meat as the best food... NOT!

[Guest guest]

Hi,

 

I found this blurb on the eskimo diet (95% meat)vs.

the Hunza diet of central asia at

 

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020122horne.21stcentury/020122ch3.\

html

 

The healthiest and longest-lived people in the world

are accepted generally to be the Hunzas of northern

Pakistan and the people in the Caucasus of Russia,

whereas the shortest-lived are the Eskimos and

Lapplanders of the Arctic. Sir Robert McCarrison,

Major General, Indian Medical Service, described the

Hunzas thus:

 

The diet of these people corresponds in many ways

to that of the Sikhs; but they eat less meat, and,

their stocks being limited to goats, their consumption

of milk and milk products is less than that of the

Sikhs. But they are great fruit-eaters, especially of

apricots and mulberries, which they use in both the

raw and sun-dried state. The power of endurance of

these people is extraordinary: to see a man of this

race throw off his scanty garments, revealing a figure

which would delight the eye of a Rodin, and plunge

into a glacier-fed river in the middle of winter with

as much unconcern as many of us would take a tepid

bath, is to realize that perfection of physique and

great physical endurance are attainable on the

simplest of foods, providing these be of the right

kind. These people are long-lived and vigorous in old

age. Among them, the ailments so common in our own

people--such as gastro-intestinal disorders, colitis,

gastro and duodenal ulcer and cancer--are

extraordinarily uncommon, and I have no doubt whatever

in my own mind that their freedom from these scourges

of modern civilization is due to three things:

 

Their use of simple, natural foodstuffs of the right

kind;

 

Their vigorous outdoor life;

 

and their fine bracing climate.

 

With the Hunzas resistance to infection is remarkable

.. . . gastro-intestinal complaints, dyspepsia, ulcers,

colitis, and appendicitis are at least as uncommon as

they are common elsewhere. Cancer is so rare that in

nine years' practice I never came across a single case

of it.

 

The Eskimos* by comparison rated this description

by Dr Samuel Hutton, who observed them over the period

1902 to 1913, from his book Health Conditions and

Disease Incidence Among the Eskimos of Labrador:

 

Old age sets in at fifty and its signs are strongly

marked at sixty. In the years beyond sixty the Eskimo

is aged and feeble. Comparatively few live beyond

sixty and only a very few reach seventy. Those who

live to such an age have spent a life of great

activity, feeding on Eskimo foods and engaging in

characteristically Eskimo pursuits . . . Careful

records have been left by the missionaries for more

than a hundred years.

 

*The word Eskimo is derived from the language of the

Cree Indians and means " eater of raw meat " . It should

be noted that the descriptions given of both the

Hunzas and the Eskimos are those made early in the

20th Century before they began to discard their

traditional and more primitive way of life.

 

It was also noted that the Eskimos had very low

resistance to infectious diseases and suffered severe

osteoporosis as they got older. A later study of a

small population (about 1000) on the east coast of

Greenland by Hoygaard and Pedersen, Copenhagen 1941,

showed an average lifespan of only twenty-seven and a

half years mainly due to premature degeneration of

adults. Their diet was ninety-five per cent flesh food

but it was not stated whether the Eskimos had adopted

the white man's practice of cooking their food.

 

There is the comparison. Dr McCarrison attributed

the excellence of the Hunzas to their diet, outdoor

activity and bracing climate, so in view of the fact

the Eskimos also indulged in much outdoor activity in

a bracing climate, the distinction in their health

status compared to the Hunzas is clearly due to

dietary differences.

 

Gary Malcolm

gary_malcolm

 

 

 

 

 

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