It is worth noting that there is no evidence at all that meat proteins
cause calcium loss.  Every study which has shown loss of calcium and other
minerals from high protein intake has involved soy and other
non-animal-source proteins.  Studies which use meat proteins show no such
loss of calcium. (1,2,3)

I haven't seen anyone hold up the Inuit as the people who eat the ideal
diet.  As has already been pointed out repeatedly, the Eskimos are but one
example on the extreme end of typical hunter/gatherer diets.  They are only
used as an example to refute the notion that an all-meat diet (which some
use for weight loss or treatment of diseases) is dangerous and unhealthy.
The assertion that it is unhealthy or dangerous is without support, as
every study done on this to date shows that it causes no ill effects
whatsoever for the Inuit--or the Europeans who adapted to it.(4,5)

The only form of food which has been shown to be nutritionally potent
enough for humans to live off of it exclusively for long periods of time
with no ill effects or nutritional deficiencies is meat. (5)  Studies on
vegetarians, by comparison, show that on average they frequently suffer
from health problems directly attributable to nutritional deficiencies in
their diets, and they generally live shorter lives than those who eat
meat.(6)

It is not possible to say definitively that the eskimos did not suffer from
osteoporosis in the past simply because that requires bone mineral analysis
and people weren't doing that 100 years ago. However, all accounts by
anthropologists who were visiting the eskimo around the turn of the century
show uniformly that they were a hearty, upright, strong-limbed people who
remained active and healthy until death(5); there are no accounts
whatsoever of them becoming frail and their stature becoming distorted or
significantly smaller as they aged, which are the signs of advanced
osteoporisis.

Similarly, while no one ever took their cholesterol back then, that point
is moot since despite the efforts of anthropologists to find it, there
appeared to be no evidence that they ever suffered from heart disease (or
cancer).  Their lifespan was about ten years shorter on average than white
Americans at that time, but their only causes of death were traumatic
injury, childbirth, and infectious disease.(5)

A number of eskimo tribes now suffer from high rates of osteoporosis.  A
number of them also suffer from diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.  A
number of them have also been incorporating foods like white bread, jelly,
and alcohol into their diets.  Nor surprisingly, their health tends to
improve dramatically when they return to their strict ancestral diet.(I've
read this in a couple of places but I'm out of source material at the
moment)

Vegetarians suffer from a large number of health problems directly
attributable to their diet, and generally live shorter lives than
meat-eaters. (6)  There is no support whatsoever for the notion that there
were ever any vegetarians anywhere in human ancestry. (7)  And on that
point, this whole discussion really ought to stop.  We are discussing the
paleolithic diet, and -all- evidence to date shows that the paleolithic
diet included meat.

Nevertheless, there is no good reason to believe that high fat intake is
dangerous(8), or that high meat-protein intake is dangerous (see above).
Diabetics live for decades with excellent health eating almost nothing but
meat, eggs, butter, and cream(9).  There is simply no evidence for negative
health consequences for people who want to eat all-meat diets for weight
loss.

The lesson to be learned from the Inuit is simply that there is probably no
danger from high-protein, high-fat, low-vegetable diets.  I don't think
anyone at all disputes the idea that many vegetables are quite delicious
and healthy things to eat.  There is reason to suggest that cereal grains
are dangerous and unhealthy--but we've already discussed that at length on
both lists and I'm not going to dredge up another list of references again
for all of that.  Similarly, there is evidence that beans are unhealthy, if
only because of the calcium loss they causes (1,2,3).  There's also
substantial reasons to suggest that most beans have significant
antinutrients in them and are quite poisonous raw (although I'm not
prepared with refernces for that at the moment I can put them together if
there's strong interest).  Without grains or beans, a vegan would die of
protein (and likely fat) starvation.

It gets rather tiresome to fight the same battles over and over again.

-=-

1) Spencer H; Kramer L; DeBartolo M; Norris C; Osis D. Further studies of
the effect of a high protein diet as meat on calcium metabolism. Am J Clin
Nutr, 1983 Jun, 37:6, 924-9

2) Osteoporosis, calcium requirement, and factors causing calcium loss.
Spencer H; Kramer L. Clin Geriatr Med, 1987 May, 3:2, 389-402

3) Do protein and phosphorus cause calcium loss? Spencer H; Kramer L; Osis
D. J Nutr, 1988 Jun, 118:6, 657-60

4) Lieb CW.  The effects of an exclusive, long-continued meat diet. JAMA
1926;87:25-26)

5) Stefansson, Vilhjalmur. "Adventures In Diet."  Harper's Monthly,
December 1929, January 1930, February 1930.

6) The Journal of Applied Nutrition, Vol 32, Number 1, 1980 pg. 50-87
"Vegetarianism:An Anthropological/Nutritional Evaluation" (Note: I can
provide a longer list of refernces regarding the docmented negative effects
of vegetarianism if this very strong item isn't enough.)


7) An Interview with Natural Hygiene Scholar Ward Nicholson.
http://members.aol.com/chetday/ward1.htm

8) Esmay, Dean. The World's Biggest Fad Diet.
http://www.syndicomm.com/lowfat.html

9) Bernstein, Richard K. "Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution." 1997, can't
find the book so can't name the publisher offhand but it's on bookstore
shelves right now.