Claims of the primal diet: Eat meat and avoid vegetables and grains

[Phoenixrising777]

My view is I am all for the good foods...the ones that taste good or are good for you... preferred is both...and the bad foods...not so much.

[Joeschmoe]

Originally Posted by Bodhi

I think this is a true statement and we should eat our food choices as raw as we can stand them to achieve the greatest benefit from them.

I think there has been some confusion. We are not omnivores, omnivores are built a specific way. Chimpanzee's eat a small amount of flesh in it's diet, they are not omnivores though.

Does choice change are classification? In the animal world there are no Vegetarians. That's a human construct based on choice. Animals in nature eat what they can find and are built to be able to eat. It turns out that animals that are built like us find that most of their food comes from fruits (sweet, berries, vegetable fruits like tomatoes, seed pods, etc). It's just the easiest to obtain.

I mane no statements of the relative health of this diet or that diet, I simply said that the article that the OP posted is factually wrong. We are not anatomically carnivores. The assumption that just because we are able to eat large quantities means we are omnivores is false.

[Bodhi]

omnivore: An organism that eats both plants and animals.

Chimpanzees are omnivores.

[Joeschmoe]

It can not possibly be that simple. Chimps are omnivores? They only get 5% of their calories on average from animal sources, mostly from insects. This is not much more than gorillas. There is no mammal that doesn't get some of it's food from animal sources, are they all omnivores? The label of omnivore can't be about what we chose to eat, otherwise everybody who's raised a dog on plant based food (a fair number of vegans do this) has suddenly created an herbivorous dog. Bears are omnivores and their diet can vary to almost all plant food to almost entirely meat.

This isn't about what people eat or have eaten historically. All i did was refute the Article's assertion that we are meant to eat 100% meat.

[Bodhi]

Yes, it is that simple. The term omnivore means exactly what the dictionary says.

omnivore: An organism that eats both plants and animals.

The term does not question weither an organism is meant to eat an omnivore diet, it simply states what the organism does.

I agree with you totally that humans are not supposed to eat a 100% raw meat diet. We are not carnivores.

[Joeschmoe]

An omnivore (from Latin: omne all, everything; vorare to devour) is a species of animal that eats both plants and animals as its primary food source. They are opportunistic, general feeders not specifically adapted to eat and digest either meat or plant material exclusively.[1] Pigs are one well-known example of an omnivore.[2] Crows are another example of an omnivore that many people see every day.[3]

It's not that simple. Gorillas eat 5% of their calories from animal sources yet are calssified as a herbivore, note the phrase "primary food source." Start feeding a gorilla meet, that doesn't make it a carnivore or even an omnivore. Start feedinga dog grains and tofu and it doesn't become an herbivore. By your reasoning I'm an herbivore because i don't eat meat, you're an omnivore, and the guy who wrote the original article is a carnivore, but we are all teh same species.

Classification has to do with natural diet, and therefore anitomical structure. Because almost noone on earth eats a natural diet, you would have to look at anatomy to classify us. We are not built to obtain animals as a primary source of nutrition.

[Bodhi]

Aajonus vonder Planitz makes some statements that are not true. Search the net and you'll prove it to yourself. Joeschmoe has given you some really good examples of why Aajonus claims are unfounded.

But the human species is an omnivore. You can prove that to yourself on the web too. We were scavengers before we were hunters. We would scare off other animals and steal their meat or wait until they were finished and eat the scraps. Thats probably how man and dogs became friends, we shared scraps together.

[Cantando]

Well, I was taught at school that man was an omnivore.
I don’t think we ever ate much meat in the past.
I do like meat. I am from N. Europe and my theory is that in stone-age times, in the cold north in the winter, there was little vegetable food around, so men went out hunting for meat. And then, I still think it was a bit of a luxury. So, perhaps man became more carnivorous out of necessity as he migrated north.
However, it must have been pretty unpalatable uncooked, as why else would we want to cook it?

I do think there is something in the idea that different kinds of people are suited to different diets.
I can go without meat for a week or so, but when I do, even though I eat plenty of protein substitutes (fish, beans, etc), my energy levels go down. Once I’ve had a steak, I feel great again!

[Jennihul]

Humans are omnivores. Their diets are, and always have been, predominantly a mix of meat and vegetable matter. Any given variance in percentage.

JS's opinions about the blood type diet, based on a Wikipedia article no less, are fairly irrelevant here in this discussion. This is about human DNA, way beyond bones, as it relates to food availability, climate, evolution and migration and interbreeding and digestion capabilities.

The facts are the facts. I could catch a rabbit in my yard in about 3 minutes and have it down my throat raw in 15 minutes. No tools. Just my teeth and hands. I don't need the jaw of a lion or the shearing teeth of a predator and nary a claw.

When rabbits are rare, I can eat grubs, bugs, vegetables, roots, barks, grasses, berries and the rare grain I could find.

My digestive system is perfectly designed to assimilate every single nutrient in that raw meat and blood, flecks of bone and sinew, organs. But I am an O. Not a mutant. I would be the most able to assimilate that diet.

That is an omnivore. Not a frugivore. Not an herbivore.

People with blood type O certainly can eat 100% meat and thrive. Their DNA has not changed since Cro-Magnan man walked the earth. The mutations of A, B and AB would not thrive but probably surivive.

Your protagonist's opinions are based on digestive processes. They are not untrue. Humans can survive on 100% meat because our bodies create the nutrients we need from the building blocks meat provides. But eating 100% of any one food type is just fantasy. Even starving Cro Mags had variety.

Jennifer

[Joeschmoe]

Ok, the whole omnivore/herbivore thing is getting tired so I'm done with that, but i do need to correct and clear up this bloodtype stuff.

EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN
This is a good reference. Lets look a little closer at some specific parts of this article.

Humans can have blood types A, B, AB, or O. This is known as the ABO blood group system, and it is a polymorphism. A polymorphism is defined as a "genetic locus with two or more alleles that occur in appreciable (>1%) frequency in a given population" (http://www.as.ua.edu). The ABO blood group system was the first polymorphism discovered in humans. It is however only one of MANY systems involving the red blood cells.

It is one of many blood group systems. In fact things like blood marrow and organ transplants have to matched to many more blood protien sytems than simply ABO.

In order to be blood type A, cytosine at nucleotide site 793 translates to leucine 265 and guanine at nucleotide site 800 transloates to glycine 267.

In order to be blood type B, the cytosine at 793 translates to methionone 265 and the guanine at 800 to alanine 267 (Martinko et al., 1993).

Blood type AB occurs when both changes occur.

Blood type O is caused when an inactive or nonfunctional protein is coded for.

Notice type O is the mutation.

The ABO polymorphism exists in many primate species other than just humans and in all anthropoid primates (Diamond, 1997). Blood groups of primates have been studied since 1911 when Dungern and Hirszfeld found an A antigen on chimpanzee red cells (Socha et al., 1984). According to Socha et al., (1984), early studies indicated "striking similarities" between the A-B-O antigens of man and those of anthropoid apes. It was not until the 1960's that research methods improved enough to learn that many similarities existed between human and non-human primates as well as some subtle differences. In their 1984 study, Socha et al. stated that the two groups were "intimately serologically related."

Hmm, so it would seem that teh ABO system, developed before modern humans, and even beore the split with our Ape realtives.

Thus A and B diverged at least 13 million years ago (Martin, 1990). In chimps and gorillas, the A and B allele seem to be fixed (Martinko, 1993). Some sources state that the two types are likely of separate origin (http://aol.com/ikaulins/expak), but that they are the original types, not O.

Other evidence used to trace man's evolutionary ancestors to these non-human primates is the MN blood system. Man is M and N; whereas chimps are anti-N and gorillas are anti-M. O is not the original blood type as was previously thought

And, that speaks for itself.

There is evidence that blood type has to do with deasease.

Here is another scientist who thinks O is selected for becasue fo malaria.
Another good article

I have done a lot of looking around and have seen no scientific evidence that blood type has anything to do with diet or even that type O is the original type. I'm glad that you brought up this theory beacause it has given me an excuse to learn something new.

[Jennihul]

Ok, are you talking about monkeys again? Or humans. Just for the record, I only talk about humans with regard to blood type.

Blood type O is the original in humans. Blood type A was next and appeared approximately 40,000 to 10,000 BC with the development of agriculture but was not widespread until 10,000 to 3,500 BC. B started in India or Eurasia. B started around 15,000 to 10,000 BC.

AB is rare and new. Type A Caucasians and type B Mongolians created AB. It is approximately 1200 years old, at the most.

Jennifer

[Joeschmoe]

Read the articles, they are talking about human blood types.

[escapee]

It would be unwise to not eat vegetables/nuts as part of healthy diet as there are rich source of B1, folic acids,essential fatty acids, Magnesium and other minerals. On the other hands, Animal based food provides bio available iron, complete protein, B12, copper and zinc that's critical for blood related mechanism. The problem with modern diet can be summarized as follow

1 ) Too much refined carb ( Your fuel ) + Sedentary lifestyle
2 ) Too much oxidized fats ( from deep fried food )
3 ) Vitamins, essential fats and Mineral deficiency due to imbalance diet
4 ) Smoking, alcoholism and toxic chemicals ( pesticide, mercury and etc )


The longest living people are the Omnivore Okinawans - Google Okinawan Longevity, this group of ppl eat a wide variety of organic food and they also maintain an active lifestyle throughout their life .

[escapee]

The O blood type may be a mutated form of blood type caused by copper deficiency.

From "unofficial source" awaiting further verification
The Message of His Kingdom

t least 95% of the population, who have blood type ‘O’ and ‘A’ which are the thinnest blood and lowest blood volume, and blood type ‘B’, have copper deficiency, due to slow poisoning from blood thinners, alkalizing chemicals, copper binders, and copper antagonists that they have saturated the food and food chain with. These poisons have altered and damaged the proteins/DNA of the blood and other tissues of the body. Copper is essential in the formation of normal healthy proteins, that is, normal amino acid sequences, in that it provides a balanced pH state for the blood and tissues. Copper is acidic at a pH of 5.5 and is important in providing a balance of the numerous alkaline and acidic nutrient minerals. A balanced pH is present in blood type AB, which is the only normal blood type. Consequently, because of generations of poisons, the vast majority of the population has malformed proteins and is missing normal proteins, as can be evidenced just in the blood properties as noted in different “blood types”. The blood types of A, B, and O are missing the normal (clotting) proteins; type A is missing B, B is missing A, and O is missing both A and B proteins. The “Rhesus Factor” (D-protein) is a probable malformed or variant A or B protein, resulting from insufficient copper levels. The blood type AB is balanced and therefore does not carry the malformed “Rhesus Factor” protein as found in the other blood types, thus, only AB negative blood is possible.

Copper deficiency is very common in livestock and it's a huge concern in agricultural /ivestock sector.

Copper deficiency livestock - Google Search

Copper deficiency in cattle is widespread in the United Kingdom

Copper and Immune system
Copper ad immune system - Google Search

PS I have been on partial paleo-diet ( Meat, Vege, nuts, seeds and fruits ) with restricted grain intake for more than a year. The "side effect" is weight loss and lower blood pressure ...