Venison sausage

Discussion in 'Health & Fitness' started by sculptor, Nov 14, 2018.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Clinically the docs say B12 and iron deficits, along with some trace elements. Omega 3/6 balance issues also common. Potassium/iodine issues, thyroid issues, calcium metabolism, immune system oddities. That's secondhand: I'm not a clinician, and can only observe a general affect of poor health - easily tired, pallor, an appearance of frailty even when (as is common) not pudgy or notably skinny.

    It's all anecdotal, in my case. But the anecdotes reinforce each other.
    A good vegetarian diet takes some experience, some doing. And these are teenagers.
     
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  3. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Several of those situations occur with all people who don't pay attention to a healthy diet; they're not specific to skipping meat. Most are readily corrected with a daily multivitamin, which even a stupid teenager will have heard of... been fed all her life, most likely. Iodine is not typically associated with animal flesh; calcium and potassium definitely are not; there are well known plant sources of iron - spinach being the most traditional, kale the most trendy. The only real issue there is B12, also readily available.
    Have you ever seen these symptoms alleviated by an application of steak? They sound like the symptoms of late night studying/partying/gaming, junk food and soft drinks. Do you have any first-hand observation or reliable eye-witness reports of a teenager exhibiting these symptoms within three months of refusing meat. and recovery within three months of going back on a meat-heavy regimen?
    They always do. Selective information-gathering tends to produce self-supporting conclusions.
    It didn't, for us. Very simple, really. Some experimentation, some recipe collecting, omissions, additions and substitutions. There was a flurry of learning how do with curtailed sugar and starch when my partner was diagnosed with diabetes 14 years ago; otherwise, no problem from Day 1 to Year 34.
    Which are? What subject sample are we discussing? People you know personally and see what's on their plate? If so, tell them to get the B12 pills that dissolve under the tongue; they're more effective than the swallowed kind. For anemia, an iron tonic might be indicated.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2018
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    But they are - for whatever reason - noticeably common among young and inexperienced people who decide to avoid meat. And these people are paying attention to their diet - lots of attention.
    Not steak. Pork chops and - especially - roast/soup chicken.
    Of course not. I'm not a clinician, as noted, or any kind of formal researcher.
    And frequently encountered circumstances tend to form patterns in the mind. Doesn't make them right - doesn't make them wrong.

    If it's important to you, my long-standing explanation for the pattern had been that people with health problems were more likely to pay careful attention to their diets. Only in recent years has the rise of food issues in teenagers of passing acquaintance refocused my eyes, beginning with the odd boom in nut allergies.
    Plant sources of iron are largely inadequate for young women, in practice. B12 is of course readily available, and in combination with iron supplements (that combination being a very common need, for some reason), and there are industrial replacements for fish oil nutrients and the like, there's yeast powders for the Bs and gummies or capsules for the D and - -

    but this "diet" is looking a bit odd, don't you think? The word "hydroponic" floats into the mind - - - .
    "Simple" - so only the stupid could be getting it wrong, at critical times of their growth.

    At any rate, this is quite the digression from venison sausage. The main intersection might be economic - the expense of a good vegetarian diet, especially during the learning curve, would have been prohibitive to the average maker of deer sausage of my direct experience: venison was what replaced wiener-water soup, when T-bones were not in the budget.
     
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  7. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    I suspect the key word there is "diet", rather than "meat". Weight-loss diets are often deficient in nutrients of all kinds.
    Beef has iron. Poultry is good for protein, niacin, B vitamins and phosphorus. Pork, better than chicken for minerals, but also fatty. Only the B12 isn't provided in abundance by dark green vegetables, nuts, roots and fruit. Even if vegan, almond milk and pulses fill in quite a lot of the lacking nutrients.

    I thought, perhaps a parent, as you have such low opinion of teenagers' intellectual capacity. I know I did. The current model adolescents seem to be smarter than mine were - in some ways; I'm sure they're dumb in other ways.
    Afaik, they can look stuff up on the internet as well as any adult. Of course, they might not like green leafy vegetables, refuse to touch a peanut that's not coated in chocolate, and eat a potato only if it's sliced thin, fried in oil, smothered in salt and packed in foil. But if that's the case, they'll be malnourished even if they add a burger to their fries - they won't likely opt for the chicken soup.

    They have to. The health problem comes first, then the attention. I was barely aware of what I ate - don't like this, crave that, enjoy the other - when I was able to eat everything with impunity. It was only when food caused me pain that I began to choose carefully.
    Don't lay that on vegetarians! Look to processed foods: the prevalence of peanut and coconut oil, corn syrup, emulsifiers, dyes, preservatives and immense quantities of surplus sugar and salt.
    Where did you get this? The iron in bloody meat is more readily absorbed, but spinach, lentils, brown rice - all kinds of vegetarian foods - are just as rich.
    Or, not and. You'll overdose if you take both vitamins and supplements - that's another health risk these days. Fortunately, most of the redundant vitamins we take just flush the money away harmlessly.
    How so? Modern life is technological. Some country people are lucky enough to be able to forage (I have done) or grow fresh veg outdoors, but we will be increasing our intake of hydroponic, as well as synthetic foods, as the fields of California burn up and Kansas is blown away.

    Don't they have keepers? Cos, even if they don't starve, they'll walk under buses while texting.

    That happens.
    They're not the same people. Most inner city youth may have guns, but no access to deer; the children of deer-stalkers wouldn't dare demand vegetables instead.
    In the supermarket, beans, rice and cabbage are considerably cheaper than the skinlessbonelesschickenbreast suburban housewives prefer.
     
  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    I'm having trouble communicating. The sentence says that B12/ iron combinations are available as supplements/vitamins - and the observation was that a need or demand is being recognized by that fact. It's not just my own anecdotal wandering, here.
    - - -
    They aren't. You need twice as much non-heme iron as hemoglobin bound for the same benefit, the sources are much less concentrated, and the sources are more vulnerable to interference (from coffee, etc). This does not affect men in a wealthy country - they can get plenty from veggies if they are careful. It does affect children and young women, who need three times as much.
    You asked after my personal experience. I have none with steak in that situation. I do with pork chops and various chicken.
    I'm laying vegetarianism on vegetarianism, as certain aspects of its practical reality have become visible to my casual observations.
    Especially modern vegetarian "diets". When one's standard "diet" involves pills, I think there's something wrong with it.
    It's the people who seem to be coming to resemble hydroponic organisms, like industrial chickens fed metered nutrients.
    Who isn't? I'm talking about my neighbors - they are the same as my neighbors.
    I don't. I have a low opinion of people who call them stupid when they screw up their diets under outside influence.
     
  9. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, I have heard that before. I've been told that, too, by a doctor. But I noticed no difference between when I took them regularly and when I neglected them completely. To pacify him, I would binge on supplements for three weeks before a blood test and relax the rest of the year.
    I wasn't disagreeing with the practice if they think it's indicated. Just cautioning against overdose.

    Fine. As I said, anyone can make up the shortfall without resorting to meat.

    Of course there is! There is a lot wrong with it. Far too much meat, fat, sugar, salt and non-food chemicals. Insufficient fiber, clean water, fresh air, physical activity and mental relaxation. Wrong living conditions, wrong lifestyle - wrong path entirely. Within those realities, we make the choices we can.

    Yup. That's modern western capitalist civilization. It'll run it's course.

    Which influence isn't 'outside'? Who is best qualified to advise them? Who influence your neighbours' children to adopt poor vegetarian diets.
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    You are an adult man, presumably. So am I - and part of my motive for donating blood is the health benefits. I'm not going to run low on iron regardless. Seventeen year old girls who aren't carefully advised and alert about their vegetarian diets are - they do.
    But it's easy to fail to do that, for some vulnerable people.
    Meantime, it's apt to do harm in a couple of specific and avoidable ways.
    Good question. Worth pondering, if one has time. Economics come into play. Facebook. And venison sausage, for some.
     
  11. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    However, there is no evidence--that I am aware of--to even suggest that this is happening at a statistically significant level.

    But, there is an abundance of evidence which strongly implicates excessive consumption of meat, processed foods, etc. as a primary cause of innumerable serious health conditions. Likewise, plenty of evidence that that is actually happening--on an epidemic scale.
     
  12. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Sure. Everybody who doesn't know what they need to know is at risk of making mistakes. I very much doubt this particular mistake is serious, and I know that seventeen-year-old girls are competent to find out whatever they need to know about their diet. I'm not the one who thinks teenagers are clueless.

    Everything fails, for some vulnerable people.

    Mass shootings, fracking sinkholes, oil spills, unaffordable health care, economic meltdowns, drug addiction, toxic politics... On the whole, a touch of anmeia here and there strikes me as one of the less egregious harms.
    The first, for everyone. The second, for many young people. The last, for very, very few.
    I have a suspicion Sculptor won't invite the entire underage female population for dinner.
     
  13. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    All things considered, with an increasingly urban dwelling, global population of 7.7 billion, what would you consider to be the optimal diet for the masses? Meat production, and especially beef production, is a primary contributor to global warming, but, industrial agriculture, in general, isn't exactly environmentally friendly. And yet, especially with increasing and overwhelmingly urban demographics, smaller scale operations couldn't feed the entire human population of the planet.

    Ideally, we need to drastically reduce the carbon footprint--both in food production and everywhere else, we need to ensure that all nutritional requirements are met, and we need to do so in a manner that respects the autonomy and agency of both the workers involved in production, as well as their subjects--persons working in factory farms for extended periods tend to become increasingly cruel and sadistic in their doings both inside and outside of the workplace (a concern, I guess, for the pathologically anthropocentric among us, aka, humanists--It's a concern for me too, but my primary concern is for the (non-human) animals who bear the brunt of their cruelty).

    I am genuinely curious here: I will be a vegetarian for the remainder of my life, and my motivations are almost entirely ethical and environmental in nature; yet, I'm also aware that a pure vegetarian or vegan diet is not likely viable option for the planet. But I also don't really know what would be the most viable solution for the masses.


    p.s. My "diet" does not include any pills, and I'm doing just fine.
     
  14. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    That's exactly what could feed the planet. Urban food production. I'd like to nominate those tall, shiny buildings at the heart of every city, currently wasted on money-laundering.

    Hey!!! Watch your labels there, friend! https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/definition-of-humanism/

    I don't see why not. Habits of thought may be hard to relinquish, but if there is a change in world order, people adapt. In three generations, maybe even one, they would retch at the very mention of eating flesh.

    Hydroponic, vertical and roof gardens in every neighbourhood of every city https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/09/05/indoor-farm-thrives-in-north-york-industrial-unit.html
    (plus more of the hydroponic community operations in the north https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/churchill-hydroponic-produce-1.4568847); forest gardening on small suburban plots; meat factories https://www.fastcompany.com/40565582/lab-grown-meat-is-getting-cheap-enough-for-anyone-to-buy
    Reduce dependency on changing climate and fragile irrigation systems, as well as all that dirty diesel-fueled shipping all over the place. Get your food fresh, wholesome, humane, clean, cheap and close. As a bonus, there is potentially lots of community involvement in producing and distributing the food; a sense of responsibility and participation makes people feel good, connected and positive.
    The only crops that would need to be grown out in the farmlands are grains and roots and the large scale legumes, like soy. Sustainable methods have already been adopted by some of the farmers in my region; ploughing narrow furrows between fallow paths; leaving the mulch; where the husks and stems are not used, digging them in; alternating with green manure crops; companion planting. Without the grazing, diesel corn and junk food, there is enough land to meet the need. (There is currently a shortfall of potatoes, world-wide. The sensible thing to do would be to shut down the potato chip factories and redirect those spuds to hungry poor people. What do you bet that doesn't happen?)

    I don't take them, either, since that dear old bully of a family doctor retired. The new young one lets patients take the lead on their own health management.
    I do like this new medical ethic!
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2018
  15. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    What is the Native American word for vegetarian?
    "Poor hunter!"
     
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  16. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    It hardly matters, because they had considerably less competition for animals to hunt than the current populations of Chicago or Washington DC, and were better at sharing.
     
  17. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    I had read that hunter gatherers were healthier, worked less hours to get their food, and lived longer that early farmers.
    With farming, there was more surplus so more babies were born, and the population increased---while life expectancy(and arguably; quality of life) decreased.
     
  18. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    It absolutely did. Not just because of the increased population, but several other factors, as well. Not enough diversity: they grew only a few select crops and lost some wild foods; they lived in settlements, where they had property to guard, and were thus restricted to the one locale, so they couldn't migrate to better weather or more ample resources; the work became specialized, so that most people did repetitive tasks, that affect a particular body part; a hierarchy soon developed, whereby surplus had to be produced to support non-productive classes: administrators who stockpiled food to dole out as they saw fit; a standing army and a priestly class. In some places, like Egypt, this was a hedge against starvation in bad yield years, but the non-food-producing classes kept requiring more elaborate housing, burials, monuments, weaponry, luxuries, etc: an increasing amounts of resource extraction and effort beyond the people's daily needs.
     
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  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Not a workable criterion - we've overshot our technology.
    We are currently substituting crude oil for manure, for example, in growing plants. An optimal diet - one without meat - is going to assume a tech advance to avoid that zugzwang. And we will need another one to transport and manufacture various nutrients without that oil. And so forth. Hard to predict.
    - - - -
    I just keep seeing racks of vitamins and supplements and bottles of pills at the co-ops, and hearing evangelist vegetarians telling people they can get all the iron they need from spinach and the B12 from pills and so forth.
    Historically, the response has been eating things like mudworms and insects, followed by cannibalism. It's a little more than a habit of thought.
     
  20. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    This eve we dined on fresh venison(not 2 hours dead)
    really great stuff
     
  21. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    If I'm reading you correctly, I'm inclined to agree. This planet cannot viably sustain 7 billion humans, even were we all to somehow overnight adopt hunter-gather modalities. Of course, were we to have remained hunter-gatherers in the first place, we would never have reached that ridiculous number in the first place.
     
  22. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    It would certainly help, but I probably ought to have phrased my first sentence of that paragraph differently: I don't think this planet can sustain 7.7 billion persons--or even 1 billion persons--no matter what the diet. Even were we all to adopt (nearly) carbon neutral lifestyles.
    https://newrepublic.com/article/151981/extinction-wilderness-untouched-lands-oceans-disappearing
    (emphasis mine)

    That is terrifying! From the age of 9 to 18, I lived in the cultural shithole known as Phoenix, Arizona. (Since, I've lived and traveled far too many cities, countries, continents to name--offhand, at least; the Phoenix experience ruined the concept of "home" for me.) Scholars and analysts from al disciplines ought to look towards Phoenix as the benchmark for how not to do absolutely everything. An oasis of swimming pools, grass lawns, and golf courses in the low desert, and every variety of non-indigenous flora you can imagine. And the speed with which the city grows and encroaches upon the surrounding desert? It's like you can actually see it grow, in real time.

    It's possible that some sort of technological advancement will come along that will make billions seem plausible, or we'll colonize Mars, but I'm not optimistic.

    Humanism in that sense is fine, I'm referring to the humanism that was/is the bane of every Continental thinker from Nietzsche and Stirner to the post-structuralists, for whom humanism gave birth to everything from colonialism and imperialism to speciesism and (obviously) anthropocentrism. Or, with reference the the Wild (above): the attitude of classical humanism is that we ought preserve, respect, care for, tend to the Wild for the sake of future generations, rather than simply for the sake of the Wild.

    I'm just not entirely convinced that these approaches could be adopted for the entirety of the planet. (And as to the likelihood that much of the world would even consider this--especially, the U.S.--unfortunately, I'm even less convinced.) But then, in some parts of the world there are massive surpluses of foodstuffs which are simply left to spoil, and, of course, there is massive food waste*--in the U.S., IIRC, consumers discard nearly 50 percent of the foods they purchase, so maybe... I don't know. I would like to see an analysis of the viability of these measures for adoption on a global level, which I have yet been unable to locate.

    * . We compost all of our food waste--which is very little, as I obsess relentlessly over this, and it takes about three months for us to produce enough "garbage" to fill the vehicle to take to the dump and recycling center. And I still feel guilty about it. But the thought of simply throwing away food?[/quote][/quote]
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2018
  23. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Too late!
    Farming and industrial fishing have allowed us to exceed the natural carrying capacity of the land and seas.
    The closest I can come to a paleo diet is by pigging out on whatever is in season locally.
    The urban folks cannot go paleo

    Being as I am one of those 7+ billion people, I do not see that as ridiculous.

    However
    We will not slow population growth with humanitarian actions.
    Quite the opposite actually.
     

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