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

[Vantage72]

While browsing on the internet I found information about the Primal diet by Aajonus vonder Planitz. Some of his claims seem really far out there, so I'd like to test the validity of his theories.

If you have any evidence in favor or against these theories please post.

This is taken from one of his books:

Why we should avoid all vegetables -

-Our intestines are 2½ times shorter than most herbivores.
-We have only one stomach, while herbivores have 2-4 stomachs.
-Herbivores have nearly 60,000 times more enzymes than we have to disassemble cellulose (plant fiber) to obtain the fat and proteins from vegetation and grain.
-Vegetable fiber passes through an herbivore’s digestive system in about 48 hours. In our digestive tracts, vegetables complete their journey in 24 hours. Only a fraction of the cellulose is digested.

Why We Should Avoid ALL Grains, rice beans etc., mainly because we dont have a GIZZARD for digesting grain ...

Our gastrointestinal tract is not like that of birds. Birds can eat a lot of grain (seeds) and digest it with their gizzards. We do not have a gizzard or an alternative way of eating grain that is health-giving. We cannot properly digest grain for cellular reproduction and healing, even if sprouted. Sprouted grains are vegetables. As stated above, we do not digest vegetables well. Germinated seeds contain enzyme suppressors that prevent proper protein digestion, utilization and assimilation, causing protein deficiency.

WHY We Should Eat Meat

Carnivores, such as cats and dogs, mainly eat meat. Our digestive juices are most similar to carnivores. In their stomachs, the hydrochloric acid concentration is 15 times greater than in humans so that they digest meat in 10 hours, which accommodates their very short intestines. Humans, however, produce an equal amount of hydrochloric acid throughout the stomach and intestines combined, allowing raw meat and other raw animal products to digest easily and efficiently in our much longer digestive tract within 16 hours.

(Cooked meat takes 24-36 hours to digest accompanied with putrefaction, heterocyclic amines, acrylamides and lipid peroxides not found in the digestive tract when raw meats are eaten.) Our teeth are designed for cutting and crushing meat with the help of our dexterous hands.

[Excellent Lodestar]

The Agricultural Revolution was the beginning of the end for humans...
Paleo Diet Articles, High Protein Diets, Low Carbohydrate Diets, Saturated Fats

[BamBam]

I like the theory about not eating grains. It makes a lot of sense.

The thing is, I dont have the money to go buy a buttload of meat and fruit at this point, so sandwiches are still a staple in my diet.

[Joeschmoe]

Why we should avoid all vegetables -

This guy bends the truth and tells outright lies to make his point. His first line strikes me as the funniest. "Why we should avoid all vegetables." Why should we, even full carnivores eat vegetables. So are humans some kind of super carnivore?

-Our intestines are 2½ times shorter than most
herbivores.

I don't know where he gets this information, but it's false.

Human adults digestive system is about 9 to 10 meters long and their body length head to hips is about 2/3 to 1 meter long, putting their digestive tract at about 10 times the length of the body.

A cat (the closest thing to a full meat eater) has a gut length that is only three times it's length.

And a Horse has a digestive system that is 10 to 11 times longer than it's body length.

So, that's a complete lie.

-We have only one stomach, while herbivores have 2-4 stomachs.

Not all of them do. Horses don't, primates don't even the herbivorous ones. In fact there is a name for herbivores with multiple stomachs and that is ruminant. Not all herbivores are ruminants.

-Herbivores have nearly 60,000 times more enzymes than we have to disassemble cellulose (plant fiber) to obtain the fat and proteins from vegetation and grain.

This may be true, I don't know or care. Two points here are that cellulose is not the only source of energy in vegetables. Also cellulose has nothing to do with the fats and proteins found in plants. Cellulose is a carbohydrate. We can digest the fats in olives, avocados, and coconut. And we can digest the protein in beans like soy (and all fruits and vegetables). So that is dead wrong. But there are plenty of plants with large amounts of natural sugars and starches.

Why We Should Avoid ALL Grains, rice beans etc., mainly because we dont have a GIZZARD for digesting grain ...

That is true and i agree. I don't think we should avoid these things altogether, we can get some nutrition from them, we just can't make them the major portion of our diet.

Carnivores, such as cats and dogs, mainly eat meat. Our digestive juices are most similar to carnivores. In their stomachs, the hydrochloric acid concentration is 15 times greater than in humans so that they digest meat in 10 hours, which accommodates their very short intestines. Humans, however, produce an equal amount of hydrochloric acid throughout the stomach and intestines combined, allowing raw meat and other raw animal products to digest easily and efficiently in our much longer digestive tract within 16 hours.

So what he is saying is that carnivores developed very highly acidic stomachs to accommodate their small intestines? This is ridiculous. They developed short digestive systems to be able to handle flesh in the first place. Requisites of being an obligatory carnivore are a short digestive tract and highly acidic stomachs.

Our teeth are designed for cutting and crushing meat with the help of our dexterous hands.

Our hands are deigned for grasping, climbing and manipulating. Does anyone here think that they could skin and butcher a cow with their bare hands?

Oh and as far as teeth go.



1-human
2-cow
3-cat
4-dog
5-horse

I don't buy it.

I think this guy took some information, made up some, and twisted more. Meat is not the obvious conclusion. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and even tubers are. I'm not saying we are incapable of eating some meat or even grains, but there is no way to justify it being the only thing you eat.

[Vantage72]

thanks for the detailed reply Joeschmoe

[oberlee]

Nice post Joeschmoe...

Yeah, try going out in the wilderness and battling a bear one-on-one. Don't use a weapon unless he has one, too. You'd be bear meat.

[Barcs]

I think it IS good to reduce carbs, however you don't need to eliminate them completely. Just eat them in moderation and when you do, eat the healthier complex carbs.

[openeyes]

Originally Posted by Vantage72

This is taken from one of his books

I've read his books before, tried it for a while, still use some parts of it that I like (little if any grain intake, raw honey is great), and have a close friend that follows it better than I ever did who is getting good results (the main thing that kept me from following it quite like he has is the amount of time and money required to source all the ingredients, plus it's not the most social diet).

I'm pretty sure that Aajonus doesn't recommend avoiding vegetables in all forms, as he has plenty of recipes that recommend them, with celery being listed as a good way to take in sodium. Intake of about a quart of green juice per day seems fairly common among followers. What he does recommend against is being vegetarian. High quality raw animal products play a very large part in the diet.

[mherzog]

Here is a good reason not to eat meat: Meat.org: The Web Site the Meat Industry Doesn't Want You to See

[Joeschmoe]

Originally Posted by openeyes

I've read his books before, tried it for a while, still use some parts of it that I like (little if any grain intake, raw honey is great), and have a close friend that follows it better than I ever did who is getting good results (the main thing that kept me from following it quite like he has is the amount of time and money required to source all the ingredients, plus it's not the most social diet).

I'm pretty sure that Aajonus doesn't recommend avoiding vegetables in all forms, as he has plenty of recipes that recommend them, with celery being listed as a good way to take in sodium. Intake of about a quart of green juice per day seems fairly common among followers. What he does recommend against is being vegetarian. High quality raw animal products play a very large part in the diet.

Well, if that is quoted directly from his book then he does say "Avoid all Vegetables"

[Cantando]

Another nonsensical quote from Aajonus was:

‘Birds can eat a lot of grain (seeds) and digest it with their gizzards. We do not have a gizzard or an alternative way of eating grain that is health-giving.’

Birds don’t have teeth, so they swallow grain whole. They then eat grit which grinds up the grain in the gizzard. The grain is not digested in the gizzard.
We don’t have a gizzard, but we have teeth!

[openeyes]

Originally Posted by mherzog

Here is a good reason not to eat meat: Meat.org: The Web Site the Meat Industry Doesn't Want You to See

At the very least that may be taken as a recommendation against factory farms. Luckily they aren't the only choice, just the dominant one in the US. A good place to start looking for other options could be the local farmer's market. Once you meet the producers you can seek out ones that will let you check out their farm to see what you think of it.

[BamBam]

That video is troubling. I wish they would regulate that stuff more than they do, because it is disturbing.

Would you still be a vegitarian if the slaughterhouses and mills were ethical and trated animals right mherzog?

I am still going to eat meat, because it is natural. The torture those animals go through, however, is not and should be closely monitered.

[Joeschmoe]

I won't eat cruelty free meat, mostly because i would be unwilling to obtain it from natural sources, unless i was in absolute need of sustenance. I would climb a tree for fruits, nuts, and vegetables. I might even dig in the ground for starchy roots, but i would not kill and eat a vertebrate, that's just personal. I do wish that everyone would be more responsible in their eating habits. Would you be willing to treat animals the way they were treated in that video? Well from the evidence I've seen 90% of the population wholeheartedly supports it. If you asked them they would say they didn't but they give their money to these people every day

[mherzog]

"Would you still be a vegetarian if the slaughterhouses and mills were ethical and treated animals right mherzog?"

That's an interesting question. I'm not ethically opposed to bringing an animal in to the world and the removing (killing) it from the world if there is no pain involved. I part company here with other vegans obviously. I've become convinced that a system that guarantees protection for animals from abuse can never be established because they someone's property (i.e. the farmer's). Farmers tend to win court cases when they are prosecuted on animal welfare charges because they have legal rights to treat their property any way they want to as long as it is in the normal parameters of their work. In other words, if a farmer needs to saw off the horns of his cattle or castrate them without pain killers he can do so because this is seen as the normal operation of a farm. Cattle are his property and the farmer's property rights trump the welfare considerations the welfare laws grant the cattle. As far as I can tell the only choice we have, given the above, is to not support the meat/dairy industry.

The animal rights author Gary Francione has a lot of essays using this line of reasoning at his website if you are interested: Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach - And Abolition Means Veganism!

[Jennihul]

I'm not surprised this discussion has turned into an ethical debate. It always does.

But this thread is about anthropology, not ethics.

I think we can all agree that the mutation that is the human, is unique. It's neither carnivore nor herbivore. It's omnivore.

If you took a lion and fed it nothing but grass, it would die rather soon. If you took a cow and fed it nothing but raw meat, it would die rather soon. These are animals that are attached to their environments. Savanna. Field/meadow.

Yet humans can survive a lifetime on any manner of foods, any place, survive a lack of certain foods, and eating some things that don't even qualify any longer as foods.

The question is more about what is ideal. Hunters and gatherers were the first of the humans to survive well on this planet. Hunting means meat. Gathering means roots, veggies, grubs, fruits/berries, seeds, bark. Therefore, from the get-go, we are meat AND veggie eaters. No argument is possible. It is simply fact.

There were no grains then. Not in any sufficient natural amount to do anything with. The seeds may have been eaten whole but there was no bread. No corn on the cob. No pasta. These are all hybridized inventions of modern man that have almost no resemblance to their natural distant cousins.

What we have become since, is the problem. Omnivore means we can eat a vast variety of things but it does not mean we SHOULD eat anything we can digest.

"Ideal" can only be traced back as far as one's ancient ancestors. Figure out your DNA and you have your ideal diet.

Jennifer

[Technicolor Tim]

Originally Posted by mherzog

Here is a good reason not to eat meat: Meat.org: The Web Site the Meat Industry Doesn't Want You to See

****, that pissed me off. Hail vegetarianism, I say.

[Joeschmoe]

Jenni, you are wrong and right. You can actually feed a dog only vegetation for a very long time (long enough to reproduce). The classification of carnivores/herbivore/omnivore/frugivore has nothing to do with what is actually eaten, but everything to do with physiology (I really could be wrong about this, someone please correct me if this is wrong). We are physiologically Frugivorous. Other frugivores, chimps, bonobos, gibbons all eat some animal, usually less than %5 of calories. So, no in human development, I don't think there is any question that meat played a part. However, it probably played a very small part until human ancestors set out from jungles and started using their brains to find food. We haven't changed much since then, we stopped adapting to our environment and started adapting our environment to us.

Thank goodness that happened, it means that the homo genus moved all over the word were fruits and vegetables weren't readily available. And thank goodness for grain agriculture, because it was the root of civilization. This doesn't mean that we have changed. We changed the food to suit our herbivorous(frugivorous) anatomy. Anything that is not fruit or vegetable we pre-process. We use our hands with tools to remove flesh and even cook it entirely because we are not adapted to use meat as a main food source, we have adapted meat to suit us. Same with grains, they need much more pre-processing, we have adapted them to meat our physiology.

Yes meat and even grains have played a huge part of human development, but not of our physical development. They played a huge part in allowing us to conquer the world.

If you get 5% of your calories from meat sources and 95% from plant you are probably where you are supposed to be. If you get 0% from animals, you are a lot closer to where you should be than someone who gets nearly 100%. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that the ability to survive and thrive on a diet like that is entirely man-made, not how we are built.

More comparative anaotmy

Omnivores


Bear


Racoon

Notice that sharp teeth for grasping and tearing flesh.

Frugivores


Chimpanzee


Chapuchin (A new world monkey, so relatively unrelated to humans)


Human


And for comparison this is a non primate frugivore. A fruit bat.

[hatsoff2halford]

I totally agree with Joeschmoe. The fact that we do eat meat has no implication that we SHOULD be eating meat. It is a "luxury" of ours to be able to use tools and manipulate the things we put into our body. When human's had no developed tools, and had not harnessed the power of fire, our diet most definitely consisted of primarily fruits, seeds, nuts, and vegetables. Human's have been known to practice incest, yet that practice is now considered inappropriate and unhealthy (if a child is born). We are a new species, and we are still trying to figure out what works for us, but I can almost say with certainty that an all-raw plant-based diet is the healthiest diet one can consume.

[Iamsuperman]

Could one not argue that man started eating meat only after man developed tools? I think I'd have trouble killing a cow with my bare hands and eating it raw.

[openeyes]

Originally Posted by Iamsuperman

I think I'd have trouble killing a cow with my bare hands and eating it raw.

What about an insect?

For Most People, Eating Bugs Is Only Natural

[Jennihul]

Originally Posted by Joeschmoe

Jenni, you are wrong and right. You can actually feed a dog only vegetation for a very long time (long enough to reproduce). The classification of carnivores/herbivore/omnivore/frugivore has nothing to do with what is actually eaten, but everything to do with physiology (I really could be wrong about this, someone please correct me if this is wrong). We are physiologically Frugivorous. Other frugivores, chimps, bonobos, gibbons all eat some animal, usually less than %5 of calories. So, no in human development, I don't think there is any question that meat played a part. However, it probably played a very small part until human ancestors set out from jungles and started using their brains to find food. We haven't changed much since then, we stopped adapting to our environment and started adapting our environment to us.

Thank goodness that happened, it means that the homo genus moved all over the word were fruits and vegetables weren't readily available. And thank goodness for grain agriculture, because it was the root of civilization. This doesn't mean that we have changed. We changed the food to suit our herbivorous(frugivorous) anatomy. Anything that is not fruit or vegetable we pre-process. We use our hands with tools to remove flesh and even cook it entirely because we are not adapted to use meat as a main food source, we have adapted meat to suit us. Same with grains, they need much more pre-processing, we have adapted them to meat our physiology.

Yes meat and even grains have played a huge part of human development, but not of our physical development. They played a huge part in allowing us to conquer the world.

If you get 5% of your calories from meat sources and 95% from plant you are probably where you are supposed to be. If you get 0% from animals, you are a lot closer to where you should be than someone who gets nearly 100%. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that the ability to survive and thrive on a diet like that is entirely man-made, not how we are built.

Frugivores? I'm not sure where you are getting this.

We aren't talking about apes. We are talking about at the very least Cro Mag man. The human variant of what may or may not have evolved from apes, depending on whose research you trust.

Apes are apes and humans are humans. If you are going to go back as far as millions of years PRE-human, you may as well keep going back to when we were plankton in some primeval ocean.

HUMANS were scavengers, hunters and gatherers. It has everything to do with what was eaten, where they lived and what was available and the fact that they could reason. And of those humans, they have mutated 3 times, so that four separate versions exist, since the original version walked the earth owing to nomadic activity, climatic changes and interbreeding. Some of those mutations thrive on meat, some on vegetables and some on grains and dairy.

For example, peoples of Polynesian heritage pretty much die of diabetes and obesity in droves if they veer from their native diets by moving into Western lifestyles. People of Inuit ancestry pretty much die of disease if they veer from their native diets which are almost 100% meat based. The stunningly beautiful Masai don't seem to be suffering on their nearly 100% meat and dairy based diets. People of Asian descent become diseased when they adopt a more American diet and shun their nearly 90% vegetable-based homeland diets.

Pretending these three mutations didn't happen is what one does when one claims we are ideally frugivores. Or that 5% of our diets should be meat for everyone.

Jennifer

[jeff3]

The fickleness about what we eat comes from moral judgments. If we were still on the level of hunting for every meal to survive without the certainty that a grocery store or market provides I think most would find that ripping the skin off a squealing rabbit and eating it would be just fine. Also, many people who choose vegan diets do so because preparing meat "turns them off" or they feel "guilt" about eating flesh, then, not to appear squeamish , they claim it's for the health benefits. I'm not saying that's the case with anyone on here, but I know it's often the case because people have told me so. It's just the natural reaction to the fairly recent change that moves the killing and butchering of animals from the back yard to the packing plant, people have become removed from this experience and now it's so foreign to them that when they realize that their hamburger came from a steer that was born, grew up, and died , just for them, it's puts them off.


Flame suit on :
I raise beef cattle, lots of them.

What is on that video is "cherry picked" atrocities meant to create exactly the reaction they are getting - disgust. I would kick some ass over anyone treating my animals like that, but I don't have to worry about that because it's just not a possibility in my world.

[aabbcc]

Originally Posted by Jennihul

We aren't talking about apes. We are talking about at the very least Cro Mag man. The human variant of what may or may not have evolved from apes, depending on whose research you trust.

My comment has nothing to do with the discussion at hand; however, the anthropologist in me has to chime in and remind folks that we did not evolve from apes, more specifically African apes. African apes and humans share a common ancestor. When the split occurred on the evolutionary tree, apes evolved on one branch and humans on another.

If that split hadn't occurred, who knows what we'd all look like today.

[Joeschmoe]

Um, we are apes. We are large bodied tailless primates.

As far as the Frugivore thing, it's not my idea. Linnaeus, the guys who invented modern classification nomenclature, did in the 1700s.

Humans are also sometimes described as frugivores, a view taken by Linnaeus:.

Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of other animals shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food.

This is from wikipedia

You are correct there are groups of people that eat almost 100% meat, however i never argued that one couldn't do this. If you actually read what i wrote you would read that this is possible but requires pre-processing. They still aren't designed for it. They have to adapt the food to them. The entire homo genus has been using tools and even fire to adapt food to them.

But we seem to have gotten off the topic here. The question was whether humans are anatomically 100% meat eaters, and the answer is a resounding no. Anatomically we are herbivores or frugivores, no matter what we chose to eat. Notice that I am making no claims of health and never have. That comes down to belief, and this isn't about belief.

Now what i have to ask is where did you get this 3 mutations stuff from? Are you joking? Are you saying that Mongolians are a different mutation than Chinese people? Are you saying that the plains indians are a different mutation than those of the Ohio river valley? Are you saying that the transition from eating vegetables to eating meat is as simple as a couple of mutations? I grew up on SAD, I could have reproduced and lived to probably 50 or 60 that way, does that mean I'm mutated to eat Hoho's? Of course when you put people on a western diet they get disease. We get disease.

[Jennihul]

Originally Posted by Joeschmoe

Now what i have to ask is where did you get this 3 mutations stuff from? Are you joking? Are you saying that Mongolians are a different mutation than Chinese people? Are you saying that the plains indians are a different mutation than those of the Ohio river valley? Are you saying that the transition from eating vegetables to eating meat is as simple as a couple of mutations? I grew up on SAD, I could have reproduced and lived to probably 50 or 60 that way, does that mean I'm mutated to eat Hoho's? Of course when you put people on a western diet they get disease. We get disease.

I didn't say we are anatomically meat eaters. We are neither completely anatomically fruit eaters either. We are omnivores. (Fruit is predigested as well, owing to the enzymes contained within it.) Fruit, with no other obstacles present within the stomach to slow it's transit time, exits within 30 minutes. Undigested, so to speak. If we were frugivores, we would not even need hydrochloric acid in our stomachs. Among other digestive enzymes. Yet they exist. For digesting complex proteins such as meat. The development of the enzyme amylase, is very recent in human evolution and a direct response to developing agrarian eating habits. Grains. Starches.

The human mutations I speak of are O, A, B and AB bloodtypes. They all originated from O and are the result of nomadic activity, climate change, catastrophic natural disaster and the development of controlled agriculture and farming in our very recent past. (Let us not forget the evolution of cerebrum as "cause" for that matter.) The vast majority of which is still O, despite interbreeding. The caveman/hunter gatherer HUMAN genotype. Highly acidic stomach for digesting unrefined proteins. Tuned for harsh environments and feast or famine conditions. Possesses the ability to extract the most nutrition from the least likely and predictable sources. Thrives on severe physical exertion despite unpredictable food sources. The development of cooking meat (you call it pre-processing) is a preference, not a necessity for life. There is no pre-processing of meat required for a human to use it as a food source, other than cutting it to fit it in our mouths. Otherwise I'd die or become very ill if I had rare steak or sushi or steak tartare.

Looking at the bones only tells part of the tale here, as expected. It is not the structure that holds us upright that does all the work to make us human. Or different. Every physiologic component of our bodies tell the true tale. As one would expect, looking at only the scaffolding doesn't tell someone what a building looks like or what it's true purpose is.


Jennifer

[Joeschmoe]

Ah and now we see the truth comes out. Go check out the Wikipedia page for the blood type diet. It's bunk. The first 3 links on a Google search of the "Blood Type diet" give us links for people pushing the diet and the rest are articles debunking this pseudo science.

I've already showed that we are not anatomically omnivores. I can tell you from experience that fruit unimpeded does not pass in 30 minutes. More like 12 hours. Fruit is not pre-digested, you pick it off the tree and eat it. Cutting up an animal to fit in our mouth is pre-digesting and we couldn't do it without tools.

ABO Developed over 5-6 million years ago, A developed first. All African Apes have elements of the ABO system. And they don't have different diets based on them.

Oh stomach ph of humans is between 3 and 5 and that of carnivores and omnivores is 1 or less. If you actually read what i wrote, I didn't limit my rebuttal to skeletal consideration.

This will be my last post in this argument, unless you actually have the courtesy to read what I write, because I've read every word that you wrote.

[aabbcc]

Originally Posted by Joeschmoe

Um, we are apes. We are large bodied tailless primates.

We are anthropoids in the primate family ... as are apes and monkeys. Monkeys aren't apes. Apes aren't humans. Humans aren't monkeys or apes. Our closest relatives in the primate world are chimpanzees and bonobos, but sharing almost 99% DNA with the two doesn't make us either chimpanzees or bonobos. A human is a hominin, an ape isn't. Depending on who you read, a human is a hominid, and an ape isn't. Both, though, are hominoids.

I see what you're saying, but I think it's a bit too simplistic.

[Joeschmoe]

[Bodhi]

I've been studying this issue since Steve began his 30 trail. After reading a ton of stuff on Primal diet, raw diet, vegan raw...raw etc...... I have come to the conclusion that if you are going to eat something it is best to eat it as raw as you can stand it. Fruits, nuts, seeds and vegetables then make the most sense to eat. Raw eggs, milk, and cheese are next. Then raw meat. Bugs are gross. Grains, beans, and potatoes need to be processed before consumption.

We are omnivores.

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.