Nomadic vegetarian?

[Toddy]

.....
While it's true that foods like acorns and beech nuts can provide a really important source of fat and protein, you've got to remember that not every year is a mast year. This would have been extremely important to our ancestors - for example, it's said of Cormac mac Airt (a legendary high-king of Ireland) that one of the reasons his reign was particularly auspicious was because every year he ruled was a mast year.

and the reality of MacBeth's long reign was that, "In his time there were fertile seasons"
The fertility of the King is transferred to the fertility of the Land.

On balance, I think it could be done, but it'd need a h3lluva lot of work and working knowledge of the plant seasons and environments and lots of land to forage over. I also think that like bears there'd be a real need to lay down fat reserves for our cold, dark and wet Winters and early Spring.
cheers,
Toddy

 

[Tengu]

The mesolithic people would not have thought of this, would they?

 

[Toddy]

No, not really, they exploited all of the nutritional resources available.We find huge shell middens , that successfully preserve bone and antler spear and harpoon points, from their times.
cheers,
Toddy

 

[steve a]

I attended a course a while ago on which Prof.Gordon Hillman was the advisor/lecturer on wild plant food stuffs. He stated that in all his research he had only come across one group of people in India that had a sustainable nomadic/vegetarianism lifestyle, he was suprised in this fact as all his previous research had suggested this was impossible. He conducted research and visited this group. He found that they were also eating a fair ammount of animal protein derived from grubs found within the grain, his work there strengthened his opinion that a nomodic/vegetarianism lifestyle is not substainable.

 

[gregorach]

Well, that seems pretty definitive to me... There's no question that Gordon knows what he's talking about.

 

[Toddy]

Okay, yes I do see the reasoning, but, just how many non farming societies have been vegetarian or vegan from some sort of deliberate choice? Until well into the last century it was thought most peculiar in Western Europe. The Jains in India are vegatarian (as are many Buddhists) but they are a farming society.
I wonder just how well a vegetarian or vegan thinking people would cope, not just those who accept the grubs as part of their diet.
I don't think I'm making this very clear; I mean that I know about vitamins and minerals and trace elements in my diet, I know about carbohydrates and food values and about food combining to maximise protein.

When I realised that my young sons had made up their minds not to eat meat or animal products I made really strenuous efforts to see that they still had as varied and as healthy a diet as I could provide with as much wild foraged food in it as possible. The only thing missing from a totally wild vegan diet in the UK was fat or oils. Once the nut crop was by that was it. Linseed helped cover the deficiency but it has to be grown as a crop to provide enough and it has to be stored. My sons made it easy for me and agreed to drink milk and eat butter and cheese. These too though are farmed produce. Finding British grown soya bean for milk 25 years ago just wasn't happening Modern rapeseed varieties have been bred to remove the bitter elements that made them unpalatable so that isn't really wild even if the oil is good.

Fruits, greens, flowers, roots, fungi, bark, grains and seeds, nuts, saps, seaweeds......all vegetarian, all good food.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[dommyracer]

If you remember RM attempting to gather bilberries in siberia, the locals had a very efficient technique where they scooped a basket along the bushes. RM tried and messed up, the women laughed and said he gathered fruit like he was a bear.

Xylaria, which series was this in? I thought it was in the Siberia episode of 'World Of Survival' but I watched it the other day and I'm sure it wasn't in it...?

 

[Yorkshire Boy]

Hello all,
1st I'm no expert.
2nd this is only my opinion
3rd I respect peoples life style and diet choices.

I don't think you could live a vegan life by just gathering what you need.
The energy outlay would exceed what you get in return.

Been a vegetarian is no good either.
What happens when the flocks and herds get so big that they eat all the pasture?

Veganism works for people in modern society.
I've never met a powerfully built vegan man.
They've all been thinnly built.
Nothing wrong with that.
Until you have to do some serious lifting and carrying.

The Sadu holy men aren't exactly built like a Canadian trapper are they?
This doesn't mean they don't have outstanding endurance or other attributes.

I think our European ancestors exploited every available food resource.
As do every other people who live a hunter gatherer life.

This isn't PC and I don't wish to offend.
But it seems to me that when there is a glut of food, everybody gets involved.
Be it gathering fruit, vegetables meat and fish.

When there isn't a glut.
Men do the hunting and fishing, women, kids and old folks do the gathering.
Old men teach boys hunting skills close to camp.
Women show the girls cooking preparation skills, how to make clothing etc.
and herblore.

Is that sexist?

If so, then how come just about every society that I've read about or seen on the tv does this.

I would dearly love to see you succeed in your quest.
I think if your supplementing your diet with bought or traded stuff you'll do it.

Good luck, JC.

 

[Toddy]

Anthropological research indicates that 'man the hunter' actually provides very little of the food for a family/ tribe; the vast majority is foraged by women and children. The meat the men hunt is considered 'feasting food'. The only exception to this seems to be the Inuit peoples where they have to hunt for basic subsistence in both food and clothing.
I suppose really the question is, can we survive, all year round, on that foraging the women provide, if we remove the shellfish, insect, egg and small game elements from the diet?
The comment about the herds increasing and eating us out of house and home (or field and forest ) is perhaps best answered in a book titled, "Diet for a Small Planet". The land needed to support one cow will comfortably feed 10 people iirc, and that's mediocre quality land and cows don't live as long as we do.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Yorkshire Boy]

Stupid question, but how do you get milk from one cow?

Also, the feasting probably gives everyone all the animal nutrition to keep them going.
And how often do you mean by feasting?
Once a week? Once every two weeks, less often?

Also it's not just meat the hunters bring back but, fur, hides sinew etc...

All these are needed to exist in the wild.

 

[dommyracer]

Veganism works for people in modern society.
I've never met a powerfully built vegan man.
They've all been thinnly built.
Nothing wrong with that.
Until you have to do some serious lifting and carrying.

Perhaps not vegan, but I have a friend who is a natural body builder and is vegetarian. He's large chap.

 

[Porcupine]

toddy, the book you refer too, does it asume you start using the land for farming?


what plants we could realisticly find in a semi wild environment that contain a source of fat/oil? seems thats what the vegan nomad needs most.

beechnuts? that seems to be seasonal at best, any alternatives?

 

[Yorkshire Boy]

Perhaps not vegan, but I have a friend who is a natural body builder and is vegetarian. He's large chap.

Then with respect, I would say he's the exception not the rule.

Imagine how big he would be if he ate a free range chicken a day?

Besides a gym work out is very different to carrying logs, climbing hills, being cold and wet.

If your built like a whippet you have nothing to live off in the lean times.

Surely doesn't all this have to do with what environment you live in?
Being cold and wet has got to use more calories than a warm dry climate?

Even Mr Mears says that meat and fish plays a large part in a bush diet.
Not even because of the food and material value, but the social aspect of it as well.

Why do chimps and male baboons hunt?
Because of the extra nutrition it brings, maybe?

 

[Toddy]

Stupid question, but how do you get milk from one cow?

Also, the feasting probably gives everyone all the animal nutrition to keep them going.
And how often do you mean by feasting?
Once a week? Once every two weeks, less often?

Also it's not just meat the hunters bring back but, fur, hides sinew etc...

All these are needed to exist in the wild.

Same way you milk every other cow ....provided there's a bull nearby to keep her in calf and thus in milk.

In groups without sufficient females for adequate foraging the children don't survive in population stable numbers and the other adults suffer too.

Fur, hide, sinews.....I can gather, process spin and weave thread and cloth from plant sources and it's better than hides for clothing in all but the iced regions. I can build shelter and provide warmth, food and comfort too simply from plant resources.

'Feasting' seems to be variable. I know I've read accounts where the hunting is weeks apart. Meanwhile the protein brought in daily by women and children feeds everyone.

I do think to live a nomadic vegetarian life would be hard, I do think it wouldn't need much to go wrong for it to all go pear shaped. I also think farming is a very good idea.....but then, I'm pretty much vegan, I would, wouldn't I?

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Yorkshire Boy]

To keep a cow in calf, thus to milk her.

It wouldn't be long before you had a herd.
Then what do you do for pasture?

In time, if your morals didn't tell you otherwise, you would have to start slaughtering them.
You would have a prime source of nutrition and materials on tap.

 

[Toddy]

Then with respect, I would say he's the exception not the rule.

Imagine how big he would be if he ate a free range chicken a day? QUOTE]

Not so, many body builders are vegetarian as are many of the best athletes.
Frankly, according to my doctor, the reason so many vegetarians are heavy is because our diet is so rich. A confirmed carnivore, he tells me I'm supposed to let the animals eat all that rich nutritious food, the grains, the nuts, the seeds, etc., and then eat them....that'd slim me down

A free range chicken a day? See that's the bit many non veggies don't get; I'd rather starve than eat the chicken. Might not be much of a survival strategy but it's true and I'm not alone in my sensibilities.
Funny things us humans

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Carcajou Garou]

The original post was in part:
"Would it be possible to sustain a vegetarian lifestyle year-round asuming you dont farm part of your food?"
We have diverged to proove personal points I think?

Nomadic hunter/gatherers followed the animals herds by nature, or they stay in one area as long as the surrounding wildlife can sustain them then, again they would move on (nomadic).

Only when man was able to cultivate a large head of grain did some become agrarian and fairly sedentary.

"The only exception to this seems to be the Inuit peoples where they have to hunt for basic subsistence in both food and clothing."
The plains Indian: Soux, Crow, Cheyene, Blackfeet.... even later Metis sustained themselves mostly with Bison (buffalo), when they were able to acquire horses brought by the Spanish.
The Soux were at on time semi agrarian and live on the edge of the great plains but pursued the hunt with the advent of the horse to the point they neglected their farming abilities.
Again I know of no aboriginal peoples that were vegetarian to the exclusion of meat derived protein, we are omnivores look at your own teeth or is that a great joke of nature or supreme being?

 

[Porcupine]

picked up the link to plants for a future in another thread ( http://www.pfaf.org/ ) kindly suplied by Rich59 (thanks for the link), it has a lot of info.

seems in theory i could harvest oil from the seeds of a shepherd's purse.................

funny how a garden pest looks all different all of a sudden

 

[Toddy]

Funny things our teeth.
Definitely not right for carnivores, or for chewing cellulose rich plant materials, but they are ideal for fruits, for choice seeds (eg. nut meats not cracking the nuts), insects and molluscs. Protein such as eggs, fish, etc., in season again no problem.

It occurs to me that the insect part of the human diet of the past has perhaps been very much under realised. Do I want to eat them now? No. But I'm happy to grow oats, barley, rye and wheat, beans and peas, process and cook them for food.

However, we're getting off topic again.

The question was,

Would it be possible to sustain a vegetarian lifestyle year-round asuming you dont farm part of your food?

cheers,
Toddy

 

[dommyracer]

Then with respect, I would say he's the exception not the rule.

Imagine how big he would be if he ate a free range chicken a day?

Haha I seriously doubt he could get any bigger. He eats about 6 times a day, and takes on a lot of protein from fish and soy. Funnily enough he's Norwegian and grew up in the country fishing and hunting etc, but I very much doubt he'd be able to maintain his physique on a nomadi hunter gatherer diet.

Its true that a lot of elite athletes are vegetarian, but it is a lot easier when we have such ready access to lots of fish, soy, etc etc.