Diet, Health and modern medicine

[badgirl]

Do you think we have all been sucked into the idea of eating more and more, especialy more and more meat. Coming from the ideas of wealth and power, humans are eating far more meat than they have evolved to cope with. Medicine simply follows in the destructive path of meat eating to make a profit out of such dietary mis-management

[Titanites]

Actually we evolved as omnivores! The difference between us and our Palaeolithic and earlier hunter-gatherer hominid predecessors is that they ate a lot of meat but led physically very active lives, then died quite young anyway from diseases or accidents they could not cure. Until historically very recently the Inuit and other Arctic people ate little but meat because that was all that was available to them.

I agree you can eat too much generally, but not especially meat. You can also eat too much of any one food if it leads to a poor diet overall. The primary "demons" are poor diets with excess fat, sugar and salt, alongside insufficient physical exercise (inc. physical work) to burn it off.

It's also possible to harm yourself by trying too hard to be "healthy" - I have just come off glucosamines because they appeared to be leading to my body retaining too much iron BUT this may be a purely individual reaction so if you use them without harm don't stop on my account.

As for Vitamin A... it takes a lot to do it but it is toxic in large quantities. (This was discovered from early Arctic explorers who tried to survive by killing and eating their sled-dogs. The muscle meat is OK, and indeed dogs are eaten by humans in parts of Asia, but dog livers carry heavy Vit. A concentrations - something the Inuit "knew" by folk experience, though not by physiology.)

Medicine is not trying to make us over-eat at all. All its publicity pushes the opposite view, despite sometimes apparently contradicting earlier advice on specific foods. Frankly I'd rather believe a doctor or biologist than a supermarket or campaigner. Let alone commercial dietary fads pushed by "celebrities" who don't understand basic mammalian biology!

It is certain sections of the food industry that are trying to make us eat ourselves to death, particularly the supermarkets and certain take-away food chains - but you do not have to bow to their wishes or fall for their 'BOGOFs' & such tricks. Supermarkets do offer the choice but heavily promote "convenience" foods" rich in sugar and fat; and not necessarily cheaper or quicker than cooking from raw ingredients.

Nor do you have to obey those campaigners who write to the papers, trying to frighten or revolt us into eating nowt but their chosen nut-cutlets on fancy bread and "probiotic" yoghourt- whatever that is apart from an excuse for higher prices!

I've been an omnivore for most of my 3-score-&-a-brace years - and while I have cut down on fats and meat on genuine medical - not celebrity-diet - advice I am still an omnivore. Will I die a year or two "early"? No more likely to than any of my friends - but importantly, most of them, and I, have physically active hobbies (no, not just spanking games) & my work involves much walking and some manual lifting, and none of us are immortal. Vegetarian dishes? Yes, now & then, but only for variety and out of curiosity.

Right, it's tea-time: stir-fry beef & veg with probiotic nut-cutlet yoghourt, then steamed sponge-pud & custard. Washed down perhaps with a perky little bottled ale.:)