I am writing a 10,000 word essay on raw food. I am going to talk about our forest ancestors' diets and argue how that is the best benifical diet for us rather than todays diets such as meat and cooked food. I will talk about how are bodies are designed for raw food and not meat and so on...

Does anybody know of any books, articles, talks, experiments and resources like that to do with this topic?

It would be a great help and it will be much apreciated if you could let me know.

Thanks

That is awesome.. I am writing my dissertion on health promotion for individuals living in urban demographics. I am on the same mission to find articles and data to support raw food and primal living as well.

So, just to clarify, our ancestors did not eat meat at all, right?

Apparently we did live on just fruit.

I'm currently ready a book basically about what THeSt0rm has just questioned.

It's called 'Left in the Dark' and written by a raw vegan, Tony Wright.

It talks about the biodiversity effect of the forest on our ancestors and evolution. He talks about how we were a greater and more advanced species and our brains were bigger due to the chemicals in the wild fruit we ate.

He argues that our brains are getting smaller because we are not getting these chemicals from plants. Because todays plants are cultivated and bred ( in basically @#$%& soil) for their taste not nutritional values.

He talks about the left and right side of the brain and how our right side (our creative, spiritual side) has been suppressed by humans and society over thousands of years. Our left side (analytic, language, numbers) of the brain has dominated the right side. We have lost our spiritual side, he says we can do incredible super-human things with our right side of the brain. He gives excellent examples.

It's really hard to explain but really a fantastic book. It changes the way you think and see todays society and how we live. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

I can't really put it into a summary, look it up and read about it.

I sound like I'm selling the book haha. I'm not, I just feel like everyone should read this book. He gives you a free PDF version on his website.

Nice. Thank you. I will definitely look into buying this book.

I will send you any information I find on my research journey.


LuckyRawVegan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Apparently we did live on just fruit.
>
> I'm currently ready a book basically about what
> THeSt0rm has just questioned.
>
> It's called 'Left in the Dark' and written by a
> raw vegan, Tony Wright.
>
> It talks about the biodiversity effect of the
> forest on our ancestors and evolution. He talks
> about how we were a greater and more advanced
> species and our brains were bigger due to the
> chemicals in the wild fruit we ate.
>
> He argues that our brains are getting smaller
> because we are not getting these chemicals from
> plants. Because todays plants are cultivated and
> bred ( in basically @#$%& soil) for their taste
> not nutritional values.
>
> He talks about the left and right side of the
> brain and how our right side (our creative,
> spiritual side) has been suppressed by humans and
> society over thousands of years. Our left side
> (analytic, language, numbers) of the brain has
> dominated the right side. We have lost our
> spiritual side, he says we can do incredible
> super-human things with our right side of the
> brain. He gives excellent examples.
>
> It's really hard to explain but really a fantastic
> book. It changes the way you think and see todays
> society and how we live. I would highly recommend
> it to anyone.
>
> I can't really put it into a summary, look it up
> and read about it.
>
> I sound like I'm selling the book haha. I'm not, I
> just feel like everyone should read this book. He
> gives you a free PDF version on his website.

Please be careful to use reputable sources; at present there is no evidence that Homo sapiens was ever vegan, and even precursor hominids are surmised not to have been, based on dentition and other things. The actual scientific research on this is in its early stages.

My personal research is that when I bite on the sweet honey dew, I light up and cannot stop till the end. It does something to my brain and I am adiccted. Please don't call any doctors to try to save me. thanks.

I would include our similar digestive systems to monkeys. Their diet is raw produce, and they poo on their enemies. Their digestion is amazing. So why are humans so constipated? Cooked food perhaps?

My video to keep me inspired on my health quest: [www.youtube.com]

Hey, LuckyRawVegan,

I assume this is too basic, but anyway: Google Scholar is my favorite search engine for peer-reviewed literature. Web of Science is good too. Unfortunately, you are unlikely to find any vegan ancestor evidence. Most evolutionary scientists agree that humans have been hunter-gatherers to various degrees. I'm doing my PhD now at the school of human evolution and anthropologists would definitely disagree with the vegan ancestor theory. HOWEVER, you might be able to change your research topic to try to show that in the present day a vegan diet may be the healthiest match for a human animal considering the source of animal food (factory farms, grain-fed animals, etc). Besides, you can argue meat-eating was mostly a survival mechanism in various environmental conditions, which are very different now and we do not have to rely on animal products. etc etc etc.

Anyway, I don't want to sound like you won't find Any argument for the possibility early humans were vegan, and if you do- please let me know

Pame'laVik'toria, unfortunately we can not argue our digestive system is similar to primates. Their gut is much longer, which leads to all kinds of other differences.:/

Think about it...if we needed big brains in order to learn to make tools, wouldn't that mean that big brains, by default, predate widespread meat consumption? More on why our ancestors were vegan/vegetarian here: [fresherthanlife.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2012 03:31AM by fresherthanlife.

THeSt0rm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think.. our brains did not get bigger due to the
> "more protein from animal sources" argument. If
> anything.. we got bigger brains with the advent of
> the cultivation/gardening/farming of plant foods.


enlargement of brains would predate agriculture by a looot though, wouldn't it?

Here are a few articles and posts that may be of help…

[www.vegsource.com]
RE: Scientific Proof for Raw Food

Nutritional researchers, and most scientists in general, are not independant - they are funded by industrialists or government bodies (who also work with industrialists) and such with their own corrupt agendas, and still support the diseased meat & dairy diet despite its well documented destruction to human health (most "scientists" have to win grants and so will not rock boats)

Darwin said that humans are frugivores, and numerous obvious anatomical features support this idea. So, modern biology classifies us, essentially as a form of great ape. Why has the so called scientific establishment not applied this fundamental discovery to the field of human diet? Is the fallout from darwinism still too contraversial for the power structure?

Just where is there any scientific evidence that the unnatural cooked food diet is at all healthy?

John Coleman
[www.vegsource.com]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raw foodists make many bizarre claims, but it is a well know fact that refining, cooking and processing reduces the nutritional value of foods

I am happy to agree with the idea that cooked food is poison, it has certainly been my experience.

As for the "mainstream", it is very conservative, generally students are required to regurgitate what they are told, not think outside of the limits of their discipline i.e. nutrition students don't do primatology.

The "scientists" also need to break out of their own narrow minded food addictions - the most important piece of research equipment is sick.

John Coleman
[www.vegsource.com]

[www.purifymind.com]
An Interview with Dr. Neal Barnard
…
Spectrum: In my travels or reading I have discovered no culture in the world that ate a truly vegan diet (no meat or dairy). Everywhere I have been or read about, the diet contained small amounts of animal foods, so I wonder if small amounts might be necessary. Should the new Four Food Groups eliminate meat and dairy entirely?

Neal Barnard: The Four Food Groups, as we presented it, wasn't trying to say what the totality of the diet should be. It only said what the basis, the foundation of the diet should be--grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits. Anything else is an option. So if a person has a bowl of ice cream once a month, that isn't violating the new Four Food Groups.

With the new Four Food Groups, there's a whole range of possibilities, some of which are healthier than others. If you ask me, as a doctor, what's the healthiest diet, I would say it is a low fat vegan diet, without any animal products included. It's true that almost all cultures, maybe all cultures, do have some animal products in them, although they might vary a little bit as to what that would be and with the amount. I suspect the reason is not a nutritional need for it, however. I really don't think so. This is because animal products are something that was not part of our evolution as a species.

As I say in my book, The Power of Your Plate, prior to the Stone Age, we didn't have the capacity to hunt animals. We didn't have spears, axes, or bows and arrows until about two million years ago. Yet, we have lost our canine teeth that would help, say a chimpanzee, if they want to get hold of a little monkey and tear it to shreds. They could do that because they have long, protruding canine teeth. Those were lost to our species at least three and half million years ago. So, during the critical phase of our evolution as we were differentiating from other primates in becoming the species we are now, it is almost certain that we were eating a vegan diet.
Was there some inclusion of insects or something? Who knows, but we almost certainly must have been vegan, eating a diet very similar to what other primates were eating.

All that changed when we acquired the technology of tools. Once you have the capacity to have something that was not part of your evolution, your capacity to regulate it goes haywire. So, in America now, people have the capacity to eat meat. People tend to crave it, I think because of its grease content or because of some other characteristic. People do tend to crave it, even though they pay a health price in the long run.

The same is true of alcohol. Look what happened to the American Indian population when alcohol was introduced. It had not been part of their evolution, hadn't been part of anybody's evolution, obviously, and alcoholism became a very serious problem. The same is true of sugary foods, cocaine, tobacco--anything we don't have built-in mechanisms to cope with. I think that's true of meat.
…
[www.purifymind.com]

[www.rawfoodsupport.com]
Re: meat for brain
Author: Morphosis (---.client.comcast.net)
Date: 03-17-04 00:45

It simply isn't possible that meat is what launched the super-human mind. Humans were walking upright, living in organized social groups, and making basic tools BEFORE we became hunters. Certainly scavenging (if it occurred) could not have provided enough meat to cause humans to make the transition from a tree monkey to an upright walking, talking, tool making primate. If meat were involved, it was likely fish or shellfish... something that could easily be captured by hand and consumed easily. As pointed out in John Rose’s post humans simply don't have the jaw and tooth mechanics for eating meat. Honestly, if meat is what caused us to begin making tools then can you imagine us on our hands and knees gnawing on a dead antelope carcass in the pre-tool era? Not only would it be difficult but it would make humans incredibly vulnerable to predators. Many, many skulls have been found of the earliest upright walking primate (our ancestors) which had puncture holes in them made by saber tooth tigers. One bite kills. Do "scientists" honestly believe that those tiny little upright primates were able to dominate the landscape and "steal" meat from carnivores and then develop into tool makers? No... walking, talking and tool making came long before meat eating.
[www.rawfoodsupport.com]

[www.ringingcedarsforum.com]
…
gregh
Post subject: Re: MEAT any one?
Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:22 pm

For the more scientific side of the argument:

[www.earthsave.ca]

Just because we CAN eat meat, doesn't mean we should, or we're designed to.

If we assume we've evolved from apes (debatable) or that our anatomy is closest to primates, specifically the chimpanzee, then we get this argument:

"Monkeys are omnivores. End of story."

To which one can reply:

"Monkeys have a diet consisting of 95-99% plant matter. The 5-1% left is mostly termites. Yes, technically, chimps occasionally eat meat, but chimps also occasionally rape, war, commit infanticide and cannibalism. So since we're so close to them, does that mean we should do the same and the previously mentioned is ethically justified?"

There's also the argument about earlier humans being 'hunter-gatherers'. First of all paleontology isn't exactly an exact science and is based entirely on circumstantial evidence---mostly guess work. The hunter gatherers we see today are forced into the remote corners of the world where their survival depends on their ability to eat meat as a last resort (i.e. the Inuit, African tribes in remote regions of the Savannah, etc.). Tribes that settle in fertile regions are almost solely vegetarians and have no use for the 'hunting' in the term 'hunter-gatherer'.
…
[www.ringingcedarsforum.com]

Peace and Love..........John

I don't think humans are omnivores. Some humans eat "cooked" meat but that does not make them omnivores. To be omnivore you got to gulp down mice or insects raw without transforming the animal. If you transform it then you are cheating. Do you see people eating small raw animals? Maybe a clam with some lemon. Bring to the class a live mouse and ask if anybody is omnivore to do a demo and show the real thing.

Why mice Panchito ? thats not a very likely selection of foods that we would have ate pre-hunting/cooking, it is likely the same animal foods were consumed but raw, but likely in much smaller amounts as they wouldn't have had the tools to hunt, so animal foods would likely have been consumed in small amounts as animals died naturally.

Although you are right insects were consumed during these times. Birds would have been a common food. Its amazing to think of diets pre-argriculture as the standard diet is very reliant on grains.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2012 06:30PM by powerlifer.

Well, maybe there is a dead large animal somewhere. But those are way more gross to bite on (smell, flies, etc). Lay down, start biting on the belly and get the natural B12 supplement. I would think that mice would be the less gross of all (easy to catch and bite).

I know that Aussie Indigenous people's diet was 70-75% veg. Prior to the discovery of fire, who knows,but definately not meat as we just don't have the jaw/teeth for slicing and dicing raw flesh.

Anyway, try google scholar, legit research mostly.

Cheers, jalan

This is another theory that doesn't make sense to me.

If we didn't have the jaw or teeth structure to chew soft tissue such as meat, then how were we managing to chew hardy raw vegetables. Raw foods require much more chewing than most foods.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2012 10:13AM by powerlifer.

I saw a video which demonstrated that we could not chew raw meat. The made a machine and actually used the teeth and jaw of a predecessor. After an hour, the meat was not OK. Don't remember where I saw it.

People confuse raw meat and cooked meat. They are very different. People say that they can eat a steak, therefore they can eat meat. But what they eat is cooked steak, which is not meat. It is cooked (processed) meat. Raw meat can kill you.

Humans came from the forests of Ethiopia (Nubia). Then there was a world wide Diaspora. If it had not been for fire, people would not have been able to settle in cold climates and eat Cooked (processed) meat, with human delivered intervention to make it digestable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2012 02:50PM by Panchito.

Which brings me back to if we couldn't chew a food as soft as meat, how were we managing to chew raw fruits and vegetables.

Even something as simple as an apple would have been next to impossible if that were the case.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/2012 03:36PM by powerlifer.

unless you use a meat grinder, raw meat is like chewing rubber.

<<<This is another theory that doesn't make sense to me. If we didn't have the jaw or teeth structure to chew soft tissue such as meat, then how were we managing to chew hardy raw vegetables. Raw foods require much more chewing than most foods. >>>

Chris,

I have never heard of this theory before and it sounds more like a Straw Man Argument than anything else.

FACIAL MUSCLES
Carnivore - Reduced to allow wide mouth gape
Herbivore - Well-developed
Omnivore - Reduced
Human - Well-developed

JAW TYPE
Carnivore - Angle not expanded
Herbivore - Expanded angle
Omnivore - Angle not expanded
Human - Expanded angle

JAW JOINT LOCATION
Carnivore - On same plane as molar teeth
Herbivore - Above the plane of the molars
Omnivore - On same plane as molar teeth
Human - Above the plane of the molars

JAW MOTION
Carnivore - Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
Herbivore - No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
Omnivore - Shearing; minimal side-to-side
Human - No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back

MAJOR JAW MUSCLES
Carnivore - Temporalis
Herbivore - Masseter and pterygoids
Omnivore - Temporalis
Human - Masseter and pterygoids

MOUTH OPENING VS. HEAD SIZE
Carnivore - Large
Herbivore - Small
Omnivore - Large
Human - Small

TEETH (INCISORS)
Carnivore - Short and pointed
Herbivore - Broad, flattened and spade shaped
Omnivore - Short and pointed
Human - Broad, flattened and spade shaped

TEETH (CANINES)
Carnivore - Long, sharp and curved
Herbivore - Dull and short or long (for defense), or none
Omnivore - Long, sharp and curved
Human - Short and blunted

TEETH (MOLARS)
Carnivore - Sharp, jagged and blade shaped
Herbivore - Flattened with cusps vs complex surface
Omnivore - Sharp blades and/or flattened
Human - Flattened with nodular cusps

CHEWING
Carnivore - None; swallows food whole
Herbivore - Extensive chewing necessary
Omnivore - Swallows food whole and/or simple crushing
Human - Extensive chewing necessary

SALIVA
Carnivore - No digestive enzymes
Herbivore - Carbohydrate digesting enzymes
Omnivore - No digestive enzymes
Human - Carbohydrate digesting enzymes

STOMACH TYPE
Carnivore - Simple
Herbivore - Simple or multiple chambers
Omnivore - Simple
Human - Simple

STOMACH ACIDITY
Carnivore - Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
Herbivore - pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach
Omnivore - Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
Human - pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach

STOMACH CAPACITY
Carnivore - 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
Herbivore - Less than 30% of total volume of digestive tract
Omnivore - 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
Human - 21% to 27% of total volume of digestive tract

LENGTH OF SMALL INTESTINE
Carnivore - 3 to 6 times body length
Herbivore - 10 to more than 12 times body length
Omnivore - 4 to 6 times body length
Human - 10 to 11 times body length

COLON
Carnivore - Simple, short and smooth
Herbivore - Long, complex; may be sacculated
Omnivore - Simple, short and smooth
Human - Long, sacculated

LIVER
Carnivore - Can detoxify vitamin A
Herbivore - Cannot detoxify vitamin A
Omnivore - Can detoxify vitamin A
Human - Cannot detoxify vitamin A

KIDNEY
Carnivore - Extremely concentrated urine
Herbivore - Moderately concentrated urine
Omnivore - Extremely concentrated urine
Human - Moderately concentrated urine

NAILS
Carnivore - Sharp claws
Herbivore - Flattened nails or blunt hooves
Omnivore - Sharp claws
Human - Flattened nails

Peace and Love..........John

Ehh I'm all for vegan being health-promoting but not so sure to it being our "natural" diet. I read fresherthanlife.com post about vegan ancestors and I'm really not sure it's a good argument.

The majority of the meat eaten by most hunter gatherers is small game, not large game. While our most recent ancestors did eat an omnivorous diet including plants, our ancient ancestors did not, and I dont think there is good evidence that our recent ancestors ate more plants than they did meat. Also, neanderthals are not our ancestors. Humans and homo erectus are. Neanderthals were absorbed by humans but did not substantially alter our DNA.

Also, their statement that our digestive tracts are more like that of lions than monkey is true, but monkeys and apes have a huge variety of digestive tracts some of which are designed to eat plants, and others of which are designed to eat meat, still others fruit, and still others, everything. There isnt a single style of "monkey digestive" tract.

...about teeth. My friend/anthropology student was telling me the other day that "Humans have evolved to eat cooked food, since we have had the use of fire for the entirety of modern human evolution, and much of homo erectus evolution. We dont need canine teeth because we cook our food. Read catching fire by Richard Wrangham". Anywho, that's his "professional" opinion hehe

My point is- I don't think it's necessary to argue and prove we're MEANT to be raw vegan. We're meant to survive on whatever is plausible. But if we CAN be raw and vegan, if our environment allows it- why not take advantage of the top health foods ever and achieve superior health?? ))

the storm says

<<My guess is we may have been more advanced as a species as may have thought...>>>

we are still advanced beings

nothing has changed

the past ( and its inhabitants) are not to be worshipped or adulated simply because they lived in a world devoid of shopping malls and asphalt

we are still extremely advanced beings that are in a lego land of artifice

but

we are awake

we are here

we are now

we are advanced

we can do anything

do not look to the past to asssert confirm or affirm one's diet

or anything else for that matter

look to the present

each individual is a scientist.. their body is their own lab

one can only go to the edge ... by experimenting for him/herself

stop looking at the past

the present is here.. now

the amount and variety of foods is far more abundant than it ever was in the past

in the past, you could only consume what was in your immediate environment

simply put, they did the best with what they had.. this was not necessarily the most optimal... just what was available

its a different world today

the choices are myriad

choose what is best now predicated on present conditions

the past is done

stay here

now

and respect the human race as it is now

as possessing infinite capabilities

John Rose has done the research, as have I, and in respect to physiology, omnivores are more like carnivores than herbivores, and that's according to all the available data.

Panchito... trying to eat raw flesh is EXACTLY like trying to chew rubber hahaha, as we just don't have the slicing teeth that are needed, as ours are mainly for grinding.

Furthermore, I really don't understand why obviously above average intelligent people continue to insist that human physiology is more congruent with carnivore physiology than herbivore physiology in those relavant areas!

Frankly, even the notion of human evolution is only a theory at best, as is creation, with absolutley no legit evidenct to support either 'theory'.

What we cannot argue though, is that we are here, now, and La-Veronique has descibed it beautifully. You are a much needed breath of fresh air to this forum and this discussion, thank you.

Cheers, jalan x

Haha here I am again with the monkey thing! I'll do my research, but I just don't see any creature more similar to us. (but if they do eat meat, it is raw yuck!)

My video to keep me inspired on my health quest: [www.youtube.com]

Yeah the research is very in its infancy, although i very highly doubt at any point in evolution we were strictly raw vegans or eating massive amounts of simple sugars all day like some of these newer raw diets that have popped up in the past few years. Infact i don't think even in this day and age there are any wild indigenous strictly vegan tribes.

Fruit would likely have been much lower GI, lots of wild nutrient dense berries and probably quite bitter.

[www.natuhealth.co.uk]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2012 11:15AM by powerlifer.