Re:dietary evolution

[Guest guest]

>If humans descended from a line of pure " leaf eaters, " we wouldn't have such a

problem with B-12 deficiency on a vegan diet. B-12 is the only nutrient required

by humans that cannot be obtained with a

purely plant-based diet.

 

Perhaps, and perhaps its because of our obsession with super hygiene. If we

drank pond water or water from the stream, ate the fermented foods that our

ancestors did and that you find in every culture, did not use pesticides and

fertilisers that kill everything in the soil and did not irradiate all our

fruits and vegetables nor eat stale food from supermarket shelves full of

preservatives which are acidic and kill bacteria, then perhaps we would not

have such a B12 deficiency. Those who have not consumed animal products in

the past absorb B12 very well from tablets, but a high protein diet leads to

excess acid secretion in the stomach which ultimately results in a lack of

B12 absorption. Lifelong vegans may not have difficulty in absorbing B12.

 

Nandita

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

>Lifelong vegans may not have difficulty in absorbing B12.

 

 

This whole line of argument is wishful thinking, & should be

discarded outright.

 

The human need for B12 was discovered in the mid-1950s as

result of medical investigation of physical problems that were

crippling British vegans, who had become vegans for religious

reasons before the term was invented, and had led what appeared to

be extremely healthy lives in the countryside, doing precisely this--

 

 

>If we drank pond water or water from the stream, ate the fermented

>foods that our ancestors did and that you find in every culture, did

>not use pesticides and fertilisers that kill everything in the soil

>and did not irradiate all our fruits and vegetables nor eat stale

>food from supermarket shelves full of preservatives which are acidic

>and kill bacteria

 

 

Vegetarians who led similar lives but were less strictly

vegan were quite healthy, as expected.

 

Also worth pointing out is that the whole reason we don't

still drink pond water or water from the stream is that unpurified

surface water is the primary medium for disease transmission,

worldwide, & that diseases carried by water and water-dwelling

insects (such as mosquitoes) often cut our ancestors' lifespans very

short.

 

If we did not use pesticides and fertilizers, global grain

and vegetable production would be about one third of what it is

today, and even if animal agriculture ceased entirely, so that all

grain and vegetable production could go to human consumption, many

millions of newly made vegans would starve to death -- unless they

ate the insects who would proliferate without the pesticides.

 

Incidentally, it is a considerable stretch to assert

categorically that pesticides and fertilizers " kill everything in the

soil " in the first place. Some of the earliest synthetic pesticides

and chemical fertilizers did have toxic effects much broader than

were intended, but decades of refinement and reformulation have

followed (frequently under legal & consumer pressure), and the

typical breakdown time of the pesticides now licensed for use in the

U.S., Canada, and the European Union is about three days.

 

The whole purpose of fertilizers is to enhance the growth

capacity of the soil. It is possible to burn soil by

over-application of nitrogen, especially when it is applied in the

most natural form, i.e. as unprocessed chicken poop, but it is

doubtful that even over-applications of chicken poop do as much harm

to field ecologies as the now obsolete practice of burning fields

after each harvest, in order to plow the ashes under.

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

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Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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