I was wondering about vitamin C, and found this after a little googling: http://www.straightdope.com/columns...-only-meat-and-fish-why-didnt-they-get-scurvy
what about rickets? Is there a higher incidence of that in regions with little sun? Or do they get enough vitamin D in raw meat as well?
Not quite true. The first thing a lioness eats after her kill is the stomach and intestines of the dead herbivore to get their vegetable matter content. The "desert" of most Eskimos still living in the ancient way (no canned vegetables from the "Jolly Green Giant) is the little balls of high vegetable content shit that the arctic hare has left in the snow. (The hare intended to return and eat them later)* ---------------------- *Cellulose if very hard to digest, even with the aid of gut bacteria it takes time. Mother Nature has evolved three different approaches to the problem: (1) Be big, like an elephant or hippopotamus, with a very long gut. (2) Be a rudiment with regurgitation, re-mastication and usually have some sacks along the side of the intestines to store useful bacteria, especially near the discharge from the stomach (the appendix in humans) so acid processed food discharged from the stomach is well inoculated with bacteria as it starts its journey thru the intestines. (3) Be small (and quick to avoid getting eaten) and pass the material from the stomach relatively quickly (keep inert mass low to accelerate well by letting the bacteria have time to break down the cellulose outside of the body) and return to re-eat the feces (typically well formed little balls, or pellets) later. - That is what rabbits, and many small animals do (including squirrels too, I think). Humans use mainly (1), some of (2) and where vegetation tends to be moss and likens only (hard to collect) steal the rabbit’s little balls of feces when you find them (3).
This is not true. some lions may eat the stomach/intestines first and others may eat the heart or liver first. They generally go for the internal organs first because they are soft, full of protein and easily digestible. Lions will not digest vegetable matter from growing grass let alone the partly undigested matter from the intestines of a herbivore. To think that this is a strategy to overcome "deficiencies" of a carnivore diet is very misguided IMO
Me too. At least I dont believe that every Eskimo that has ever lived a full and healthy life has done this in order to obtain vegetable matter
I said "most" not "every" and further limited it to the few still living the ancient way. Of course those Eskimos who do (or did) do not eat rabbit droppings "in order to obtain vegetable matter" - They had little or no knowledge of the nutritional advantage of doing so. They ate what their parents ate, what was “food” in their culture. (Just like grub worms are food in some cultures and not in others.) Rabbit dropping probably became food in the original Eskimo culture as it has a significant survival value, which evolution slowly selected for. - Same reason cultures have taboos against sleeping with your sister - no need to understand anything about the genetic reason for that to occur either. To take a less extreme example*, succotash (corn with beans) is a common food mix for many South American Indians as the lysine absent (if I remember correctly) from the corn is supplied by the beans. The Indians of South American did not know this but evolved this mix as those cultures with this as food had slight survival edge. That is why the pre contact with civilization Eskimos not only ate the only source of vegetable matter available to them, but actually prized it as a "dissert" - were "lucky" when they found some, etc. Most small animals eat their own feces for reason (3) in my prior post and even human babies often do, until taught not to. ------- *And one with much less survival value for the South American Indians than eating rabbit dropping has for Eskimoes, so evolutionary selection for succotash to become a common food for them was less strong than for Rabbit dropping to become food for primative Eskimos.
I don't know about what strategies might or might not work, but the study from the link that I posed seemed to indicate that you can indeed stay healthy (or at least, healthy by 1928 standards) eating only meat, assuming you don't mind eating a lot of it raw. It makes sense; presumably any biomolecules that you need to survive will be present to varying degrees in other mammals.
If every person on Earth decided to become a vegetarian tomorrow would animals die? Would we be in competition with other herbivores? Would there be enough for all of us? Would there come a time when we would be forced to cull the herds? Would we be forced to deal with predatory creatures when we need their hunting grounds to grow our veggies? Oh for Shit's sake.... there must be more reasons why a vegetarian Earth might not be too kind to the four-legged.
It takes more plants (and farm land, etc) to grow food and feed it to cattle/chickens/whatever than it would take if humans simply ate the plants directly. You loose efficiency every time you move up a step in the food chain.
Yes, and I don't think these eskimos died prematurey because of their diet. sure, some of them might have been a little more predisposed perhaps to certain infections. Doesn't the smell of shit give us a clue as to how selective pressures against the danger of eating ones feces have evolved our senses?
yes in short we have the hands, teeth, sweat glands, intestines, etc more suitable for a vegetarian diet it's better for the environment, etc in terms of energy/land demands it's a more civilized option than lopping off the head of something that would prefer that you didn't depends if you live in the west (where, in terms of diet, you are more likely to die from overindulgence than anything else ... assuming you don't have a bulimia / anorexia thing happening), the answer is yes regardless, one can be a fat vegetarian easily enough ....
