Food. The biggest issue?

[Papillon]

See my posts about ammonia.

With this breakthrough, food costs in real terms now have a technological absolute price limit placed on them independent of peak oil.

A couple of things (and I've read the ammonia thread):

1) I don't see how this can be made on a scale large enough? But then again, I'm not a scientist.

More imroptantly, 2) To produce ammonia, as far as I know, one needs to p1ss in a bottle, seal it, and leave it standing for a month And this could be produced in large scale, since there are so fecking many of us nowadays!

[rushdy]

Food is a bit like oil really. Just like people don't seem to be asking the obvious questions about oil, the more we hear about increases in cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, no one seems to be asking the obvious question - "well what's changed?" If heart disease, diabetes, and cancer were very rare 100+ years ago, well then doesn't it make sense to ask why? Apparently there isn't very much money to be made doing that. I've had an interest in food for years, and what people are 'designed' to eat. It sure isn't the food lining the shelves of the supermarkets!

I started eating organic food a good time ago, but kept eating more or less the same way I had been (a broadly 'healthy' modern diet). Since then I've tried all sorts (including a rather strange stint eating nothing but beans), but nothing seemed to be right. This time though, things are a little bit different. In fact my mother reversed here previously unexplainable anaemia (13 years) within two weeks of eating properly. No more iron tablets. She was quite happy to say the least.

We're lied to about more than just oil and resources! In fact I was quite impressed to see a reference to oil depletion in a book on food from the 70s!

Now I know the same sort of people that take interest in Peak Oil are the same sort of people to read books like this, but if you haven't I'd really recommend reading the following books:

Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Weston Price (written in 1930s no less!)
Sugar Blues, by William Dufty
The Untold Story of Milk, by Ron Schmid
Pottenger's Cats: A Study in Nutrition, by Francis Pottenger
Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz

Once you read some of these books everything begins to fall into place. From the ever worsening anti-social behaviour of our society, to infertility. It's scary stuff!

By happy coincidence I haven't set foot in a supermarket in the last few months. All of my milk, vegetables, meat, and fish come from local farms and shops. I do have some sacks of oat groats, hulled spelt, and brown rice - but I'm actually using them, ha! There's also hardly anything in my recycle bins (someone nicked our tins/jars box but we don't need it anyhow).

So although I might be preaching to the converted, if not, I'd really recommend reading at least the first five of those books. If people started to eat more like this, I think we would become a lot less dependant on other people, and a lot of things would fix themselves. I mean just in my own experience, I'm losing weight, my teeth no longer feel loose and have become noticeably whiter, I no longer snore, and my excessive thirst (and bathrooms trips that accompany) have cleared up. You always have an inkling, but never quite think the wool has been pulled over our eyes as much as this.

ps. I'm not selling anything! I'm just a bit enthusiastic

[syberberg]

Food is a bit like oil really. Just like people don't seem to be asking the obvious questions about oil, the more we hear about increases in cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, no one seems to be asking the obvious question - "well what's changed?" If heart disease, diabetes, and cancer were very rare 100+ years ago, well then doesn't it make sense to ask why? Apparently there isn't very much money to be made doing that. I've had an interest in food for years, and what people are 'designed' to eat. It sure isn't the food lining the shelves of the supermarkets!

I started eating organic food a good time ago, but kept eating more or less the same way I had been (a broadly 'healthy' modern diet). Since then I've tried all sorts (including a rather strange stint eating nothing but beans), but nothing seemed to be right. This time though, things are a little bit different. In fact my mother reversed here previously unexplainable anaemia (13 years) within two weeks of eating properly. No more iron tablets. She was quite happy to say the least.

We're lied to about more than just oil and resources! In fact I was quite impressed to see a reference to oil depletion in a book on food from the 70s!

Now I know the same sort of people that take interest in Peak Oil are the same sort of people to read books like this, but if you haven't I'd really recommend reading the following books:

Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Weston Price (written in 1930s no less!)
Sugar Blues, by William Dufty
The Untold Story of Milk, by Ron Schmid
Pottenger's Cats: A Study in Nutrition, by Francis Pottenger
Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz

Once you read some of these books everything begins to fall into place. From the ever worsening anti-social behaviour of our society, to infertility. It's scary stuff!

By happy coincidence I haven't set foot in a supermarket in the last few months. All of my milk, vegetables, meat, and fish come from local farms and shops. I do have some sacks of oat groats, hulled spelt, and brown rice - but I'm actually using them, ha! There's also hardly anything in my recycle bins (someone nicked our tins/jars box but we don't need it anyhow).

So although I might be preaching to the converted, if not, I'd really recommend reading at least the first five of those books. If people started to eat more like this, I think we would become a lot less dependant on other people, and a lot of things would fix themselves. I mean just in my own experience, I'm losing weight, my teeth no longer feel loose and have become noticeably whiter, I no longer snore, and my excessive thirst (and bathrooms trips that accompany) have cleared up. You always have an inkling, but never quite think the wool has been pulled over our eyes as much as this.

ps. I'm not selling anything! I'm just a bit enthusiastic

That sounds very similar to adopting a diet that is closer to the Paleolithic one. Or am I slightly misreading you?

[rushdy]

That sounds very similar to adopting a diet that is closer to the Paleolithic one. Or am I slightly misreading you?

Well, close but not quite. I read (and tried) that about 18 months back. The difference is where milk and grains were (apparently) not part of peoples diet 10000 years ago, and so people like Loren Cordain would then advise not to eat the foods (they contain phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors/lactose in the case of milk). That's one way to do it. Certainly eating grains and milk as we do today is not the answer. Culturing the milk and soaking, fermenting, or sour-leavening the grains will also remove the damaging effects (and free up lots of otherwise badly absorbed nutrients). Really the most fascinating thing to read was how sugar, white flour, and processed products of all kinds (including pasteurised milk and highly processed vegetable oils) are the root causes of ill health in our modern society. If you can escape that and eat real whole food, preparing some things through soaking or fermenting to eliminate any ill effects, then that is the key to good health (which does appear to the be case from my own experience). When I was reading those books the way I saw it was "Well it's the same food, but noone has messed it around, so it can't make me any _worse_ off, what have I got to lose".

In a way you could see it as agreeing with the Paleolithic diet as promoted in recent books, but including grains, legumes, nuts and others. But only if they are prepared in the traditional ways that have been mostly forgotton.

[syberberg]

Well, close but not quite. I read (and tried) that about 18 months back. The difference is where milk and grains were (apparently) not part of peoples diet 10000 years ago, and so people like Loren Cordain would then advise not to eat the foods (they contain phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors/lactose in the case of milk). That's one way to do it. Certainly eating grains and milk as we do today is not the answer. Culturing the milk and soaking, fermenting, or sour-leavening the grains will also remove the damaging effects (and free up lots of otherwise badly absorbed nutrients). Really the most fascinating thing to read was how sugar, white flour, and processed products of all kinds (including pasteurised milk and highly processed vegetable oils) are the root causes of ill health in our modern society. If you can escape that and eat real whole food, preparing some things through soaking or fermenting to eliminate any ill effects, then that is the key to good health (which does appear to the be case from my own experience). When I was reading those books the way I saw it was "Well it's the same food, but noone has messed it around, so it can't make me any _worse_ off, what have I got to lose".

In a way you could see it as agreeing with the Paleolithic diet as promoted in recent books, but including grains, legumes, nuts and others. But only if they are prepared in the traditional ways that have been mostly forgotton.

Thanks for clarifying.

I'm lactose intolerant, so the milk is off the menu (never really liked it anyway, except for goat's milk). I suppose, from what I've read so far, that it's logical that milk wouldn't play a large part in the diet of hunter-gatherers, but for slightly later, it does make sense. You need to domesticate the animal before you can milk it, after all.

When it come to grains and carbs, I've increased the tuber content of my diet and reduced the grains to predominantly oats. And I do feel remarkably better. Still got way to go to get it completely right though.

[skeptik]

That sounds very similar to adopting a diet that is closer to the Paleolithic one. Or am I slightly misreading you?

Thats what we evolved to eat over many millions of years. Unfortunately biological evolution (very slow -measured in millions of years) has been outstripped by social and technological evolution (thousands to hundreds of years, and accelerating) with the result that our modern diet makes us ill.

If you want to see what we ought to be eating look at our closest relatives, the Chimpanzees. Fresh fruit , veg and a maximum of 10% wild meat in the diet. (Yes, chimps are omnivores and do engage in collective hunting much in the same way as primitive humans used to. )

We currently eat too much meat protein, too much saturated fat, too much processed carbohydrate and sugar, salt and unnecessary noxious additives. Compare the major causes of death in the industrialized and third world and its obvious where the problems are.

[JohnB]

The Food Programme on Radio 4 this week was on salt. There was a scientist, who seemed to know what he was talking about, saying how many health problems salt is causing. Apparently the 6g per day recommended consumption is actually the very maximum, and it should be a lot less. We don't actually need to add any salt to our food, as the salt naturally in food is enough for us. And of course the worst offender is processed food.

A lot of the programme was about all sorts of speciality designer salts. How much energy is wasted making and selling all this stuff, as well as the cost of patching us up when it does the damage?

[RenewableCandy]

That sounds very similar to adopting a diet that is closer to the Paleolithic one. Or am I slightly misreading you?

Thats what we evolved to eat over many millions of years. Unfortunately biological evolution (very slow -measured in millions of years) has been outstripped by social and technological evolution (thousands to hundreds of years, and accelerating) with the result that our modern diet makes us ill.

If you want to see what we ought to be eating look at our closest relatives, the Chimpanzees. Fresh fruit , veg and a maximum of 10% wild meat in the diet. (Yes, chimps are omnivores and do engage in collective hunting much in the same way as primitive humans used to. )

We currently eat too much meat protein, too much saturated fat, too much processed carbohydrate and sugar, salt and unnecessary noxious additives. Compare the major causes of death in the industrialized and third world and its obvious where the problems are.

I'm sure this is all true but the Ice Age Diet was, 7,000 Calories every day, 80% of which came from meat. I tried it one particularly cold winter when I had no heating. I failed. Just couldn't shovel the food in fast enough (and go to work, etc...). But at least you didn't need any salt in the ice-age: nothing warm enough to go off!!