On Thu, 3 Sep 1998, Wade Reeser wrote:

> A purely animal flesh diet provides all the necessary vitamins and minerals
> for
> a long and healthy life.  Period.

Not necessarily.  If the animals you are eating have themselves
been deprived of necessary nutrients, then you won't get them by
eating those animals.  A case in point is omega-3 (n-3) fatty
acids.  In wild animals, these enter the food chain as herbivores
eat plants that are rich in n-3.  These fats are then present in
the tissues of those animals and available to their predators.
But n-3 fats are not present in the tissues of many domesticated
animals, for the simple reason that these animals are not fed the
plants that would provide them.  They are therefore n-3 deficient
when slaughtered and we become n-3 deficient if we rely entirely
upon them for nutrition.

Similarly, if the food animal's diet is deficient in minerals for
any reason, the flesh of that animal will not be an adequate
source of minerals.

Finally, to get all those vitamins one must eat organ meats in
which contaminants are also acccumulated.

Thus, while it may be *ideally* true that animal flesh provides
all the necessary nutrients, in the world in which we live things
are a bit more complex.

Todd Moody
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