Am under attack from an educated and well read leaning omnivore friend. Just told him we are not herbivores or omnivores but frugivores and that raised his ire like I knew it would.

I am being challenged with the usual "we are some of us grain eaters and some of us are better at digesting meat because of how/where we lived for the last few centuries".

Also if anyone has something on germ theory to counter in general the "we need to sanitize and process everything in order to digest it".

If you have any good articles bookmarked pls share them.
My friend has very high cholesterol.

Sunberry,

There is no evidence that the human is a frugivore. There is some evidence that humans are selective omnivores that thrive best on a plant based diet; there is not evidence that a plant based diet leads to chronic fatal disease, in any case. The argument that some people do better on this or that omnivorous regimen cannot yet be supported even by the nascent field of nutrigenomics, though in the future, that might change. If someone uses this argument, I ask them to tell me whether it's possible that there are many subspecie of Homo sapiens, as this would be necessary for the argument to really be valid. An interesting discussion might ensue. Lastly, it is a good idea to politely point out to anyone that is not a specimen of excellent health but who advocates the diet that is making them unwell that perhaps they may want to rethink their suppositions.

As to germ theory, it is what we know up to this point. It doesn't, btw, require that we sanitize everything to death. On the contrary, germ theory considers that excessive sanitizing actually encourages the successful persistence of the most resilient pathogens and, so, is not prudent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2010 04:32PM by Tamukha.

Tamukha,

"Lastly, it is a good idea to politely point out to anyone that is not a specimen of excellent health but who advocates the diet that is making them unwell that perhaps they may want to rethink their suppositions."

Thats brilliant lol!

But sadly until you've tried a raw diet you do not know how good you can feel and so stay stuck in your beliefs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2010 05:07PM by Sunberry.

Sunberry,

Agree with Tamukha, regarding the lack of evidence about humans being a frugivore. And I know that both the 80-10-10 diet and also Victoria Boutenko's Green for Life have been very influential in the raw vegan community. I will just make another plug for "Becoming Raw" by Davis and Melina, the authors of Becoming Vegan and Becoming Vegetarian, both RDs and lifelong vegans who coauthored the Raw Revolution Diet by Cherie Soria. [www.amazon.com] Non-human primates according to Davis and Melina have very different digestive tracts than modern humans (see page 103).

Paul

Sunberry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Am under attack from an educated and well read
> leaning omnivore friend. Just told him we are not
> herbivores or omnivores but frugivores and that
> raised his ire like I knew it would.
>
> I am being challenged with the usual "we are some
> of us grain eaters and some of us are better at
> digesting meat because of how/where we lived for
> the last few centuries".
>
>

Why would you even want to enter into such an argument?


When people ask me about what I am eating, I simply say that I have found that eating more fresh food than I used to seems to make me feel a lot better. I try to never point out that I am skipping the meat portion of the meal if I can help it, or anything else for that matter. I try never to mention that I prefer raw food, or that I have any strict rules - in fact, I seem to do a whole lot better at this if I DON'T give myself any rules. So, officially, if I decide tomorrow that I want to eat a cooked chocolate chip cookie, I will - but it is unlikely to happen - I haven't had a cooked chocolate chip cookie for ages. Haven't wanted one either, but if I thought I COULDN'T have one, I bet I would crave one like crazy.

I have no idea whether this is the best recommendation for all of mankind or even my next door neighbor - if they want to know that, I suggest they try it and decide for themselves. And if anyone tells me that eating a totally SAD diet is working for them, I believe them. Who am I to argue? Until they are interested in change, I just leave them alone. I can honestly say that I have eaten SAD food in the past and it does not seem to be the best choice for me personally.

Try to substitute the word "fresh" for "raw". For some reason, it is a lot less threatening.

We had a houseful of company recently. My hubby BBQ'd a bunch of steaks and potatoes, and I made three gorgeous colorful vibrant salads and put them on the table. I don't think anyone even noticed that I only ate salad. But I noticed that my meal was the best by far, and the guests are still asking me for the recipes, now that they have all gone home. I feel great about that, and no need for anyone to argue about it - we all got what we wanted.

Take care and good luck!

Sunberry,

Carl Linnaeus, father of modern taxonomy states: "Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of the other animals, shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food."

"Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of the other animals, shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food" Linnaeus, father of modern taxonomy
"Man came before the axe & fire so he couldn't be carnivorous.The digestive tube is 5-8 meters and the distance between the mouth and the coccyx is 50 to 80 centimetres, which gives us a result of 10 as in other frugivorous animals" -Thomas Huxley dr/anthropologist

"ecause, for anatomical and physiological reasons, no mammal can exploit
large amounts of both animal matter and leaves, the widely used term
'omnivore' is singularly inappropriate, even for primates. Humans might
reasonably be called omnivores, however, as a result of food processing and
cookery."
The Cambridge Encyclopedia Of Human Evolution, Jones, Martin and Pilbeam,
Camb. Uni. Press, 1992

Depending on where the debate goes, I would include data regarding the lack of uricase enzyme in humans, causing humans to acquire gout and other diseases, unlike meat-eating animals. At the same time ancestors synthesized their own uric acid, they lost the ability to synthesize Vitamin C, so prevalent in natural food.

Frugivorously,
Chris

Frugivorously,
Chris

Human digestion and dentition resembles, most closely, the orangutans, chimps and bonobos- all frugivores, digesting fruit best. Humans also digest fruit best.

Some people don't like the classification of 'frugivore', whether it is because they don't like considering they are in the biological family of great apes or not is a mystery but humans digest fruit with opposing digestive processes to meat and grains.

Of course any mammal can and will consume meat if starving or facultatively. This does not mean that the organisms are optimized to consume foods from radically different diet classes. In fact, consuming meat and grains degrades the digestive systems of humans and humans (as well as other hominoidea) do get sick from the consumption of meat, grains, candy, etc.

The term 'omnivore' is merely a euphemism for 'scavenger'.

With fruit,
Chris

Frugivorously,
Chris

Hfructos Wrote:
> The term 'omnivore' is merely a euphemism for
> 'scavenger'.
>
> With fruit,
> Chris

Sorry Chris, as much as I'd like to agree with you. The term scavenger has pejorative nature to it bringing to mind vulture and jackals waiting for the kill and cleaning up. Doesn't describe a lot of omnivores in their natural environment at. Think grizzly bear for one. They eat berries and roots and tubers as well salmon and are opportunistic. Yet they can take down and do take down deer as any carnivore would. They are simply adapted to take advantage of a wide range of food sources. If you want to say omnivores are opportunistic feeders, I have no quarrel. Scavenger equals omnivore just doesn't quite cut it with me. Thanks for listening.

Paul



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2010 09:34PM by pborst.

pborst Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hfructos Wrote:
> > The term 'omnivore' is merely a euphemism for
> > 'scavenger'.

> Sorry Chris, as much as I'd like to agree with
> you.

No need to apologize, Paul. I'm aware that it isn't popular to regard humans as frugivores. However, I am trying to be clear that a frugivore is an organism that digests fruit best since the digestive processes between meat and fruit consumption are so different and consuming meat does reduce the absorption of nutrients that can be obtained from fruit.

> The term scavenger has pejorative nature to
> it

Although that may be your impression, the term 'omnivore' OTOH, is not operational since (as I said before) any mammal can consume other animal parts, facultatively or if starving. So, it seems 'omnivore' is a very vague euphemism, if it is even a scientific classification at all...

> bringing to mind vulture and jackals waiting
> for the kill and cleaning up.

Culturable humans rarely kill their own prey and the animal products are routinely and intentionally aged (begun putrefying). Whereas in the case of a vulture or jackal, not only are they far more likely and willing to make their own kill but they strive to arrive at the carrion as early as possible and NEVER purposely age their prey (as most culturists do, customarily) and most importantly the jackals, vultures and bears do not normally get sick consuming meat (their natural food) but humans do.

> Doesn't describe a
> lot of omnivores in their natural environment at.

Well the reason humans began to scavenge to begin with is because of lost habitat, abandoning their ecological niche.

> Think grizzly bear for one. They eat berries and
> roots and tubers as well salmon and are
> opportunistic.

Grizzly bears are excellent examples of scavengers (specialized carnivores) having perhaps the strongest olfactory sense of all animals, much stronger than dogs and they sniff out dead animals. They have canines and claws more suitable for this than humans. Scavenging requires some even more specialized meat-eating abilities than a general carnivore (in terms of digestion, especially). Even grizzly cubs will go into a frenzy, unlike any state a human experiences with available food...

Surely, humans resemble frugivorous bonobos more than scavenging grizzlies (physically, biochemically and even mentally)...

> Yet they can take down and do take
> down deer as any carnivore would.

Exactly! And grizzlies can digest deer much better than humans. Humans can't even digest fresh meat, much less the denatured meat. All bears also have greater protein and fat requirements than humans do and humans naturally produce more sugar in their breast milk to match the natural needs of human offspring.

Rats (granivores) digest denatured meat better than humans (frugivores) in in vivo tests. Human cancer risk from exposure to PhIP is considerably higher than extrapolation from rodent bioassays. Food Chem Toxicol. 2008 Sep;46(9):3200-5. This should come as no surprise since grains are digested similarly to meat and rats have higher protein requirements than humans too.

> They are
> simply adapted to take advantage of a wide range
> of food sources.

It's a little misleading to say grizzlies adapted to take advantage of a wide range of food sources. Grizzlies co-evolved with food sources and enemies (in their environments, filtering out the weak prey and carving their ecological niche), scavenging efficiently (unlike humans) since larger animals can't afford to waste, especially food sources higher on 'the food chain'. Grizzlies in their ecological niche are opportunistic. Their opportunities are for survival, which is a driving force in the theory of evolution. In contrast, human motives for scavenging included stimulus motives- leaving ecological niche/exploring. This is not part of any described mechanism for adaptation. Adaptation generally occurs within an organisms ecological niche. Grizzlies have genetic instructions to eat a more varied diet, in contrast to humans.

> Scavenger equals omnivore just doesn't quite cut
> it with me.

It was uncomfortable for me to consider humans scavenge but humans are not natural scavengers. Sophisticated humans may choose to refer to themselves as 'omnivore' but humans get sick from meat and there is no reason to use vague euphemisms that are no more scientific.

Chris

I think we can agree to disagree. I don't accept your definitions equating scavenger and omnivore. That's all. Just because an animal scavenges, doesn't make it a scavenger unless that's pretty much all it does. A vulture eats carrion but doesn't it berries. It's a scavenger but not an omnivore. Similarly, a bear can scavenge but eats both plant and animal material. And that's all an omnivore is, an animal that consumes plant and animal material. Anyway, agree to disagree.

Thanks for all the great feedback, especially Chris, it was interesting and much appreciated.
Do not want to split hairs about what class humans are but I personally can't argue with how great I feel on a high fuit and greens diet.

Re germ theory Tamukha yes I am referring to the prevailing fear of germs and viruses and heavy reliance on vaccines which came about from Louis Pasteurs work. One of the other hidden fears people have about uncooked food is "germs" "parasites" or "dirt" in general. The other one is not being able to digest cellulose or certain veggies so we need to cook them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2010 03:18PM by Sunberry.

I love this quote, from Abraham Hicks:

"If you don't meet resistance with resistance, it dissipates dramatically. It just softens. Try it! Next time somebody says to you, "I'm right, and you're wrong," say, "Pfftt, you're right. You are right. You're right." And mean it. In other words, don't mock them. Don't be sarcastic. "You're right." And then watch how, all of a sudden, their legs almost go right out from under them. They don't have the energy to blast you, because you just took the fuel away from the fire."

pborst Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think we can agree to disagree.
Yes, I prefaced my first response with the message that I am aware that most people do not regard humans as frugivores. I'll add to that, it seems uncomfortable for many humans to view themselves as natural fruit-eaters. I have no problem 'agreeing to disagree' with this. I'm very tolerant. I consumed animals in the past that were still moving and I forgive myself, I have family and friends who regularly chomp on the cows and I love them, still. It's O.K. to disagree! Now, the question I have tried to pose is- Am I agreeing to disagree based upon empirical evidence or am I just disagreeing because the thought of humans being scavengers is uncomfortable for me?

> I don't accept
> your definitions equating scavenger and omnivore.

That's fine. Your acceptance is not required. I was just explaining that humans digest fruit best. But I don't accept your definition of an omnivore simply being an organism that consumes food from 2 different classes (whether facultatively or as a consequence of a lack of available food) because your definition is based on soft science (custom/sociological criteria), not on what is biochemically compatible food that reduces (instead of increases) disease risks.

Imagine that I do accept the conventional use of 'omnivore' as a classification for humans... By what criteria would I be applying? So far the term 'omnivore' has not been operationalized. If, as you say, an 'omnivore' is an organism that consumes both plants and animals, then this covers every mammal and provides no useful information.

If, OTOH, I consider what food causes disease and what food reverses disease, I may get an idea of what foods are biochemically compatible and what foods (or food products) are compromises/unnatural foods for a given species. This becomes useful information now.

Cows, chimps, humans and rabbits consume animals and even some of their own kind. When food is available this doesn't matter though.

> Just because an animal scavenges,
> doesn't make it a scavenger unless that's pretty
> much all it does.

This is an 'is-ought fallacy'. Just because a given species does something, doesn't mean it is optimized for that activity. Any animal can consume meat.

> A vulture eats carrion but
> doesn't it berries.

If a vulture is hungry enough, it will eat plants. A vulture is an obligate, specialized scavenger/carnivore that can and does eat plants too. The fact that vultures DO eat plants does not make them omnivores, though. [vulturesociety.homestead.com]

It seems 'omnivore' has no real meaning... Virtually any animal can and does eat both plants and animals. So 'omnivore' has still not been operationalized.

> Similarly, a bear can scavenge but eats
> both plant and animal material.

Neither the grizzly nor the vulture resemble humans. Both the grizzlies and vultures are specialized meat-eaters and do not get sick from meat, unlike humans, bonobos and cows.

> all an
> omnivore is, an animal that consumes plant and
> animal material.

That covers every animal so a hypothesis cannot be designed to test if an organism is an 'omnivore' because there is no measurement by which this could be done, unless it is asserted that all animals are 'omnivore'.

Humans, specifically, are frugivores- not because they may or may not choose to consume fruit but because humans digest fruit best and fruit uses opposing digestive processes and reverses diseases caused by consuming unnatural/biochemically incompatible food (meat, cow dairy, candy, refined grains, alcohol, etc). Now this is an operationalized definition for a dietary classification and a hypothesis can be developed from it.

With fruit and health,
Chris

I love your last sentence--so you want to debate someone whose diet is probably the culprit of his HBP? Okeee...

But seriously, I think that it is fruitless (no pun intended) to even attempt to defend your lifestyle to someone like that. Mostly because anyone who is that opinionated that he feels the need to impose his own beliefs on a so-called friend will never be convinced of how healthy your diet is. And why do you feel the need to defend it in the first place? If you have gotten positive results from being a fructarian and have educated yourself on whether or not it's healthy, then that should be enough. What you could say to him the next time he makes some remark about it is: "You are entitled to believe whatever you believe and I have no interest in changing your diet but I do ask for respect to allow me to live in the manner I choose."

Sunberry
I'm intrigued. I just have to ask you.....
Whats the real reason for you putting energy into this?

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2010 09:48PM by pborst.

Hfructos Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> pborst Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----


> > I don't accept
> > your definitions equating scavenger and
> omnivore.
>
> That's fine. Your acceptance is not required.

Nor is yours.

> I was just explaining that humans digest fruit best.

Compared to other species or for humans compared to other food stocks? Based on what?

> But I don't accept your definition of an omnivore
> simply being an organism that consumes food from 2
> different classes (whether facultatively or as a
> consequence of a lack of available food) because
> your definition is based on soft science
> (custom/sociological criteria), not on what is
> biochemically compatible food that reduces
> (instead of increases) disease risks.

Not to state the obvious, but it's not soft science. It's language. A conceptual not operational definition that most people use and understand.

"Omnivores (from Latin: omni all, everything; vorare(infinitive) to devour) are species that eat both plants and animals as their primary food source. They are opportunistic, general feeders not specifically adapted to eat and digest either meat or plant material exclusively"

[en.wikipedia.org]

So the fact that a wolf or cat might eat grass doesn't make it an omnivore.
>
> Imagine that I do accept the conventional use of
> 'omnivore' as a classification for humans... By
> what criteria would I be applying? So far the term
> 'omnivore' has not been operationalized. If, as
> you say, an 'omnivore' is an organism that
> consumes both plants and animals, then this covers
> every mammal and provides no useful information.

Your original point we were discussing wasn't whether humans were omnivores, it was whether or not omnivore is a synonym for scavenger. Or euphemism.

> If, OTOH, I consider what food causes disease and
> what food reverses disease, I may get an idea of
> what foods are biochemically compatible and what
> foods (or food products) are compromises/unnatural
> foods for a given species. This becomes useful
> information now.

Again, we were discussing definitions of two terms, omnivore and scavenger. You contention is that they are the same. Mine is that they are not.


> Cows, chimps, humans and rabbits consume animals
> and even some of their own kind. When food is
> available this doesn't matter though.
>
> > Just because an animal scavenges,
> > doesn't make it a scavenger unless that's
> pretty
> > much all it does.
>
> This is an 'is-ought fallacy'. Just because a
> given species does something, doesn't mean it is
> optimized for that activity. Any animal can
> consume meat.

I understand that this is your definition Chris. Just recognize that what a species is "optimized" to do doesn't define its status, that is assuming you can figure out what it's optimized to do.

> > A vulture eats carrion but
> > doesn't it berries.
>
> If a vulture is hungry enough, it will eat plants.
> A vulture is an obligate, specialized
> scavenger/carnivore that can and does eat plants
> too. The fact that vultures DO eat plants does not
> make them omnivores, though.
> [vulturesociety.homestead.com]

I agree

> It seems 'omnivore' has no real meaning...
> Virtually any animal can and does eat both plants
> and animals. So 'omnivore' has still not been
> operationalized.

But that's not what an omnivore is. So, your operational definition of omnivore is a definition without meaning. Abraham Lincoln was once asked if you called a dog's tail a leg, how many legs would a dog have. And someone in the audience yelled "5". And Lincoln, replied "No, calling a dog's tail a leg doesn't make it a leg". And calling an omnivore a scavenger doesn't make it one.

Being omnivorous has to do with the the main food they eat and lack of adaptations for eating any one type of food exclusively. Being a scavenger has to do with whether the food is living or dead when eaten. Earthworms are herbevorous scavengers; hyennas are carnivorous scavengers, bears are omnivorous scavengers. Scavenger is not equivalent to omnivore.

> > Similarly, a bear can scavenge but eats
> > both plant and animal material.
>
> Neither the grizzly nor the vulture resemble
> humans. Both the grizzlies and vultures are
> specialized meat-eaters and do not get sick from
> meat, unlike humans, bonobos and cows.

I don't know if grizzlies who eat more plant material are better off than those who eat more meat or not.

> > all an
> > omnivore is, an animal that consumes plant and
> > animal material.
>
> That covers every animal so a hypothesis cannot be
> designed to test if an organism is an 'omnivore'
> because there is no measurement by which this
> could be done, unless it is asserted that all
> animals are 'omnivore'.

Not under your operational definition, but under the common conceptual definition, yes there is.

> Humans, specifically, are frugivores- not because
> they may or may not choose to consume fruit but
> because humans digest fruit best and fruit uses
> opposing digestive processes and reverses diseases
> caused by consuming unnatural/biochemically
> incompatible food (meat, cow dairy, candy, refined
> grains, alcohol, etc). Now this is an
> operationalized definition for a dietary
> classification and a hypothesis can be developed
> from it.

What else do humans digest best? What else do they thrive on? How do we know that eating mostly fruit is an optimal diet for humans? Based on what data? Why are longest lived people in the world eating a plant based diet not mostly composed of fruit? (Okinawans, Hunzas, others). Why is natural selection a valid criteria for assuring success of the individual given that it's based on the success of the species, rapid growth and reproduction, not growing disease free into old age?

> With fruit and health,
> Chris

Be well, thank you for your insights

Paul

> > pborst Wrote:
> > > I don't accept
> > > your definitions equating scavenger and
> > omnivore.
> >
> > That's fine. Your acceptance is not required.
>
> Nor is yours.

Good. Now that popular vote is factored out (or is it?)...


> > humans digest fruit
> best.
>
> Compared to other species or for humans compared
> to other food stocks?

As I said, in contrast to bears, vultures and other scavengers and carnivores. And as I said, compared to the meat, refined grains and candy, which I explained involves opposing digestive processes and degrades human digestion.

> Based on what?

I already said, "Man came before the axe & fire so he couldn't be carnivorous.The digestive tube is 5-8 meters and the distance between the mouth and the coccyx is 50 to 80 centimetres, which gives us a result of 10 as in other frugivorous animals" -Thomas Huxley dr/anthropologist

But more importantly and to repeat, based on the fact that fruit is biochemically compatible food for humans and meat is biochemically incompatible. The grizzlies and vulture (to use your examples) have genes for uricase enzyme expression so that purines are metabolized to uric acid that is an antioxidant for those natural meat-eaters. Humans, in contrast, do not have genetic instructions for the uricase enzyme and cannot degrade it, so instead of dietary uric acid being an antioxidant, it causes oxidative stress.

"Humans are the only mammals in whom gout develops spontaneously. Hyperuricemia only commonly develops in humans. Humans already synthesize uric acid and lack uricase enzymes so dietary uric acid in meat doesn't go through oxidative degradation and uric acid raise levels up to 10xs higher than other mammals, causing gout, nephrolithiasis and CVD in humans. Purine-free diet reduces uric acid from 297mmol/L to 178. Annals of Internal Med.143;7, 501."

Hemorrhoids (which most people get) is also virtually non-existent among every other animal. The list goes on...

But if one is genuinely interested in an exclusionary diet for health or just curiosity and spares no expense to gradually substitute food products (meat, dairy, grains, cooked beans, refined sugar, alcohol) that are difficult to digest with those natural foods (raw fruit, sprouts, leafy greens, flowers) that are easy to digest and grown from rich soil, and even grows fruit trees not commercially available, etc, it becomes obvious that fruit and meat are NOT digested equally for humans and scientific references (which may have been helpful to guide reasonable people transitioning against culturally popular animal diets) become unnecessary.

> > your definition is based on soft science
> > (custom/sociological criteria), not on what is
> > biochemically compatible food that reduces
> > (instead of increases) disease risks.
>
> it's not soft
> science. It's language. A conceptual...

True. The conventional useless/miss-use of the 'conceptualization' of 'omnivore' is not even based on soft science. You are using linguistic semantics as opposed to theoretical semantics of intentionally vague terminology.

> A conceptual not
> operational definition that most people use

Most people use multiple drugs, are overweight and sick, in this manner. So, a culturally conceptual definition of omnivore is applied with social acquisition, rather than frugivory with digestion and health.

> "Omnivores are species that eat
> both plants and animals

So, applying the definition- cows, rabbits, humans, chimps and virtually every animal is an 'omnivore'?

> not specifically adapted to eat and digest either
> meat or plant material exclusively"

One can certainly make the case that humans are indeed better adapted to digesting fruit than meat and in fact human ancestors did co-evolve with fruit for tens of millions of years before supplementing with burnt flesh. More specifically, humans are genetically programmed to eat plants rather than meat at the physiological, biochemical, psychological levels. Consuming animal-centric diets causes DNA damage that is prevented with raw plant foods.

> Your original point we were discussing wasn't
> whether humans were omnivores, it was whether or
> not omnivore is a synonym for scavenger. Or
> euphemism.

I said euphemism...

But the topic of the thread is about whether humans are omnivores and I covered the fact that culturists favor the title of 'omnivore' as it is a sophisticated euphemism for 'scavenger'. I covered the fact that most modern humans do indeed scavenge, routinely consuming dead animals that they did not kill themselves and such food products do in fact begin putrefying well before they are consumed by many humans who then further denature the animal products through food processing/cooking/aging, etc. If you are suggesting that humans are not natural scavengers, I agree.

> > If, OTOH, I consider what food causes disease
> and
> > what food reverses disease, I may get an idea
> of
> > what foods are biochemically compatible and
> what
> > foods (or food products) are
> compromises/unnatural
> > foods for a given species. This becomes useful
> > information now.
>
> Again, we were discussing definitions of two
> terms, omnivore and scavenger.

Yes, it was covered as you 'agreed to disagree' while you adopted a culturally conceptualized definition of omnivore (choosing to consume mixed food categories) rather than the biochemically compatible, frugivorous diet according to H. sapiens genetic instructions, which is best suited for hominoidea digestion and overall health. I recognize en-cultured humans DO consume food products from different categories but that they are mostly sick with diets to match. And humans regularly scavenge.

> > > Just because an animal scavenges,
> > > doesn't make it a scavenger unless that's
> > pretty
> > > much all it does.
> >
> > This is an 'is-ought fallacy'. Just because a
> > given species does something, doesn't mean it
> is
> > optimized for that activity. Any animal can
> > consume meat.
>
> I understand that this is your definition Chris.
> Just recognize that what a species is "optimized"
> to do doesn't define its status

But health status IS contingent upon diet. Social status aside, humans digest fruit best, making frugivory the optimal diet in terms of genetic instructions. I'm not concerned about linguistic semantics. I'm talking about what is natural and healthy, not what is popular.

> > It seems 'omnivore' has no real meaning...
> > Virtually any animal can and does eat both
> plants
> > and animals.

Your response?

So, your
> operational definition of omnivore is a definition
> without meaning.

> calling a
> dog's tail a leg doesn't make it a leg".

So calling a human's frugivorous digestive system an omnivore's digestive system doesn't change genetic instructions of human digestion. Not all humans are 'omnivore' or scavengers. But no human can digest meat. And all humans naturally digest plants best. The dog's tail or leg doesn't walk or wag by itself but remains the same regardless of what the dog chooses to do with the tail. Same with digestion. While a tail could function as a leg or vice versa, the dog's tail is a tail, regardless of what the dog chooses to do with it. Humans are genetically frugivores, naturally digesting fruit best, regardless of acculturation. Culturists can choose to refer to themselves as 'omnivores' (creating medicine for treatment)- those who "consume" (as opposed to digest) animals and plants, regardless of degrading digestive systems. Calling humans 'omnivore' doesn't describe genetic instructions for eating, digesting or eliminating, it describes what you want the diet to be. While culturable humans customarily behave 'omnivorously' and humans colloquially label themselves as 'omnivores', 'omnivore' doesn't explain anything digestively and the cultural conceptualization, meaningless use of 'omnivore' obfuscates the issue of what food is chemically digested best within a species-the topic of the thread. There is no taxon of 'omnivore' recognized, scientifically. Faunivore and folivore are the more commonly used terms with 'omnivore' sometimes written with quotations indicating the extra-scientific usage of the term among recent primatologists. There is only the meaningful recognition or lack thereof of foods which either promote disease or reverse disease within a species. Aside from the fact you're extrapolating from diet behavior of natural scavengers and/or carnivores (dogs, bears, vultures, anything but hominoidea) and attempting to find relevance for suitable human food, 'omnivore' is a socio-il-logical term. It is a culturally conceptualized euphemism that doesn't even describe cultural dieters as specifically as 'scavengers'. By applying the colloquial definition, 'omnivore' would include dogs, rabbits, cows, chimps and humans. There is no clear distinction. This is scientifically useless and deceitful. 'I am an omnivore because I consume meat and plants, I consume meat and plants because I'm an omnivore...' What does any of the circular reasoning and glamorizing have to do with natural diet? .



> What else do humans digest best?
Those foods digested similarly to fruit, raw sprouts, lettuce, flowers.


> Why are longest lived people in the
> world eating a plant based diet not mostly
> composed of fruit?

Because you're comparing them with other sick cultures. Just as there is no entire culture all exercising at optimal rates, there is no optimal diet among entire human cultures. To be clear, the Okinawan diets aren't perfect, neither is mine but I don't pretend it is perfect compared to other sick customary eating habits.

'Omnivore'- particularly when applied to humans, is a glorified scavenger.

With fruit and health,
Chris

Hfructos Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> > > humans digest fruit
> > best.
> >
> > Compared to other species or for humans
> compared
> > to other food stocks?
>
> As I said, in contrast to bears, vultures and
> other scavengers and carnivores. And as I said,
> compared to the meat, refined grains and candy,
> which I explained involves opposing digestive
> processes and degrades human digestion.

If you are just rebutting the raw paleo strawman that early humans were carnivores, then I'm with you. But that doesn't mean either that we are frugivores by design today, nor does it mean that a fruitarian diet is optimal for humans.

> > Based on what?
>
> I already said, "Man came before the axe & fire so
> he couldn't be carnivorous.The digestive tube is
> 5-8 meters and the distance between the mouth and
> the coccyx is 50 to 80 centimetres, which gives us
> a result of 10 as in other frugivorous animals"
> -Thomas Huxley dr/anthropologist

Why does lacking fire preclude eating animal products? Chimpanzees our closest nonhuman primates use sticks to eat termites, and have been reported to attack, kill and eat lower order primates such as the red colubus. See Professor Stanford's article which also pretty much rebuts the theory that early hominids were strictly frugivores based on tools found in the fossil record. [www-rcf.usc.edu]

There are also key differences between humans and nonhuman primates:

1. Gastrointestinal Tract

According to Davis and Melina (Going Raw, p.103) "The intestinal tract of human and nonhuman primates differs in both physiology and function. Relative to body size, human intestines take up less volume than intestines of great apes. In humans, the small intestine predominates, while in great apes, the large intestine is the more predominant organ. Unlike modern humans, the gut of nonhuman primates is adapted to an extremely high fiber diet". They go on to say that a 15 lb. howler monkey consumes an average of 88 grams of food per day, the equivalent for a human of eating 73 pounds of fruit. And they conclude that nonhuman primates are better adapted for the high fiber diet than we are.

2. Amylase

[www.oeb.harvard.edu]. Humans have adapted a much greater number of gene copies producing amylase, an enzyme for breaking down starches, than chimpanzees and other non-human primates. According to Hoekstra, we have even seen difference in gene regulation between high starch consuming and low starch consuming populations. And that's with just 8000 years or so of cultivation.

> But more importantly and to repeat, based on the
> fact that fruit is biochemically compatible food
> for humans and meat is biochemically incompatible.

Biochemically incompatible? What does that mean? While I oppose eating animal products, there is no question they contain nutrients or that humans (and chimpanzees) have the capacity to digest and extract nutrients from them. T

> The grizzlies and vulture (to use your examples)
> have genes for uricase enzyme expression so that
> purines are metabolized to uric acid that is an
> antioxidant for those natural meat-eaters. Humans,
> in contrast, do not have genetic instructions for
> the uricase enzyme and cannot degrade it, so
> instead of dietary uric acid being an antioxidant,
> it causes oxidative stress.

Not really. Uric acid in moderate amounts is of great benefit to humans as both an antioxidant as well as the final step in catabolizing purines.

"It has also been proposed that the loss of this UO protein expression has been advantageous to hominids, since uric acid is a powerful antioxidant and scavenger of singlet oxygen and radicals.[1] Its presence provides the body with protection from oxidative damage, thus prolonging life and decreasing age-specific cancer rates."
[en.wikipedia.org]

> "Humans are the only mammals in whom gout develops
> spontaneously. Hyperuricemia only commonly
> develops in humans. Humans already synthesize uric
> acid and lack uricase enzymes so dietary uric acid
> in meat doesn't go through oxidative degradation
> and uric acid raise levels up to 10xs higher than
> other mammals, causing gout, nephrolithiasis and
> CVD in humans. Purine-free diet reduces uric acid
> from 297mmol/L to 178. Annals of Internal
> Med.143;7, 501."

Gout only occurs when uric acid concentrations are excessive. The dose is the poison. Eat too many bananas and you can get hyperkalemia and hyperdopaminemia.
[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] That in and of itself doesn't mean one shouldn't or can't eat either meat or bananas. There are other reasons I don't eat meat but gout isn't one of them. Nor does that prove that meat is biochemically incompatible which your contention.

> Hemorrhoids (which most people get) is also
> virtually non-existent among every other animal.
> The list goes on...

Again at what dose? Are we talking about the Standard American Diet, which is a strawman, or a plant based diet that may or may not include small amounts of animal products. I abstain from animal products for ethical reasons and ecological reasons. But from a health perspective, the question of what the optimal dose of animal product intake either being zero or small quantities is unresolved. Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a board-certified physician with extensive practice using nutrition to treat disease says the optimal range is between zero and 12 ounces per week.

> But if one is genuinely interested in an
> exclusionary diet for health or just curiosity and
> spares no expense to gradually substitute food
> products (meat, dairy, grains, cooked beans,
> refined sugar, alcohol) that are difficult to
> digest with those natural foods (raw fruit,
> sprouts, leafy greens, flowers) that are easy to
> digest and grown from rich soil, and even grows
> fruit trees not commercially available, etc, it
> becomes obvious that fruit and meat are NOT
> digested equally for humans and scientific
> references (which may have been helpful to guide
> reasonable people transitioning against culturally
> popular animal diets) become unnecessary.

I agree meat has risks. That doesn't prove either that humans are either inately frugivores or do the best on a frugivorous diet.

> > > your definition is based on soft science
> > > (custom/sociological criteria), not on what
> is
> > > biochemically compatible food that reduces
> > > (instead of increases) disease risks.
> >
> > it's not soft
> > science. It's language. A conceptual...
>
> True. The conventional useless/miss-use of the
> 'conceptualization' of 'omnivore' is not even
> based on soft science. You are using linguistic
> semantics as opposed to theoretical semantics of
> intentionally vague terminology.

It's not "linguistic semantics" Chris. It's English. And it's how we define terms. You are welcome to your personal operational definition of omnivore if you want it. All you have in my opinion is a tautology that few people will understand and even fewer would agree with if they did.

> > A conceptual not
> > operational definition that most people use
>
> Most people use multiple drugs, are overweight and
> sick, in this manner. So, a culturally conceptual
> definition of omnivore is applied with social
> acquisition, rather than frugivory with digestion
> and health.

No the red herring about people personal habits. Most people, sick and well, use the same definition of omnivore.

> > "Omnivores are species that eat
> > both plants and animals
>
> So, applying the definition- cows, rabbits,
> humans, chimps and virtually every animal is an
> 'omnivore'?

No, covered that in my prior post. It's the primary type of food and the absence of adaptations to eat exclusively one type of food.

> > not specifically adapted to eat and digest
> either
> > meat or plant material exclusively"
>
> One can certainly make the case that humans are
> indeed better adapted to digesting fruit than meat
> and in fact human ancestors did co-evolve with
> fruit for tens of millions of years before
> supplementing with burnt flesh. More specifically,
> humans are genetically programmed to eat plants
> rather than meat at the physiological,
> biochemical, psychological levels. Consuming
> animal-centric diets causes DNA damage that is
> prevented with raw plant foods.

I agree with the proposition that fruit is easier for humans to digest than meat but not based on a Thomas Huxley quote.

> > Your original point we were discussing wasn't
> > whether humans were omnivores, it was whether
> or
> > not omnivore is a synonym for scavenger. Or
> > euphemism.
>
> I said euphemism...

Splitting hairs aren't we. You know that scavenger is a pejorative in a cultural sense. Point is that the term scavenger refers to the proportion of food that is living or dead consumed and omnivore refers to the type of food. They mean different things.

> But the topic of the thread is about whether
> humans are omnivores and I covered the fact that
> culturists favor the title of 'omnivore' as it is
> a sophisticated euphemism for 'scavenger'. I
> covered the fact that most modern humans do indeed
> scavenge, routinely consuming dead animals that
> they did not kill themselves and such food
> products do in fact begin putrefying well before
> they are consumed by many humans who then further
> denature the animal products through food
> processing/cooking/aging, etc. If you are
> suggesting that humans are not natural scavengers,
> I agree.

Agree to agree.

> > > If, OTOH, I consider what food causes disease
> > and
> > > what food reverses disease, I may get an idea
> > of
> > > what foods are biochemically compatible and
> > what
> > > foods (or food products) are
> > compromises/unnatural
> > > foods for a given species. This becomes
> useful
> > > information now.
> >
> > Again, we were discussing definitions of two
> > terms, omnivore and scavenger.
>
> Yes, it was covered as you 'agreed to disagree'
> while you adopted a culturally conceptualized
> definition of omnivore (choosing to consume mixed
> food categories) rather than the biochemically
> compatible, frugivorous diet according to H.
> sapiens genetic instructions, which is best suited
> for hominoidea digestion and overall health. I
> recognize en-cultured humans DO consume food
> products from different categories but that they
> are mostly sick with diets to match. And humans
> regularly scavenge.

With respect to a frugivorous diet being the best suited for humans, again you assuming facts not in evidence. Better suited than either the SAD or even animal-based diets in general, I agree with you. But when compared with other plant-based diets, living food diets, raw diets including nuts, seeds, fruits and greens but also sprouted grains, selected sprouted legumes, and sea vegetables, are there data demonstrating an advantage for a fruitarian diet? If so, you have my interest. Please provide a reference. I've got 80-10-10 and am looking it.

> > > > Just because an animal scavenges,
> > > > doesn't make it a scavenger unless that's
> > > pretty
> > > > much all it does.
> > >
> > > This is an 'is-ought fallacy'. Just because a
> > > given species does something, doesn't mean it
> > is
> > > optimized for that activity. Any animal can
> > > consume meat.
> >
> > I understand that this is your definition Chris.
>
> > Just recognize that what a species is
> "optimized"
> > to do doesn't define its status
>
> But health status IS contingent upon diet. Social
> status aside, humans digest fruit best, making
> frugivory the optimal diet in terms of genetic
> instructions. I'm not concerned about linguistic
> semantics. I'm talking about what is natural and
> healthy, not what is popular.

Again, if you want to keep using your tautological idea of omnivore, that's fine. Doesn't make it true.

> But no human can digest meat.

Of course we can. Virtually all humans can digest meat. And most of us have at some time in our life.

> And all humans naturally digest
> plants best.

No argument here.


> Humans are genetically frugivores, naturally
> digesting fruit best, regardless of acculturation.

Again, you are assuming facts not in evidence.

>
> Calling humans 'omnivore' doesn't
> describe genetic instructions for eating,
> digesting or eliminating, it describes what you
> want the diet to be.

I'm not calling humans omnivores Chris. I'm saying an omnivore isn't a euphemism for a scavenger. The two words mean very different things. The definition I cited was a conceptual definition for all species to whom the description applies.

> There is no taxon of 'omnivore' recognized, scientifically.

So what? People still generally understand what the term means and use it to describe species.

> Aside from the fact
> you're extrapolating from diet behavior of natural
> scavengers and/or carnivores (dogs, bears,
> vultures, anything but hominoidea) and attempting
> to find relevance for suitable human food,

I have not applied the term omnivore to humans. Nor am I says we are inately omnivores. I'm saying that omnivore means something different than scavenger. And it is not clear either that humans are inately frugivores, nor that a frugivorous diet is an optimal diet.

> 'omnivore' is a socio-il-logical term. It is a
> culturally conceptualized euphemism that doesn't
> even describe cultural dieters as specifically as
> 'scavengers'. By applying the colloquial
> definition, 'omnivore' would include dogs,
> rabbits, cows, chimps and humans. There is no
> clear distinction. This is scientifically useless
> and deceitful. 'I am an omnivore because I consume
> meat and plants, I consume meat and plants because
> I'm an omnivore...' What does any of the circular
> reasoning and glamorizing have to do with natural
> diet? .

Using the wiki def of omnivore above, rabbits have adaptations to eat one kind of food which would exclude them from the definition of omnivore. Same for cows. Your supposition about the value of the definition of the term omnivore is your opinion.

> > What else do humans digest best?
> Those foods digested similarly to fruit, raw
> sprouts, lettuce, flowers.

And maybe sea vegetables, sprouted grains, selected sprouted legumes.

>
> > Why are longest lived people in the
> > world eating a plant based diet not mostly
> > composed of fruit?
>
> Because you're comparing them with other sick
> cultures. Just as there is no entire culture all
> exercising at optimal rates, there is no optimal
> diet among entire human cultures. To be clear, the
> Okinawan diets aren't perfect, neither is mine but
> I don't pretend it is perfect compared to other
> sick customary eating habits.

No, the traditional Okinawan diet isn't perfect. But it's pretty good. And their disease rates and longevity is much better than the SAD. But you didn't answer my question. Where is there an example of a fruitarian culture on the face of the earth that has health outcomes that can match the Okinawan? If a fruitarian diet is so optimal, where are the examples? Where in history can we look to see that example brought seen through. Do we even have clinical trials of fruitarians establishing superior health outcomes compared with other types of vegans and vegetarians? I admit your hypothesis is interesting. I just don't see the data to support it.

> 'Omnivore'- particularly when applied to humans,
> is a glorified scavenger.

Your opinion, not mine.

> With fruit and health,
> Chris

Be well.

Paul



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2010 01:41PM by pborst.

Sunberry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Am under attack from an educated and well read
> leaning omnivore friend. Just told him we are not
> herbivores or omnivores but frugivores and that
> raised his ire like I knew it would.
>

I'm not sure if this Capuchin monkey is a frugivore or not but here it is using a stone to crack open a nut. "The diet of the capuchins is more varied than other monkeys in the family Cebidae. They are omnivores, eating not only fruits, nuts, seeds, and buds, but also insects, spiders, birds' eggs, and small vertebrates. Capuchins living near water will also eat crabs and shellfish by cracking their shells with stones.[10]" [en.wikipedia.org]

Fruit is not always in season and even if it is there's competition for it from other animals. This individual seems wonderfully equiped for climbing.. look at that tail! Nuts and seeds are botanical fruits, some fruitarians going by the botanical definition of fruit.


[www.newscientist.com]

pborst Wrote:
> > And as I said,
> > compared to the meat, refined grains and candy,
> > which I explained involves opposing digestive
> > processes and degrades human digestion.
>
> But that doesn't mean either that we are
> frugivores by design

Non sequitor. Not 'by design', I clearly stated, repeatedly that the direct hominoidea lineage co-evolved with fruit for tens of millions of years prior to the Paleolithic good ole days... I don't even think you went as far as saying humans were 'designed' for any diet, where are you seeing that in my responses? Instead, can you address what I've actually said?

> nor does it mean that
> a fruitarian diet is optimal for humans.

Again, for those unwilling to actually do the experiment, notice the inverse relationships with fruit and diseases, in contrast to the positive correlation between meat and various diseases. Just name a degenerative disease and do a search on a scientific database for available evidence linking to diet.


> > "Man came before the axe & fire
> so
> > he couldn't be carnivorous.The digestive tube
> is
> > 5-8 meters and the distance between the mouth
> and
> > the coccyx is 50 to 80 centimetres, which gives
> us
> > a result of 10 as in other frugivorous animals"
> > -Thomas Huxley dr/anthropologist
>
> Why does lacking fire preclude eating animal
> products?

Lack of fire and tool use makes it more difficult and risky (and it could reasonably be assumed ancestors consumed meat less often without tools/fire) to consume animal tissue for humans while it remains to this day unhealthy because humans have not adapted to digest the animal products. No human has adapted to cooked food.

> Chimpanzees our closest nonhuman
> primates use sticks to eat termites

What herbivore or frugivore doesn't consume bugs?

> and have been
> reported to attack, kill and eat lower order
> primates such as the red colubus

For facultative reasons or if starving. Rabbits will consume animal flesh too. This was made clear previously...

> Stanford's article which also pretty much rebuts
> the theory that early hominids were strictly
> frugivores based on tools found in the fossil
> record.

Another non-sequitor. I never claimed any animal is a 'strict frugivore'. Humans still get sick consuming meat.

> Relative to body size, human intestines take up
> less volume than intestines of great apes. In
> humans, the small intestine predominates, while in
> great apes, the large intestine is the more
> predominant organ.

Why would this surprise anyone genuinely interested in what humans digest best (fruit)? Since chimps are known to ferment more cellulose than humans and chimps are more herbivorous than humans (specialized frugivores). The difference in gut volume between chimps and more herbivorous gorillas does not prevent humans from digesting fruit best. Those successful elimination dieters are experientially aware of this.

> Unlike modern humans, the gut
> of nonhuman primates is adapted to an extremely
> high fiber diet".

That's right. And fruit is not high in fiber but it does have fiber and it is digested best.

> They go on to say...

Instead of parroting these tenets, why not find any information that prevents humans from digesting fruit best?

> a 15
> lb. howler monkey consumes an average of 88 grams
> of food per day, the equivalent for a human of
> eating 73 pounds of fruit.

How is 88 g of food for a 15 lb monkey related to humans being able to digest meat? Where is this going? 88 g = 0.194006 lb or 0 lb and 3.10 oz. I doubt that is all any 15 lb monkey really eats... So how does that relate to a great ape human consuming "73 lbs of fruit" anyway? Another non-sequitor...


> nonhuman primates are better adapted for the high
> fiber diet than we are.

Yep! And humans don't scent roll either.

> 2. Amylase
>
> [www.oeb.harvard.edu]
> oyneHoekstra2007CB.pdf. Humans have adapted a
> much greater number of gene copies producing
> amylase

Micro-evolution of duplicating amylase alleles allows humans to safely digest meat?


> > meat is biochemically
> incompatible.
>
> Biochemically incompatible? What does that mean?

I gave one example with the lack of uricase enzyme activity among humans trying to digest meat. Your response? I can list others...

> I oppose eating animal products

Irrelevant. Humans can't digest animals.

> there is no
> question they contain nutrients

And toxins, such as the purines and excess of certain acidifying 'nutrients'. Please address the biochemical incompatibility of meat, contributing to virtually all degenerative diseases.


> Not really. Uric acid in moderate amounts is of
> great benefit to humans as both an antioxidant as
> well as the final step in catabolizing purines.
>
> "It has also been proposed that the loss of this
> UO protein expression has been advantageous to
> hominids, since uric acid is a powerful
> antioxidant and scavenger of singlet oxygen and
> radicals.[1] Its presence provides the body with
> protection from oxidative damage, thus prolonging
> life and decreasing age-specific cancer rates."
> [en.wikipedia.org]

Because humans evolved to synthesize uric acid endogenously, not because humans can't degrade uric acid from meat. You are confusing the issue. Endogenous uric acid is NOT the same as uric acid toxicity from meat consumption, which cannot be digested by humans.

> > "Humans are the only mammals in whom gout
> develops
> > spontaneously. Hyperuricemia only commonly
> > develops in humans. Humans already synthesize
> uric
> > acid and lack uricase enzymes so dietary uric
> acid
> > in meat doesn't go through oxidative
> degradation
> > and uric acid raise levels up to 10xs higher
> than
> > other mammals, causing gout, nephrolithiasis
> and
> > CVD in humans. Purine-free diet reduces uric
> acid
> > from 297mmol/L to 178. Annals of Internal
> > Med.143;7, 501."

> Gout only occurs when uric acid concentrations are
> excessive.

Humans already synthesize uric acid. Dietary uric acid is toxic for humans. Same with cholesterol. Address the disease risk associated with exogenous uric acid, not endogenous uric acid.

> The dose is the poison.

No dose is needed and no safe dose has been established for any meat. Blueberries don't have such disclaimers.

> Eat too many
> bananas and you can get hyperkalemia and
> hyperdopaminemia.

So your extra amylase copies won't help the starchier monkey fruits that aren't regular food for great apes.

Bringing it back to earth... How many people die of gout and cardiovascular disease associated with uric acid and meat intake and how many people die of eating 'too many bananas'? What's the real threat?

> doesn't mean one shouldn't or
> can't eat either meat or bananas.

'shouldn't' is your moralizing terminology. I'm not using such command words to impose anything. The topic is about boring, dry health data related to disease risks of meat.

> There are other
> reasons I don't eat meat but gout isn't one of
> them.

You're not the only one ignoring the disease risk. But for those interested in healthy/natural food for humans, meat is biochemically incompatible.


> Again at what dose?

Again no safe minimum amount of meat has been established for humans and blueberries do not cause such diseases, they reverse them. Real food doesn't cause disease, real food prevents diseases.

> I abstain from animal
> products for ethical reasons

That's your morality, chosen by you.

> I agree meat has risks.

And fruit reverses those risks. Fruit is real food. Real food doesn't cause disease, real food prevents it.

> few people will
> understand and even fewer would agree with if they
> did.

Most people do remain sick but it doesn't have to be that way and doesn't mean humans will always take these disease risks. Humans used to drink cocaine in coca-cola regularly sold commercially too. Those who are willing to do the diet experiment for health reasons will clearly understand the difference in digesting biochemically compatible food of raw fruit, sprouts, flowers and leafy greens in contrast to meat, dairy, candy and refined grains that are cooked.


> No the red herring about people personal habits.
> Most people, sick and well, use the same
> definition of omnivore.

You're the one trying to appeal to popular opinion... What most people do clearly hasn't helped humans to digest meat.

> > > "Omnivores are species that eat
> > > both plants and animals
> >
> > So, applying the definition- cows, rabbits,
> > humans, chimps and virtually every animal is an
> > 'omnivore'?
>
> No, covered that in my prior post. It's the
> primary type of food

Well plants have been the primary type of food for humans in general...

and the absence of
> adaptations to eat exclusively one type of food.

Raw sprouts, leafy greens, flowers are also digested well for humans, reversing disease risks of refined grains, meat and dairy. No adaptation is needed. Genetic instructions allow humans to reverse diseases with biochemically compatible food while meat degrades the human digestive system and causes DNA damage.


> > One can certainly make the case that humans are
> > indeed better adapted to digesting fruit than
> meat
> > and in fact human ancestors did co-evolve with
> > fruit for tens of millions of years before
> > supplementing with burnt flesh. More
> specifically,
> > humans are genetically programmed to eat plants
> > rather than meat at the physiological,
> > biochemical, psychological levels. Consuming
> > animal-centric diets causes DNA damage that is
> > prevented with raw plant foods.
>
> I agree with the proposition that fruit is easier
> for humans to digest than meat

>
> > And all humans naturally digest
> > plants best.
>
> No argument here.


With fruit and health,
Chris

banana who, Fruit Faery

You are right, it may fruitless to argue even though he seems to want to talk about it because he got disillusioned after his cholesterol went up after following his doctor's advice. But I have a faint hope he will consider some of the things I have told him. I am no match for him intellectually, he would be right in there with Chris and Paul.

Hfructos Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> pborst Wrote:
> > > And as I said,
> > > compared to the meat, refined grains and
> candy,
> > > which I explained involves opposing digestive
> > > processes and degrades human digestion.
> >
> > But that doesn't mean either that we are
> > frugivores by design
>
> Non sequitor. Not 'by design', I clearly stated,
> repeatedly that the direct hominoidea lineage
> co-evolved with fruit for tens of millions of
> years prior to the Paleolithic good ole days... I
> don't even think you went as far as saying humans
> were 'designed' for any diet, where are you seeing
> that in my responses? Instead, can you address
> what I've actually said?

I believe I already have. Instead of nitpicking the word, "design" I will stipulate we are talking about natural selection and my point remains the same that our differences both in terms of our gi tract and amylase along with the fossil records pretty clearly indicate we aren't frugivore through natural selection.

> > nor does it mean that
> > a fruitarian diet is optimal for humans.
>
> Again, for those unwilling to actually do the
> experiment, notice the inverse relationships with
> fruit and diseases, in contrast to the positive
> correlation between meat and various diseases.
> Just name a degenerative disease and do a search
> on a scientific database for available evidence
> linking to diet.

So you have conceded that the data does not exist to establish a fruitarian diet. Thank you. Noone ever denied that fruit was healthy and meat is unhealthy. That doesn't support the proposition that humans are frugivores and a fruitarian diet is the optimal diet that you have proposed.

>
> > > "Man came before the axe & fire
> > so
> > > he couldn't be carnivorous.The digestive tube
> > is
> > > 5-8 meters and the distance between the mouth
> > and
> > > the coccyx is 50 to 80 centimetres, which
> gives
> > us
> > > a result of 10 as in other frugivorous
> animals"
> > > -Thomas Huxley dr/anthropologist
> >
> > Why does lacking fire preclude eating animal
> > products?
>
> Lack of fire and tool use makes it more difficult
> and risky (and it could reasonably be assumed
> ancestors consumed meat less often without
> tools/fire) to consume animal tissue for humans
> while it remains to this day unhealthy because
> humans have not adapted to digest the animal

First of all, if you'd read Professor Stanford's article I quoted above [www-rcf.usc.edu], you'd know that idea that early hominids didn't have tools is incorrect. Quite the contrary, the early fossil record indicates that did have tools and ate meat, perhaps on a regular basis. Second, chimpanzees and (thank you Loeve, see above article), other primates kill and eat animal foods without fire. Why should it have been harder for early hominids?

> products. No human has adapted to cooked food.

"Adapted to"? What does that mean? Of course we have. And in some cases, cooking has positive benefits. That fact that overall we might do better on raw food compared to cooked food does not mean that we haven't made adjustments to eating cooked food. Increasing amylase gene regulation is a perfect example.

> > Chimpanzees our closest nonhuman
> > primates use sticks to eat termites
>
> What herbivore or frugivore doesn't consume bugs?

Your point?
>
> > and have been
> > reported to attack, kill and eat lower order
> > primates such as the red colubus
>
> For facultative reasons or if starving. Rabbits
> will consume animal flesh too. This was made clear
> previously...

No, for meat if they are or are not starving. Professor Stanford indicates the same point that Loeve makes above that it's seasonality. When fruit is scarce in the dry months, chimps need another food source. It makes perfect sense for them in their environment.

> > Stanford's article which also pretty much
> rebuts
> > the theory that early hominids were strictly
> > frugivores based on tools found in the fossil
> > record.
>
> Another non-sequitor. I never claimed any animal
> is a 'strict frugivore'. Humans still get sick
> consuming meat.

Not so fast Chris, no evidence these chimps are sick. Quite the contrary, to sustain and succeed in these hunts, they had to be quite healthy.

> > Relative to body size, human intestines take up
> > less volume than intestines of great apes. In
> > humans, the small intestine predominates, while
> in
> > great apes, the large intestine is the more
> > predominant organ.
>
> Why would this surprise anyone genuinely
> interested in what humans digest best (fruit)?
> Since chimps are known to ferment more cellulose
> than humans and chimps are more herbivorous than
> humans (specialized frugivores). The difference in
> gut volume between chimps and more herbivorous
> gorillas does not prevent humans from digesting
> fruit best. Those successful elimination dieters
> are experientially aware of this.

The point is that we are as well as adapted as non-human primates to a frugivorous diet.

> > Unlike modern humans, the gut
> > of nonhuman primates is adapted to an extremely
> > high fiber diet".
>
> That's right. And fruit is not high in fiber but
> it does have fiber and it is digested best.

Fruit is not high in fiber? That's news to me. It's one human's main sources of fiber, particularly soluble fiber.

> > They go on to say...
>
> Instead of parroting these tenets, why not find
> any information that prevents humans from
> digesting fruit best?

Your the one who made the original proposition that humans are frugivores Chris. He who asserts must prove. I've tried to provide authority for my assertions in this discussion when necessary. Besides how well we do or don't digest fruit isn't the point is it? If you are trying to prove we do best on frugivorous diet, you should be looking and citing studies and evidence showing we don't do well on fresh sprouts, sprouted grains, sea vegetables and selected sprouted legumes like lentils and mung beans. Just saying we digest fruit well doesn't cut it. Why isn't a standard raw food diet limited in fruit and sugar just as good as a fruitarian diet?

> > a 15
> > lb. howler monkey consumes an average of 88
> grams
> > of food per day, the equivalent for a human of
> > eating 73 pounds of fruit.
>
> How is 88 g of food for a 15 lb monkey related to
> humans being able to digest meat? Where is this
> going? 88 g = 0.194006 lb or 0 lb and 3.10 oz. I
> doubt that is all any 15 lb monkey really eats...
> So how does that relate to a great ape human
> consuming "73 lbs of fruit" anyway? Another
> non-sequitor...

A non-sequitor is something that doesn't relate. This does so it's not a non-sequitor. Monkeys and apes are better adapted to a frugivorous diet than humans because of the way their gi tracts are formed. And that makes perfect sense when you compare the environments they live in with the diversity of environments modern humans live in.

>
> > nonhuman primates are better adapted for the
> high
> > fiber diet than we are.
>
> Yep! And humans don't scent roll either.

Now, there's a non-sequitor! lol

> > 2. Amylase
> >
> >
> [www.oeb.harvard.edu]
>
> > oyneHoekstra2007CB.pdf. Humans have adapted a
> > much greater number of gene copies producing
> > amylase
>
> Micro-evolution of duplicating amylase alleles
> allows humans to safely digest meat?

As you know Chris, the point relates to starches, not meat. So, I will take that as another concession you don't have evidence to the contrary.

> > > meat is biochemically
> > incompatible.
> >
> > Biochemically incompatible? What does that
> mean?
>
> I gave one example with the lack of uricase enzyme
> activity among humans trying to digest meat. Your
> response? I can list others...

Responded, the lack of the uricase enzyme proves nothing either about us being frugivores or being optimal on a fruitarian diet.

> > I oppose eating animal products
>
> Irrelevant. Humans can't digest animals.
>
> > there is no
> > question they contain nutrients
>
> And toxins, such as the purines and excess of
> certain acidifying 'nutrients'. Please address the
> biochemical incompatibility of meat, contributing
> to virtually all degenerative diseases.

Digesting and the risk from digestion are different aren't they? And the risks vary among what animal we are talking about and how it would be prepared, do they not? A hormone injected piece of grilled steak is a lot more scary than steamed wild salmon. Humans can digest either contrary to your statement that we can't. Digest just means to process to extract nutrient from. Risks from digestion are different than digestion itself.
>
> > Not really. Uric acid in moderate amounts is
> of
> > great benefit to humans as both an antioxidant
> as
> > well as the final step in catabolizing purines.
> >
> > "It has also been proposed that the loss of
> this
> > UO protein expression has been advantageous to
> > hominids, since uric acid is a powerful
> > antioxidant and scavenger of singlet oxygen
> and
> > radicals.[1] Its presence provides the body
> with
> > protection from oxidative damage, thus
> prolonging
> > life and decreasing age-specific cancer rates."
> > [en.wikipedia.org]
>
> Because humans evolved to synthesize uric acid
> endogenously, not because humans can't degrade
> uric acid from meat. You are confusing the issue.

No seems to me you are the one doing that. Uric acid doesn't cause gout on consumption as you suggest but only when meat is eaten in excess.

> Endogenous uric acid is NOT the same as uric acid
> toxicity from meat consumption, which cannot be
> digested by humans.

That's what gout is, toxicity from excessive meat consumption. The operative word is excessive. Most people who eat meat and animal products never get gout. Poor Ben Franklin. Makes me cry every time I look at a $100 bill.

> > > "Humans are the only mammals in whom gout
> > develops
> > > spontaneously. Hyperuricemia only commonly
> > > develops in humans. Humans already synthesize
> > uric
> > > acid and lack uricase enzymes so dietary uric
> > acid
> > > in meat doesn't go through oxidative
> > degradation
> > > and uric acid raise levels up to 10xs higher
> > than
> > > other mammals, causing gout, nephrolithiasis
> > and
> > > CVD in humans. Purine-free diet reduces uric
> > acid
> > > from 297mmol/L to 178. Annals of Internal
> > > Med.143;7, 501."

Yeah that's fine except it doesn't refute my point that gout only occurs on excessive meat intake and otherwise uric acid is of benefit to humans.

> > Gout only occurs when uric acid concentrations
> are
> > excessive.
>
> Humans already synthesize uric acid. Dietary uric
> acid is toxic for humans. Same with cholesterol.
> Address the disease risk associated with exogenous
> uric acid, not endogenous uric acid.

> > The dose is the poison.
>
> No dose is needed and no safe dose has been
> established for any meat. Blueberries don't have
> such disclaimers.

Au contraire, Dr. Furhman on Eat to Live has studied the literature extensively and on pages 232 and 233 suggested a 12 ounce per week limit for those only concerned with health. Blueberries, I think you can have more than 12 ounces if you want to Chris!

> > Eat too many
> > bananas and you can get hyperkalemia and
> > hyperdopaminemia.
>
> So your extra amylase copies won't help the
> starchier monkey fruits that aren't regular food
> for great apes.

There's a red herring since amylase relates to starches not sugars.

> Bringing it back to earth... How many people die
> of gout and cardiovascular disease associated with
> uric acid and meat intake and how many people die
> of eating 'too many bananas'? What's the real
> threat?

How many people are meat eaters vs. fruitarians? Incidence and prevalence tracks with common practice. The risk is tied to what you eat and how much. Point is that risk can't be eliminated, only managed.

> > doesn't mean one shouldn't or
> > can't eat either meat or bananas.
>
> 'shouldn't' is your moralizing terminology. I'm
> not using such command words to impose anything.
> The topic is about boring, dry health data related
> to disease risks of meat.

shouldn't in this case Chris isn't moralizing. It's making a normative statement based on the assumption that one wants to stay healthy.

> > There are other
> > reasons I don't eat meat but gout isn't one of
> > them.
>
> You're not the only one ignoring the disease risk.
> But for those interested in healthy/natural food
> for humans, meat is biochemically incompatible.
>>
> > Again at what dose?
>
> Again no safe minimum amount of meat has been
> established for humans and blueberries do not
> cause such diseases, they reverse them. Real food
> doesn't cause disease, real food prevents
> diseases.

See above. Biochemically incompatible, can't digest for meat. Hmmm. No. We can digest and are biochemically compatible with meat. It just poses risks sometimes excessive risks when consumed in excess.

> > I abstain from animal
> > products for ethical reasons
>
> That's your morality, chosen by you.

Yup. And I'm proud of it. Your point?

> > I agree meat has risks.
>
> And fruit reverses those risks. Fruit is real
> food. Real food doesn't cause disease, real food
> prevents it.

Again, the dose is the poison. If a diabetic overeats fruit, he or she could suffer for it. If one overeats fruit, there are risks from that as well. Risks from deficiency, e.g. protein, essential fatty acids, selected vitamins, and risks from excesses, potassium.

> > few people will
> > understand and even fewer would agree with if
> they
> > did.
>
> Most people do remain sick but it doesn't have to
> be that way and doesn't mean humans will always
> take these disease risks. Humans used to drink
> cocaine in coca-cola regularly sold commercially
> too. Those who are willing to do the diet
> experiment for health reasons will clearly
> understand the difference in digesting
> biochemically compatible food of raw fruit,
> sprouts, flowers and leafy greens in contrast to
> meat, dairy, candy and refined grains that are
> cooked.

I'm not arguing your strawman scenario since I'm a raw vegan myself. I'm saying you haven't made your case that humans are frugivores and are optimally maintained on a fruitarian diet or that omnivore means the same thing or is a "euphemism" for scavenger.
>
> > No the red herring about people personal habits.
>
> > Most people, sick and well, use the same
> > definition of omnivore.
>
> You're the one trying to appeal to popular
> opinion... What most people do clearly hasn't
> helped humans to digest meat.

I'm not trying to appeal to popular opinion Chris. I'm trying to use language that most people understand the way they understand it because I respect them and I think facilitating rather impeding communication is the best way for raw vegans to get the word out.

> > > > "Omnivores are species that eat
> > > > both plants and animals
> > >
> > > So, applying the definition- cows, rabbits,
> > > humans, chimps and virtually every animal is
> an
> > > 'omnivore'?
> >
> > No, covered that in my prior post. It's the
> > primary type of food
>
> Well plants have been the primary type of food for
> humans in general...
>
> and the absence of
> > adaptations to eat exclusively one type of food.
>
>
> Raw sprouts, leafy greens, flowers are also
> digested well for humans,

so are sea vegetables, sprouted grains, and selected sprouted legumes, your point?

reversing disease risks
> of refined grains, meat and dairy. No adaptation
> is needed. Genetic instructions allow humans to
> reverse diseases with biochemically compatible
> food while meat degrades the human digestive
> system and causes DNA damage.

what meat at what dose? talking 4 ounces of wild salmon steamed or grilled beef? The rest of that is more SAD strawman which noone is questioning, here at least.
>
>
> > > One can certainly make the case that humans
> are
> > > indeed better adapted to digesting fruit than
> > meat
> > > and in fact human ancestors did co-evolve
> with
> > > fruit for tens of millions of years before
> > > supplementing with burnt flesh.

No, I think Professor Stanford did a pretty good job of disproving that idea. Early hominids ate meat, perhaps commonly, as we evolved. How else could they have done otherwise while living in fruit poor environments?

More
> > specifically,
> > > humans are genetically programmed to eat
> plants
> > > rather than meat at the physiological,
> > > biochemical, psychological levels. Consuming
> > > animal-centric diets causes DNA damage that
> is
> > > prevented with raw plant foods.

"Genetically programed" hmmm. Now who is talking about design, nature's design that is.

> > I agree with the proposition that fruit is
> easier
> > for humans to digest than meat
>
> >
> > > And all humans naturally digest
> > > plants best.
> >
> > No argument here.

I don't quarrel with many of your main points Chris about fruit being easier to digest or being more healthful than meat. I just don't think you have made your case that we are "genetically programmed" to be frugivores or that a fruitarian diet is necessary the best one.
>
> With fruit and health,
> Chris

Be well
Paul

p.s. Thank you to Loeve. Nice to be on the same side for a change!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2010 06:35PM by pborst.

Sunberry,

My apologizes to you for hijacking your thread. I think there are many good sources you can use rebut the idea that humans do better on an animal based diet than a plant based one. Start with [www.veganhealth.org] That's Jack Norris's site and he's a pretty straight shooter. The second reference I would recommend is Davis and Melina's "Becoming Raw The Essential Guide to Raw Vegan Diets" [www.amazon.com]. I think these two sources do a pretty fair even-handed review of the literature and are current. Best in your endeavors.

Paul

pborst Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hfructos Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > pborst Wrote:
> > > > And as I said,
> > > > compared to the meat, refined grains and
> > candy,
> > > > which I explained involves opposing
> digestive
> > > > processes and degrades human digestion.
> > >
> > > But that doesn't mean either that we are
> > > frugivores by design
> >
> > Non sequitor. Not 'by design', I clearly
> stated,
> > repeatedly that the direct hominoidea lineage
> > co-evolved with fruit for tens of millions of
> > years prior to the Paleolithic good ole days...
> I
> > don't even think you went as far as saying
> humans
> > were 'designed' for any diet, where are you
> seeing
> > that in my responses? Instead, can you address
> > what I've actually said?
>
> Instead of nitpicking
> the word, "design"

Which is just wrong but you selected it only to refer to frugivory, specifically.

> I will stipulate we are talking
> about natural selection

I specifically stated repeatedly that humans are genetically instructed to digest fruit best. The digestive system is not going through an overhaul to digest meat with opposing digestive processes. Natural selection really isn't a mechanism to explain why people customarily consume meat since meat, specifically does not and has not provided reproductive advantage for isolated populations long enough to cause digestive overhaul among hominoidea.


> and my point remains the
> same

I know. Exemplifying information-intolerance.

> that our differences both in terms of our gi
> tract

There is nothing about the human GI tract that you described that impedes fruit digestion. Fruit remains digested best. What is new? Another copy of amylase? So?

> the fossil records

What are you extrapolating from fossil records?

> > Again, for those unwilling to actually do the
> > experiment, notice the inverse relationships
> with
> > fruit and diseases, in contrast to the positive
> > correlation between meat and various diseases.
> > Just name a degenerative disease and do a
> search
> > on a scientific database for available evidence
> > linking to diet.

The reason fruit is healthy is because it is digested best.

> early fossil record indicates that did have tools
> and ate meat

And still can't digest meat. keep going back. Hominoidea digestive systems were developed before tools. Humans adopted tools but did not adapt to meat. There is no mechanism by which a species can adapt to what it chooses to create. Humans did not adapt to meat, they adopted tools IN SPITE of not being able to adapt to meat.

> chimpanzees and (thank you Loeve, see above
> article), other primates kill and eat animal foods
> without fire. Why should it have been harder for
> early hominids?

Chimps are a more aggressive offshoot of hominoidea and sometimes they kill monkeys as part of courting rituals, to dole out to allies for political reasons or if starving. It is custom not genetic instruction. Other chimps steal non-native fruit from humans as a courting ritual. It is the risk taking the females are impressed by, not the flavor of flesh. And when all is said and done, these customs also make chimps sick... Yes, chimps to a lesser degree have developed tools and customs.

> in some cases, cooking has positive
> benefits.

Overall cooking kills nutrients and creates a deadly class of carcinogens known as HCAs and PAHs. No animal has adapted to cooked food, which denatures protein and fat.


> > What herbivore or frugivore doesn't consume
> bugs?
>
> Your point?

Bugs come with fruit and are not a nutritional imperative. All plant-eating animals consume bugs. This is a red herring.

> > > attack, kill and eat...

Do you? Does your wife or daughter?


> no evidence these chimps are
> sick.

This is basic stuff..
LDL increased experimentally w/atherogenic diets in chimps. -Vastesaeger et al. 1975.

Raising blood levels of chol produces atherosclerosis in chimps. -Steinberg.
Oxidized LDL is initiating factor.

Chimps rarely get hyperlipidemia in wild but easily get it from animal husbandry food. (Doucet et al. 1994).

Chimps are more sensitive to hypercholesterolemia than most primates. Steinetz et al 1996.

> > > Relative to body size, human intestines take
> up
> > > less volume than intestines of great apes.
> In
> > > humans, the small intestine predominates,
> while
> > in
> > > great apes, the large intestine is the more
> > > predominant organ.
> >
> > Why would this surprise anyone genuinely
> > interested in what humans digest best (fruit)?
> > Since chimps are known to ferment more
> cellulose
> > than humans and chimps are more herbivorous
> than
> > humans (specialized frugivores). The difference
> in
> > gut volume between chimps and more herbivorous
> > gorillas does not prevent humans from digesting
> > fruit best. Those successful elimination
> dieters
> > are experientially aware of this.
>
> The point is that we are as well as adapted as
> non-human primates to a frugivorous diet.
>
> > > Unlike modern humans, the gut
> > > of nonhuman primates is adapted to an
> extremely
> > > high fiber diet".
> >
> > That's right. And fruit is not high in fiber
> but
> > it does have fiber and it is digested best.
>
> Fruit is not high in fiber? That's news to me.

Not compared to the diets of the other primates you alluded to. Stick to the topic. Compared to the herbivorous diets of other nonhuman primates, which you brought up, fruit has less fiber than- take for instance the raw bamboo or fiberous plants more frequently consumed by chimps. Are you really going to claim humans eat near as much fiber as chimps or have some disadvantage with the slight fiber in berries?

> Your the one who made the original proposition
> that humans are frugivores Chris.

Yep.

> He who asserts
> must prove.

DIETARY uric acid from meat causes heart disease. Berries prevent it. Real food prevents disease, false food promotes disease. Humans did not evolve with an active uricase enzyme to break down dietary purines in animal flesh and also cannot synthesize vitamin C so instead of consuming meat, humans benefit from the fruit.

> how well we do or don't digest fruit isn't
> the point is it?

Not for you.

> > > a 15
> > > lb. howler monkey consumes an average of 88
> > grams
> > > of food per day, the equivalent for a human
> of
> > > eating 73 pounds of fruit.
> >
> > How is 88 g of food for a 15 lb monkey related
> to
> > humans being able to digest meat? Where is this
> > going? 88 g = 0.194006 lb or 0 lb and 3.10 oz.
> I
> > doubt that is all any 15 lb monkey really
> eats...
> > So how does that relate to a great ape human
> > consuming "73 lbs of fruit" anyway?

There is NO relation between the mythical monkey model you provide and any reason you could imagine for humans adapting to meat digestion.


> > the point relates to starches,
> not meat.

Starch is in many fruit. There is no conflict with amylase and fruit digestion!


> the lack of the uricase enzyme proves
> nothing either about us being frugivores

Hominoidea do not have uricase because it was deselected during a time of high vitamin c content in ancestors diets as fruit producing trees were evolving with the direct primate lineage.

‘seafood consumption is associated with higher serum uric acid'Arthritis Rheum. 2005 Jan;52(1):283-9.
Mulberry extract ameliorate inflammation in arthritic rats..attenuation of uric acid production by intake of mulberry elicited protection against inflammation'J Med Food. 2006 Fall;9(3):431-5.

To this day, meat (including seafood) are not digested well because humans have not adapted to digest meat without getting diseases.


> the risks vary among
> what animal we are talking about

The risk is CVD and gout from meat, among humans. Your response?


> Uric
> acid doesn't cause gout on consumption as you
> suggest

Humans are the only mammals in whom gout develops spontaneously. Hyperuricemia only commonly develops in humans. Humans already synthesize UA and lack uricase enzymes so dietary uric acid in meat doesn't go through oxidative degradation and UA raise levels up to 10xs higher than other mammals, causing gout, nephrolithiasis and CVD in humans. Purine-free diet reduces UA from 297mmol/L to 178. Annals of Internal Med. 2005; 143;7, 501.


> but only when meat is eaten in excess.

How much or how little? You're dice-casting for diseases. Now address the other hundred disease risks associated with meat consumption. But make no mistake, meat causes acidification right away, it causes colostasis and increases inflammation and is mucus-forming.


> Most people who eat meat and animal products never
> get gout.
Now the heart disease, cancer, Alzheimers, bone disease, etc...


> gout only occurs on excessive meat intake

How much? No meat is necessary, yet gout is common within cultures supplementing with meat.

> on pages
> 232 and 233 suggested a 12 ounce per week limit

I have found no scientific data that 12 ounces of meat/weak eliminates the rampant risk of gout among humans.

>
> > > Eat too many
> > > bananas and you can get hyperkalemia and
> > > hyperdopaminemia.
> >
> > So your extra amylase copies won't help the
> > starchier monkey fruits that aren't regular
> food
> > for great apes.
>
> There's a red herring since amylase relates to
> starches not sugars.

Bananas are a high starch food, which you suggested... Are you playing a video game, simultaneously?

> > risk can't be eliminated,
> only managed.

No. One can REVERSE, prevent, postpone or reduce the risks of degenerative diseases with biochemically compatible food rather than meat for humans. Name the disease...


> > > Again at what dose?

> > Hmmm. No. We can digest and are
> biochemically compatible with meat.

Meat has purines, which humans do not have the genetic instructions to break down in diet. This is just one mechanism by which meat causes oxidative stress and contributes to kidney stones, CHD and gout rates. With the uricase enzyme, natural meat-eaters can digest the purines in meat and they serve as antioxidants, instead of toxins.

> risks sometimes

= just another mechanism by which meat causes unnecessary risks within an already unhealthy culture. And no safe amounts of meat have been established for humans.


> > > If a diabetic
> overeats fruit, he or she could suffer for it.

Fiber in fruit generally decreases risk of even getting diabetes in the first place.

Veganism and its relationship with insulin resistance and intramyocellular lipid(IMCL).Vegans had significantly lower blood pressure(-11.0 mmHg, CI -20.6 to -1.3) higher carbohydrate and nonstarch polysaccharide intake(20.7 g, CI 15.8-25.6),significantly lower glycaemic index(-3.7, CI -6.7 to -0.7), lower triacylglycerol and glucose(-0.4 mmol/l, CI -0.7 to -0.09, P=0.05) with improved insulin sensitivity, lower IMCL and cardioprotective biochemical profiles.Eur J Clin Nutr. 2005 Feb;59(2):291-8.

Nutr Cancer. 2008;60 Suppl 1:36-42.
Prevention of oxidative DNA damage by bioactive berry components.
The liver DNA was analyzed for the presence of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine
EA(a fruit antioxidant)was the most efficacious (90%), followed by extracts of red raspberry (70%), blueberry and strawberry (50% each; P< 0.001)

Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 2008 Oct;72(10):2651-9.
Hypolipidemic effect of young persimmon fruit in C57BL/6.KOR-ApoEshl mice.
Mice exhibited higher plasma cholesterols, except HDL, and lower plasma HDL cholesterol.
YP treatment significantly lowered plasma chylomicron, VLDL and LDL and triglyceride, and this response was accompanied by an elevation of fecal bile acid excretion. In the liver, sterol regulatory element binding protein-2 gene expression was significantly higher in mice fed YP.

You are obfuscating the issue again if you are referring to high fructose corn syrup. What would the mechanism of action be for fruit to cause diabetes since whole fruit improves insulin response?


> Risks from deficiency, e.g. protein,

Fruit provides all the protein necessary. There is no shortage of protein in fruit.

> essential fatty acids,

There are no 'essential fatty acids' that are not found in fruit.

> selected vitamins,

Fruit has it.

> I'm trying to use language that most people

I know...

In spite of the popularity of modern, omnivorous diets, fruit and those foods digested similarly (raw leafy greens, flowers, sprouts and to a lesser extent some vegetables) remain biochemically compatible foods, digested best, enhancing digestion, reducing disease risks with opposing digestive processes as the mixed/denatured diets of dairy, refined grains, candy, meat, etc that the omniconfused, sick scavenging culturists assault their digestive systems with, routinely.

Don't take my word for it, name the disease and see what promotes it and what prevents it in terms of diet and try the diet yourself to verify.

With health,
Chris

Hfructos Wrote:

> > > And as I said,
> > > compared to the meat, refined grains and
> candy,
> > > which I explained involves opposing digestive
> > > processes and degrades human digestion.
> >
> > But that doesn't mean either that we are
> > frugivores by design
>
> Non sequitor. Not 'by design', I clearly stated,
> repeatedly that the direct hominoidea lineage
> co-evolved with fruit for tens of millions of
> years prior to the Paleolithic good ole days... I
> don't even think you went as far as saying humans
> were 'designed' for any diet, where are you seeing
> that in my responses? Instead, can you address
> what I've actually said?

I believe I already have. Instead of nitpicking the word, "design" I will stipulate we are talking about natural selection and my point remains the same that our differences both in terms of our gi tract and amylase along with the fossil records pretty clearly indicate we aren't frugivore through natural selection. nor does it mean that a fruitarian diet is optimal for humans.

> Again, for those unwilling to actually do the
> experiment, notice the inverse relationships with
> fruit and diseases, in contrast to the positive
> correlation between meat and various diseases.
> Just name a degenerative disease and do a search
> on a scientific database for available evidence
> linking to diet.

Pborst (prior post) So you have conceded that the data does not exist to establish a fruitarian diet. Thank you. Noone ever denied that fruit was healthy and meat is unhealthy. That doesn't support the proposition that humans are frugivores and a fruitarian diet is the optimal diet that you have proposed.

uncontroverted in Chris's last post
> > -----
> > > pborst Wrote:
> > > > > And as I said,
> > > > > compared to the meat, refined grains and
> > > candy,
> > > > > which I explained involves opposing
> > digestive
> > > > > processes and degrades human digestion.
> > > >
> > > > But that doesn't mean either that we are
> > > > frugivores by design
> > >
> > > Non sequitor. Not 'by design', I clearly
> > stated,
> > > repeatedly that the direct hominoidea lineage
> > > co-evolved with fruit for tens of millions of
> > > years prior to the Paleolithic good ole
> days...

> >
> > Instead of nitpicking
> > the word, "design"
>
Chris: Which is just wrong but you selected it only to
> refer to frugivory, specifically.

It's not wrong. Design could refer to nature's design, God's design, any design. In context I mean't nature's design, natural selection since that we talked about.
>
> > I will stipulate we are talking
> > about natural selection
>
> I specifically stated repeatedly that humans are
> genetically instructed to digest fruit best. The
> digestive system is not going through an overhaul
> to digest meat with opposing digestive processes.

And that humans are frugivores and that this is the diet to which there are best adapted. The only problem is you haven't provided a shred of proof to back up your claims. Not one study, not one clinical trial, not one established fruitarian community with outcomes superior to other vegans or vegetarians eating a plant based diet. In short, you've come up short.

> Natural selection really isn't a mechanism to
> explain why people customarily consume meat since
> meat, specifically does not and has not provided
> reproductive advantage for isolated populations
> long enough to cause digestive overhaul among
> hominoidea.

Make up your mind Chris. Are you saying we aren't frugivores because of natural selection now? Sort of changing your position mid-stream aren't we?
>
> > and my point remains the
> > same Note here Chris edited out the point which was humans are different from apes in both their GI tract and digestive enzymes, see above
>
> I know. Exemplifying information-intolerance.

Here's an idea. Instead of playing games with editing out points you can't respond to, respond to them. Here' I will help you.

Here it is again: There are also key differences between humans and nonhuman primates:

1. Gastrointestinal Tract

According to Davis and Melina (Going Raw, p.103) "The intestinal tract of human and nonhuman primates differs in both physiology and function. Relative to body size, human intestines take up less volume than intestines of great apes. In humans, the small intestine predominates, while in great apes, the large intestine is the more predominant organ. Unlike modern humans, the gut of nonhuman primates is adapted to an extremely high fiber diet". They go on to say that a 15 lb. howler monkey consumes an average of 88 grams of food per day, the equivalent for a human of eating 73 pounds of fruit. And they conclude that nonhuman primates are better adapted for the high fiber diet than we are.

2. Amylase

[www.oeb.harvard.edu] . Humans have adapted a much greater number of gene copies producing amylase, an enzyme for breaking down starches, than chimpanzees and other non-human primates. According to Hoekstra, we have even seen difference in gene regulation between high starch consuming and low starch consuming populations. And that's with just 8000 years or so of cultivation.

>
> There is nothing about the human GI tract that you
> described that impedes fruit digestion. Fruit
> remains digested best. What is new? Another copy
> of amylase? So?

The point is we are dissimilar from nonhuman primates in ways that would affect us from eating like nonhuman primates. Again uncontroverted.
>
> > the fossil records
>
> What are you extrapolating from fossil records?

I've posted Professor Stanford's article link twice now. If you haven't read it by now, I doubt posting it a third time will help.
>
> > > Again, for those unwilling to actually do the
> > > experiment, notice the inverse relationships
> > with
> > > fruit and diseases, in contrast to the
> positive
> > > correlation between meat and various
> diseases.
> > > Just name a degenerative disease and do a
> > search
> > > on a scientific database for available
> evidence
> > > linking to diet.

as stated above, you have conceded you can't point to study or research supporting your proposition, uncontroverted. Just editing this out when you respond to my posts doesn't help deny its truth.
>
> The reason fruit is healthy is because it is
> digested best.
>
> > early fossil record indicates that did have
> tools
> > and ate meat
>
> And still can't digest meat. keep going back.
> Hominoidea digestive systems were developed before
> tools. Humans adopted tools but did not adapt to
> meat. There is no mechanism by which a species can
> adapt to what it chooses to create. Humans did not
> adapt to meat, they adopted tools IN SPITE of not
> being able to adapt to meat.

You keep saying humans can't digest meat. Any authority for that statement? My brother ate a hamburger last week and digested it just fine. You still don't seem to have the slightest idea what digestion is or how to distinguish it from risks associated with certain types of food.

> > chimpanzees and (thank you Loeve, see above
> > article), other primates kill and eat animal
> foods
> > without fire. Why should it have been harder
> for
> > early hominids?
>
> Chimps are a more aggressive offshoot of
> hominoidea and sometimes they kill monkeys as part
> of courting rituals, to dole out to allies for
> political reasons or if starving. It is custom not
> genetic instruction. Other chimps steal non-native
> fruit from humans as a courting ritual. It is the
> risk taking the females are impressed by, not the
> flavor of flesh. And when all is said and done,
> these customs also make chimps sick... Yes, chimps
> to a lesser degree have developed tools and
> customs.

Or they do it when fruits are scarce and they are not starving but just need another food source. Per Professor Stanford's article.

> > in some cases, cooking has positive
> > benefits.
>
> Overall cooking kills nutrients and creates a
> deadly class of carcinogens known as HCAs and
> PAHs. No animal has adapted to cooked food, which
> denatures protein and fat.

Grilling, frying and high temp cooking create HCAs and PAHs. Conservative cooking like boiling, steaming and blanching do not. And as far as nutrients go, conservative cooking reduces absorption of some and enhances absorption of others. The above is but another of your exaggerated overstatements.
>
> > > What herbivore or frugivore doesn't consume
> > bugs?
> >
> > Your point?
>
> Bugs come with fruit and are not a nutritional
> imperative. All plant-eating animals consume bugs.
> This is a red herring.

When chimps eat termites it comes with fruit? really? I must have missed that part. It's not a red herring. As Loeve's example shows and Professor Stanford's article, predation and animal consumption are not that uncommon among nonhuman primates.

> > > > attack, kill and eat...
>
> Do you? Does your wife or daughter?

I think I will let Prana know that you are getting personal now Chris. You are violating Terms of Service. See above.
>
>
> > no evidence these chimps are
> > sick.
>
> This is basic stuff..
> LDL increased experimentally w/atherogenic diets
> in chimps. -Vastesaeger et al. 1975.

Red herring. No proof that chimps eating Red Colubus monkeys were sick when they hunted or after. Even so, LDL is a marker not an end point of cardiovascular disease.

> Raising blood levels of chol produces
> atherosclerosis in chimps. -Steinberg.
> Oxidized LDL is initiating factor.
>
> Chimps rarely get hyperlipidemia in wild but
> easily get it from animal husbandry food. (Doucet
> et al. 1994).

So what predation in the wild isn't eating animal husbandry food.

> Chimps are more sensitive to hypercholesterolemia
> than most primates. Steinetz et al 1996.
>
> > > > Relative to body size, human intestines
> take
> > up
> > > > less volume than intestines of great apes.
> > In
> > > > humans, the small intestine predominates,
> > while
> > > in
> > > > great apes, the large intestine is the more
> > > > predominant organ.
> > >
> > > Why would this surprise anyone genuinely
> > > interested in what humans digest best
> (fruit)?
> > > Since chimps are known to ferment more
> > cellulose
> > > than humans and chimps are more herbivorous
> > than
> > > humans (specialized frugivores). The
> difference
> > in
> > > gut volume between chimps and more
> herbivorous
> > > gorillas does not prevent humans from
> digesting
> > > fruit best. Those successful elimination
> > dieters
> > > are experientially aware of this.

But it does prove we are dissimilar from frugivores and following a diet like their would be difficult.

> > The point is that we are as well as adapted as
> > non-human primates to a frugivorous diet.
> >
> > > > Unlike modern humans, the gut
> > > > of nonhuman primates is adapted to an
> > extremely
> > > > high fiber diet".
> > >
> > > That's right. And fruit is not high in fiber
> > but
> > > it does have fiber and it is digested best.
> >
> > Fruit is not high in fiber? That's news to me.
>
> Not compared to the diets of the other primates
> you alluded to. Stick to the topic. Compared to
> the herbivorous diets of other nonhuman primates,
> which you brought up, fruit has less fiber than-
> take for instance the raw bamboo or fiberous
> plants more frequently consumed by chimps. Are you
> really going to claim humans eat near as much
> fiber as chimps or have some disadvantage with the
> slight fiber in berries?

The wild uncultivated fruits they eat are much higher in fiber and nutrients and less sweet. The point is that they are adapted for eating large quantities of fruit compared to us.

> > Your the one who made the original proposition
> > that humans are frugivores Chris.
>
> Yep.
>
> > He who asserts
> > must prove.
>
> DIETARY uric acid from meat causes heart disease.
> Berries prevent it. Real food prevents disease,
> false food promotes disease. Humans did not evolve
> with an active uricase enzyme to break down
> dietary purines in animal flesh and also cannot
> synthesize vitamin C so instead of consuming meat,
> humans benefit from the fruit.

Excessive uric acid can cause it. Within the reference dose, it doesn't. Berries prevent heart disease. Fine.

> > how well we do or don't digest fruit isn't
> > the point is it?
>
> Not for you.

It doesn't support your original proposition
>
> > > > a 15
> > > > lb. howler monkey consumes an average of 88
> > > grams
> > > > of food per day, the equivalent for a human
> > of
> > > > eating 73 pounds of fruit.
> > >
> > > How is 88 g of food for a 15 lb monkey
> related
> > to
> > > humans being able to digest meat? Where is
> this
> > > going? 88 g = 0.194006 lb or 0 lb and 3.10
> oz.
> > I
> > > doubt that is all any 15 lb monkey really
> > eats...
> > > So how does that relate to a great ape human
> > > consuming "73 lbs of fruit" anyway?
>
> There is NO relation between the mythical monkey
> model you provide and any reason you could imagine
> for humans adapting to meat digestion.

Missed the point again Chris. It wasn't to prove humans were adapting to meat digestion but rather we are less well adapted than non-human primates for large quantities of fruit consumption.
>
> > > the point relates to starches,
> > not meat.
>
> Starch is in many fruit. There is no conflict with
> amylase and fruit digestion!

Most of the carbohydrate in fruit is sugars, not starches.
> >
> > the lack of the uricase enzyme proves
> > nothing either about us being frugivores
>
> Hominoidea do not have uricase because it was
> deselected during a time of high vitamin c content
> in ancestors diets as fruit producing trees were
> evolving with the direct primate lineage.

So?

> ‘seafood consumption is associated with higher
> serum uric acid'Arthritis Rheum. 2005
> Jan;52(1):283-9.

So what? At a level high enough to cause harm? Then site the language.

> Mulberry extract ameliorate inflammation in
> arthritic rats..attenuation of uric acid
> production by intake of mulberry elicited
> protection against inflammation'J Med Food. 2006
> Fall;9(3):431-5.

Against what baseline? Was the level of uric acid in the rates already at elevated levels? If so, another strawman. If not, then the article makes no point.

> To this day, meat (including seafood) are not
> digested well because humans have not adapted to
> digest meat without getting diseases.

I thought you said we couldn't digest meat at all. Now, you are saying we don't digest it well. Make up your mind.

>
> > the risks vary among
> > what animal we are talking about
>
> The risk is CVD and gout from meat, among humans.
> Your response?

I already gave you my response Chris. It doesn't matter unless the amount of meat consumed is excessive. Not everyone who eats meat gets gout.
>
> > Uric
> > acid doesn't cause gout on consumption as you
> > suggest
>
> Humans are the only mammals in whom gout develops
> spontaneously. Hyperuricemia only commonly
> develops in humans. Humans already synthesize UA
> and lack uricase enzymes so dietary uric acid in
> meat doesn't go through oxidative degradation and
> UA raise levels up to 10xs higher than other
> mammals, causing gout, nephrolithiasis and CVD in
> humans. Purine-free diet reduces UA from 297mmol/L
> to 178. Annals of Internal Med. 2005; 143;7, 501.

At what level of meat consumption? How much meat does someone have to consume to get gout spontaneously or otherwise. Your article proves nothing. If I take one asprin, I treat a headache. If I swallow the bottle, I go to the emergency room and have my stomach pumped. The dose is the poison.
>
> > but only when meat is eaten in excess.
>
> How much or how little?

Well, since you are the one who made the claim, you can tell me.

You're dice-casting for
> diseases. Now address the other hundred disease
> risks associated with meat consumption. But make
> no mistake, meat causes acidification right away,
> it causes colostasis and increases inflammation
> and is mucus-forming.

What is right away? What is the harm? How do you know? What authority do you have?
>
> > Most people who eat meat and animal products
> never > > get gout.

What percentage of people who eat little meat and animal products get gout Chris?

> Now the heart disease, cancer, Alzheimers, bone
> disease, etc...
> > gout only occurs on excessive meat intake

A necessary but not sufficient condition

> How much? No meat is necessary, yet gout is common
> within cultures supplementing with meat.

> > on pages
> > 232 and 233 suggested a 12 ounce per week limit

> I have found no scientific data that 12 ounces of
> meat/weak eliminates the rampant risk of gout
> among humans.

The 12 ounce upper limit wasn't specific for gout but rather an upper guideline from Joel Fuhrman in Eat to Live based on his review of the data.

> >
> > > > Eat too many
> > > > bananas and you can get hyperkalemia and
> > > > hyperdopaminemia.
> > >
> > > So your extra amylase copies won't help the
> > > starchier monkey fruits that aren't regular
> > food
> > > for great apes.
> >
> > There's a red herring since amylase relates to
> > starches not sugars.

> Bananas are a high starch food, which you
> suggested... Are you playing a video game,
> simultaneously?

High sugar mostly. Getting personal again here Chris.

> > > risk can't be eliminated,
> > only managed.
>
> No. One can REVERSE, prevent, postpone or reduce
> the risks of degenerative diseases with
> biochemically compatible food rather than meat for
> humans. Name the disease...

The risk of an individual disease can. I said "risk" not "risk of x disease". You may have to trade off the risk of deficiency to avoid the risk of excess.
>
> > > > Again at what dose?
>
> > > Hmmm. No. We can digest and are
> > biochemically compatible with meat.
>
> Meat has purines, which humans do not have the
> genetic instructions to break down in diet.

Not true [www.whfoods.com]

"Purines are natural substances found in all of the body's cells, and in virtually all foods. The reason for their widespread occurrence is simple: purines provide part of the chemical structure of our genes and the genes of plants and animals. A relatively small number of foods, however, contain concentrated amounts of purines. For the most part, these high-purine foods are also high-protein foods, and they include organ meats like kidney, fish like mackerel, herring, sardines and mussels, and also yeast.

Purines are metabolized into uric acid

When cells die and get recycled, the purines in their genetic material also get broken down. Uric acid is the chemical formed when purines have been broken down completely. It's normal and healthy for uric acid to be formed in the body from breakdown of purines. In our blood, for example, uric acid serves as an antioxidant and helps prevent damage to our blood vessel linings, so a continual supply of uric acid is important for protecting our blood vessels.

Uric acid levels in the blood and other parts of the body can become too high, however, under a variety of circumstances. Since our kidneys are responsible for helping keep blood levels of uric acid balanced, kidney problems can lead to excessive accumulation of uric acid in various parts of the body. Excessive breakdown of cells can also cause uric acid build-up. When uric acid accumulates, uric acid crystals (called monosodium urate crystals) can become deposited in our tendons, joints, kidneys, and other organs. This accumulation of uric acid crystals is called gouty arthritis, or simply "gout." "

This is what we've been talking about.
>
> > risks sometimes
>
> = just another mechanism by which meat causes
> unnecessary risks within an already unhealthy
> culture. And no safe amounts of meat have been
> established for humans.

Citation?

> > > > If a diabetic
> > overeats fruit, he or she could suffer for it.
>
> Fiber in fruit generally decreases risk of even
> getting diabetes in the first place.

That's not the point. Point is a diabetic has to watch his sugar intake including fruits.

> Veganism and its relationship with insulin
> resistance and intramyocellular lipid(IMCL).Vegans
> had significantly lower blood pressure(-11.0 mmHg,
> CI -20.6 to -1.3) higher carbohydrate and
> nonstarch polysaccharide intake(20.7 g, CI
> 15.8-25.6),significantly lower glycaemic
> index(-3.7, CI -6.7 to -0.7), lower
> triacylglycerol and glucose(-0.4 mmol/l, CI -0.7
> to -0.09, P=0.05) with improved insulin
> sensitivity, lower IMCL and cardioprotective
> biochemical profiles.Eur J Clin Nutr. 2005
> Feb;59(2):291-8.

That's a nice abstract Chris. What does it have to do with being a frugivore?

> Nutr Cancer. 2008;60 Suppl 1:36-42.
> Prevention of oxidative DNA damage by bioactive
> berry components.
> The liver DNA was analyzed for the presence of
> 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine
> EA(a fruit antioxidant)was the most efficacious
> (90%), followed by extracts of red raspberry
> (70%), blueberry and strawberry (50% each; P<
> 0.001)

Fruit has benefits. So?

> Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 2008
> Oct;72(10):2651-9.
> Hypolipidemic effect of young persimmon fruit in
> C57BL/6.KOR-ApoEshl mice.
> Mice exhibited higher plasma cholesterols, except
> HDL, and lower plasma HDL cholesterol.
> YP treatment significantly lowered plasma
> chylomicron, VLDL and LDL and triglyceride, and
> this response was accompanied by an elevation of
> fecal bile acid excretion. In the liver, sterol
> regulatory element binding protein-2 gene
> expression was significantly higher in mice fed
> YP.

What's your point in siting this abstract. Esp talking about mice.

> You are obfuscating the issue again if you are
> referring to high fructose corn syrup. What would
> the mechanism of action be for fruit to cause
> diabetes since whole fruit improves insulin
> response?

If you were siting that mouse article above, sorry. Says nothing about the mice being diabetic to start with which is my point. And it's mice, not humans. Regarding fruit improving the insulin response in diabetics, again you are assuming facts not in evidence.
>
> > Risks from deficiency, e.g. protein,
>
> Fruit provides all the protein necessary. There is
> no shortage of protein in fruit.

No so. It's a real risk on a fruitarian diet. [en.wikipedia.org]

"Nutritional deficiencies

As a very extreme vegan diet, fruitarianism is highly restrictive, making nutritional adequacy almost impossible.[26] The Health Promotion Program at Columbia University reports that a fruitarian diet can cause deficiencies in calcium, protein, iron, zinc, vitamin D, most B vitamins (especially B12), and essential fatty acids. Additionally, the Health Promotion Program at Columbia reports that food restrictions in general may lead to hunger, cravings, food obsessions, social disruptions and social isolation.[27]"...

Growth & development issues

In children, growth and development are at risk. Nutritional problems include severe protein energy malnutrition, anaemia and a wide range of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.[29] Several children have died as the result of being fed fruitarian diets.[30][31] As a result, children have been taken from parents feeding them fruitarian diets.[32]
[edit] Lifestyle difficulties

Lack of protein in fleshy fruit can make the lifestyle difficult to sustain, and can lead to the condition of hypoproteinemia or kwashiorkor.[33] Nuts (if included) are a good source of protein. Due to the lower digestibility of plant proteins, however, the American Dietetic Association (ADA) states "protein needs might be higher than the RDA (when) dietary protein sources are mainly those that are less well digested, such as some cereals and legumes."[34]"


> > essential fatty acids,
>
> There are no 'essential fatty acids' that are not
> found in fruit.

At what levels? What's your authority for your statement?
>
> > selected vitamins,
>
> Fruit has it.

Vitamin D? Vitamin B-12. Surely you jest.
>
> > I'm trying to use language that most people
>
> I know...
>
> In spite of the popularity of modern, omnivorous
> diets, fruit and those foods digested similarly
> (raw leafy greens, flowers, sprouts and to a
> lesser extent some vegetables) remain
> biochemically compatible foods, digested best,
> enhancing digestion, reducing disease risks with
> opposing digestive processes as the
> mixed/denatured diets of dairy, refined grains,
> candy, meat, etc that the omniconfused, sick
> scavenging culturists assault their digestive
> systems with, routinely.
>
> Don't take my word for it, name the disease and
> see what promotes it and what prevents it in terms
> of diet and try the diet yourself to verify.
>
> With health,
> Chris

Unfortunately Chris, you have not made a convincing case for either humans as frugivores or the optimality of frutarianism compared with other raw vegan diets. You have knocked down some straw men by comparing meat with fruit that noone disagrees with and mischaracterized or misstated what humans can and cannot do with meat and animal products. Provide some real authority and cogent arguments for your position. You said humans were frugivores and lived best on a limited fruitarian subset of plant based foods. Prove it.

Paul



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2010 09:41PM by pborst.

> Unfortunately Chris, you have not made a
> convincing case for either humans as frugivores or
> the optimality of frutarianism compared with other
> raw vegan diets. You have knocked down some straw
> men by comparing meat with fruit that noone
> disagrees with and mischaracterized or misstated
> what humans can and cannot do with meat and animal
> products. Provide some real authority and cogent
> arguments for your position. You said humans were
> frugivores and lived best on a limited fruitarian
> subset of plant based foods. Prove it.
>
> Paul

Nobody is 'proving' anything here. And scientists don't claim to prove much regarding health research. Evidence is either obtained and considered or it isn't. It's a boring, dry process. Research is boring, not dramatic. And most people are not even receptive to that much. It is difficult to stay objective with all the social reinforcements of consuming animals.

You've made your moral reasons clear in regards to treatment of some animals. Of course the only people deeply interested in morality regarding animal treatment are the ones who have the chance and take the chance to develop their pride around such moral issues, often at the expense of their own health, not realizing they can be healthier with a frugivorous diet when transitioning successfully, which is a slow process and usually temporary without long-term, educated/healthy diet adjustments to support such moral stances for long. So then those vegans in revolt against themselves, as martyrs who think they have to sacrifice their health to save the animals, never realize that they can enjoy better health while saving the animals and that this would introduce them to the biochemically compatible diet for long-term instead of the yo-yo dieting from meat to grains, which aren't digested any better.

But your dedication to blithely ignore the available scientific evidence differentiating some basic, genetic/biochemical differences related to opposing digestive processes required for proper/healthy digestion of vastly different food classes between scavengers (dogs, bears, vultures) and frugivores (humans, chimps) while promoting the status quo/unhealthy, mixed diets of known disease risks has been noted. You've served as another example of information-intolerance. You don't want to hear about disease risks for gout, much less 100 other diseases, which are shared by some grain consumption too. You even went as far as to celebrate the fact humans are unable to break down uricase from purines in meat, misinterpreting an off topic wiki article while ignoring the scientifically credible research directly linking meat consumption and gout. After it was brought to your attention, you just downplayed the entire gout risk as if just it didn't matter anymore. But you've made a good example of what happens when people develop values and customs that are incongruent with biochemically compatible diets. When there is congruence between value for live animals and the optimal human diet with the psychological peace of eating biochemically compatible food (without casomorphine or glutomorphine cravings) that doesn't raise cortisol, blood pressure, etc (as meat does- "studies have linked maternal consumption of an unbalanced high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet in late pregnancy with raised adult blood pressure in the offspring. Because high-protein diets stimulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, we hypothesized that an unbalanced maternal diet might increase maternal cortisol levels, exposing the fetus to excess cortisol and programming lifelong hypersecretion of cortisol. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2003 Aug;88(8):3554-60.), then healthy, long term diet modification is facilitated and the chance of yo-yoing back to the omniconfused diets of meat, dairy and grains is minimized.

It just doesn't matter what scientific evidence is provided, you will 1. deny it, then 2. minimize it (see the gout discussion above). And support this by complaining about otherwise 3. 'limited fruitarian based foods'- this, while wild chimps, orangutans eat far more variety in terms of species and nutrients than omniconfused people consuming products from vastly different food classes. Genuinely interested, healthy people would prefer to eat real variety they can have in the thousands of tasty species of raw plant foods, instead of the popular complaints of limited food products for those inexperienced with and uninspired by natural/frugivorous diets. Most culturists die without having ever tried rollinia from rich soil, black or white sapote, acerola, wild blueberries, goumi fruit, feijoa, jackfruit, passiflora incarnata, babaco, lemon guava, etc. But chicken they take...

But we could go alphabetically through the disease styles related to meat consumption for those genuinely interested in the risks of ignoring the difference between meat and fruit digestion among specialized frugivores (humans).

Integrating hundreds of plant species in diet,
Chris

Hfructos Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Unfortunately Chris, you have not made a
> > convincing case for either humans as frugivores
> or
> > the optimality of frutarianism compared with
> other
> > raw vegan diets. You have knocked down some
> straw
> > men by comparing meat with fruit that noone
> > disagrees with and mischaracterized or
> misstated
> > what humans can and cannot do with meat and
> animal
> > products. Provide some real authority and
> cogent
> > arguments for your position. You said humans
> were
> > frugivores and lived best on a limited
> fruitarian
> > subset of plant based foods. Prove it.
> >
> > Paul
>
> Nobody is 'proving' anything here. And scientists
> don't claim to prove much regarding health
> research. Evidence is either obtained and
> considered or it isn't. It's a boring, dry
> process. Research is boring, not dramatic. And
> most people are not even receptive to that much.
> It is difficult to stay objective with all the
> social reinforcements of consuming animals.

That sounds like a rationalization to me that you don't have the evidence support your position and are unable to refute the evidence the doesn't support your position.

When early hominids left the jungle and moved onto the savannah or other fruit poor environments, how could they retain their frugivore status? How could they avoid adapting to eat a broader set of foods while living in environments that would not support a frugivore diet?

The current weight of evidence available supports a different story than your claim that early humans were always frugivorous and best thrive on a fruitarian diet. [news.softpedia.com] It suggests that over 1.5 million years ago, early hominids used fire and tools and ate meat. [www.ivu.org] And the first evidence of tool use and eating meat goes back even longer to 2.5 million years ago [news.nationalgeographic.com] And there are new theories that these changes lead to human adapation including the smaller gut that I quoted from David and Melina. These adapations of eating a wider variety of food may have also lead to increased brain size [news.harvard.edu] Other evidence indicates that starches, not meats, were responsible for large brain development in humans. [scitizen.com]. But whether starchy or meat, it's a wider variety of food than a simple frugivorous diet as you suggest.

That is assuming they were frugivores in the first place. The discovery of Ardi is leading some researchers to believe that the earliest hominids favored root vegetables, nuts and insects over fruit.[news.discovery.com]

> You've made your moral reasons clear in regards to
> treatment of some animals. Of course the only
> people deeply interested in morality regarding
> animal treatment are the ones who have the chance
> and take the chance to develop their pride around
> such moral issues, often at the expense of their
> own health, not realizing they can be healthier
> with a frugivorous diet when transitioning
> successfully,

I'm a raw vegan Chris. I eat everything a frugivore does as well as sprouted grains, selected legumes and sea vegetables. And my health is fine. Your supposition about feeling healthier on a frugivorous diet is just that. I've asked you for evidence supporting that statement. I've yet to see any. To the contrary as in my last post, restricting food choice beyond a certain point is counterproductive.

which is a slow process and usually
> temporary without long-term, educated/healthy diet
> adjustments to support such moral stances for
> long. So then those vegans in revolt against
> themselves, as martyrs who think they have to
> sacrifice their health to save the animals, never
> realize that they can enjoy better health while
> saving the animals and that this would introduce
> them to the biochemically compatible diet for
> long-term instead of the yo-yo dieting from meat
> to grains, which aren't digested any better.

I don't eat a starch-based diet Chris, though many vegans do. But it's a false choice to suggest that frugivorous, starch-based, fat-based and meat eating are the only alternatives available. Many raw fooders don't fit exactly into any of those categories. To the contrary, of those studied in the Davis and Melina text, the majority take their calories with a wide range of macronutrients from a variety of raw vegan foods.

> But your dedication to blithely ignore the
> available scientific evidence differentiating some
> basic, genetic/biochemical differences related to
> opposing digestive processes required for
> proper/healthy digestion of vastly different food
> classes between scavengers (dogs, bears, vultures)
> and frugivores (humans, chimps) while promoting
> the status quo/unhealthy, mixed diets of known
> disease risks has been noted.

Translation, you have got the data to back your claim, so your making an ad hominem attack instead. Why not support your claim? Get your studies. Find your evidence. Show your examples instead of repeating the same tired assertions and mischaracterizing my statements that you did yesterday?

You've served as
> another example of information-intolerance. You
> don't want to hear about disease risks for gout,
> much less 100 other diseases, which are shared by
> some grain consumption too. You even went as far
> as to celebrate the fact humans are unable to
> break down uricase from purines in meat,
> misinterpreting an off topic wiki article while
> ignoring the scientifically credible research
> directly linking meat consumption and gout.

You claimed we couldn't break down purines and I provided proof that wasn't true. And gout we've been over. I quoted from the article and will let the reader judge for herself. Gout is only a problem for people who experience excessively high levels of uric acid. Otherwise, uric acid is ok.

After> it was brought to your attention, you just
> downplayed the entire gout risk as if just it
> didn't matter anymore.

No, I refuted it. And it remains unrefuted.

But you've made a good
> example of what happens when people develop values
> and customs that are incongruent with
> biochemically compatible diets. When there is
> congruence between value for live animals and the
> optimal human diet with the psychological peace of
> eating biochemically compatible food (without
> casomorphine or glutomorphine cravings) that
> doesn't raise cortisol, blood pressure, etc (as
> meat does- "studies have linked maternal
> consumption of an unbalanced high-protein,
> low-carbohydrate diet in late pregnancy with
> raised adult blood pressure in the offspring.
> Because high-protein diets stimulate the
> hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, we
> hypothesized that an unbalanced maternal diet
> might increase maternal cortisol levels, exposing
> the fetus to excess cortisol and programming
> lifelong hypersecretion of cortisol. J Clin
> Endocrinol Metab. 2003 Aug;88(8):3554-60.), then
> healthy, long term diet modification is
> facilitated and the chance of yo-yoing back to the
> omniconfused diets of meat, dairy and grains is
> minimized.

Your still knocking down a strawman Chris instead of supporting your claim. Noone here is defending the health of a meat eating diet. And if that's all you said, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Back up your claim that humans are frugivores and that they do best on a fruitarian diet. I'm still waiting.

> It just doesn't matter what scientific evidence is
> provided, you will 1. deny it, then 2. minimize it
> (see the gout discussion above). And support this
> by complaining about otherwise 3. 'limited
> fruitarian based foods'- this, while wild chimps,
> orangutans eat far more variety in terms of
> species and nutrients than omniconfused people
> consuming products from vastly different food
> classes.

Nice try. You can't provide data supporting your claim so you try to rationalize it by saying it doesn't matter because I won't accept it or agree with it. It won't work Chris. If you expect to make statements like the ones you've made, back it up.

> Genuinely interested, healthy people
> would prefer to eat real variety they can have in
> the thousands of tasty species of raw plant foods,
> instead of the popular complaints of limited food
> products for those inexperienced with and
> uninspired by natural/frugivorous diets.

I eat a raw vegan diet and it suits me just fine.

>Most culturists die without having ever tried rollinia
> from rich soil, black or white sapote, acerola,
> wild blueberries, goumi fruit, feijoa, jackfruit,
> passiflora incarnata, babaco, lemon guava, etc.
> But chicken they take...
>
> But we could go alphabetically through the disease
> styles related to meat consumption for those
> genuinely interested in the risks of ignoring the
> difference between meat and fruit digestion among
> specialized frugivores (humans).

Again, your just knocking down a strawman that everyone here agrees with. Why don't you put your effort into supporting your position about humans being frugivores and doing best on a fruitarian diet?

> Integrating hundreds of plant species in diet,
> Chris

That's disappointing. After all this discussion, I was hoping to get a good primer on the advantages of a frugivorous diet, it's benefits for mental clarity, athletic performance and quality of life. Instead, all I see are the same tired assertions which noone argues that fruit is better for you than meat and a lot of unsupported supposition about us being frugivores. I guess I will read 80-10-10 and some of the other books on fruitarianism as it is a topic I'm genuinely interested in. Oh well, I tried.

Paul



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2010 12:03PM by pborst.

Sunberry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> If you have any good articles bookmarked pls share
> them.
> My friend has very high cholesterol.

There's a recent study out of Giessen, Germany, Long-Term Consumption of a Raw Food Diet (70% plus) Is Associated with Favorable Serum LDL Cholesterol and Triglycerides but Also with Elevated Plasma Homocysteine and Low Serum HDL Cholesterol in Humans1,2 [jn.nutrition.org]

[jn.nutrition.org]

The diet table shows the raw vegans eating about 75% fruit, 25% vegetables and almost no grains which qualifies the average participant as a frugivore. Some of the cholesterol numbers are good and could be better if they were getting their B12, seems to me.