Raw Food Diet

According to forensic evidence, famine was a lot rarer as well.When I was younger, it was considered somewhat of a mystery to archaeologist and anthropologists why some cultures took up intensive agriculture. A lot more work for a lot less reliable food supply.

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

Well, I hardly see how anyone living on a fast food diet could ever critisize anyone on a diet such as you explained. I've known quite a few vegans and vegetarians in my time. What is hard for them is to supplement enough protein in their diet. Sure, they have a vitamin rich, low fat diet. But one can only eat so many garbonzo beans and peanuts to try and get that protein. But humans are omnivores and we derive much protein from the meat of other animals.My wife and I eat kosher because the quality is higher, plus it removes some of the ethical concerns. If we eat chicken, its free range chicken. Not only for ethical reasons, but also because of health reasons. We only eat kosher beef, and we try to eat a lot of fish. Fish have always been known to be a low fat/high protein aspect of diet. But lately, due to pollution, there have been high doses of Mercury found in many fish. Mercury is cumulative, like most radioactive materials. The more you ingest, the more it runs the risk of causing health problems.There seems to be something about your friend, based on your description, which seems more important. Your friend sound obssesive about his eating. Which is really healthier-- a well balanced diet, or worrying yourself in to stupefaction?I'd be more concerned with his mental health personally. But since that isn't really the focus of the thread, I'd say that his diet isn't terrible, by any stretch, but it isn't optimal either IMO. Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : typo

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"It is better to shun the bait, than struggle in the snare." -Ravi Zacharias

probably. i think everyone has more leisure time than we do today.but i was really referring to the fact that they couldn't buy things and certainly not pre-prepared foods. everything required effort. it's not hard work, but it is work. everything else was hard work.

Actually, not as hard as people think. Combine legumes with grains. That pretty much does it for protein. I eat a lot of beans; I eat them with barley (in soups) or over rice. I hear that peanut butter sandwiches also work.Of course, I also eat dairy products (and eggs), so I have a little less problem with protein and fats than vegans do.

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

I'll be wide open to be showing wrong but is mercury really a problem because it is radioactive or simply because it is toxic.Where I live we have a problem with arsenic and it is the same story, you need to examine your exposure over the course of a lifetime because the effects are cumulative.

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

Evidence that we cannot make Vitamin C ourselves? Yes, lots of it as far as I am aware. Or do you mean evidence that Vitamin C synthesis might be unnecessarily costly for certain fruit eaters? I don't know about the latter.

Huh? What's that got to do with anything?

It certainly did occur before that split. Indeed - other primates are similarly deficient - those closest related to us. However, the common ancestor of those primates and us, is still one of our ancestors, neh?

haha. oh right. vitamin c. i'm crazy, nm.

I'm sure you're right. It's impossible to be a prurist about this. They're good, healthy veg though and they don't have some of the harmful things in them that grains, legumes and potatoes do.You say that sweet potatoes have been cultivated for 5000 years, and corn for twice as long. Yes, the cultivation of crops is what characterises the neolithic period. This is the Paleolithic diet. 10,000 years, in evolutionary terms, is not long (as I'm sure you're aware).Are grains, for example intrinsically damaging in themselves? I would say no. Wholegrains can play a part in people's diets, and those people can be healthy. If you've eaten healthily all your life, you will not have blood sugar issues. I ate sugar and chocolate for a long time and I'm lucky not to be diabetic. My body needs healing and I can't even eat something as natural as honey without getting problems. That's OK though, I can survivie quite happily without it.Problems also come when grains constitute too much of a person's diet, and also when they are processed. The nutrition is removed, and the process of digestion is altered. Dr. Abram Hoffer says that the only thing white flour is good for is wallpapering your house.Your points about indigenous cultures are all very true. It's just that I think diet plays more of a part than you're willing to give it credit for. Certainly things like exercise and lack of stress are also big factors in being free of disease. However, it often seems to be the case that when indigenous people switch over to a Westernised diet, they start developing the same diseases that are plaguing the Western world.Here's an article from Alaska about what is happening to the indigenous people there, as they switch over to the standard American diet (SAD): Page not found | Geophysical InstituteI've seen Paleo help people heal from depression, psychosis, and years of nutritional depletion and damage from taking a variety of medications. I stumbled across a website one day hosted by people who claim to have healed MS by eating Paleo, and they tour the US and give talks on this. It just seems to be good for the body.It's so easy to dismiss these things because you're not satisfied that they've been proved. Fine -- but have you ever considered doing some experiments and trying things for yourself? Experimenting with healthy food is not going to hurt anyone, so why not try it? If you don't want to do it, then why discount other people's experiences so readily? (I have to say, BTW, it sounds like the way you eat is already a lot healthier than the way most people in the US eat. I'm assuming that's where you're from?)Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Okay.I'd taken your message to imply that it occured since our paelolithic ancestors - which is who people are generally talk about when they takl about "ancestoral diets".

I was asking if there's evidence that an ancestor of ours was able to make vitamin C, but that the ability was lost somewhere down the evolutionary line. As far as I knew, it was just speculation.

Well, most mammals can make vitamin C, including some of the great apes. There's a genetic defect we share with chimps that prevents us from doing so. So, yes, it's pretty certain we had an ancestor that could because otherwise it'd have to evolved all over the place in the recent past.

Well - yes. The fact that we have a gene which would be able to create vitamin C had it not been for a mutation in it is almost certainly not a coincidence. It is more likely that our ancestors were able to generate it, and then the ability was lost than for us to have a noncoding section of DNA that coincidentally looks very similar to the Vitamin C synthesising gene in the closest relatives of ours who can synthesise Vitamin C.edit: interestingEdited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Yes, mercury is considered toxic, hence the term, "mercury poisoning."

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"It is better to shun the bait, than struggle in the snare." -Ravi Zacharias