ALWAYS follow your doctor's advice, especially in regard to FAD diets!! page 2

[Grok]

Back in the early days of the US the capitalists were busy trying to figure out ways to turn the poor into workers. They couldn't stand how the poor could just go out and hunt and forage and if they managed to obtain a cow and a few chickens, well they then couldn't be forced to work no matter what you tried to tempt them with. And if the poor don't work you can't extract much wealth out of the world. So the first thing they had to do was make hunting illegal and then they had to make laws that made owning enough land to be self-sufficient very difficult. Nowadays, that's all pretty much taken care of and so now what they have to do is try to scare you into taking what is left of your self-sufficiency away, which nowadays involves your health. God forbid you don't need all those medicines they advertise. God forbid you stop consuming artificial food. God forbid you opt out of the health industry. Don't stop taking your medicine. Don't fall for those fad diets where you eat food that isn't in a package. We want you delivering money to us to the day you die.

Oh please. Who is "they", the government? The politicians who the poor people elected? Give me a break.

Clearly the solution here is to abolish the state and it has nothing at all to do with capitalists or capitalism.

[sbhikes]

"They" are the wealthy.

[Lewis]

It's interesting how people think of hunter gatherers as Suvivorman, especially when all you have to do to learn a little bit about them is watch a documentary on Netflix. Not starving, not spending all their time procuring food (and when they do, it doesn't bother them), and old people do exist in the wild!

And in the Paleolithic they hadn't been pushed into marginal land and none of their game was subject to game laws (because it wasn't then a resource to attract tourists on safari) nor had its numbers been heavily impacted by outsiders armed with express rifles.

As for roots ... well, as it happens I just found, bought, and listened to Kabloona: Among the Inuit at iTunes. Here it is in print form:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...words=kabloona

I don't think a root is mentioned in the whole book. No surprise there (although Stefansson does list a tuber as an occasional resource for these people in the appendices to one of his books). But there are certainly unforgettable accounts of meat-feasts. When they had plenty -- and of course they didn't always -- they would sit around and eat pounds of it, go to sleep, wake up and begin eating again. And that's not just something to do with the climate -- P. J. Schoeman describes Bushmen in S.W. Africa (now Namibia) doing just the same.

Roots, forsooth!

Of course, the expert was just trying to be funny. But in a sense that's just what was wrong. He didn't think the subject he was asked to comment on was important enough to be serious about or to to do the research on. This is where I have some sympathy with Robb Wolf position that this stuff does matter, because there's a direct link between what you eat and the state of your health, and the crap that's around is literally killing people.

I mean what's that about the Dukan Diet? AFAIK, that's another of these diets that tries to go low carb and low fat, which is probably not a good idea from the point of view of one's health, and in any case is unsustainable in the long run. Nothing was actually said about the sort of foods prescribed by the diet, what it was trying to do, and whether its assumptions were reasonable. We were supposed to be interested in it because the former Kate Middleton had used it and she's a celebrity. And with 1 in 3 American adults said to be obese, and diabetes and autoimmune diseases rampant, that's the level they're addressing the problem on.

Then we end with the fatuous advice to eat a bit less and move a bit more ... as if food quality were a total irrelevance.

[hulahoop]

good grief....i can't believe the way he described paleo....how insulting! At least read up on it instead of spouting pure crap!

[Grok]

"They" are the wealthy.

...and wealthy is defined as anyone who makes more money than you, correct?

The people who make laws and things that are illegal are congressmen/women. Some are wealthy and some aren't but they all sure can be bribed.

What is your solution? Give more power to government? Or take away the government's power?

The wealthy don't make the laws, the people you elect make the laws.

[Bioletti]

...and wealthy is defined as anyone who makes more money than you, correct?

The people who make laws and things that are illegal are congressmen/women. Some are wealthy and some aren't but they all sure can be bribed.

What is your solution? Give more power to government? Or take away the government's power?

The wealthy don't make the laws, the people you elect make the laws.

Yeah, in Civics and PoliSci 101, the "people" and the "politicians" make our laws. Once you leave the classroom, it's the Rockefellers, Buffetts and Rothschilds who take over.

[paleo-bunny]

A lot of times, I think Lewis and I are the only ones who have ever read any accounts of Hunter-Gatherers. I highly recommend this book for anyone who thinks life was "nasty, brutish, and short" for our ancestors:

Amazon.com: Stone Age Economics (9780202010991): Marshall Sahlins: Books

I consider this worth checking out too ... Bruce Parry's Tribe series on the BBC.

BBC - Tribe - Bruce

A few years ago, I watched DVDs of his series of TV programs in which he lives and 'works', i.e. hunts, among various contemporary 'primitive' tribes all over the world. He eats whatever the tribe he is with are eating, and this often includes various insects and grubs. It's a fascinating documentary series in terms of the in-depth take on the culture and lifestyle of these tribes... and my lasting impression is how happy and natural the lifestyle of these people seems ... and I am pretty certain that I am not romanticizing very much at all.

[sbhikes]

This website explains pretty well who "they" are. And no, "they" aren't "anybody wealthier than me". These people are wealthier than "the state" and exist pretty much outside and above it, and have existed in various manners and forms since the beginning of wealth itself.
the Hipcrime Vocab

[RichMahogany]

I consider this worth checking out too ... Bruce Parry's Tribe series on the BBC.

BBC - Tribe - Bruce

A few years ago, I watched DVDs of his series of TV programs in which he lives and 'works', i.e. hunts, among various contemporary 'primitive' tribes all over the world. He eats whatever the tribe he is with are eating, and this often includes various insects and grubs. It's a fascinating documentary series in terms of the in-depth take on the culture and lifestyle of these tribes... and my lasting impression is how happy and natural the lifestyle of these people seems ... and I am pretty certain that I am not romanticizing very much at all.

Thanks for posting that link! I remember watching a bunch of that (we Americans got the same thing, but it was called "Going Tribal" and aired on the Discovery Channel) when it came out. It was a pretty awesome series.

You'll be accused of Noble Savage theory for saying it, but the evidence pretty clearly demonstrates primitive peoples enjoyed a lifestyle that worked immensely well for them (as one would expect the product of natural selection to do).

[paleo-bunny]

Thanks for posting that link! I remember watching a bunch of that (we Americans got the same thing, but it was called "Going Tribal" and aired on the Discovery Channel) when it came out. It was a pretty awesome series.

You'll be accused of Noble Savage theory for saying it, but the evidence pretty clearly demonstrates primitive peoples enjoyed a lifestyle that worked immensely well for them (as one would expect the product of natural selection to do).

I really don't care if anyone accuses me of being a Noble Savage. It's what I feel in my bones that matters, and what we all feel. We're all capable of identifying with our cultural roots, given half a chance.