On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Erica Wieland wrote:

> Whoa there! What happened here. Beets cause the collapse of the Soviet
> Union???? I don't think so. First your facts are a bit off--MSG can be made
> from fermented beets, but MSG can also be made from many other things, and
> occurs naturally in a variety of foods. As to it causing the collapse of
> the Soviet Union, well, I just hope you were joking.

        Actually, much of the blaim can be put on Tefrem Lysanko, who got
"forbidden fruit" to grow in the harshest conditions imaginable.  For
that act, his critics called him a "demon of darkness."  So in addition
to beats, we can also blaim potatoes and wheet.
        Seriously, Lysanko was very much against corn and monoculture
agriculture, which he believed would ruin the land.  Kruschev didn't
understand Lysanko's arguements against it, and planted corn and did
monoculture agriculture.  When you're dealing with an environment like
much of artic and sub-artic Russia (remember, Wisconsin is on the same
line of latitude as Italy) you have to be very careful what you do.


> Wild rice, I might
> point out, is not related to rice, but is a grass seed. As to getting all
> your B vitamins from nuts--I doubt it, but if you say so, I'll have to
> your word for it till I get home to my nutrition library to check my
> references.

        What I mean is that I get all the B vitimans I -need- from nuts.
A person on Neanderthin has very different RDA's then a person in a
civilized diet.  For example, most can only digest 1/5 the calcium in
dairy, so most of us get the equivalent of 100% calcium from 1/5 the
RDA.  The idea is that what we cannot acquire, we do not require.