Vitamins and such

[WoodWhite]

In the west we are constantly being told what we need, 5 fruit or veg, 3 serving of whole grain blablabla, but where would are ancestors have got the good stuff from?
protein,
vitamins,
carbohydrates (complex and simple)
and all the other things are body needs, because some of them dont seem to be very common in nature, early farmers would have had cattle for milk for calcium for there bones to grow... but a hunter-gather wouldnt have cows so...

 

[spiritofold]

Theres a couple of books by Francis Pryor that delve into prehistoric diets. From what i remember they had a pretty decent diet, making real use of the resources around them.
I think lots of results came from middens and study of campsites, also including flake analysis for types of wear from food preperation.

We are so far removed from these ancestors!

 

[WoodWhite]

Its a pity that while in huge countries like australia and america, there are still surving pockets of tradional livers, whereas in britain ever corner has been reached by technoloy, wouldnt it be amazing if some nomadic tribe of hunter-gathers wandered out of the scottish highland even now.

 

[firecrest]

There is a lot of vitamins in the whole of an animal (some animals) We eat generally only the muscle in our diets, but all the offal, brain tongue and eyeballs included contain vitamins. I suspect they actually got more vitamins than we do today.

 

[spiritofold]

I think that animal fat has something to do with being able to process vitamins and minerals in other types of plant food.

 

[Jumbalaya]

I was recently E-ing a French botnaist with an interest in wild foods - Farncois Couplan - and he said that he has a book which has data on the nutrition of some wild greens.

It's in French though, and called:
GUIDE NUTRITIONNEL DES PLANTES SAUVAGES ET CULTIVÉES

The URL for his books is:
http://www.couplan.com/pc/francais/produits/produits.htm

Marcus

 

[reddy]

I'm fascinated by early diets too.
I believe meat gave them proteins, carbohydrates, lots of different vitamins (including Vitamin. C if eaten raw or v. lightly cooked).

Eggs and wild nuts are very nutritious. Calcium is readily available in easily digestable form in dark leafy veg (or some commen weeds) and in many fruits, fish and seafood give more essential minerals.

Plant and grass seeds again are highly nutritious, and possibly would have been ground to a porridge like gruel for example.

Many wild roots would have prepared and eaten for simple bulk, vitamins, carbs and starch.


Like Firecrest said early man probably ate better than a lot of people do in the West now I reckon lol!

Though how on earth they managed in Winter I'd love to know. Is there any evidence of primitive preservation? Or did they semi-hibernate?

 

[crwydryny]

I don't have much time so I'll make this as quick as I can...

animal blood contains the bulk of itimins and minerals needed for the human body
liver is often rich in vitimin A as well as other minerals such as selenium and many ammino acids. th same with kidneys. bone marrow is a good sorce of iron amoung other things. fats often contain most amino acids essential fats.

nuts contain lots of protin
berries and most fruit are rich in vitimins/minerals (depending on teh ground that they are grown in) as well as simple corbohydrates (in teh form of natural sugars)
tubers are rich in many minerals and more complex carbohydrates (starch)
greens be it lettice or dandelion leaves are rich in vitimins and minerals though tend to lack in anything else (being mostly water with some starch held in an ineddible fiber matrix)

I think that covers just about everything. the problem is our modern diet is actually quite poor compaired to that of someone living 100 or even 50 years ago as most of our food is soo pumped with chemicals and otherwised processed that they lose the bulk of their nutritional value and that's before we cook it (which reduced it even more).
so for our ancesstors it would be easy to get their "5 a day"

 

[Pantalaimon]

Not all the things we think are healthy are so, or it doesn't seem so.
Milk for example, what other animals then humans drink milk from other animals? Which animals keep drinking milk when they are grown up? Only humans.
Calcium from greens is taken up by your body much better than milk. But it's just a good economical story that your body needs milk everyday.

 

[gregorach]

Though how on earth they managed in Winter I'd love to know. Is there any evidence of primitive preservation? Or did they semi-hibernate?

Well, there are several resources which are available over winter - various roots and rhizomes, sea buckthorn, that sort of thing, plus autumn has always traditionally been a time for hunting, and I suspect that's a tradition that goes back a long way. Air drying meat isn't the sort of thing that produces much archaeological evidence though, so it's very hard to prove.

Still, winter almost certainly would have been tough. I expect that by March people were a lot skinnier than they were in November.

Personally, given half a chance, I'll take the semi-hibernation option...

 

[crwydryny]

Not all the things we think are healthy are so, or it doesn't seem so.
Milk for example, what other animals then humans drink milk from other animals? Which animals keep drinking milk when they are grown up? Only humans.
Calcium from greens is taken up by your body much better than milk. But it's just a good economical story that your body needs milk everyday.

actually that's a good point especially given that about 70%+ of the human population is lactose intollerant to some degree (some more than others) but it's just too darn tasty compaired to cabbage (speaking as someone who is lactose intollerant and loves milk)

 

[BushTucker]

I have often thought how good it would be to have a forum dedicated to medicinal uses for plants, nutritional values and descriptions of the plants that are edible. I know we have a flora forum so maybe it could be attached to that?

Just a thought.

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

There is a lot of vitamins in the whole of an animal (some animals) We eat generally only the muscle in our diets, but all the offal, brain tongue and eyeballs included contain vitamins. I suspect they actually got more vitamins than we do today.

Watch a pride of lions at a kill and the top lion gets the heart etc, the best bits?

The Drovers and crofters had a good dairy and meat diet. The Mongols certainly travelled well on mairs milk etc. So have the reindeer herders. Inuits (northern) and Eskimos Alaska, have always done well with no veg and carbs form wheat etc.

Nick

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

Still, winter almost certainly would have been tough. I expect that by March people were a lot skinnier than they were in November.

Personally, given half a chance, I'll take the semi-hibernation option...

Guy Grieve, whilst wintering in Alaska, found that it was easier to hunt for Beaver, Elk, Grouse as the tracks were very easy to follow.

Nick

 

[mortalmerlin]

I think in the west we are fed so much information we give up and assume it's all to complex for us to understand so trust the producers.

The attitude of my Mother is to eat a reasonable balanced diet and avoid anything that's artificial and you won't go far wrong. If your deficient of something you will probably start to crave it (although I don't think chocolate counts). Since her side of the family usually manage 100+ I will put my faith in her advise (it also means bacon for breakfast ).