Habitat with most odds off obtaining all your wild food needs in the U.K.

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Broch

Life Member
Jan 18, 2009
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There's a reason that humanity's numbers increased, as did life expectancy and child survival, when farming became popular :)

Is that actually true? I was informed that early farming resulted in a reduced diet variety that led to lower life expectancy and child survival. I suppose it depends how you define 'when farming became popular'.

Farming also caused us to put up barriers, create 'ownership', and introduced a higher level of competition for land and materials than before - it's only recently we've had wars over such things as oil.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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....and yet the population numbers grew. Everywhere that farming is practiced the numbers grow.

So, some individuals might not do so well, but more of them do, and survive to breed children who themselves survive to breed....

The thing is that farming is regular work. It's not feast and famine. It must have been a huge change in society, a cultural shift.
I think at first it must just have been fitted into the seasonal round. The fishing traps for a glut to be prepped and stored. The deliberate seeding of ground, and protecting that and the crop from other animals who would preferentially forage. In time the farming round took over from the H/G one.

We know that the teeth of the farmers suffered...not just stone ground but sticky starch and caries develop.
 

Broch

Life Member
Jan 18, 2009
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www.mont-hmg.co.uk
True, I suppose there may well have been a 'blip' of lower life expectancy in Britain for a short period of time; it was harder to trade here than elsewhere in Britain. A short period of time of bad weather (which could be hundreds of years) may have resulted in food variety shortage. We (not you archaeologists :)) tend to think of these periods as years or decades, not centuries or millennia.
 

Toddy

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I think that with a capable population of people who knew the seasonal round, who knew what when and where food could be found, and were able to stash and store as well as constantly provide food, and it's a small population comparatively speaking....then it's just a matter of accessing it.

Good pristine, easily worked riverine soils are wonderful for early farming. Thing is though that that work continues right through the millenia and slowly removes earlier evidences except in chance situations, or if we perhaps have writings such as the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, China, etc.,
The great pity is that those brilliant farming lands end up the centres of cities and industrialisation swamps them.

Anyway, off track a bit. I think the best foraging lands are the liminal zones, the bits along the estuaries where fresh and salt are both within reasonable walking/hunting/foraging distance.
 
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Poacherman

Banned
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I think that with a capable population of people who knew the seasonal round, who knew what when and where food could be found, and were able to stash and store as well as constantly provide food, and it's a small population comparatively speaking....then it's just a matter of accessing it.

Good pristine, easily worked riverine soils are wonderful for early farming. Thing is though that that work continues right through the millenia and slowly removes earlier evidences except in chance situations, or if we perhaps have writings such as the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, China, etc.,
The great pity is that those brilliant farming lands end up the centres of cities and industrialisation swamps them.

Anyway, off track a bit. I think the best foraging lands are the liminal zones, the bits along the estuaries where fresh and salt are both within reasonable walking/hunting/foraging distance.
Yes I agree on the liminal zones.
 

Poacherman

Banned
Sep 25, 2023
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My sons are vegetarian, and neither has a single missing tooth or filling.

That arguement has long been disproven. Whole cultures are vegetarian.
Vegetarians still eat animal products unlike vegans animal products like cheese are high in minerals.
 

Poacherman

Banned
Sep 25, 2023
437
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Wigan
Is that actually true? I was informed that early farming resulted in a reduced diet variety that led to lower life expectancy and child survival. I suppose it depends how you define 'when farming became popular'.

Farming also caused us to put up barriers, create 'ownership', and introduced a higher level of competition for land and materials than before - it's only recently we've had wars over such things as oil.
With farming obesity also went thru the sky.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
39,133
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S. Lanarkshire
Vegetarians still eat animal products unlike vegans animal products like cheese are high in minerals.
They do, but I can't. I don't digest dairy well, so even though I'm vegetarian, it's really honey that keeps me in that camp.
My diet is rich in minerals, I am becoming an old lady yet my bone density is very good, no signs at all of osteoporosis and I have been vegetarian since I stopped feeding my sons myself.

This is not uncommon, I wasn't joking about world wide cultures that thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet. Southern Indians for instance.
 

Toddy

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39,133
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S. Lanarkshire
With farming obesity also went thru the sky.
That's dubious to be honest.
Increased population because more children survive to adulthood and start to breed too, and that means more work to produce enough food......and farming is work. They might have had food, but it's not free food, it's damned hard worked for food.

Obesity is a very modern issue on the whole.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
39,133
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Japanese macaques fish. They even do it in fast flowing streams.

You know the phrase, "monkey see, monkey do".....well that's us. Humanity sees something like bird diving for fish and decides that they can do it too.
It doesn't mean we're adapted to dive for fish, it simply means it's another skill in the toolbox of humanity.

......and no, shell middens weren't produced by diving, not here, they're simply collected from the foreshore.

Oysters were once so prolific that they were the food of the poor. Indeed the apprentices in London went on strike and one of their demands was no oysters or salmon more than once a week.

Besides, some of us can't eat fish, we're allergic. Surprising numbers of people are allergic to fish and shellfish, and entire cultures refuse to eat shellfish anyway.
 

Poacherman

Banned
Sep 25, 2023
437
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31
Wigan
Japanese macaques fish. They even do it in fast flowing streams.

You know the phrase, "monkey see, monkey do".....well that's us. Humanity sees something like bird diving for fish and decides that they can do it too.
It doesn't mean we're adapted to dive for fish, it simply means it's another skill in the toolbox of humanity.

......and no, shell middens weren't produced by diving, not here, they're simply collected from the foreshore.

Oysters were once so prolific that they were the food of the poor. Indeed the apprentices in London went on strike and one of their demands was no oysters or salmon more than once a week.

Besides, some of us can't eat fish, we're allergic. Surprising numbers of people are allergic to fish and shellfish, and entire cultures refuse to eat shellfish anyway.
Some shellfish require diving but you are right
 

Poacherman

Banned
Sep 25, 2023
437
213
31
Wigan
They do, but I can't. I don't digest dairy well, so even though I'm vegetarian, it's really honey that keeps me in that camp.
My diet is rich in minerals, I am becoming an old lady yet my bone density is very good, no signs at all of osteoporosis and I have been vegetarian since I stopped feeding my sons myself.

This is not uncommon, I wasn't joking about world wide cultures that thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet. Southern Indians for instance.
Honey is a animal product to full off digestive enzymes from bees it's very good esp iff raw there's no primitive culture I'm aware off that's vegan I'm glad your healthy though.
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
39,133
4,810
S. Lanarkshire
I think the numbers of people who are might surprise folks.

In India alone, "Plant-based eating is deeply rooted in three of the prominent religions practiced in India – Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. All these religions believe in the concept of Ahimsa, which means kindness and non-violence towards all living things."

It is also claimed that, "The Brokpa tribe of Ladakh, for example, has thrived while eating a plant-based diet for more than 5,000 years—all while living in harsh Himalayan terrain."

While, "Ethiopian Orthodox Christians also eat vegan food for several weeks before major festivals, including Easter and Christmas. This means that they are vegan for around 208 days out of 365."

If you farm, then vegan is very do-able.
 
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Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
39,133
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I've just been reading the STV news and there's a report on the growing spread of the Chinese Mitten Crab in the UK.....down south from us, so far.


Now surely something that size has got to be worth catchting and eating, as a public service you understand ;)
Eat up to stop the damage they cause.

M
 

Poacherman

Banned
Sep 25, 2023
437
213
31
Wigan
I think the numbers of people who are might surprise folks.

In India alone, "Plant-based eating is deeply rooted in three of the prominent religions practiced in India – Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. All these religions believe in the concept of Ahimsa, which means kindness and non-violence towards all living things."

It is also claimed that, "The Brokpa tribe of Ladakh, for example, has thrived while eating a plant-based diet for more than 5,000 years—all while living in harsh Himalayan terrain."

While, "Ethiopian Orthodox Christians also eat vegan food for several weeks before major festivals, including Easter and Christmas. This means that they are vegan for around 208 days out of 365."

If you farm, then vegan is very do-able.
Indians still eat animal products cows are sacred to them ghee milk ect
 

Wander

Native
Jan 6, 2017
1,418
1,986
Here There & Everywhere
The Habitat in Brighton had a wonderful food court - something for just about everyone's palette. The soups were simply to die for.
Now they've been taken over by Argos it's just not the same.
 
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