A report from an Inuit on the plant foods they eat.

Very, very interesting! Thanks for posting, Nancy.

We go to great lengths to grow opium, cannabis, coca and tobacco too. That's doesn't make these plants any more nutritious or at all. I suspect the lengths we go to are not always driven by the obvious. It's not because we eat it that it is food. Drugs, we eat them, but they're not food. Candy bars, we eat them, but they're not food.

Maybe we should compare the lengths we go to to acquire food versus anything else. Maybe then we'll see something other than a confirmation of our belief. But then, maybe it won't work if we believe plants are food.

The Bellevue experiment showed us that we can maintain perfect health indefinitely on an all-meat diet. Any argument in favor of plants-as-food is therefore made invalid. We can then apply the argument of plants-as-drugs, -therapy, -pleasure, -condiments, etc.


So what? We don't need 7-10 time the vitamin C content in oranges. We don't even need more than what's contained in an all-meat diet.


So what? It pales in comparison to the processing that goes into extracting cocaine from the coca plant. Not to mention the criminal behavior we are willing to use.


At last, an admission that berries weren't collected for their nutritional content but for the pleasure they brought us.


OK, so no religious taboo. How about nutritional science, did they have any of that? Because if it's not obvious enough by now, this discussion is not about religion, but about nutrition. So then, why else would they collect plants if not for their obviously ample nutritional value? Right, carry on.

First of all, the Bellevue experiment showed no such thing. "Perfect health" was not one of the things measured in the experiment; it's mere hyperbole. Second, a year-long experiment on two people cannot possibly show that anyone can live indefinitely on an all-meat diet. It merely shows that such a diet leads to no overt health problems in a year. That fact is significant enough; there's no need to oversell it. Third, and most important in this context, there is absolutely no warrant for the inference from the Bellevue experiment to the conclusion that plants are not food.

There are vegetarians who can easily go more than a year in excellent health without eating muscle meat, but consuming eggs, dairy, etc. If they were to conclude from this that muscle meat is not food, you would be quick to accuse them of committing a logical howler.

I distrust hagiolatry in all forms, including the unquestioning acceptance of claims made by Stefansson (or Taubes, for that matter). There are, however, multiple sources that indicate that the Inuit used plant foods when they could get them, and so did the Plains Indians. In fact, from my own reading on this subject over a period of more than ten years I conclude that human beings have always consumed plant foods when they could get them. The fact that they can survive without them does not begin to show that a diet without plant foods is optimal for our species, unless you could also show that populations that avoid all plant foods have better health than all populations that consume them. But no one has ever even begun to show that, so the claim is without support.

Finally, to go from the simple fact that people enjoy plant foods to the suggestion that consuming them is equivalent to opiate addiction is nonsense. People enjoy meat too. Addiction is not mere enjoyment.

Ubizmo

Well, that's a question of perspective, isn't it. For me, perfect health is the lack of disease or infection or disability of any kind. As far as I can see, the Bellevue experiment showed exactly that. But if you want to argue the opposite, please provide us with an equivalent experiment with plant matter only.

Health was measured in the experiment. It so happens that there was no indication whatsoever that any ill effect had occurred as a result of an all-meat diet. How do you quantify that level of health if not perfect? Half-perfect implies failing health. There was no such thing. Almost perfect health implies still a failing health somehow. There was no such indication. Thus, health was perfect for the duration of the experiment. There is no hyperbole. It's just a matter of fact. Their health was perfect as far as we can measure.

You have self-servingly omitted the fact that you claimed that the Bellevue experiment shows that "we can maintain perfect health indefinitely on an all-meat diet." It does not.



Karsten Andersen's health markers were not measured for a week in August, due to pharyngitis, i.e., throat inflammation. Whether or not that can be blamed on diet is open to debate (shouldn't his immune system have been capable of resisting this?), but it is a departure from perfect health. It is therefore false to claim that the Bellevue experiment shows that perfect health can be maintained indefinitely on an all-meat diet. Andersen's health wasn't perfect, and a limited-time study can never warrant conclusions about indefinite continuation.

We may also wonder about the health significance of Andersen's dyslipidemia, without introducing the lipid hypothesis of cardiovascular disease. Is there no medical significance to cholesterol levels as high as 800, and more often around 600?

The biggest logical mistake here is the assertion that the supposition that plants are food is "made invalid" by the Bellevue experiment. Since the experiment involved no plant foods, other than coffee, it has absolutely no implications concerning plant foods. Similarly, the case of that elderly man who ate nothing but boiled eggs for years does not "make invalid" the claim that beef is food.

Ubizmo

Now it's you who self-servingly choose to instill doubt where there is none.

"Indefinitely" is exactly what the Bellevue showed. There was no indication that the subjects' health would degrade at any point past the experiment, were they to continue to eat an all-meat diet. If you disagree, then tell us how the Bellevue did not show us "indefinitely".

The claim is not that an all-meat diet is protective against infections. Though I posit that proper diet will maintain health to a degree that allows the immune system to do its job of fighting infections. An improper diet will allow the same infection to take over and maim or kill the host.

Dyslipidemia could be the result of the high carb diet Anderson ate before the experiment. It sure is the result of the high carb diet for pretty much everybody who lives now. What changed between then and now?

The biggest mistake is to take your hypothetical arguments for facts. We have facts, use them.

Here you make the easiest error in logic. They eat them, thus it is food. We eat drugs, yet it's not food. I don't blame you, the blog author makes the same mistake. Before we can make the argument that the Inuit sought plants for nourishment, we have to show that plants are food for humans. As far as I can see, the blog author failed to do the latter. Rather, it is assumed that plants are food for humans.

Maybe they thought they were drugs, not food!

That's not my reasoning. I knew that plants are food for humans before reading any of this. Plant foods provide energy and various nutrients and sustain life, i.e., they keep it going. A starving person's life can be saved (sustained) by means of plant foods. People have used plant foods for sustenance where and when they could. The argument that plants are not necessary for survival, therefore they are not food, has no merit. Likewise, the fact that plants alone do not sustain good health indefinitely does not show that they are not food. There is nothing in the definition of food that entails that for something to count as food, you must be able to thrive on that particular thing exclusively for an indefinite period.

Ubizmo

Correction, you assumed that plants are food for humans before reading any of this. Consequently, all your arguments tend to favor this underlying idea. What proof do you have that plants are food for humans? Please show us. "That we eat it" is not sufficient.

Don't be so sad, the blog author couldn't do it either on the first try. But maybe if we give her more time.

I will accept this post of yours as an answer.

How did it do that when the experiment lasted only one year?

How did it not do that? There are other experiments with plant food that show that plant food is outright inadequate for humans. How did these experiments show that plant food was bad for us? It just showed us, that's all. So you ask, how did the Bellevue show us? It just showed us, that's all. If you still have doubts, then it's a problem of perception, not of the experiment itself, isn't it.

But let's be more pointy so that the question will be put to rest once and for all. If that's even possible.

What's the condition that you'd like to see addressed with an all-meat diet? See if the Bellevue experiment showed us that it did not address it. It doesn't need to look for it actively for it to be addressed. It only needs to have gone on long enough for the condition in question to have shown up. If the condition did not show up, then we can conclude that it will never show up.