Raw Food, Meat, Plants Etc

[Solitude]

Saw this article and wondered what you think to it:

Imagine yourself placed in nature in the total absence of modern technology. Ask yourself the questions: what would you eat and what could you eat? You could eat and digest fruits, plants, nuts, insects, worms, eggs, and animal flesh. These are about the only food substances found in nature that humans are capable of digesting without technological intervention. In fact, they are the very foods that are the mainstay of nomadic primitive societies and wild animals. Only when these foods become scarce do unpalatable, inedible foods such as most grains and vegetables become cooked and processed to change their palatability and increase digestibility. Our immersion in modern cookery and food processing has misled us. Foods such as pasta, granola, tofu, cauliflower and lettuce – which are marketed as the ultimate health foods – are in fact not natural human or animal foods at all. These products either do not exist in nature, or in their raw, precooked form are unpalatable and sometimes toxic. For example, raw soybeans contain a variety of chemicals that can stunt growth and interfere with the body’s digestive enzymes. Eat enough of them and you’ll die. Modern grain products are results of agriculture and in their raw form are unpalatable, indigestible and also toxic. How in nature would one ever find enough kernels of rice, wheat, or barley to make up a meal, even if they were edible in their raw form? Who, if they were really, really hungry, and had a choice, would eat raw broccoli, cauliflower or lettuce? These vegetables are now made palatable by cooking or doctoring with manufactured dressings. This creates somewhat of a dilemma. Knowing what our natural diet is and consuming it are two different things. We are so acclimated to the modern diet that the notion of eating or feeding raw meat, for example, is nauseating to most. Nevertheless, as evidenced by primitive (but nutritionally advanced) peoples, raw meat and organs can be eaten with great nutritional benefit to humans and animals, and they are totally digestible and nontoxic.

So there we have it what do you think, raw chicken anyone??? (believe it or not in japan they eat raw chicken in some resturants)

 

[BOD]

Saw this article and wondered what you think to it:

Imagine yourself placed in nature in the total absence of modern technology. Ask yourself the questions: what would you eat and what could you eat? You could eat and digest fruits, plants, nuts, insects, worms, eggs, and animal flesh. These are about the only food substances found in nature that humans are capable of digesting without technological intervention. In fact, they are the very foods that are the mainstay of nomadic primitive societies and wild animals. Only when these foods become scarce do unpalatable, inedible foods such as most grains and vegetables become cooked and processed to change their palatability and increase digestibility. Our immersion in modern cookery and food processing has misled us. Foods such as pasta, granola, tofu, cauliflower and lettuce – which are marketed as the ultimate health foods – are in fact not natural human or animal foods at all. These products either do not exist in nature, or in their raw, precooked form are unpalatable and sometimes toxic. For example, raw soybeans contain a variety of chemicals that can stunt growth and interfere with the body’s digestive enzymes. Eat enough of them and you’ll die. Modern grain products are results of agriculture and in their raw form are unpalatable, indigestible and also toxic. How in nature would one ever find enough kernels of rice, wheat, or barley to make up a meal, even if they were edible in their raw form? Who, if they were really, really hungry, and had a choice, would eat raw broccoli, cauliflower or lettuce? These vegetables are now made palatable by cooking or doctoring with manufactured dressings. This creates somewhat of a dilemma. Knowing what our natural diet is and consuming it are two different things. We are so acclimated to the modern diet that the notion of eating or feeding raw meat, for example, is nauseating to most. Nevertheless, as evidenced by primitive (but nutritionally advanced) peoples, raw meat and organs can be eaten with great nutritional benefit to humans and animals, and they are totally digestible and nontoxic.

So there we have it what do you think, raw chicken anyone??? (believe it or not in japan they eat raw chicken in some resturants)

I regularly eat raw cauliflower lettuce and cabbage by choice.

This rant is inconsistent.

Is the argument that without any technology we can't eat anything but fruits, plants, nuts, insects, worms, eggs, and animal flesh?

Or is it that modern technology is what makes food palatable? There is a difference.

I hate ideologues :AR15firin

 

[Toddy]

Fresh grains are soft and milky and nutty. In our climate they have to be dried to survive.
I eat fresh green stuffs all year around. Not all grains are the product of modern breedings. Pierre Girard has posted some wonderful threads on family gatherings of the wild rice that grows on the north American lakes, similarly the wood millet that I eat every year is fit to eat just as it is.
Humans cook food for several very justifiable reasons. Taste, texture, digestibility, hygiene......

cheers,
Toddy

 

[mace242]

Got to ask. Who eats cooked lettuce? Can't think that I ever have.

Another thought. Coleslaw. Raw cabbage. You're right - inconsistent.

 

[Huon]

Stir-fried lettuce is pretty good. It needs hardly any cooking though so remember to add it near the end if you are stir-frying with other ingredients.

Cheers,

Huon

Got to ask. Who eats cooked lettuce? Can't think that I ever have.

Another thought. Coleslaw. Raw cabbage. You're right - inconsistent.

 

[mace242]

Well there you go. That's my new thing learned today. A bit like pok choi I suppose.

 

[shep]

I ate steak tartare last week - raw beef mince with herbs - very tasty!
I do see the general point though - most of our diet is dependent on preparation of some sort.

I suppose it just depends on how 'primitive' you want to go. Since we developed opposable thumbs, we've been able to crack nuts and peel fruit. Since the stone age we've had tools and fire to prepare and roast meat, boil water for our veg. etc. I think it's hard to argue that we're not really being 'natural' if we eat anything that's been cooked.

However, on the other hand there is a sliding scale of 'unnatural' intervention with our food all the way from grinding and baking cereals to genetically modifying them to be disease-resistant. Each person draws their own arbitrary line as to where they want to be on the scale. Me, I'll keep my thumbs and probably a few million years of progress since!

 

[Huon]

You've got it!

I prefer bok choi though

Cheers,

Huon

Well there you go. That's my new thing learned today. A bit like pok choi I suppose.

 

[Stuart]

Eat enough of them and you’ll die

I love statements like that! A clear indicator that the author is talking utter nonsense, its a simple fact that if you eat enough of anything you'll die! Drink too much water and you'll Die, breathe too much oxygen and you'll die.

These are about the only food substances found in nature that humans are capable of digesting without technological intervention. In fact, they are the very foods that are the mainstay of nomadic primitive societies

another gem of nonsense from someone who has obviously never met a member of a "nomadic primitive society" in their life. many such nomadic groups in the jungles of Asia live as they have for thousands of years on a staple of Sago flour, a starch derived from the pith wood of the sago palm which is totally inedible without a complicated large scale mechanical process for making it so, which each nomadic group has perfected in there own way using the sago palms leaves and bark to make the troughs, funnels, pounders, buckets, and sieves necessary to process the pith

in many communities around the world in places like South America, Africa and India the people live on a staple diet of cassava (aka Manioc), which is full of cyanide in its raw state! This too is 'processed' by boiling and changing the water to remove the toxins.

Having consumed almost exclusively both staple diets, each for months at a time, the only negative side effect I have experienced is the deep seated desire to never see another bowl of sago or manioc again, but this soon passes.

 

[spamel]

another gem of nonsense from someone who has obviously never met a member of a "nomadic primitive society" in their life. many such nomadic groups in the jungles of Asia live as they have for thousands of years on a staple of Sago flour, a starch derived from the pith wood of the sago palm which is totally inedible without a complicated large scale mechanical process for making it so, which each nomadic group has perfected in there own way using the sago palms leaves and bark to make the troughs, funnels, pounders, buckets, and sieves necessary to process the pith

in many communities around the world in places like South America, Africa and India the people live on a staple diet of cassava (aka Manioc), which is full of cyanide in its raw state! This too is 'processed' by boiling and changing the water to remove the toxins.

Having consumed almost exclusively both staple diets, each for months at a time, the only negative side effect I have experienced is the deep seated desire to never see another bowl of sago or manioc again, but this soon passes.

Therefore it cannot be eaten raw, as Solitude quoted in his original post!

 

[Stuart]

Therefore it cannot be eaten raw, as Solitude quoted in his original post!

that’s the point isn’t it or have I gotten myself confused somewhere.....

Having re-read the original post I may have gotten the wrong impression :togo:

I thought the author was suggesting that any form of processed foods were in fact bad for our health, suggesting that the "nomadic primitive societies" to which he refers had the perfect diet and using it as evidence to provide support for a 'raw foodism' or'Paleo diet' philosphy

I'm I the only person who got this impression?


Read in this way, his chosen 'supporting evidence' actually serves to highlight the flaw in his own argument. author states that exclusively 'unprocessed' foods are the "mainstay of nomadic primitive societies" which is inaccurate. The majority of such groups get the carbohydrate portion of their diet from exactly the kind of processing that the author appears to be arguing against.

Now that I have re-read it, it appears that that’s probably not what the author is saying, though I'm still not sure what point he actually trying to make is, perhaps that people who were raised with tasty processed foods and might find wild food unpalatable ? Not sure, I don’t get the link with eating stuff raw, is he for it, against it, what’s the message, or have i missed somthing obvious?

Solitude, who is the author and what is the context of this quote?

 

[litefoot]

What day is it?
Andy.

 

[combatblade1]

What day is it?
Andy.

I think its the day after yesterday or possibly the day before tomorrow??

 

[BOD]

Imagine yourself placed in nature in the total absence of modern technology. Ask yourself the questions: what would you eat and what could you eat? You could eat and digest fruits, plants, nuts, insects, worms, eggs, and animal flesh. These are about the only food substances found in nature that humans are capable of digesting without technological intervention. In fact, they are the very foods that are the mainstay of nomadic primitive societies and wild animals. Only when these foods become scarce do unpalatable, inedible foods such as most grains and vegetables become cooked and processed to change their palatability and increase digestibility. Our immersion in modern cookery and food processing has misled us. Foods such as pasta, granola, tofu, cauliflower and lettuce – which are marketed as the ultimate health foods – are in fact not natural human or animal foods at all. These products either do not exist in nature, or in their raw, precooked form are unpalatable and sometimes toxic. For example, raw soybeans contain a variety of chemicals that can stunt growth and interfere with the body’s digestive enzymes. Eat enough of them and you’ll die. Modern grain products are results of agriculture and in their raw form are unpalatable, indigestible and also toxic. How in nature would one ever find enough kernels of rice, wheat, or barley to make up a meal, even if they were edible in their raw form? Who, if they were really, really hungry, and had a choice, would eat raw broccoli, cauliflower or lettuce? These vegetables are now made palatable by cooking or doctoring with manufactured dressings. This creates somewhat of a dilemma. Knowing what our natural diet is and consuming it are two different things. We are so acclimated to the modern diet that the notion of eating or feeding raw meat, for example, is nauseating to most. Nevertheless, as evidenced by primitive (but nutritionally advanced) peoples, raw meat and organs can be eaten with great nutritional benefit to humans and animals, and they are totally digestible and nontoxic.

The writer’s intentions can be inferred from the first two sentences. Without technology your choice of what you would or could eat is limited to fruits, plants, nuts, insects, worms, eggs, and animal flesh. Fairly obvious you think but he ignores the fact that many fruits plants, nuts, insects, worms, eggs, and animal flesh may be toxic or indigestible

So far so good

He (and this could only have been written by a bloke) then says that these food groups are the mainstay of nomadic primitive societies and that only when they become scarce do other foods get cooked and processed.

Now he is in trouble. The assertion that scarcity leads to looking for alternative foods is not supported evidence. It may be true that in colder climates pickling and salting and drying of existing food sources for storage are needed if a group wishes to stay at the same site instead of migrating south. But this does not hold in warmer latitudes. There is no scarcity of food in rainforests that have not been logged or overpopulated.

The scarcity argument is misleading. Humans look to variety even in conditions of plenty. which leads to technological intervention in processing and cultivation

As Stuart pointed out sago is processed by technological intervention, albeit a traditional technology, and is the first choice and mainstay of nomadic people like the Penan and other groups in tropical Asia. Australian aborgines, probably once the most nomadic of all peoples, collect wild grains (spinifex etc) and also toxic fruit like cycad to process into flour.

He the jumps to how modern cookery has misled us. Foods like tofu and lettuce are not natural and inedible in “raw’ form. He asserts that grains are only in of our diet because of agriculture.

That may be so of modern grains but he ignores millennia of cultivation and domestication of wild grains by early agricultural societies from Sumer to South East Asia to pre-columbian America.

He then asks how in nature could people ever have collected enough wild grains.

Well, I guess hunter-gatherers didn’t have modern technology to distract them and everyone was engaged in the effort and they developed techniques of efficient gathering (and probably whacked the doubting Thomas’ on the head with a stick for verbalizing too much). And then some smart women decided to plant grain crops and nagged the men to clear a patch of land.

The writer now asks who would eat lettuce cauliflower or lettuce if they were hungry.

Since he has told us earlier that these are not natural foods one has to ask why the matter is mentioned at all? He also confuses hunger with sustenance. We have foods we prefer when we are hungry and others that we eat for sustenance and variety. As most of us know a diet of tasty rabbit may make you feel good but you will slowly starve or poison yourself (which also knocks on the head his later point that a meat diet is not toxic) EAT ONLY RABBIT AND YOU WILL DIE

He ends by suddenly advocating the idea or raw meat and its benefits, completely ignoring the risks of eating wild meat.

This rant is by someone who dislikes how we have become ‘alienated’ from natural food by modern technology and agribusiness and likes the notion of primitive simplicity in diet especially meats.

But I suspect that this is mainly wishful thinking as if he cannot bear the thought of lettuce and raw cauliflower (not bad actually) I wonder how he will cope with uncooked rattan ( a bit bitter)

Or

Screwpine hearts (bland raw but texture like boiled spuds when cooked)

Salad leaves (raw – don’t know the name of the plant prefer lettuce actually)

And as someone who occasionally eats wild meat, usually not raw, I wonder how he would like monkey ( – not raw)

ants and ant eggs with rattan (not raw) HE DID SAY INSECTS!!

Or raw telescopium seasnails (raw)

I am sympathetic to most of his rant though I dislike the inconsistencies. Since the first nut was cracked with the first rock food sources have been "processed"

On matters of food philosophy, one should put your mouth where your mouth is.

 

[Nightwalker]

I wondered when the monkey and ant pictures would come up again! :yikes:

Since the first nut was cracked with the first rock food sources have been "processed".

Spot'on

Im sure it has always been natural to work with what food we have avaliable to make it more desirable.

 

[WhichDoctor]

Thanks Bob, I’ve been trying to rite something along those lines but could never have dun it half as well :You_Rock_ .

The problem is that this article is obviously written by a raw foody, and so they believe that raw food is always better than cooked or processed food. Because of this believe that raw food is always best then native people must only eat raw food. Facts don’t really come into the equation.

I don’t have a problem with eating raw food in modern societies. It is a good way of getting lots of vitamins and minerals and restricting the amount of calories you consume. But just because it’s good for you in modern society doesn’t mean its what humans do naturally.

 

[shep]

Ok,
arachnids, not insects, but you started it!
Note the tasteful garnish!

 

[Solitude]

that’s the point isn’t it or have I gotten myself confused somewhere.....

Having re-read the original post I may have gotten the wrong impression :togo:

I thought the author was suggesting that any form of processed foods were in fact bad for our health, suggesting that the "nomadic primitive societies" to which he refers had the perfect diet and using it as evidence to provide support for a 'raw foodism' or'Paleo diet' philosphy

I'm I the only person who got this impression?


Read in this way, his chosen 'supporting evidence' actually serves to highlight the flaw in his own argument. author states that exclusively 'unprocessed' foods are the "mainstay of nomadic primitive societies" which is inaccurate. The majority of such groups get the carbohydrate portion of their diet from exactly the kind of processing that the author appears to be arguing against.

Now that I have re-read it, it appears that that’s probably not what the author is saying, though I'm still not sure what point he actually trying to make is, perhaps that people who were raised with tasty processed foods and might find wild food unpalatable ? Not sure, I don’t get the link with eating stuff raw, is he for it, against it, what’s the message, or have i missed somthing obvious?

Solitude, who is the author and what is the context of this quote?

Hi

The author i cant recall and i have forgotten where i got it from!!

However the people you refer to as primitive are primitive to you however ask them and im sure they think they are quite advanced compared to there relatives!

I believe the context was that we have run out of foods which we can eat naturally raw therefore have delved into foods not designed to be eaten by us by cooking them and altering there structure.

There is also a but about raw chicken eating and i was interested to knock ideas about and stir up some discussion on the topic.

It seems that we live in a world of food intollerance and allergies, is this because we have moved away from natural raw foods into the realms of unedible raw foods which we have to cook/modify??

I didnt quote the full version, its open to all our interpretaions i guess.

Nice input everyone.

 

[xylaria]

I am little confused what research the author had done;

[who if they were] really hungry, and had a choice, would eat raw broccoli, cauliflower or lettuce? These vegetables are now made palatable by cooking or doctoring with manufactured dressings

.

Our modern brassicas have been made edible by breeding, if you think raw cauliflower is unpalatable try wild lettuce. On saying that there is plenty of very edible raw greens out there, they are just not sold in tescos. Wild diets are only as broad as the knowlegde of the person collecting it. Starch sources are hard graft, which is why a lot of cultures on the surface seem to restrict that part of the diet to one or two staples, that they have developed a process for. I do feel that modern food intollerances are in part due to the over dependance of our diet on processed wheat, where as a little as two generations ago other grains such as barley oats rye and millet featured alot more. As toddy said grains are perfectly edible raw when fresh (and very nice too) but we need to eat the other ten months of the year as well.

I am very interested in what our early hominids ate, but considering I have seen film of orangutans breaking seeds between stones, i do feel food processing has been around as long as we have had thumbs.

 

[Emma]

Who, if they were really, really hungry, and had a choice, would eat raw broccoli, cauliflower or lettuce? These vegetables are now made palatable by cooking or doctoring with manufactured dressings.

I don't need to be hungry to eat raw broccoli and cauliflower and cabbage and lettuce. I think that they're (the farmed vegetables this is!) far superior eaten raw, especially the stalks. Same with carrots, and I'm developing a taste for raw parsnip too. Haven't yet found (well, positively identified) wild versions of any of these so I can't say how nice they'd be raw.

I also can't quite believe that you're getting authoritative about primitive peoples to Stuart of all people.


You might want to read up about these strange people too.