Vegetarian's, question of diet?

Question

Since vegetarians are one of the only groups of people who actually take diet and nutrition seriously in the US I would like to ask what you think about traditional diets... as in the diets commoners consumed a couple thousand years ago by hardy peoples (Gaelics, Swiss mountain villages, Aborigones, Eskimos, etc...). These people consumed food as a means to an end and not as a means within itself. All of there food being produced the way nature intended (as in pastured cows or carefully planted veggies and fruits done by tilled and planted by hand), also in a humanely and fair way to the animals (not fenced in all the time and giving plenty of room).
I personally feel it is wrong to demonize the products of Animals (as in saying they are unhealthy for you), when the Animals themselves are fed unnatural things and are unoften unhealthy themselves (Commercial cows live an average of 4 years whereas pastured is 15). All dairy/meat companies have one bottom line... $.Justwouldliketoknow.

Answer 1

In light of my answer to your other question in this section I now think I can give you an answer to this question.

I would suggest you research "nutritional anthropology" and read the findings of real nutritional anthropologists towards 'primitive' diets and also see what their opinion is of the trash spewed by the Weston Price foundation.
Our ancestors as a rule (with a few notable exceptions like Eskimos) received 80-90% of their total calories from plant based foods. Even the African Masai have been shown to get most of their food intake from plants and not the cattle they bleed (literally). Studies of coprolite's have proven that archaic hunter/gatherer populations would have died out if not for the inclusion of the plant based materials that made up the large majority of their diet. Coprolite's from the American Southwest show that the Pueblo peoples pre-historic diet was also based on plant foods and amongst early civilizations they show to have a lifespan twice that of Eskimos. Weston Price points you to the Gaels and Swiss of only a few thousand years ago and purposely ignores the evidence that the earlier settlers also ate little in the way on animal products. Why didn't they point out that Eskimo lifespans have dramatically increased since Russian fur traders first started bringing them plant foods? Oops! That doesn't fit with their propaganda that vegetarians are bad and animal products are needed for humans to be healthy, does it?
Epidemiologic data shows a direct correlation between lifespan and diet; the higher the percentage of animal products consumed the shorter the lifespan. Period!

Answer 2

I wouldn't doubt organic free range meats are healthier,these facts are just from the top of my head
1.Grass fed beef is 100% less fattier than the typical grain fed beef
2.The amount of saturated fat in the typical grain fed beef can have as much as thirrty times the amoun tof saturated fat as grass fed beef
3.Alot of tribes who ate esclusively ate a diet made up of mostly meat usually relied heavily on fish,in which fish has low levels of cholesterol and omega 3's,the benefits outweigh the negatives,but many of these tribes only live 35-45 year ifespans

I would agree that if the animals are unhealthy,so will their meats.But I wouldn't say animal are still the best choice,the pakistan hunza's only get about 1.5% of their calories from animal products(usually goat's milk) and they have an average lifespan of 70-80's,I read that they even worked in their 80's.And yes,people who raise food animals care more about profit than they do safety and healthiness.Why else would they feed cows to cows,make chickens eat manure,use recycled newspaper as filler,etc

Answer 3

Well, first off, animals are definetly healthy, I suppose. See, the reason we are vegetarians is because when we can help plants by taking fruit insted of it dying, why bother animals? I agree that animals are healthy, just that no one dies from not eating them. I guess it's just restraint.

Traditional diets.....well they're nothing like salads, and salads are definetly healthy and tasty. But their diet is pretty good. I'm sorry I don't seem to be leading to anything, though. Well...they eat healthy, and that's what matters. But I'm thinking of Thanksgiving, not exactly commoners, because I don't know what they ate. Considering there probably was malnutrition, that is not so nice. I think that they (commoners, not pilgrims and Squanto) could have definetly eaten better, but they didn't have our information on that topic. Still, they survived. I'm more appreciative of what Native Americans ate, however.

Answer 4

I would love to be able to eat that way. I try to eat only organic food, but with so many loopholes nowadays it's really hard to tell. I don't think eating meat in general is bad, I think supporting the mass slaughter and mistreatment of animals is bad. You're right, the animals are being fed wrong and poorly taken care of, to say the least. It's not the food that's bad, it's the way it's produced.

Answer 5

Hey, I will probably get smacked down a bit for this, but I don't see eating for survival as an issue. Still can't say I would eat anyone to survive (yes I refer to animals as beings and not things.)

People have eaten other people to survive in harsh states and I can't say I disagree with that either.

However, If there is ample vegetation around (grains, veggies, legumes and fruits) I still see no need to kill beings to eat. Perhaps if they wait until it is an animal's time to die...

That is just me... I cannot decide what is best for others, or what others "should" do; I can only say what I cannot do.

Mind you, if I was raised in such a culture, I do not know if my feelings would have led me down the path of vegetarianism so long ago, but if I went there now, I still would not eat them. If people live in a vast, icy tundra with no vegetation, I couldn't blame them for eating fish. It would probably be hard to be a vegetarian with no vegetation in sight.
:)

I think we can eat meat as a backup system. If we were meant to eat animals, we would be able to catch and eat them without tools like every other meat-eating animal.

If this is the manner in which you live, then I must say it is great that you do not contribute to the factory farm industry... but then again, I am not exactly sure what your question is.

:)

Answer 6

A couple of thousand years ago people had to eat what was in their immediate neighborhood and often their diet was not very healthy especially in winter. Life expectancy was much shorter so they often died before the bad aspects of their diet could have a long term effect.
We are more fortunate to be able to have more choices but still make mistakes.

Answer 7

Todays meat industry could give a flip whats good for the consumer. The animals are fed an unnatural diet, crammed full of pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones, steroids, and all manner of nasty stuff. The growth hormones make them ready for slaughter faster. Its shocking what goes on in the meat industry. They claim to be USDA inspected, etc. but inspections only happen twice a year. I respect the hard working cultures that treat their animals humanely, and garden their own goods. Too sad that more people don't-thats what allows the food companies to get away with their shenanigans-people just keep buying the toxic crap, so why bother to improve anything

Answer 8

Oh, I don't demonize it at all. It just looks rather gross to me.