Gregg Carter wrote:
>
> On Thu, 3 Sep 1998,
> >
> > 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.
>
> This is an outlandish statement that does not fit our basic knowledge of
> diet, nutrition, and health.  Doubly so when Wade adds that muscle meat
> from domesticated animals is all that we need.  An all muscle-meat diet is
> indeed rich in potassium, phosphorus, copper, zinc, and vits. B1, B2, B6,
> and B12.  But at the same time it is either completely devoid or grossly
> lacking in calcium, selenium, vits. A, C, E, K, and fiber...
You may be wrong about your references. As I recall animal flesh is the
major source of K. There also appear to be enough A and E in it (higher
in fatty tissue. In general, E is high enough in the animal to prevent
fatty oxidation, thus it is high enough for us). C isn't very plentiful,
but far from absent and as experience shows people eating RAW meat don't
develop scurvy. As for fiber, it is not clear that it is that important
to us.
> as well as a
> new class of nutrients that have been identified for opitmal health and
> resistance to disease called "phytochemicals."
Uhmm... I believe these are called phytochemicals because they are found
in plants :)

>  Todd also brings up the
> important point of the variable and often questionable quality of modern
> domestic flesh, especially its deficiencies in omega-3 essential fatty
> acids.  No version of the caveman diet (from its rather strict definition
> in Neanderthin . . . to its more liberal variants such as The Omega Plan)
> advises against eating a rich variety of plant foods
Wade didn't say that meat provides OPTIMAL levels of various nutrients. He
said "provides all the necessary vitamins and minerals for a long and
healthy life". This statement is true. Of course you CAN always do better
than 'good'.

Ilya