Don and Rachel Matesz wrote:
>2)  I have heard countless vegetarians say that Americans
>eat a meat-based
>diet, implying that meat makes up the foundation
>or largest part of the
>diet.  This is laughable to me.

The "standard" western diet is meat based or meat centered
in terms of protein only.
In Germany for example, the average meat consume is
about 230 Grams per day (the overall year consume
divided through the 80 million inhabitants) --  in the USA
it is told to be even much higher (as some of you reported).
This yealds about the recommended *protein* intake of a day.
The diet offers a quick and dense satisfaction of protein needs.

But how to satisfy the energy needs then?
2000 to 2500 kcal are necessary.
I noticed that in terms of *calories* the (SAD or western)
diet offers few alternatives.
 - Sugar: pure carb calories nearly unusable because it
   lacks the vitamins necessary to burn them (that's a fact)
 - Fats from unnaturally fat animals,
   as never found in nature (except the arctic)
 - Fatty food with bad hydrogenated plant fats or dairy fat
 - White starchy food with the protein, vitamin
     and fiber parts removed
Unfortunately all these alternatives offer very
little micronutrients and fiber.
No wonder that such a kind of energy makes sick.

Next step: i computed which amounts of food in its
*natural*  form (whole unmodified food) was
necessary to satisfy the 2-3000 kcal.
The astonishing result was, that food combinations
naturally available (paleo...) with plants
already had all the protein necessary and often were
overwhelming rich in vitamins and minerals.
My way to paleo and view of paleo.

Another aspect:
If i consider eating whole animals -as done in ice age-
then i get a significant shortage of energy too.
Because outside the arctic there's not enough fat in them.
A ratio of 50% fat and and 50% meat may be adequate --
you can see it from inuit and the famous
meat only experiment...

Then there are the 500-700 kcal carbs for the brain,
which may come from  about 150 gram carbohydrates
or 500 grams meat - *in addition*.
If enough fat was there it is a possible alternative.
It has the advantage of avoiding the
bad SAD (standard western diet) ways of energy supply.

regards
Amadeus

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