Both profit! The prey is under immense pressure to adapt to the tactics & adaptations of its natural predator(s).

^^^^

This!

It's quite interesting to look at the archeological record in this matter. We only have skeletons to base our understanding off of, but even these carve out a picture that is hard to deny. We see that our hunter-gatherer ancestors have strong healthy bone structures, cavities are extremely rare, abscesses and such were pretty well unheard of. Then with the introduction of agriculture we see severe degeneration in the skeletal structure, cavity rates and abscesses skyrocket, and the average persons height diminishes significantly. These are all signs of inadequate nutrition. Even with all our modern medical technology we do not enjoy the same level of health as that of our wild-fed ancestors.

Take away all our tools, all our agriculture, all our fast food and grocers. Find yourself naked in the mud reliant on your own devices for your survival. Perhaps if you are in a tropical rainforest where the trees fruit year round you could live on the fruits, but it's hard to believe you, as an omnivorous creature, would not also take advantage of the abundant leaves, barks, insects, amphibians, birds/eggs, fish, rodents, etc... It is however possible in this eden-like environment. Most of us don't live our lives swinging from the trees in a tropical rainforest however, so what happens when you find yourself in the grasslands in the winter? There isn't any fruit to be had in such an environment, even finding a green plant can be difficult. When you are starving to death in the wilderness and a rabbit comes hopping by, are you willing to die for your ethics? Thousands of generations of ancestors certainly were not.

It's also somewhat telling there is no traditional culture that exists on a solely plant based diet, even those living in tropical places where fruit grows year round. The whole concept of veganism/vegetarianism is a fairly recent concept that is somewhat at odds with traditional practices. From the standpoint of brain structure and health it's quite interesting to compare our brains with the of the cetaceans who survive solely on marine animals.

We enjoy a convenient lifestyle of seeming abundance in which a whole plethora of food and food-like products are readily available at all times. We are able to produce astounding amounts of surplus on an industrial scale. Yet at the same time our collective health seems to be constantly degenerating, preventable nutrition related disease are at epidemic proportions. Our food supply is filled with all manner of dubious synthetic additives and neurotoxic pesticides/herbicides/fungicides/biocides and truly despicable torturous genocidal practices against animals are the norm. Every time we head to the grocer or stop through the drive-thru we are financially supporting these incredibly immoral practices, normalizing this insanity to the point where if you demand food that is is not steeped in poison and suffering you are some kind of outlier, a fanatical granola extremist to be mocked and dismissed out of hand.

I have no doubt you can survive and even thrive on a wholly plant based diet, I do however question whether you can do so ethically in a place where plants cannot be grown year round. I personally found the label of "vegan" to be severely limiting and more than a little hypocritical considering that simply existing within a modern industrial paradigm all but forces us to be complicit in war, slavery, cruelty, and genocide with nearly every dollar we spend.

I commend anyone who decides they want to take steps to live a more ethical life and lessen their connivance in this system of suffering and I fully understand why veganism seems an alluring option for doing so, but looking a little deeper and following the money exposes the fallacy of adopting this label. In the end all we can really do is try our best to make the most ethical decisions we can for our personal and collective health, drop the labels and judgements, and practice a little compassion for one another remembering the fact that simply staying alive in this modern world forces complicity in suffering.

References:
Diamond, Jared M. The third chimpanzee : the evolution and future of the human animal. New York: HarperPerennial, 2006. Print.

Pollan, Michael. The omnivore's dilemma : a natural history of four meals. Waterville, Me: Large Print Press, 2007. Print.

Especially with the foodchain: Phytoplankton → Krill → Cetacea → Japanese. That's the problem of the Cetacea, their brains haven't thought out effective weapons against the Japanese, therefore they get eaten. Dog eats dog.

You either have an odd definition of traditional, or an odd definition of culture.
Multiple traditional groups within buddhism, jaina, and rasta practice veganism. Its also been practiced at times by christian orders in europe and is hypothesized to have likely occurred in various native american cultures (most of which were predominantly vegan with their diet occasionally supplemented by meat).

There are lacto-vegetarian cultures that have been going strong for over 25 centuries now.
If that counts as recent, so does the wheel

I live in USDA zone 7a. Long frozen winters. I harvest fresh produce from my garden 12 months a year. I used to know a guy who lived in the mountains of northern idaho, USDA zone 5a, 2 meter+ deep snow every winter. Even he was harvesting fresh vegetables (including leaf vegetables) 12 months a year.
Not to mention the possibility of storing grains, seeds, squash, etc.
Unless your above the actic circle (and possibly even there) you can harvest food year round.

I'm not vegan, I'm an herbivore or 'strict vegetarian' (veganism isnt a diet, its a social philosophy) and all I buy from the store is 25 lb sacks of grain, 25 lb sacks of beans, 25 lb sacks of flour, and a few luxury items like out of season fruit and exotic spices just because I can. My garden supplies the rest, even in january when the day time high is 7° below freezing.
Facultative herbivory certainly is possible.

Interesting, I was under the impression there were not any cultures that survived on a diet of solely plant based foods. Can you point me toward more information on this?

I know there are many cultures who eat only small amounts of meat and/or various other animal products and have a predominantly plant based diet, but I was not familiar with any that were 100% plant based with no supplementation of any products of animal/insect/marine origin, I'll gladly revoke that point if such is not the case.

Kudos to you! You are one of the very few people that practices this diet in as ethical of a manner as possible. You are an inspiration in that. I'm intrigued to know exactly how you maintain a garden that can fully sustain you through the depths of the coldest winters. What size is it? You clearly must be using greenhouses or at least cold frames? What plants do you grow? How do you grow enough to last throughout the entire winter? This is information we could all benefit greatly from.

I quit ..[red meat].. years ago..just white meat ..[turkey ..chicken ..fish]..and very little of that..with lots of fruit and some vegatables everyday and a very physicly active ..
Vegatarian life style would suit me fine if i could do it..!

I dont remember references to the groups of jains, buddhists, and vedics that are/were actually vegan. I mostly learned about those by listening to buddhist monks. In mahayana countries, like china, buddhists being vegetarian is quite common as is lactose intolerance (and thus not much history of dairy) and some groups also dont eat eggs. In theravada countries its admittedly rare for anyone to be vegetarian because of the ubiquity of fish and growing availability of other meats and monastics are supposed to eat what is offered to them and some will relate horror stories of living for months on nothing but a bowl of stale sticky rice with a boiled tree frog or fermented rat meat on top each day but the rules say they are forbidden from eating any meat if they know or suspect the animal was killed for them. More than once, although its against the rules, I've heard theravada monks that come to the west encourage their followers to be vegan or express their own preference for that diet (and since they eat only whats given, vegan followers means vegan monks and nuns). So in some western theravada circles theres a growing preference for vegetarianism/veganism but, yeah, it doesnt reflect the culture as a whole yet.
As for vedics and jains, does being vegan really sound that extreme for people who live their life butt naked smeared in ashes and 'cutting' their hair by ripping it out?
Most groups of both are lacto-veg, but there are vegan groups too, and even jain denominations who only eat parts of plants that removing wont kill the plant. ie. no carrots or potatoes, etc.
For native americans I did remember a specific short article thats a nice introduction [Here]

As for me, ironically, ethics wasnt my driving factor. I'm a western theravadin so the books promote vegetarianism but it was only after I saw enough people cheeseburger themselves to death, go blind, go impotent, and have deformed children due to radically bad diet that I straightened my shit out. I garden because its exercise and exercise is good, and because it tremendously reduces food cost. I can feed myself for $2 a day if I want to and even indulging in luxry items I keep it to $3 per day.
My main garden is 2400 sq ft, but that includes a bone dry 360 sq ft area where I put my cacti in non-freezing weather. I also have a little 250 sq ft squash patch and a bird cherry and a black walnut tree.
I work all that area, basically, with just a hoe, a shovel, and a garden fork. My neighbors think I'm some extremist but it only takes 20 minutes a day if I do it every day.
I havent got into cold frames and rather than greenhouses I erect hoop tunnels. Basically grow patches of stuff that can freeze solid and still be alive like kale, siberian kale, turnip greens, mustard greens, etc and erect 8' hoops with black irrigation piping, and put a 3 or 4 mil row cover over it. Those plants freeze a fair bit below freezing and if they are not damaged while frozen they'll still be alive when they thaw (tho my coldest nights of the year can kill kale stalks).
Stuff like rutabagas, beets, gobo, sunroots, etc. can just have some dirt piled on them and be dug up as needed. When I got new neighbors I got a laugh one morning, it was january and it had been above freezing for a whole week. My new neighbor was standing at the fence totally baffled staring at a 20' long row of giant rutabagas sprouting fresh greens. Its just a matter of learning what crazy shit you can get away with in your environment.
[Link] To a far better tutorial for the hoop cover winter greens growing.
And, of course, stuff can be packed away for storage. Carrots, potatoes, etc, etc. can be stored in a root cellar or barrel caches or whatever, grains and beans can be stored in the larder (coldest non-freezing room in your house). Squashes also go in the root cellar or larder- butternut squash and hubbard squash can store in a cool room for 6 months. And squash can be dried, I dont bother with winter squash but I dry tons of zucchini for winter and spring stews, chilli, and curry.
And lacto-fermenting can extend shelf life by months (up to a year if your better than me or love salt). There are even nice surprises in lacto-fermenting, like I did a bunch of green cherry tomatoes with oregano and grape leaves, tasted funky for 2 months and then holy shit- it was like low fat olives! I had nearly free organic low fat "olives" for the next sis months.
I've never even bothered to learn canning yet because I always have food in the garden and very slowly fermenting in the fridge.

Its actually quite fun.

Thanks Auxin!

Good info

On that note here is a nice Cherokee story speaking to the origins of disease and medicine.

http://www.sacred-texts....nam/cher/sfoc/sfoc11.htm

It's only training, discipline and knowledge.

https://en.wikipedia.org...rrected_Amino_Acid_Score
https://en.wikipedia.org...tarianism#Health_effects
https://en.wikipedia.org...al_nutrient_deficiencies
https://en.wikipedia.org...proved_cognitive_ability

But no drastic changes in the diet, your body needs to adapt. It took me some years to become a 99,5% vegetarian. There's still a tiny amount of animal based food in my diet, like gummy bears, glucosamine of possible Crustacean origin, the 0,5% content bacon in convenient food, however no parts of mammalians or fish (like steaks or fish filets).

Chemical composition of pork:

http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/...amp;man=&format=Full

Vegan athletes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLUr6umbEm0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTaGZ6KLDwI

The body adapts quite fast. Some people get intestinal discomfort for a few days if they were constipated from meat and cheese, but thats about it. Its not like gummy bears are an essential part of the diet (Vitamin G).
I was omni one meal and 'vegan' the next, I've stuck with it for 4 years now with no problems.
Didnt grow a third nipple or loose all my hair or anything.

If anything needs time to adapt, its the mind.
On the one hand, habituated desires. Radically new food might not be good at first. Stick with it 2 weeks and it'll at least be acceptable, one month and it'll be gourmet dining. If someone is considering it for health or ethics reasons but "for life" seems intimidating, just think "four weeks" it'll be easy after that.
On the other hand is a learning curve. Often times when people cut out meat and cheese and junk they have no idea how much food they should be eating and eat too little, and then feel weak and dizzy from undernourishment. If someone feels funny in the weeks after trying to radically improve their diet, more food should be the first thing they try. Second thing might be more salt, especially if they substantially reduced salt and its warm or they exercise.

And if you just feel overwhelmed try joining a veg*n forum like veggieboards. Those communities are used to helping overwhelmed beginners

It is pretty easy to be vegetarian...vegan however..well, never again is all I can say. The two should not be associated IMO. I don't see anything wrong with eating real raw dairy from grass fed animals or freerange eggs..and beleive it or not..I was much more constipated as a raw vegan and fruitarian. I don't believe a lot of these myths. I am vegetarian 5 out of 7 days a week probly and sometimes I dont eat meat for like 2 weeks..and I eat lots of grass fed butter, cheese and eggs and I feel better then I ever did not eating them.

Hey Jamie, how long were you vegan before transitioning to raw vegan? I only ask because I lurked a lot for years, and recall you promoting raw veganism which can be much different. A whole foods vegan diet is pretty easy in my estimation, but raw takes a lot of experimentation

It was amazing for me to first transition into a vegetarian, then shortly thereafter vegan, diet from the SAD. I felt so good in those first couple years. I thought I had it all figured out, reading all the PETA propaganda, eating processed soy, and feeling so superior. I had an arsenal of bias information to flout out against those age old questions "how do you get your protein?" and the like. I did okay maintaining a vegan diet, I spent thousands of dollars on all the fancy expensive supplements like phytoplankton and vegan multivitamins and buying all the certified vegan food-like products.

Over the 8 years I worked so hard to maintain this extremist and extremely limited lifestyle my health and vitality were slowly deteriorating, I always had gas and indigestion, but I ignored all this, because I was doing good for the world, or so I thought. I tried not to flout it and did my best never to mention my lifestyle choice to others unbidden, because I knew how self-righteous most vegans tend to come off. That old joke "How do you know someone is vegan? Don't worry they'll let you know!" rings with truth, so I always tried not to push it on anyone and not to mention it unless asked, which ironically made me even more smugly self-satisfied with my lifestyle choice.

Once I started doing more authentic research and figuring out just how much of a hypocrite I was making myself in choosing to freely adopt this extremist label it just became too much for me. I couldn't justify calling myself a vegan anymore, and when I dropped the label it was so liberating, all of the sudden I was free from all these these silly taboos and a whole world of variety I had been missing out on opened up to me. It was really hard at first, I did however notice a huge boost in my health and vitality almost immediately when I started reintroducing eggs. That first block of cheese was so pleasurable as to be almost orgasmic, oh yeah I missed this. Those cheese-like products just never did match up to the real thing. I could go out for sushi and actually read the menu instead of just hunting for the veggie rolls, that was quite a nice feeling too.

Now I should make it clear I didn't go back to eating the factory farmed nonsense that most people eat. I did not abandon my ethics and belief in animal rights at all. I go out of my way to get all my animal products from local farmers that give their animals a good life. I realized that as a grocery store vegan I was funding factory farming, and as a localvore I was doing more for animal rights than I ever did as a so called vegan.

Meat was the hard one, the revulsion against eating flesh was strong, it still is. I experimented around a bit, I went and got some grassfed beef and some pasture raised chicken and turkey. I didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought I would so I ended up abandoning these again. I tried some venison, some buffalo, these went down a lot easier, it's still hard to eat any flesh but these felt more like medicine than murder, maybe that's just a personal delusion but that's my justification and I'm sticking to it. I started on the fish and haven't stopped, I feel amazing when I eat fish, I enjoy fishing, I don't feel much revulsion in gutting a fish so this works for me, it pleases my inner bear spirit immensely.

I've been raw, I've been fruitarian, I've been paleo, I've been nearly full carnivore. I've experimented with just about every diet under the sun and I've come to some conclusions about what works for me and meets my own ethical standards. These days the majority of my diet is fruit and vegetables, I eat eggs and wild fish nearly daily, I use butter several times a week, and treat myself to some good cheese once or twice a month, I eat limited amounts of nuts, seeds, grains, beans, legumes, and very occasionally when I can get my hands on some good wild game or grassfed buffalo I'll eat that.I grow as much of my own as possible, always buy local first, I refuse to eat any factory farmed animal product and avoid eating factory farmed vegetables as much as much possible. I love my mangos and bananas and enjoy them often understanding full well the implications of doing so, we all deserve to indulge in a little hypocrisy after all. I also understand the need for variety, so I try to get something new and exotic every time I'm wandering the farmers market or scouting around the ethnic grocers just to keep things interesting.

That's my story, and that's why I personally don't believe in veganism. As always your mileage may vary, do what's best for you and avoid getting trapped in judgements and labels that do not serve you.

❤

I was vegetarian and cooked vegan for years on and off, before going back to omnivoire and then fully raw vegan..and then cooked vegan again for a time. I can only speak from my own experience..and my experience is that a vegan diet it's missing vital nutrients. If it works for you then it works for you. There is no vegan diet I have found that works for me, whole foods or not. Vegetarianism can work for me, but vegan...no. I don't ever want to feel like that again, or weigh that little either.

Primal works amazing for me really. I think if people are going to benefit the most from anything, it is cutting down the grains, or cutting them out, and cutting out processed foods and conventionally grown foods.

Well let's all just hope that reincarnation is just a myth.

Maybe I will come back as a carrot, and be murdered by vegans for a salad.

How is that for karma?

jamie wins..

brutality

we (intezam) also have some crazy tapasyā, one of them being 'sleeping without a blanket' no matter what. And that's just one. But we know, that intezam is crazy (but we're not insane). Finding like-minded people? No thx. No need.

If you read all the Nexus threads about diet, which there are plenty of, a recurring theme you'll find is this: extreme diets (and their accompanying philosophies) tend to be challenging, isolating and ultimately unhealthy. Some kind of moderation seems to be the key, whatever your philosophy. I know a very healthy long- term vegan triathlete, and also know a guy whose cartilage all deteriorated to the extent that he ended up hospitalized. Any kind of diet has its moderate approaches and its extreme approaches, with the extreme ones being less flexible, less open to examination, and more obnoxious to others (often on purpose).

My wife and I quit meat 18 years ago for personal reasons, and I've always been conscious not to preach, because I understand that everyone is different and has different needs. I don't crave meat ever, but for some the constant craving is an ongoing sacrifice that I personally don't feel, so it's not fair to apply the same standards to them as to myself. So when my wife was pregnant and felt the need to start eating fish I was all about it; the most important thing in those circumstances is that her needs are met. Now she and the kid eat it weekly, I'll even prepare it sometimes but still feel no pull toward eating it. But free-range organic eggs and cheese? I'd become transparent without them.

So we just do what we feel we've gotta do, just trying being mindful of where our food came from, what suffering might have happened, what environmental damage resulted. You won't find an entirely clean answer unless you are a permaculture farmer, which most of us can't realistically be. But awareness is important and can lead to both a cleaner diet and a cleaner world.

The debate whether veganism is a healthy diet never will come to a conclusion for one simple reason- its a category mistake, veganism is not and has never been a diet. Its a social philosophy.
So, yes, there are vegans who have an unhealthy and 'extreme' diet. One can be vegan and eat nothing but oreo cookies until they are hospitalized. Others eat a fantastically healthy and flavorful diet. Radically different diets, but confusing when both are called "the vegan diet".

As for strict vegetarianism being extreme, the term is quite relative isnt it?
I've been called extreme and strange just for not eating ham, or not drinking beer.
So while 'extreme' diets might be challenging and isolating for social reasons, its not accurate to say they are ultimately unhealthy.