Hi Debbie,

Yes, I understand! My point was that there are no cultures who have successfully eaten a vegan diet. Some have tried and failed, a major reason for the failure is the B-12 deficiency.

The most notable experiment with a culture or group living a 100% vegan lifestyle is described by John Fielder.

Fielder is a Natural Hygienist, similar to Herbert Shelton and TC Fry. They had a big group of people in Australia who tried the raw vegan lifestyle. The story is described on his website:

[www.johnfielder.com.au]
Half way down the page, he talks about how his group ate raw vegan in the 1970's, after 3 years they started experiencing health problems, and their children were not developing correctly. They had to add in some vegetarian animal foods and then the problems disappeared.

John Fielder's community is the best example I know of a culture who ate 100% vegan in the past. I think this is the first time in history that it is safe for us to eat vegan! It has always been safe to eat vegetarian.

This isn't an awnser to your question but the way in which these people lived inspired me a lot and gave me reason to think , this is how it should be done.
The book is a bit far out there but I still think its true! Its about a guy who passed over and has managed to send a lot of messages back via his medium father-in-law. [www.thestarsstillshine.com] There is a second book available as an e book called The Umbartt Collection: An Earth-like Planet and it explained how they managed to go on excursions to the heaven of Umbartt and experience life on that planet too briefly. They really seemed so wise, vegetarians or maybe vegans,it didn't specify..(except for by the sea where they ate fish but killed them humanely), kind hearted, looked after themselves ,daily excerise etc..planned things really well,ie. built nursing homes next to schools to keep old folks young at heart,towns could only be an hours walking distance from one end to the other,obviously looked after their enviroment etc..

Anyway, doubt its of any interest but you neva know!!!!

SuperGreens Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The most notable experiment with a culture or
> group living a 100% vegan lifestyle is described
> by John Fielder.
>
> Fielder is a Natural Hygienist, similar to Herbert
> Shelton and TC Fry. They had a big group of people
> in Australia who tried the raw vegan lifestyle.
> The story is described on his website:
>
> [www.johnfielder.com.au]
>


Thanks for that link, I read it & found it very interesting!

Many Jains (offshoot of Hinduism) are vegan as they do not believe in the harming of any creature.

I think it's more that they don't believe in *killing* any creature, and they don't believe in cruelty to creatures.

Jainism is vegetarian, rather than vegan, although some Jains abstain from dairy due to their abhorrence of modern dairy production methods.

So, unfortunately, we don't really have an example here of a culture or race of people who have never had animal products. Much as I wish we did.

For example, a recipe using milk from the Jainism Resource Centre:

[www.jainworld.com]

And from another Jains site:

Jain Practice
For Jains, Ahimsa is our supreme principle, and yet we use dairy products such as milk, Ghee and sweet
not only in our home but also in our temple rituals and religious (Swämivätslya and Pärnä) dinner.
A cow is a five-sensed (Panchendriya) animal that also possesses mind. Cruelty to five-sensed animals
is considered the highest sin as compared to the cruelty to vegetables and fewer sensed insects.

Anyhow, you are indeed correct in saying 'many Jains' are vegan. Now, if we had a large group of them who had been vegan since birth and hadn't supplemented and had got into old age and were remarkably healthy, that would be interesting.

When I asked about non-supplemented vegans on gi2mraw, Dhrumil, the founder of gi2mraw, and a Jain, said that he was non-supplemented. However, he's only in his twenties...

My father was brought up in India and was vegan most of his life from child hood his parents were not so not sure how that came about. H enever really talked about it that much. He was vegan his entire adult life, He did not supplement B 12 I don't think he was aware of it even although he did ocasionally do extra vitamin c so I can't claim he was unsupplemented, but I doubt he needed extra vitamin c it was just the buzz this vitamin received and he read about at the time.

I was vegetarian and mostly vegan most of my life too, but I was not brought up vegan, but very little animal product,and most of our foods were grains pulses vegetable and fruits. I did give my first son goat milk but not second son, as he disliked it. Howver they are adults now and have decided not to pursue vegan or vegetarian not for health reasons, but because of peer pressure and can't be bothered to make the effort. I'm quite sad about that but I accept it people have to make their own decisions.

Also the guy donald watson who started the vegan society was vegan for 60 years and vegetarian for 80 years he died at 95.[www.foodsforlife.org.uk]

I think the reason why many primitive cultures are not purely vegan such as hunzas or georgians is because they do not have enough foods all year round rather than it isn't healthy enough, the longest lived cultures all have diets high in fruit and vegetables and very low in animal products.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2009 09:21AM by Ariel55.

Don't want to hijack your thread so just some thoughts:

The answer appears to be no....no documented long-term vegan societies...but of course that is not MY point. There are no long-term societies with the high/extensive level of communication that we have today. Nor any ancient societies with the ability to travel and transport as we do. Does this mean we should not utilize those achievements? The ability eat an all-raw diet year round may be a relatively new development in human evolution....one that many are exploring now. Even human physiology (my opinion) can change over time....and give rise to the ability to eat and thrive on different diets.

-In any event, contrary to most folks diet....and all 'extremism' aside....it is my opinion (shared by many modern nutritionists) that most folks would certainly benefit by increasing their intake of fresh fruits & vegetables at the expense of processed foods. It is up to the individual to decide what is right for them in this regard....and in the stage of their own 'cleansing'. We are in a wonderful era of many folks having many more options....and being able to choose the ones....and choose the level that is right for them . I just hope that nobody needs to see an ARMY of people that have marched....or or marching in the same direction.....that they are considering going (eating more healthy...or eating 100% raw)....before giving it a try - you know?

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Agree with everything you say, David.

As I mentioned in opening post (I think), just because it's never been done (or 'proven' to one's satisfaction) is never a good reason not to do something!

I don't think anyone needs an 'army' of raw people to go raw, but many feel a bit jittery sailing off into the sunset raw vegan unsupplemented. As we all know, there are many here who strongly feel that is lunacy, so it would be kind of handy to have had just one race of people in the entire history of man who appear to have done that and lived to tell the tale, but, no, seems we're not going to find one.

Hope you don't feel we're talking at cross-purposes - I do take your points. Seems whoever's'in charge' (God, Higher Power, Universe, whatever...) is not necessarily going to make it 'neat' and 'easy' for us :-) And maybe that's what it's all about!