>There isn't a single civilization that is/was vegan or even vegetarian.

I know of lots, David Wolfe also encountered a vegan maori. It is a myth they do not exist. The link below shows a 5000 year vegan tribe in the himalayas, if it were true about the deficiencies, they would have died out long ago, and yet many are still active at 90.

I don't care what people choose to eat but get fed up at the scare mongering around veganism ie it is dangerous and deficient when these are just cultural beliefs, my father was vegan most of his life, he was brought up in India,I can assure you most of them were predominantly vegan out of necessity and still are in many parts, but if that is what you believe, then don't be a vegan. No one says you have too.


[www.thehindubusinessline.com]



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2008 01:01PM by Ariel55.

I'm not so sure that driving through the drive in window to get chunks of cow on a bun is natural and is the evolution of the human diet but I am sure that I prefer to eat a vegan diet.

happyway wrote, “from [naturalhygienesociety.org] go to site for accompanying chart What is the optimal diet according to NH?”

There are three main reasons that Dr. Stanley S. Bass and Dr. John Fielder use for eating Animal Products and none of them are valid.

One of the three main reasons given by these men for the false belief and need to take an animal’s life is that DHA, which is a long-chain fatty acid, is only available in animal foods. DHA is a level 2 nutrient made from Omega 3 and should be made available by everyone who is not eating too much Omega 6, the exception would be for those of a Norwegian ancestry. For whatever reason, those who are unable to produce this level 2 nutrient can take an algae supplement (Neuromins or Udo’s DHA Oil Blend) instead of taking the life of an animal.

The second erroneous reason given for eating animal products is for Vitamin D. It is believed by these men that we cannot obtain enough Vitamin D from the sun, so therefore we must consume animal products. This belief is not shared by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, who is the world’s foremost nutritional researcher in the relationship between diet and disease. In his latest book “The China Study,” Dr. Campbell not only states that we can indeed receive all the Vitamin D, which is actually more of a hormone our body produces, from the sun, but too much animal protein and too much calcium depress the blood levels of 1,25 D, which is a supercharged Vitamin D metabolite and does most of the important work of Vitamin D in our bodies.

And finally the third excuse for consuming animal products is for Vitamin B12. I’ll be the first to admit that this is a serious problem for everyone, especially meat eaters, but once again, all anyone has to do is take a supplement and no animal has to give its life to satisfy any of these false beliefs.

On a side note, the INHS does not speak for all NH’ers and Jeff N. summed it up quit nicely when he wrote, "After 20 years of NH, I will have to ask you to explain and tell me exactly what are the principles of NH? Do you mean TC's principles, or Sheltons, Tilden, ANHS, Vetrano, Bidwell, etc., ?? Check out the history. NH and NH professionals have never had a consensus opinion on this. Thats why there are so many "splits". And have been many differences from day one. Just follow the posts and the lists today! Remember the days of raw cheese, and raw milk for all? Or how about the days of 4oz of nuts each and every day for all."

Those articles written by Dr. Bass pertained to the Penepent family of three generations of Hygienists, however, Bass drew his conclusions from experiments with raw mice *** and extrapolated his findings on humans not realizing that we're completely different than mice. Mice need taurine and we don't, we need vitamin C and they don't, we grow slow and that they grow fast and we have a completely different digestive system.

***
[drbass.com]
Animal experiment -
vegan rats die early and have low energy
[drbass.com]

[www.drbass.com]
TESTING ALL DIETS ON MICE
In 1990, after many years of reading, study and research of books written by doctors and nutritional authorities, each recommending their particular diet as the best of all, I decided that - since it could take many years to test each individual diet, and many lifetimes to test all of the diets - the best way to reach a reasonably scientific conclusion to this question was to do my own testing of all the possible diets on mice. Since 1 day for a mouse is equivalent to approximately 30 days for a human, by running several different diets on hundreds of mice, I could in a few years get the final answers on all possible diets.

I began this project testing raw vegetarian/vegan diets, cooked, lacto-vegetarian, ovo-vegetarian, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, the addition of fish, fowl, meat etc. both raw and cooked. After awhile, I tested the fruitarian diet. In a cage of 40 white mice I put all kinds of fruit. They ate some but were still hungry, so I added fresh corn-on-the-cob and avocado. All seemed well until the 3rd day, when I went to the cage, I saw 8 dead bodies with the heads missing and parts of some bodies eaten. I was shocked at the carnage. This was equivalent to severe deficiencies occurring to humans after 2 months on this type of diet. I immediately put the cage on a full diet including raw milk cheese, cooked food, grains, etc. to stop the deaths. Even with the diet change, other deaths followed for about 4 more days before it ended and conditions returned to normal.

Two years later, I repeated this diet again on this same cage, which had since recovered their health, and the same thing happened. On the 3rd day of this very liberal fruitarian diet which included corn-on-the-cob and avocados, I found 7 dead bodies cannibalized with their heads missing, I immediately stopped this "fruitarian" diet, which was the next direction of all of the 15 different diets + an additional 50 other related follow-up diets which I tested. From that time forward I have cautioned all prospective aspiring fruitarians to avoid this dangerously deficient diet, since I had proven it on living creatures close enough to man to have some relative validity.

Dr. Stanley Bass

10-2004
[www.drbass.com]

By the way, the other website that happyway mentioned in another post (beyondveg.com) is tom billing’s website and almost every one who has had any experience with tom knows that he makes use of all of the double standards and subtle techniques of interpreting studies to support foregone conclusions. It would be in everyone’s best interest to do a little homework on the man before y’all waste any more time reading his nonsense. I have a 150 page file on tom if anyone is interested.

On a final note, for every one who still thinks we need to eat animal products, please tell me one nutrient that we need from animals that we cannot obtain from plants, other than certain level 2 nutrients that healthy people are supposed to make. If you cannot name one nutrient, then you have NO basis for an argument.

Peace and Love………John

Dear John
Thank you for some of the history of the natural hygiene society, and some logical arguements against Dr. Stanley S. Bass's and Dr. John Fielder's opinions.

As regards:
"On a final note, for every one who still thinks we need to eat animal products, please tell me one nutrient that we need from animals that we cannot obtain from plants, ..."

I think it's a question of QUANTITY. When I did "8-1-1" as best I could, I used software to track my consumption of nutrients from time to time. Even being totally obsessive on ocassion, it was nearly impossible to meet daily minimums.
Life became all about the next meal and shopping. On the raw boards it seems to be the same way. Endless discussions of green smoothies, bee pollen, and spirolina/blue green algae, flax seeds, heemp seeds, tahini, juicing, wheat grass... (and other highly "unatural" foods from the point of view of our ancient past) all in an Effort to pack in Enough, which seems never ending.
Thus quantity and availability and energy efficiency would seem to be the objection when considering how viable 100% raw vegan diet is.


Re:
"The link below shows a 5000 year vegan tribe in the himalayas, if it were true about the deficiencies, they would have died out long ago, and yet many are still active at 90. "

I went to the link--it doesn't sound like a Raw diet--certainly caffine and grain are included--this was all I found on their diet, (did I miss something?) :

"Almond, apricot and walnut form part of the diet along with endless cups of black tea fortified with barley flour."

If there are more tribes or more information on their diets I would be most interested.

I feel caught between a hard place and a rock. I cannot go back to SAD. Eggs are not my favorite, and I really am not looking forward to going back to baked potatoes in the New England winter. And the bananas (The raw staple for supplying calories) available in New Jersey seem to have changed recently markedly for the worse. I don't know why. It could be colder storage in the trucks and boats in the summer, irradiation, or something else-but they seem to bruise more, and frequently have a slightly sick color. If there are raw vegan tribes it would be most interesting and possibly helpful to know how they do it.

happyway Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------
> I feel caught between a hard place and a rock. I
> cannot go back to SAD.
Do you know the Diet for you? If you don't
there will be Indecision and Doubt. Which Diet have liked
Best so far?.....WY

happyway,

"I think it's a question of QUANTITY. When I did "8-1-1" as best I could, I used software to track my consumption of nutrients from time to time. Even being totally obsessive on ocassion, it was nearly impossible to meet daily minimums."

i would bet that the overwhelming majority of human beings can be most healthy eating suitable quantities of raw fresh plants, eating when hungry, stopping when not, searching out low toxin quality foods.

many people make 2 errors.

1. not giving enough time to dietary transition
2. concerning oneself with "dietary minimums"

dietary minimums have built in safety factors, thereby inflating the numbers, unnecessarily imo. the quality of foods varies greatly. the assimilation efficiency of different people varies.

the WHO numbers are more accurate than the RDA, more scientifically based, and much lower and easily attainable on a raw diet for items like zinc, etc.

so what i am trying to say, based on my studies and experience is that you were trying to meet dietary minimums that are too high. in addition to the other factors that make the numbers game impossible to accurately quantify, including the fact that food values are based on average values from conventional produce.

funny how so many of us are thriving without paying attention to numbers.

...I like the taste and feel of raw vegan best, IF, big IF I don't have to DO much.
ie. not enough energy...
...To consume the quantity of calories required seemed impossible, probably because in three-and-one-half months of high-water-content correctly-combined 100%-Raw-vegan diet, (during which I did three brief fasts), detox as indicated by a white tongue never ceased for a moment.
...So I reach the point of asking myself am I chasing a "holy grail" which is in reality a mirage masking what is called FIT or "failure to thrive".
...3 months, going on 4 months is a long time to be "draggy" every day.

happyway Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...I like the taste and feel of raw vegan best,
> IF, big IF I don't have to DO much.
> ie. not enough energy...
> ...To consume the quantity of calories required
> seemed impossible, probably because in
> three-and-one-half months of high-water-content
> correctly-combined 100%-Raw-vegan diet, (during
> which I did three brief fasts), detox as indicated
> by a white tongue never ceased for a moment.
> ...So I reach the point of asking myself am I
> chasing a "holy grail" which is in reality a
> mirage masking what is called FIT or "failure to
> thrive".
> ...3 months, going on 4 months is a long time to
> be "draggy" every day.


question all assumptions.

like there's a certain number of calories required...

maybe you were eating too much! digestion is a huge energy drain...

question the assumption that 4 months is a long time to be draggy every day.
1. maybe its not a long time
2. maybe you're doing something "wrong"
3. maybe you could make the difficult but unpopular choice of Not blaming the diet but questioning whether you're doing the right things and making whatever adjustments work, including a slower transition to provide more energy. or resting more, or eating more or eating less, or eating different things, or exercising more or less, etc etc. maybe you've tried some of those things, who knows. there's often something we didn't consider before that makes all the difference.

John Rose Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> On a final note, for every one who still thinks we
> need to eat animal products, please tell me one
> nutrient that we need from animals that we cannot
> obtain from plants, other than certain level 2
> nutrients that healthy people are supposed to
> make. If you cannot name one nutrient, then you
> have NO basis for an argument.
>

Well, as you wrote, B12. But I hear your argument for supplementing with B12, and also that SAD eaters may not get adequate B12 levels, either.

I think, though, that in addition to focusing on one specific nutrient, that we should be wondering about combinations, too. It could be that there are specific combinations or balances that are present in meat that cannot be found in the plant world, and that these combinations could be helpful in small amounts to keep the human body disease-free and happy. Also, I keep in mind that science is continually discovering new ways of improving human health. For the most part, though, things stay the same: eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, and eat them raw as often as possible. And as much as it is about inclusion, a healthy diet is also about exclusion.

happyway Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...I like the taste and feel of raw vegan best

I do too. However, John's post on Dr. Stanley
Bass's experience with Acid Fruits is a 'must read' by
everyone.....WY

[www.drbass.com]

EZ rider wrote: "I'm not so sure that driving through the drive in window to get chunks of cow on a bun is natural and is the evolution of the human diet but I am sure that I prefer to eat a vegan diet."

Right on!

You mean ancient humans did not have drive thru fast food joints? HA HA HA

Chunks of ground up cow with additives, fillers, coloring with all white, bleached, denatured so-called bread.

Yeah, give me some fresh fruits and vegetables! I love this food!


Lee

[www.dhamma.org]

"Those who are awake live in a state of constant amazement."