"Autymn D. C." > wrote in message oups.com...
> pearl wrote:
> > * The greater the variety of plant-based foods in the diet, the greater
> > the benefit. Variety insures broader coverage of known and unknown
> > nutrient needs.
>
> a tautology

I don't see any.

> > * Provided there is plant food variety, quality and quantity, a
> > healthful and nutritionally complete diet can be attained without
> > animal-based food.
>
> a tautology--

No.

> one can live healthily for many months on an all-meat
> diet, as well.

Ipse dixit, and false. Even truly carnivorous animals
like dogs cannot live healthily for long on meat alone.

'Scientific studies have described the "all meat disease
syndrome" in which animals fed meat alone (without the
addition of vitamins and minerals) develop soft bones,
general poor condition and sometimes die. The condition
is attributed to lack of adequate calcium, iodine and
vitamins A and B1, and to a poor calcium to phosphorus
ratio. Meat is particularly deficient in calcium. The natural
diet is far more varied. Wild dogs and cats eat not only
the meat but also the bones (rich in calcium), the organs,
and the intestines containing assorted vegetable matter.'
http://www.vegsoc.org/info/dogfood1.html

Even Atkins 'dieters' are allowed some plant foods, yet;

'Atkins "Nightmare" Diet

When Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution was first published, the
President of the American College of Nutrition said, "Of all
the bizarre diets that have been proposed in the last 50 years,
this is the most dangerous to the public if followed for any
length of time."[1]

When the chief health officer for the State of Maryland,[2]
was asked "What's wrong with the Atkins Diet?" He replied
"What's wrong with... taking an overdose of sleeping pills?
You are placing your body in jeopardy." He continued
"Although you can lose weight on these nutritionally unsound
diets, you do so at the risk of your health and even your life."
[3]

The Chair of Harvard's nutrition department went on record
before a 1973 U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating
fad diets: "The Atkins Diet is nonsense... Any book that
recommends unlimited amounts of meat, butter, and eggs,
as this one does, in my opinion is dangerous. The author
who makes the suggestion is guilty of malpractice."[4]

The Chair of the American Medical Association's Council on
Food and Nutrition testified before the Senate Subcommittee
as to why the AMA felt they had to formally publish an
official condemnation of the Atkins Diet: "A careful scientific
appraisal was carried out by several council and staff members,
aided by outside consultants. It became apparent that the
[Atkins] diet as recommended poses a serious threat to health."
[5]

The warnings from medical authorities continue to this day.
"People need to wake up to the reality," former U.S. Surgeon
General C. Everett Koop writes, that the Atkins Diet is
"unhealthy and can be dangerous."[6]

The world's largest organization of food and nutrition
professionals,[7] calls the Atkins Diet "a nightmare of a diet."
[8] The official spokesperson of the American Dietetic
Association elaborated: "The Atkins Diet and its ilk--any eating
regimen that encourages gorging on bacon, cream and butter
while shunning apples, all in the name of weight loss--are a
dietitian's nightmare."[9] The ADA has been warning Americans
about the potential hazards of the Atkins Diet for almost 30 years
now.[10] Atkins dismissed such criticism as "dietician talk".[11]
"My English sheepdog," Atkins once said, "will figure out
nutrition before the dieticians do."[12]

The problem for Atkins (and his sheepdog), though, is that the
National Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious scientific
body in the United States, agrees with the AMA and the ADA
in opposing the Atkins Diet.[13] So does the American Cancer
Society;[14] and the American Heart Association;[15] and the
Cleveland Clinic;[16] and Johns Hopkins;[17] and the American
Kidney Fund;[18] and the American College of Sports Medicine;
[19] and the National Institutes of Health.[20]

In fact there does not seem to be a single major governmental
or nonprofit medical, nutrition, or science-based organization
in the world that supports the Atkins Diet.[21] As a 2004
medical journal review concluded, the Atkins Diet "runs counter
to all the current evidence-based dietary recommendations."[22]

A 2003 review of Atkins "theories" in the Journal of the American
College of Nutrition concluded: "When properly evaluated, the
theories and arguments of popular low carbohydrate diet books...
rely on poorly controlled, non-peer-reviewed studies, anecdotes
and non-science rhetoric. This review illustrates the complexity
of nutrition misinformation perpetrated by some popular press
diet books. A closer look at the science behind the claims made
for [these books] reveals nothing more than a modern twist on
an antique food fad."[23]
....'
http://www.atkinsexposed.org/

The fact is, (chronic degenerative ... )
'.. disease rates were significantly associated within a range of
dietary plant food composition that suggested an absence of a
disease prevention threshold. That is, the closer a diet is to an
all-plant foods diet, the greater will be the reduction in the rates
of these diseases.'
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases...sis_paper.html

> > * The closer the food is to its native state - with minimal heating,
> > salting and processing - the greater will be the benefit.
>
> The littler the benefit omnivores such as us

Humans are a frugivorous species.

> will get therefrom, as
> they cannot be as digestible. Why does Moby lisp so much?

Humans have teeth with which to crush and pulp food;
breaking indigestable plant cell walls, releasing nutrients.

And your 'digestible' animal proteins?

'A carnivores gastric juice is highly acidic, serving to prevent
putrefaction while flesh undergoes digestion. Plant-eaters
however, secrete a much less concentrated and less abundant
quantity of hydrochloric acid that does not curtail the bacterial
decomposition of flesh: a process that begins at the animals
moment of death. Flesh is digested in an acid medium within
the stomach. Humans secrete a very weak concentration of
hydrochloric acid relative to the carnivore, and little of the
protein-splitting enzyme pepsin. Carnivorous animals have
concentrations of these flesh-digesting secretions 1100%
greater than do humans.
...
The intestine of the carnivore is short and smooth in order to
dissolve food rapidly and pass it quickly out of the system
prior to the flesh putrefying. The human digestive tract is
corrugated for the specific purpose of retaining food as long
as possible until all nutriment has been extracted, which is the
worst possible condition for the digestion and processing of
flesh foods. Meat moves quickly through the carnivores
digestive tract and is quickly expelled. The human lengthy
intestine cannot handle low-fiber foods including meat and
dairy very quickly at all. As a consequence, animal foods
decrease the motility of the human intestine and putrefaction
almost invariably occurs (as evidenced by foul smelling stools
and flatulence), resulting in the release of many poisonous
by-products as the low-fiber food passes through, ever so
slowly. In humans, eventual constipation may develop on a
meat-centered diet. Colon cancer is also common, both of
which are rare or non-existent on a high-fiber diet centered
around raw fruits and vegetables.
....'
http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm

> > http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et1101/et1101s18.html
> > > But I have not been shown any
> > > good reason why anybody should place such restrictions on their diet and
> > > their freedom.
> >
> > In addition to the terrible suffering inflicted on sentient creatures
> > and harm to the environment, you are causing harm to yourself.
> >
> > 'Am J Clin Nutr 1999 Sep;70(3 Suppl):532S-538S
> > Associations between diet and cancer, ischemic heart disease,
> > and all-cause mortality in non-Hispanic white California
> [snip]

Typical.

> See the "variety" argument of yours and apply it to meats. The
> diseases come from milk and fat,

There is at least 6% saturated fat content in lean meat.

> and not from /fleshes/.

And you call others illiterate? The word is 'flesh'.

> I hear that buffalo is lean and good...

'According to Harper's Biochemistry, the putrefaction bacteria
in the large intestine convert amino acids from undigested protein
into toxic amines or ptomaines, such as cadaverine (from lysine),
agmatine (from arginine), tyramine (from tyroseine), putrescine
(from orithine) and histamine (from histidine). And these amines
are "powerful vasopressor substances". Tryptophan undergoes
a series of reactions to form indole and methylindole (skatole),
which produces the distinctive putrefying faecal smell of a high
protein diet. The sulphur-containing amino acids (cysteine and
methionine) are transformed into mercaptans such as ethyl and
methyl mercaptan as well as hydrogen sulphide (H2S). All these
compounds are very poisonous and unpleasant.
Phosphatidylcholine, only found in meats, breaks down into
choline and the related toxic amines such as neurine. This is
evidence that meat is not well digested. Herbivores do not
produce putrid excrement, but "dung" instead, some still
contains sufficient nutrients to warrant eating again, as with
rabbits.
...
A high protein food at least doubles the quantity of protein that
is potentially subject to putrefication in the bowels. Worse still,
the reason that plant protein is less digestible is because it is
found in the tough cellulose walls of plant cells which pass
through the gut undigested if not sufficiently masticated.
These proteins are not available as soil for putrefying bacteria
in the bowel. Animal protein wastes are highly bioavailable to
putrefying bowel bacteria since they have no cellulose cell wall.
It seems that only putrefying bacteria benefit from the "highly
digestible" animal proteins.
....'
http://tinyurl.com/3t7qn

> > > That would not have happened without a change in diet
> > > that had meat eating as a vital component of it for the simple reason
> > > that no vegetable based food requires elaborate cooperation to exploit.
> >
> > Wrong. You'd have foraging parties, just as you'd go looking for
> > animals. In fact, knowing where to find plant-foods is essential;
> > when on a hunt, you'd do a fairly random search over the terrain.
>
> "foraging parties"? Hmm, it sounds like they would need parties only
> if the worts were hard to find, and these'd only be hard to find if
> these were few or far between or rare--none of these could feed the
> crowd.

'par·ty
n. pl. par·ties
...
1.b A group of people who have gathered to participate in an activity.
...
3.a A person or group involved in an enterprise; a participant ..
...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=parties

> > > Digging up a yam or picking a mango does not take a lot of cooperation,
> Yuck, yams and mangos are cloying.
> > > language or plans drawn up in the sand with a stick but gathering honey
> > > or hunting a buffalo does.
> >
> > The gathering, preparation and provisioning of plant-foods
> > involves a lot of cooperation. Your argument is flawed.
>
> sometimes
>
> -Aut
>