Alan:

> Whereas this may even be true, there is certainly nowhere near
> the amount of "organic" beef around to feed even one population
> (never mind the world as a whole). And we could never provide
> enough organic food and land to feed all that beef anyway.

Well, there is certainly nowhere near the amount of Orkos-quality
fruit to feed even one population either. Although I can't prove it, I
am pretty sure that even if the whole EEC turned to organic
agriculture, there would in principle be enough land to feed the
entire population.

> >  -Why do lions waste so much "precious energy breaking down the
> > protein chains into simple aminos"?
> >
> They have to concentrate most of their energy on digesting. This
> is why they sleep for around 20 hours each day (as is the case
> with most other carnivores).

I know that they sleep quite a lot, but how do you know that it's
because they need to "concentrate their energy on digesting"? Have you
asked them? :-) I have had periods of eating very little animal food
(less than 5%), and periods of eating much more (over 50%). In either
case, I found that I needed 8 hours sleep each day.

My theory is then than lions don't _need_ to stay awake more than 4
hours a day, since they spend comparatively little time on hunting and
feeding, and they have no reason to waste their energy walking around.

> >  -Saturated fat is not harmful when not in excess and balanced by
> > unsaturates. Sugar is harmful when in excess too.
> >
> What is the point of feeding the body with something that it
> doesn't need and which it has to spend more energy on processing
> and excreting (if it ever gets that far)?

Technically speaking, very little of what we eat is really
"necessary". Our body requires a few vitamins, minerals, essential
fatty acids and a few essential amino-acids, but doesn't "need" sugar,
or starch, or saturated fat, or monounsaturated fat. Now of course we
also need energy (calories), which can be supplied by
 -sugar. But sugar in excess can raise blood glucose and insulin
levels excessively. Although simple sugars are easily assimilated,
fruit is not as easy to digest as it appears initially (I have watery
stools whenever I eat too much fruit).
 -starch. But raw starch is poorly digestible for many.
 -saturated fat. But excess saturated fat raises cholesterol.
 -etc.

So in fact you can find inconvenients to basically any food. The best
in my opinion is to avoid excesses in any of these food categories.

> if raw meat was always a part
> of the human diet we would all have a natural craving for it and
> it would still be eaten raw today rather than cooked in most
> cases.

Well, it seems that several people here (including me) do have a
craving for it. You may find it repulsive, but I believe that feelings
of repulsion are cultural, rather than instinctive (that's of course
merely an opinion, which would be hard to prove). Why then do people
usually eat cooked, rather than raw meat? That's an interesting
question, to which I don't have a definite answer. I have tried again
a little cooked meat recently (either at home or in restaurants), and,
depending on which meat and on the way it is prepared, it may or may
not taste better than raw. So, if it were only for the taste, why don't
people eat at least _part_ of their meat raw? Is it for safety
reasons? (Since we have refrigerators, it is safe nowadays to eat
high-quality raw meat, but it may not always have been the case.)


--Jean-Louis Tu <[log in to unmask]>