On Fri, 3 May 2002 08:56:21 +0900, Tom Bridgeland <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>Amadeus Schmidt wrote:

>I wonder, didn't they have chickens, pigs, goats and the like? As I
>mentioned in a post yesterday, the Japanese for many years, centuries,
>followed a "vegetarian" diet for religious reasons. But there were so
>many exceptions,

I'll look up what the book reported.
They were not vegetarians, but poor, and couldn't have afforded more
than an occasional peace of animal.

>I would be interested to see their skeletons, how robust they were.

In 150 years I think bones in the earth will be no more.
However I bet they had perfect bones. They had hard work to do.
And what should have weakened the bones?
The acid load from the grains? The acid load comes mainly from the protein
in the diet (the alcalic from the minerals I think).
I'd assume that they went with the protein more to the low side
(more towards the RDA).
Grain (and vegetables) have much more protein than RDA for a 2400 kcal day.
So they would have replaced some of the grain with pure energy input
(without protein) as possible.
Beer is ideal for that - zero protein, calories, and even vitamins and
minerals. How far they could afford. Or some source of fat.
Could have been butter. But both will have been expensive.
Beer not so much.

>What do you think of the Weston Price  site, lots of similar sounding
>things
>there on traditional diets, but they claim there are very few truly
>vegetarian "native" diets.

They seek prooves for their defending of animal food (interesting that they
considered it necessary).
And the old ones were never pure vegetarians since most didn't bother to eat
animal.
Exept for India.
Maybe other asian countries or buddhist influenced country.

>Because wheat makes me feel sick. I don't worry about lecithin's and
>phytins because cooking destroys most of them.

Lectins yes, but phytin not I think.
If you have developped antibodies against wheat protein (or any protein) it
will  make you feel sick. This could have happened after they once entered
the bloodstream, what could have happened after wheat lectins attacked the
gut walls.

regards

Amadeus