On Fri, 30 Mar 2001 07:29:00 -0400, matesz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I wrote:
>You know that I see general "meat" eating as unpaleo because nearly all of
>these meat masses which are consumed today, are "produced" in the most
>unpaleo manner. Not only in the way of production, but also in it's
>composition.

Rachel's response:
>There are many sources for hormone and antibiotic-free and free-range
>poultry and meat; lamb is typically range fed; and grass fed animals are
>becoming more widely available.  If we took modern cattle and just stopped
>grain fattening them--just slaughtered them after taking them off the
>range-- they would have a composition like wild game.  So, it's not hard to
>replicate the composition of wild animals.  Chicken breast is very lean,
>and
>very widely available; ditto for white meat fish.

Rachel, I do agree to your point, there *are* proper paleo-like meat
resources. Particularly fish which often is real wild.
It is also possible to keep cattle in a way that they don't create EFA
deficits - pure (unfattened) grass fed animals will probably do so.
Udo Erasmus pointed out, that several "primitive" cattle keepers -like
with Zebu cattle achieve a composition which is close to wild game.
And that it would be possible so in a different agriculture (of lower masses
of course).

I think the most unpaleo property of modern meat is the EFA-deficit of it's
fat. This is described on page 225 of your book "Fats that kill...".
We have had lists, also on this list where you easily see that any nature
fat from animal or plant (except a few plants) has a very high part of
essential PUFA (1/3 to 1/4).
Of the other unappetizing topics like hormones antibiotics and germs of mass
deseases I don't even start to speak.

However I referred to the "general" produced meat masses.
The small Netherlands with 16 million inhabitants - I heard about in
connection with the MKS desaster - has 160 million cattle and pigs.
Most western countries have more cattle than inhabitants.
It's just impossible to produce such meat mountains without mass fedder -
which is not only unappetizing but changes the fat of the animals.

>I don't know if you realize that the low fat content of wild game is not a
>limiting factor if one has access to an ample amount of carbohydrates from
>fruits, roots, shoots, tubers, and other vegetation.  Nuts and vegetable
>fruits (for example avocadoes in some coastal climates) would supply
>additional fat, along with fatty fish from oceans or streams.

I wrote about the possibility to equal out the protein overload (or better
energy deficit) at:
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?A2=ind0008&L=paleofood&P=R16050
It turns out that you need to eat so much roots or else that these items
themselves had almost the same weight and about one third of the protein of
the meat. Most plants, seeds, roots, tubers, nuts have a protein to energy
ratio so that you get > 100 percent RDA protein if you ate 2500 kcal (fruit
is lower).

So that means you could live from most plants only,
and from lean wild game you can eat up to 50% of the diet.
If you assume that gatherhunting people exploited every available food
resource, then they would have added game up to this extent, as available.

Or more probable, if they had enough to eat, they will have eaten the best
parts of the animal. And that's not the steaks but the organs.

Beach food:

>You are talking about a highly populated area.  Modern India is not the
>same
>as it was 5,000 or 10,000 or 50,000 years ago!!!  Agriculture and industry
>allowed for the overpopulation of India and other locales.

The high inland population didn't lower the availability of the crabs and
mussles on the beach, did it?
Btw, did you know that India has the biggest h/g population of any country?
The Adivasi. Some 40-60 million people living without agricultire - from the
woods. Momentarily in bad shape due to the shrinking woods.

> I do not believe
>that people had to be constantly moving.

The area a gatherhunting person needs to live on is rather big.
If he or she is living in a family or group it's bigger.
Too big to stay on one place. I think it's wellknown that gatherhunters
constantly move. Fixed (year round) houses are a achievement of neolithic
agriculture. Maybe a reason for the transition.
Not the worst argument to change life for mesolithic gatherhunters.

>Modern people have a lot to learn from the native people,

Wise words, Rachel

Regards, Amadeus