Where Conspiracy and Reality Collide

By Eric Harrington

“Why go Veggie” suggests that a carnivores intestine is short, while ours is long, etc. etc. so we shouldn’t eat meat. This is factually complete bullshit.  Humans have eaten meat for MILLIONS of years, but not exclusively. Early man continuously foraged for plant based food, primarily very complex carbs (ie not grains) and insects, and maybe a little fruit  depending on where they were,  and then they every so often they gorged themselves for a while on the protein of a kill.  That is what Humans did for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years, and our bodies are evolved for THAT.  That is why grains, i.e. simple carbs are so bad for us. Humans never ate simple carbs, (ie grains) until maybe 9000 years ago, so we do not digest them well, for our bodies are designed for very low but continuous complex carb intake and occasional extensive protein intake. It is also why so many are becoming allergic to gluten and other grain products.

Proteins are used to rebuild tissue and create a myriad of substances in the body, but we can live without all but small amounts found in plants for weeks at a time.  But not ideally forever, and still stay optimally healthy, or even grow stronger, larger etc…  Carbs on the other hand, are the fuel of the body, and must be available, in the bloodstream continuously or we die. That is why our bodies so aggressively store excess carbs for immediate use in the muscles with insulin, and for more serious longer-term carb shortages in the form of fat.  But proteins we only need sporadically, and hence we do not store them, except in the form of more muscle.  And now, with our excessive grain-based simple-carb (instead of complex carbs) and continuous (instead of sporadic) meat diets, everyone is getting sick. Big fucking surprise!  We are fighting millions of years of evolution.

Contrary to that piece you sent, Humans are NOT Herbivores OR Carnivores but in fact Omnivores, and like bears, (who also have a very long intestinal track) Humans CAN properly digest meat AND plant matter and insects equally well. That is not the problem. In fact, pure vegetarians routinely have extensive trace mineral deficiencies, and weak immune systems (not stronger) unless they eat a LOT of plants grown from very mineral rich, unfarmed soil, or grown with ocean fish based fertilizers, and nothing grown in in this country commercially is done this way. Commercial (even local farm) soils are typically only supplemented with 7-8 minerals tops, to keep the crops healthy to term. Commercially grown animals are generally fed pelletized food made primarily from grains (or really disgusting things in the megafarms), and they are routinely supplemented 20+ trace minerals to keep them healthy to slaughter. Humans need that many trace minerals and more, for we live much longer, and we normally get most of those trace minerals from those animals we eat, not from vegetables grown unsustainably, and again, those trace minerals are not available in the grains the animals are fed, they are supplemented.  In the world we live in today, moderate consumption of healthfully raised animals is more healthy for us than not. Not excessive meat (which is even less healthy than vegetarianism), but some. As with anything, much depends on your lifestyle. People like me who physically punish their bodies need optimally far more protein (than I could ever easily get from vegetables) and also more carbs than less active people. But everyone needs those trace minerals, for when combined with amino acids from those proteins they the (re)building blocks of the whole human system.  There is only so much Selenium, chromium, vanadium, copper, zinc etc.. in the top 24″ of soil on this planet, and you know where it is all ending up?  .  Cemeteries! Now there is were we need to start farming! Bottom line, the planet cannot healthily sustain this population growth, more from the standpoint of trace minerals, than pure space to grow things, or the energy required. We can keep people alive but not optimally healthy with our current soils and farming techniques.

In the desert of Ethiopia, they tried a program where as the elephants became overpopulated and began to desertify the land by eating everything in sight, the government began to cull the elephants to preserve the plants,  but they removed the elephant carcasses and use them for dog food. Problem is, the plant-life then just died off faster. Why? Because those elephants were repositories of huge stores of trace minerals. When they died, those minerals were released back into the soil as fertilizer and a huge stand of plant life would grow for decades afterwards, where the elephant had died.  Take the elephant carcass away, the balance is broken and everything dies. The same is happening planet-wide, and going vegetarian will not fix it. THAT is the primary cause of all the cancers and non-germ related diseases we now face. Poor nutrition. In the days of Dinosaurs, everything was recycled. The soil was so rich, a dinosaur with a head the size of a horse could sustain a 30 ton body on plant life alone, because ALL the minerals were still there in their natural ratios.  When the soil died, the animals died shortly thereafter and the soil was rejuvenated by their carcasses. 

That’s why Jo and I buy almost all our produce from the Farmer and the Cook or occasionally the farmers market, i.e. from soil not intensively farmed commercially. Those foods still have some trace minerals. Or our own yard. That is the BEST way. Grow your own produce.

As for feeding the world, so exactly when do we finally admit that Humans can reproduce faster than we can possibly support them, and finally decide that we don’t have an obligation to feed them all?  I don’t know that we have reached that point, but it is coming soon, and the people your piece suggests feeding are having dramatically more children than WE ARE.    They have got to stop creating people they can’t feed. It’s not our responsibility, it is theirs.  We, as always, are trying to fuck with the natural balance of the planet, all based around this bogus religion based sanctity of human life bullshit fallacy, when humans in reality are a scourge to all life on this planet.  “A virus” as Agent Smith so aptly put.  True Sustainability BEGINS with SUSTAINABLE PROCREATION.

On a spiritual level, they are incurring the karma of the children they starve, not us.  As for Karma however, our wasteful society is wrong, and the commercial meat industry is horribly inhumane and karmically awful, not because it feeds less people, but because of the inhumane treatment of the animals their entire life, not just at the time of slaughter. All life is sacred, but that doesn’t mean that it is wrong for anything to be killed.  Death is as sacred as life.  As for the vibration of them when they die being passed on, that is IMHO, complete crap. It is the natural way, Gods way. Some animals give their lives that others may eat, it is the “giveaway” that they choose in the philosophy of the Sioux. They accept their place in the universe. They are food and they know it. And so are we.. Food for bacteria and fungus, even before we die. We just think we’re different than the rest, just because we’re at the top of the food chain.  Typical human largess.  Life and death are equally sacred even for us.

That being said, JO and I try to buy our meat only from organic, humane farms, we do the research (and yes I know there’s no telling with restaurants, and I am increasingly disturbed by the awareness of that) but the whole sustainable argument just doesn’t wash, because nothing is sustainable with this Ignorant Human Plague. . The problem is not going to be fixed by anyone going veggie. I support the idea only to stop the cruelty to animals, which offends me deeply, although raising meat for food can be done humanely and sustainably. But the third world (and elements of the first world) have GOT to get their head out of selfish religious ass and stop making babies. Or watch them starve with or without our help.  THEY need to be as sustainable as us. They are the BIG problem, them and the Elitist Military Industrial Complex who work hard to create a huge pool of poor struggling slave labor.

The west still produces more food than we consume excluding oil.  We can sustain OUR country and all of Europe, Australia, etc with the population growth expectations there for a long time to come with a major renewable energy infrastructure investment.   But Asia and Africa have to get their shit together or we may all be DONE for. Unsanitary over population provides the primary vector for plague.  I saw an activist from Somalia on Bill Maher last night and she said roughly the same thing some time back, that we can’t end hunger by growing food FOR people, they have to learn to do it themselves, and to maintain a population that the location they live in can sustain. And maybe learn not to rape children, and sew girls vagina’s shut while they’re at it. We need to teach them, and give them infrastructure, ie water, tools etc..  NOT JUST FOOD GROWN HERE. That is simply not sustainable.  And will someone PLEASE tell the Glorious Infallible Divine Pope Roadshow to finally tell his fucking sheep to stop having lambs they can’t feed, or else God will simply take them back.  They don’t deserve them, and the lambs are better off….

~ by Eric Harrington on September 2, 2008.

Posted in Editorial replies, Health, Science / Technology
Tags: ancient diet, caveman diet, Diet, Health, Minerals and diet, Nutrition, Vegetarianism