Well, in most primitive societies, meat is very rare-most people live on beans and rice, and vegetables, don’t they?
Primitive societies of today are very different from the environment of pre-agriculture humans.
Sorry, I read “primitive” as “poor”. Still, the world has changed quite a bit in the past million years.
Please tell me, before I adopt the diet of ancient societies, what the average lifespan was back then? Did eating mostly meat keep them happy and healthy, or was it a necessary diet because that was usually all they had to eat because nomadic peoples have trouble developing an agricultural lifestyle?
The average lifespan was low, due to high mortality rates. Beyond that, you’d do better to read the articles I linked to.
DUUUUUUHHHH… :smack:
Are ya sure?
Let’s see. I think they grew to be about 4 feet tall due to malnutrition. All their teeth rotted out by the time they were in their twenties, and then they slowly starved to death when they lost the ability to masturbate.
Wait a minute I think I got that wrong. When your teeth fell out you lose the ability to “masticate.”
You lose the ability to masturbate when a saber-tooth tiger comes and bites your dick off. Then you commit suicide.
Those were the two many causes of death in primitive times.
Ahem. Make that high infant mortality rates.
Smartass.
I’m not advocating a paloelithic diet. I was responding to ** openzgate**'s assertion based on common sense that primitive man was primarily vegetarian. No more, no less.
Cite?
Dr. Ornish, the Anti-Atkins who advocates a vegetarian, whole foods diet is a practicing physician. He had time to write many books, publish many ariticles in reputable medical and nurtitional publications, and even held a governmental post. And he probably cares about his patients, too.
Epimetheus, the “how can vegetarians get enough protein” is an old wives tales. I’m a vegan, and eat more than enough protein. Surprisingly enough, if you take an intelligent stance on your diet, and make sure to eat balanced, colorful, modestly-sized, whole food meals, you’ll get everything your body needs.
I’m in good shape, ride my bicycle to work evey day, 20 minutes uphill, 20 minutes downhill. No problems whatsoever. I’m muscular, but by no means one of those naturally-muscuclar mesomophs with like .06% bodyfat. I make sure to eat at least 1, though preferably 2, servings of nuts, tofu, or legumes a day.
On the same note, another such caution is “but do you get enough calcium?” Of couse I do. Green leafy vegetables, and any kind of seaweed, have ridiculous amounts of calcium.
I don’t have any cites at the moment, but cow’s Milk is prized much more than it should be. When a person eats excess protein, it sucks calcium out of their body. So, for every glass of milk you drink, sure you’re getting calcium, but you’re also containing way more protein than your body needs. It counteracts itself. It’s been discovered that osteoperosis actually is provoked by the overconsumption of protein, just as much as from a lack of calcium.
But this is all off topic. Sorry about that.
Best,
TGD
I never said this. I know what a vegetarians diet is, and I am not out to “get” you guys. I see it as a quite healthy diet. I was contesting DanielW claim that only 2-8% of a diet should be protien, not saying they couldn’t get enough. Nothing about vegetarians either, just that claim.
Imagine that I am an ignorant on the subject (well, I am). I red this in the Atkins website (see link below):
What is wrong with that?
Bloody hell! I forgot the link :rolleyes:
No fruits on the list (discounting things like summer squash, which are technically fruits but have different nutritional profiles from what we traditionally consider fruits).
No minimum amount of vegetables on the list.
Too much high-fat food on the list.
What’s “wrong” with it is that it doesn’t cohere to current mainstream knowledge about a healthful diet. I put “wrong” in quotation marks because it’s possible that further research will vindicate Atkins. Currently, however, our best information about what’s healthful for humans to eat runs counter to the recommendations you just quoted.
Daniel
**
But doesn’t this beg the question? All diets designed to make you lose weight are “unhealthy” in the sense that if you were to continue on them long enough, you would die. A 1500 calorie a day diety is “unhealthy” regardless of what mix of foods you eat. Nonetheless, there is nothing wrong with going on a 1500 calorie a day diet, at least for a while, as part of a weight loss program, is there?
There’s a lot of things to be said about this on both sides, but does anybody really think that two weeks of skipping fruits and carbohydrates is going to have a lot of long-term medical side effects?
Truth Seeker, I’ll revise my original statement: what’s wrong with the 2-week induction phase is that it’s part of a long-term diet that doesn’t cohere to mainstream nutritional guidelines. You’re right that if someone follows only the induction phase and then goes back to eating a healthful diet, there probably won’t be long-term consequences. I didn’t realize that’s what we were arguing about.
Daniel
Oh. Well, the post from Mighty Girl you were responding to seemed to refer specifically to the first two-week induction phase of this diet.