Ward said:
>>other items like nuts, flowers, bark, and anything else that composes
>> [snip]
>>Why not throw these out too since they don't contribute
>>that much volume-wise to the diet?

And Bob said:
>These do not have the physiological difficulties of digestion that meat
>has, the metabolic waste products that flesh foods contain, the state of
>decomposition in which they are typically eaten, the strong acid-forming
>qualities, and so on.

Hmmm, no comment about B-12 here, which I also mentioned. Remember that
B-12 too has its ultimate origin in the animal kingdom, and that it is no
secret anymore in the natural hygiene community that not a few are unable
to get their fair share from intestinal bacterial animals (fauna), and have
to take supplements to get the level up to normal on their total veggie
diets. Even according to natural hygiene practitioners.

I would like to see some kind of peer-reviewed studies documenting the
above claim about the supposed difficult digestion of meat. I believe Kirt
has claimed here that meat (raw, at least) is easily digested (for which I
would also like to see some documentation). It is very frustrating never to
see any bona-fide scientific evidence about this one way or the other. I
have looked before myself at the university library a few times but have
never been able to find anything yet. (Perhaps the Journal of Food Science
would be the place to look if one could get past all the jargon and study
up on biochemistry for a year first.) My own experience (admittedly
subjective) is that lightly cooked (20 min. or so) fish digests--or at
least seems to pass through the stomach--within about 2 hours for me;
quicker than most nuts. Red meat probably would be slower, but this just
goes to show you can't just lump everything in all together in one
black-and-white category.

Even without this bit of subjective personal experience, however, certainly
by the criterion of difficult digestion, nuts should probably also be on
the list of suspect items if you believe the food digestion charts we see
in natural hygiene. I would also like some kind of scientific documentation
that the metabolic waste products of reasonable amounts of meat are not
within the body's physiological capacity to handle. Most foods result in
some kind of metabolic waste. The question is not a black-and-white
consideration of whether they do or not, it is whether the body's normal
physiological capacity handles it without undue strain.

As far as decomposed meat--this is again a rather black-and-white
assumption. In evolutionary times, the meat would have been eaten fresh at
the kill, then some dried for later consumption so as not to waste it. Or
if scavenged, the meat might have been eaten either fresh, or perhaps in
some less-than-ideal state, but probably not very much decomposed (not
compared to modern supermarket meats anyway by comparison to which it would
probably be downright fresh) given competition for carcasses by other
animals.

As far as that goes, one could also state that some plant foods would have
been eaten in some less-than-ideal state, at least later in palelothic
times during the period in which modern homo sapiens evolved (the last Ice
Age), as some would have had to be stored for later use during the winter,
or cooked to exploit them at all, etc., given survival requirements. On the
other hand, while I can grant acid-forming qualities of meat, one has to
remember that this (along with the other factors cited above for that
matter) in the real world occurs in the context of a total diet--not as if
the meat were being eaten as the exclusive item. We are looking at a total
dietary package here, not one element in isolation from the others.

The above statements seem to assume that one should eat only the most
easily digestible, least-acid-forming, least decayed, least-waste-forming
foods. And anyway, there was no such choice in the real world eons ago,
which was not at all that black and white, as there was considerable
variation in availability of different foods. There are also differences
among plant foods in the above factors. Should we then eat only those plant
foods like sweet tree fruits which might be the least difficult to digest
of all, etc.? Some would say so, of course, but it didn't happen that way
during the time the species evolved. What matters in most things
nutritionally is proportions and degrees of items ingested. The above
black-and-white reasoning seems to ignore this. I.e., any longer digestion
time = bad, so eliminate it. Less than pristine = bad, so eliminate it.
Forms more acid than some other food = bad, so eliminate it. Puts out
somewhat more waste products than some other food = bad, so eliminate it.

And all of this still ignores the most basic evolutionary argument of all:
If a species survives--even flourishes in the case of human beings who were
able to expand far out of their original habitat--then if you give credit
that evolution happens at all, you have to assume the species has adapted
to that behavior when it persists (and in the case of meat-eating,
considerably increased) over many eons, especially when brain size and
physical size increased at the same time. (Most evolutionary biologists now
believe the larger brain size would not have been possible without the
increase in animal food.)

If you don't agree to this basic axiom of evolution (that species adapt to
persistent behavior), then you are basically saying you don't believe in
the mechanism which is the engine of the evolutionary process itself. If
one wants to do that, fine. However, if we are going to nitpick evolution
arguments, let's at least try not to sweep the basic axioms of the theory
under the rug. You will find scientists nitpicking evolution arguments far,
far more than we ever do here, but this is not one of them because it's the
whole point of the theory in the first place. Based on the fossil and other
evidence, you either accept this point or you do not.

Do you accept that evolution occurs or not, Bob? If so, but you reject the
basis on which the entire theory has been built to date (that it is changes
or persistences in behavior and environment that drive the process), then
what alternative mechanism do you propose to explain your thesis that some
meat was a part of the diet for 2 or 3 million years but was never adapted
to? It would be helpful to see some positive statements about what you *do*
stand for on these points rather than just criticisms about what you do
not, so we could see on what basis you are reasoning from.

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]> Wichita, KS