nutritional deficiencies and diet choices...

I guess I am a "purist" Not fanatical, though - which means that I know the difference between theory and practice, between the mind world and the real world.
What I believe (at the moment, I might change again):
- humans can eat all raw and would be much healthier this way (do you know http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/...graw_eat2.html ?)
- the reason it is so hard to follow such a diet is because people have decades of cooked behind them and because it is not generally accepted by society (just imagine how it would be if most restaurants, bars, etc were raw, food shops had 90% raw stuff and only a bit of cooked, etc)
- ideally we wouldn't need supplements, but that would involve a way of living that is not accessible to most people. In addition, eating cooked for so long (+antibiotics, etc) might have damaged the gut flora and/or the absorption capacity of the digestive system so that some nutrients have to be added artificially. Do we know all of them, though?
- the mineral deficiency of the soils is a real problem, but I think it is overemphasized because eating at least some products from organic farms + some sea stuff can cover the needs (that are very small anyway). The real problem with minerals is that they are "robbed" from people by the tons of grains and legumes (and dairy to a certain extent) they eat. If these were drastically reduced there wouldn't be such a big problem.
- raw animal products might be necessary (I don't think it can ever be proved one way or another) but certainly in small amounts. Our digestive system is definetely a vegetarian one (fruitarian, more precisely).

As for practice, I am 100% raw vegan for over 6 months now, but I don't know exactly how the future looks for me. I want to stay this way as long as I feel good. When I get cravings or other unpleasant stuff I will definetely do something about it - include some supplements, some raw animal products or even some cooked stuff (I don't see what cooked would bring though other than psychological relief).
I must mention though that I don't know if I could have been like this in a cold region, without all the fresh tropical fruits from here.
I have a list of great health improvements since going partially raw (almost 2 years ago). I decided to go 100% mainly for psychological reasons. I was very surpised to see one more benefit added and I don't know exactly how to explain it.

I don't know if this covers what you wanted... Maybe I'll write more later.

Planta-I recently decided to do the 100% thing and am very happy so far. IT's interesting becasue I don't feel the need to eat anything cooked at all. I don't have any concerns about eliminating grains, soy, dairy legumes etc. What I keep going back and forth on is the animal protein. I can't imagine cooked would offer anything because you are just killing half the protein anyway-so at that point why bother? Raw is another story. Just puzzling through it right now. Wondering if anyone else out there is as well.
I have had some really great conversations with mamas on this board-two specifically who have been so helpful and informative. I am eternally in debt to the two of them. THey are both meat eaters and opened my eyes to things I never really thought about before. So I'm trying to strike a balance. I'm just trying to figure out the best choices for us along the way.

Melissa-I totally agree about vitamins. There is so much great research that says synthetic forms are really harmful and can actually block the receptors for the food based vitamins. That's why I love the Vitamineral Green supplement. It's 100% from food and highly absorbable. I actually felt a difference when we started using it. I had been 100% raw for two weeks or so and introducing the greens changed everything. I've never had that happen with a supplement before, so we'll stick with them.

I agree. And to a pp...that's the problem. Everyone has an agenda. Many doc's I've read will say we don't have the dentition, physiology or internal structure of an onmivore. Most of them say this after healing "incurable" diseases with an vegan diet. THey weren't vegan before that so it really seems that their agenda is health and who could ask for more. I just wonder if the primary reson for the success was removing the SAD and not animal products at all.

I have seen biological comparisons between digestive systems and ours does more closely resemble an herbivores-as do our teeth. I don't know if that means that we aren't meant to eat meat (I don't actually believe that-just wonder if it's possible to not eat it given all the options we have today) or we weren't ever meant to have it as a staple. There's a big difference between someone who eats meat at every meal, and someone who eats it 2-4 times a week. But-I am not a doctor and I rely on the research of other's to guide me.

Amanda-I agree. I look for the foods highest in the nutrients I need. But there is conflicting info even in that! It's so frustrating. Some say you can't use iron or calcium from animal sources and some say you can't use vitamin A from plant sources. Some say you can get B-12 from plant sources (again, I don't believe this) NOONE agrees. For us we didn't use the Vitamin A from plants-maybe we can now, but we didn't.

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YES!!! How funny, this is the exact type of thing I've been thinking about lately, too! Not just with the animal products, but ANY diet--were there such miraculous cures because of what they ate, or because they didn't include the modern foods? Is it what you eat or what you don't eat? We can make ourselves crazy here, can't we?

I believe we are meant to digest animal products, but sparingly. Just enough to help us assimilate and make up for any nutrients that we can't get from plant foods.

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Concerning animal products, I have formed my own opinion from reading and thinking. I don't have many links because I haven't kept them all (very bad habit that I hope to change!), but I like these:
http://www.tierversuchsgegner.org/Ge.../taxonomy.html
http://www.ecologos.org/anatomy.htm
I think many studies just start with the idea that humans are omnivores and then compare them to cows to show that we are not herbivores. Noone said we should eat grass all day long, though. Cows are just a special example of herbivors, but there are many others.
As I mentioned though, I don't think it can be proven one way or another whether we need small amounts of animal products. The comparative anatomy table, for example, does not exclude that small amounts of insects (and/or eggs) should be part of the diet.

That's the issue with traditional diets. Tradition people would eat food specific to their region. SInce we have the luxury of importing anything we want-and we are (at least I am) far removed from my ancestors in terms of being three generations into the SAD (standard american diet) it doesn't really apply too much-but I can still look for clues there. Nowadays we have adapted to some extent and aren't part of indigenous tribes (at least I'm not!) so if I were an isolated inuit and was subsiding on blubber and seal meat with few veggies I would probably be okay. Since they were exposed to the SAD though, they have been shown to have very high rates of osteoporosis-something that wasn't an issue before. So-yes it's adaptive. But that isn't alot of help to me, personally.

As Planta said, there are no traditional diets that are vegan. All ate some animal products-even if they were insects. So I believe we were meant to consume some animal products, I just think the consumption should be minimal. That or you need to really know what you're doing and supplement where it's needed.

Tweetybirds2-I'm thinking it's what you don't eat at this point. How are you doing today?

As scientists have mapped human genes, there are genetic differences by region that account for different diets or environments. People developed light skin, for instance, in regions with less sunlight so that they would meet their vit D requirement.

But on the traditional diets, you made a comment firefaery in another thread about how natives used what they had available and now we have a whole lot more available, so we can choose to consume different foods than they did. (Or something along those lines.) Yet that view of traditional diets misses something very important that Dr Price emphasized: natives went out of their way, way out of their way in some cases, to acquire certain foods because of the health benefits of those foods.

So our ancestors put a premium on the organs of animals because of the health benefits that they saw coming from them over many centuries. And their judgement was not clouded by french fries. Shouldn't we also value those foods? We now have the scientific knowledge to verify that animal organs are dense in nutrients. Add that to the wisdom of our foremothers. Why would you all not eat them if you could find a reasonably clean source?

Is it the toxin issue?

Do you think some other food can make up for the nutrients in organ meat? Can you eat enough of that food to do so?

Food for thought.

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That is why I include a rare egg into our veggie diet (no milk though..we all have issues with milk in our little family!)

I am also researching more about the B12 thing now...I just ahve to believe that God made a way for us to eat to where we did not depend on synthetic vitamins and such. I may add eggs more frequently...we'll see...food at this house is always a learning adventure.

GALE FORCE--it is my understanding that the livers of animals are filled with toxins since it filters all of them in the animal....is that true ??what do you think??

Toraji-absolutely true. There are no vegan primates (humans are in fact primates) I have read before about eating feces. i won't do it! Shocking, isn't it? B-12 is manufactured in the human body with the addition of bluegreen algae, spirulina and other foods high in chlorophyll. It is manufactured too low in the intestines to be of any use, so the only way it would be usable is if you eat your excrement-which is high in B-12.

God (if he/she intended for us to not eat meat) probably did expect us to eat the insects off of the plant matter. You still can-if you grow your own. I choose not to do that, either-well I don't TRY to.

Yes, livers are filters. However in theory alot of the toxins are neutralized by the animal and the high content of vitamin A-or so I've read. If you eat liver (I have) I recommend getting it from an organic, grass fed animal who is healthy and not dealing with anything more than your standard environmental toxins.

Amanda-absolutely to you as well. I can't get enough vitamin A or D or B-12 without animal products no matter how I want to or how I run the numbers. I do believe that organ meats are essential. I really do. I just can't figure out how to get past my own fears about the toxic environment we have created. Eating high up on the food chain FREAKS me out. I could probably at some point see myself eating meat and/or organ meats two-three times a week, fish once and eggs once or twice. I don't think I'll ever do dairy as I don't do well with it and have major ethical issues there. Even with raw-organic-grass fed sources. It's just the toxin thing. I'm trying to figure this out because I know it's important-especially now. Reading studies of women who were tested for environmental toxins and having vegans come up with 1/12 the toxins of a meat eater in their BREAST TISSUE freaks me out. Granted-probably another flawed study. Probably women on the SAD drinking conventional meat and eating conventional cheese. Most likely. It's so hard to do the right thing.