by the same people) and big businesses in the food market.
It's actually the USDA that monitors produce and meat production, and they're the ones that certify farms as "organic" or not. So unless he grows it all himself, he can't escape government involvement in the food he eats.
He also believes pretty firmly in the conscious living life style. He hates the big factory farms and all of the extra energy used in transporting goods etc.
Well, I can't argue with that. We do use a lot of fossil fuels getting those Guatemalan strawberries up here in January. On the other hand, not all of us can afford to eat local.
Ultimately, what do you think about the raw organic food diet?
There's actually a large number of nutrients in some foods, like corn, that can't be accessed except by cooking. And it's unsafe to eat raw meats or shellfish.
"Organic" has never been shown to have any positive benefits that hold up to scrutiny. The popular conception that "organic" means "no pesticides" is fundamentally false. There are a number of spray pesticides that organic farmers are allowed to use (like Bt toxins or actual Bt microbes), and many organic farmers are forced to use crop cultivars that express natural pesticides to deal with insects. (Indeed most synthetic pesticides are based on compounds that were originally discovered in plants.)
Natural pesticides are often no less toxic for being "natural." Eating organic produce can result in the ingestion of more pesticides, simply because the plant is expressing these toxins throughout its structure and fruit, whereas the spray pesticides of conventional agriculture, which are applied under rigorous safety protocols only after their mammalian toxicity has been established, can simply be washed from the surface of the produce.
I'd rather wash it off than eat it. My wife is pursuing her PhD in agricultural entomology, and the universal consensus among a wide variety of professionals - from plant breeders to Integrated Pest Management experts to limnologists and water experts - is that organic foods are strictly a high-priced placebo.
Can it be done successfully, do you think it will help with depression (or hurt for that matter)?
Nothing in the diet will help, as far as I know. If managing his diet gives him something to think about besides himself and his depression, that could help. It could be a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy. He needs, though, to be under the care of a mental health professional if he's really grappling with depression. There's no excuse for going it alone, and it's dangerous.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Max Power, posted 09-26-2007 10:33 AM Max Power has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by Max Power, posted 09-26-2007 1:25 PM crashfrog has replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 93 (424246)
09-26-2007 11:06 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Max Power
09-26-2007 10:33 AM


Hi, Max.
I'll let others handle the exact nutritional benefits or nonbenefits of raw food. Right now I'll just reply to one point:
Humans have been evolutionarily selected for to eat these types of food. More precisely human ancestors were selected for to eat these types of foods. This time period is much longer than the time we have been eating cooked and other "dead" foods.
The evolutionary history of our species may give us some insight in regards to optimum diet, but it isn't going to give us any definite rules. What is important is what selective forces have acted in the most recent past, and whether it has been sufficient to change the earlier diet. Evolution can be pretty quick.
Although examining our closest relatives (and chimpanzees, by the way, do include meat in their diet when they get a chance) will give some insight, the only way to determine the optimum diet for humans will be to do research on actual living humans, by finding correlations between health indicators and diet.
In the end, evolution cannot tell us what the best diet for humans is; at most, it can tell us why a particular diet is optimum once we figure out what it is.

In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Max Power, posted 09-26-2007 10:33 AM Max Power has not replied

  
Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 4 of 93 (424255)
09-26-2007 11:29 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Max Power
09-26-2007 10:33 AM


It is possible to get all the nutrition you need as a adult from fruits, vegetables, pulses, lentils and nuts, providing you eat the correct varieties of it. Assuming he's doing this, he'll do himself no harm and be consuming less fat, less simple sugars, and more fibre which will probably benefit him in the long run.
As for his reasons? They are all gibberish.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Max Power, posted 09-26-2007 10:33 AM Max Power has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 5 of 93 (424263)
09-26-2007 11:48 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Max Power
09-26-2007 10:33 AM


I am going to defer to The Science Channel on the specifics but I watched an episode all about food where they put some "high risk" people on a gorilla diet, basically all fruits and veggies, raw.
The first problem they encountered is that in order to get the adequate amount of calories, vitamins, and protein they had to basically eat constantly. The first few days on the diet they simply couldn't finish their daily allowance of food. Even when they got on track with the volume, they still lost weight and a number of health indicators had drastic swings away from high risk categories in a very short amount of time on the diet.
That being said, anyone who says that humans eating meat in not natural is simply retarded. For humans and a number of other primates, including our closest relatives, meat is an important part of our diet although it certainly does not need to be as rediculously prevalent as it is in modern culture where you basically have meat as part of every single meal.
My personal goal for nutrition (battling extreme mixed-hyper-lipidemia as my doctor calls it) is to only eat meat at night as part of a high fiber/protein diet during peak cholesterol production times (i.e. night time). It is quite amazing which simply cutting meat to 1 vs 3 times a day and adding a 10 fold increase in my intake of soluable fiber. I was able to cut my numbers by more than half which I was told was impossible by my doc.
That being said, I still have a ways to go to get out of the high risk range for diabetes. Basically my triglycerides are still extremely high so I am on a megadose of Niacin and have also had awesome results with that. I hate the flushing, but it works wonders for triglycerides.
Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Max Power, posted 09-26-2007 10:33 AM Max Power has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 6 of 93 (424271)
09-26-2007 12:16 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Max Power
09-26-2007 10:33 AM


Food for thought
Humans have been evolutionarily selected for to eat these types of food.
Crash raised a better point - but I'd like to raise an auxiliary one. Our ancestors could produce their own Vitamin C. Once our ancestors were able to secure for themselves a steady supply of Vitamin C elsewhere (ie diet), then the gene was no longer needed. There was no selective pressure for the gene to function and the broken gene fixated in the population (indeed - using the body's resources to manufacturer Vitamin C might have been slightly more costly than just eating fruit - who knows?).
Similar events might mean that the diet that worked for our ancestors may not work for us today. We may no longer have the same biochemistry as our ancestors and may need to supplement what our body can do with a different diet. Note also that life expectancy has increased considerably recently, partly due to diet I'd wager. If that is the case, then old diets aren't necessarily the good ones. We're not sure how good our ancestors diets were for them - it might have been just good enough to get them to mating age and a little beyond.
He explains that food enzymes which help you digest are killed when you heat food and therefore it costs you more energy to digest cooked food. (I haven't been able to get much scientific information about this other than that it occurs, according to raw food websites)
I've found this:
quote:
Experimental results show cooked starch to be 2 to 12 times more digestible than raw starch. Kataria and Chauhan [1988] provide a direct comparison of starch digestibility in raw vs. cooked mung beans.
quote:
From Bradbury [1984], the protein digestibility of the aleurone layer and grain coat from raw rice was only 25%, but increased to 65% from cooked rice, due to the disruption of the cellulose cell walls at 100C (212F), which was shown by electron microscopy.
The Enzyme claim comes from Howell (Enzyme Nutrition), which is criticised at this website, where the above quotes also came from (go to next page to see the criticism of Howell's work). The first point made concerns Howell's reliance on old studies, but it goes on to show more specific criticisms.
If your friend in scientifically interested in the diet he has chosen, send him over there and let him judge the counter argument for himself.
5. He distrusts the FDA (worried that the food and drug responsibilities are controlled by the same people) and big businesses in the food market. He likens the big food companies to big tobacco and anti-global warming with massive misinformation campaigns.
And his concerns may have merit. However - that doesn't excuse indulging in a theory that is not endorsed by the FDA. Perhaps he can look to less capitalist countries and see what their advisory boards suggest, or find some truly independent investigators and see what they have to say - not independent in the sense of a maverick, independent and run by a group rather than an individual (so that there is in-house corrections before they become entrenched dogma - we all make mistakes).
6. He also believes pretty firmly in the conscious living life style. He hates the big factory farms and all of the extra energy used in transporting goods etc.
That's good - and eating organically or better yet - fair trade foods, is fine. However, he should not neglect the possibility that he'll have to choose between potentially denying his body the diet it requires to function well and his hitting his conscience from time to time in the interests of health.
His choice, ultimately. It might be worth noting that it wouldn't look good for his cause if people that eat organic and fair trade foods end up getting sick more than those that don't (because some of them also don't eat cooked foods or any 'inorganic' foods at all). It would be a fallacy to conclude that organic food is therefore bad - but if he believes the Big Farm Man will fight back with dirty tricks, that is surely one they will use - and probably successfully unfortunately.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Max Power, posted 09-26-2007 10:33 AM Max Power has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 5:11 PM Modulous has replied
 Message 20 by Dr Jack, posted 09-27-2007 5:20 AM Modulous has replied

  
Max Power
Member (Idle past 6007 days)
Posts: 32
From: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Joined: 06-03-2005


Message 7 of 93 (424297)
09-26-2007 1:25 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by crashfrog
09-26-2007 11:04 AM


I agree and I think I've convinced him that the evolution argument is weak at best so I'll keep that out of the discussion for now.
This doesn't make any sense. For the first part, it's unlikely that an organism would help you eat it by producing enzymes that would break itself down for you.
But it could have first produced the enzyme, then we evolved a way to utilize that enzyme to break it down. I know its flimsy but thats what he'll say.
For the second part - enzymes are catalysts, which means that when they help promote chemical reactions (like the ones that break down food) they are not themselves consumed in the process. You have your own enzymes for digestion.
And even if the claim was true - isn't that a good thing? If you're using more energy to digest your food, isn't that reducing the net calorie gain you get from the same amount of food? And wouldn't that help you fight obesity?
Trust me, obesity isn't a problem for him. We are talking about maximizing as much energy as possible per food unit. This is because he doesn't get the energy from grains and meats and he is on a strict budget.
Life expectancies for actual human beings that live under starvation and malnutrition conditions are less than one-half as long as humans who live in Western countries. Across the world, the largest causes of death are almost all vitamin deficiencies.
Starvation is not healthy for you, regardless of what is true in mice. We are not mice.
But vitamin deficiency isn't what he's going for. He's actually going for getting a ton of vitamins (which he believes to be a major asset of organic foods) and minimizing calories. Do we have any examples or studies of groups getting all of the vitamins and nutrients etc but low caloric intake?
It's actually the USDA that monitors produce and meat production, and they're the ones that certify farms as "organic" or not. So unless he grows it all himself, he can't escape government involvement in the food he eats.
His distrust for the government is more important because he believes that the levels of pesticides and other chemicals put in our foods are set too high because there are incentives be it to keep people sick or just because lobbyists have pushed them too high.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by crashfrog, posted 09-26-2007 11:04 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by crashfrog, posted 09-26-2007 3:15 PM Max Power has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 8 of 93 (424328)
09-26-2007 3:15 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Max Power
09-26-2007 1:25 PM


But it could have first produced the enzyme, then we evolved a way to utilize that enzyme to break it down.
Food isn't that hard to break down, honestly. Your teeth do a great job of mechanical destruction and homogenization on their own. You don't need any "special" enzymes to do the job, the ones you have are fairly universal.
Chemically, the structure of living things depends on, in general, three kinds of polymers:
1) Proteins, which are broken down by the low pH of gastric juices and pepsins, which work on all proteins because they target the peptide bonds that connect amino acids.
2) Sugars. Starches are polymers of sugars, these are rendered into their base sugars by amylases (which can be found in your saliva.) Some sugars, like chitin and cellulose, are indigestible by humans.
3) Lipids, which form cell membranes in addition to being energy storage reserves in most organisms. These are digested by lipases produced by the pancreas.
Presuming a healthy adult, there's no need for special enzymes from your food to digest your food. Indeed, cooking food often unlocks the nutrients by breaking down some of the structures your body doesn't have the capacity to digest on its own or doesn't digest well, like collagen or cellulose.
It's not cooking food that makes you expend more energy in its consumption, increasing the amount of chewing you have to do.
We are talking about maximizing as much energy as possible per food unit.
Then he should be eating saturated fats from animals. Pound for pound they're a much more energetic food source than anything vegetable, which is why people have obesity problems in the first place; they're maximizing the energy of their food units.
He's actually going for getting a ton of vitamins (which he believes to be a major asset of organic foods) and minimizing calories.
He's wrong. There's no more, and often less, vitamins in organic produce than in conventional produce.
Do you notice how the purveyors of organic foods will tell you that their produce is "healthier", but they never say specifically how?
It's because there's no health benefit that they can legally claim. They're enjoined from making claims of specific health benefits by the government, because any specific claim that isn't supported by the science is false advertising. And the science supports no claim of greater nutrition, and often supports a conclusion of less nutrition because of greater crop stresses during the growing season.
His distrust for the government is more important because he believes that the levels of pesticides and other chemicals put in our foods are set too high because there are incentives be it to keep people sick or just because lobbyists have pushed them too high.
Ask him how his tinfoil hat fits these days. This is just a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by Max Power, posted 09-26-2007 1:25 PM Max Power has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 5:12 PM crashfrog has replied

  
Kitsune
Member (Idle past 4300 days)
Posts: 788
From: Leicester, UK
Joined: 09-16-2007


Message 9 of 93 (424358)
09-26-2007 5:11 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Modulous
09-26-2007 12:16 PM


Re: Food for thought
Our ancestors could produce their own Vitamin C. Once our ancestors were able to secure for themselves a steady supply of Vitamin C elsewhere (ie diet), then the gene was no longer needed. There was no selective pressure for the gene to function and the broken gene fixated in the population (indeed - using the body's resources to manufacturer Vitamin C might have been slightly more costly than just eating fruit - who knows?).
Is there actual evidence for this now?
Linus Pauling postulated this years back, though he may not have been the first. He observed bacteria cultures in the lab; one culture had the ability to produce a nutrient removed. When it was placed in a solution containing that nutirent, along with another non-altered culture, the altered culture thrived and the non-altered culture died out. Pauling said that it seems to be less energy-costly if an organism can obtain nutrients from its environment. I think this was a big influence on his work with vitamic C megadosing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Modulous, posted 09-26-2007 12:16 PM Modulous has replied

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Kitsune
Member (Idle past 4300 days)
Posts: 788
From: Leicester, UK
Joined: 09-16-2007


Message 10 of 93 (424360)
09-26-2007 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by crashfrog
09-26-2007 3:15 PM


There's no more, and often less, vitamins in organic produce than in conventional produce.
Can I ask what your source is for this info?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by crashfrog, posted 09-26-2007 3:15 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by crashfrog, posted 09-26-2007 7:20 PM Kitsune has replied

  
Kitsune
Member (Idle past 4300 days)
Posts: 788
From: Leicester, UK
Joined: 09-16-2007


Message 11 of 93 (424362)
09-26-2007 5:24 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Max Power
09-26-2007 10:33 AM


Fruit, veg and nuts, good stuff.
He also needs to be getting protein. As others here have said, there's convincing evidence that we evolved as omnivores. Meat and/or fish have probably been an important part of the human diet for millennia. Maybe 2 million years or longer -- anyone here please correct me if I'm wrong.
It's also important to get enough of the healthy fats. Olive oil, coconut oil and butter are some of the best. Fish oil is good for omega-3. Here is an article with more details about fats: Know Your Fats Archives - The Weston A. Price Foundation You will notice that this site criticises the lipid hypothesis, which is responsible for the thinking that low fat = good.
I have been on something called the Paleolithic Diet for a year and a half and my body loves it. It's recommended for healing in all kinds of ways, including for depression. As its name suggests, it attempts to reproduce a version of the way our ancestors ate. Generally. Of course diet would have varied from place to place.
I have lots of veg, limited fruit, meat, nuts, and healthy fats. I don't eat grains of any kind, potatoes or legumes. Don't miss them. My carbs come from the veg, which I eat a significant amount of with every meal. I have a supplement regime too, which includes a variety of vitamins.
I wonder if you could try to help your friend stop obsessing a little? It sounds like he is being a tad perfectionistic here and I would hazard a guess that his regime is going to fail after a while. And he will probably get depressed again because of it. Having said that, though, it's quite easy to fulfill many of the criteria you listed simply by eating a wholefoods diet and buying local produce where possible.
Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by kuresu, posted 09-26-2007 5:36 PM Kitsune has replied
 Message 13 by Jazzns, posted 09-26-2007 5:50 PM Kitsune has replied

  
kuresu
Member (Idle past 2513 days)
Posts: 2544
From: boulder, colorado
Joined: 03-24-2006


Message 12 of 93 (424370)
09-26-2007 5:36 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Kitsune
09-26-2007 5:24 PM


there's convincing evidence that we evolved as omnivores
Well, duh. There's actually no doubt. We are omnivores.
I have lots of veg, limited fruit
I have a feeling that you have more fruit than you think, and less veggies than you realize. It's amazing the number of people who don't realize that a tomato is a fruit. Nuts are fruits.
Mostof what you would call a vegetable is actually a fruit. A rule of thumb--if it has a seed inside (this includes corn and all other grains) it's a fruit. The technical rule is anything that's a ripened ovary is a fruit.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 5:24 PM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by Chiroptera, posted 09-26-2007 6:15 PM kuresu has replied
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Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 13 of 93 (424373)
09-26-2007 5:50 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Kitsune
09-26-2007 5:24 PM


I am curious, why do you avoid legumes?
Also, why do you avoid potatoes?
I imagine that beans and various starchy tubers could have very likely been part of a "Paleolithic" diet.
Other than the potential for allergy, is there really any argument against beans being the perfect human food?
Do you also eliminate yams/sweet potatoes? Other than the unhealthy additions that most people pile on top of the various kinds of potatoes, they are quite healthy.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Kitsune, posted 09-26-2007 5:24 PM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by Kitsune, posted 09-27-2007 7:27 AM Jazzns has not replied

  
macaroniandcheese 
Suspended Member (Idle past 3928 days)
Posts: 4258
Joined: 05-24-2004


Message 14 of 93 (424375)
09-26-2007 5:58 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Kitsune
09-26-2007 5:11 PM


Re: Food for thought
he means photosynthetic bacteria.

This message is a reply to:
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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 15 of 93 (424377)
09-26-2007 6:15 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by kuresu
09-26-2007 5:36 PM


if it has a seed inside (this includes corn and all other grains) it's a fruit.
Well, to put a finer point on it, the unshucked cob may be a fruit. But the part you eat (the corn itself) are the seeds.

In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by kuresu, posted 09-26-2007 5:36 PM kuresu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by kuresu, posted 09-26-2007 11:25 PM Chiroptera has not replied

  
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