It's obvious you have not read the IOM documentation on the hows and whys of DRI recommendations. For one thing, many are established based on diseases of deficiency - at what level is overt symptoms presented? For others, they're established by body weight (ie. protein requirements). And for still others, they're best guesses and admitted as such. Some nutrients are contentious and that contention is indeed discussed in the documentation (ie. vitamin C) and then other things we've learned an excess leads to issues of toxicity (ie. supplemental folic acid - not folate in foods). They're based on population wide estimates though, so they're flawed in some ways, but do hold value since we do know that deficiency and/or excess causes problems. What they do need to still hone in on is the genetic variables we're learning about that take an individual's need for a particular nutrient or set of nutrients outside the norm.....like someone who has an MTHFR mutation requires much more folate, B12 and B6 along with a steady diet of choline, B2 and betaine too. The DRI's don't address that population and probably won't for decades.

By the way, I just wanted to say that this is a very entertaining and informative thread.

amanda

Stefansson's experiment was done with fresh beef. We could claim that beef then was more nutritious than beef now but then that would be futile for no comparison is possible. The Inuit that Stefansson observed ate no plant matter whatsoever. The plain Indians also ate no plant matter whatsoever.

There is a difference between an all fish diet and an all beef diet yet humans can equally maintain perfect health indefinitely on either and nothing else. I see no reason for an all caribou diet to be substantially more nutritious than an all beef diet or an all fish diet. Animal flesh must contain all the elements of life or the animal that is composed of this flesh simply can't live. Therefore eating the flesh of any living animal, including fish caribou and beef, would provide all the elements we need. The alternative is that there are some animal that can live even though they are deficient in essential elements of life. In my opinion, this goes against what I know of life and its requirements.

"The experiment started smoothly with Andersen, who was permitted to eat in such quantity as he liked such things as he liked, provided only that they came under our definition of meat - steaks, chops, brains fried in bacon fat, boiled short-ribs, chicken, fish, liver and bacon." - Steffanson, Harper's Monthly Magazine, December 1935

That's hardly exclusively beef and is certainly not only the flesh and fat, but also the organs.

That's because you haven't even bothered to look to see if they're comparable from a nutrient composition perspective. They're not comparable. For one thing, caribou meat (the flesh) contains folate, something cow meat (the flesh) does not. That one thing is a critically important point of differentiation, especially in women attempting pregnancy - NTD's are specifically due to folate deficiency.....so now imagine you telling a woman that eating just beef is going to provide "perfect health" to her or her unborn child. Nah, not something you've even considered - heck, you haven't even answered how a woman would be able to lay down the necessary fat for pregnancy and lactation yet....you seem stuck on the concept that any animal food is sufficent and no matter what you're sticking with it, despite plenty of data suggesting that nutrient-content is critically important.

The entire animal must be consumed - one cannot exclude the bone marrow, brains, heart, liver, kidneys, etc. to consume only the fat and flesh and hope for nutrient adequacy.....won't happen since some nutrients are only in the organs or brain for instance.

As far as I remember, some members here follow the CR (calorie restriction) diet. Just a thought.

Whether I read it or not makes little difference. Their recommendations are still based on a high carb, low fat calorie restricted diet. In fact, they are based on the national dietary recommendation i.e. the food pyramid in the US. It can't be otherwise. It's established using a single weight and calorie value then extrapolated to other weights and calorie values using various formulas. Anything else is not relevant here. Except perhaps that since it is based on current dietary guidelines and these guidelines are by all accounts erroneous and promote a deficient diet, it follows that any recommendation based on this is also erroneous and promote a deficient diet. In other words, this system works to destroy itself.

How can we claim that the DRI is valid when we can't make it work by following the dietary guidelines on which DRI is based? And in order to make it work, we have to act against the guidelines by cutting carbs. If we act against the guidelines, we act against the DRI.

Stefansson objected to having to eat the entire animal during the metabolic experiment because he didn't have to eat the entire animal in his expeditions and did just fine. We could claim that muscle meat lacks certain nutrients but it would be futile to point it out because clearly experience shows us that whatever it does contain is enough. Nutrient adequacy is achieved whether we eat the brain, marrow, liver or any other organ or only muscle meat.

Pemmican is dried and pounded lean muscle meat mixed in with rendered fat in a proportion of about 50-50 by weight. Pemmican is said to be the perfect food in that it can sustain a man in perfect health indefinitely. Pemmican was developed by the plains Indians and was used extensively in the fur trade as the exclusive food for traders, travelers and even soldiers, whites and plains Indians alike.

Martin, the DRI for micronutrients are not established based on the dietary guidelines - seriously, you need to read the documentation and supporting documents to understand that - in fact, the DRI documentation is one of my strongest documents I can use against the dietary guidelines because one cannot reconcile the implausability to meet and exceed the DRI's (established by data outside the guidelines) within the context of the current guidelines! It's one of my biggest bones of contention with the dietary guidelines - if you follow those, you cannot meet particular nutrient requirements, espeically, as one example, choline (rich in animal foods the guidelines recommend we limit, with the foods richest in choline being richest in sfa and cholesterol!).

The DRI's are valid because most of the nutrient recommendations are outside the context of the dietary guidelines.....it doesn't matter what you eat, you still need folate and there is a minimum one needs before experiencing deficiency symptoms.....same with other nutrients, like amino acids from protein - all protein isn't created equal and no matter how often the dietary guidelines attempt to create the illusion a peanut is as good an option as a piece of meat, it can't be reconciled with the amino acid requirements in the DRI. Just because the dietary guidelines fail to actually address the DRI's does not mean the DRI's are all wrong or all flawed and useless...it's the guidelines that are inaccurate and wrong, but I personally won't dismiss the DRI's part-and-parcel because the guidelines are flawed.

It is quite well documented, by Steffanson, that he consumed eyes, organs, bone marrow, etc. Did he have to eat every last part of the animal - no.....but he DID NOT eat only the flesh and fat....he consumed various parts of the animal in addition to the flesh and fat.

"It is said...." because NO ONE actually sustained themselves indefinitely on just pemmican Martin! NO ONE has lived exclusively on pemmican from teh time of foods introduced until death....Good grief!

Before we can claim that beef muscle meat doesn't contain enough folate, we'd have to show that an all beef diet causes a folate deficiency. For a particular food to cause a deficiency, it doesn't have to lack the nutrient nor does a lack of the nutrient automatically cause a deficiency. Case in point, fresh meat cures scurvy yet it contains little or no vitamin C. So how then can fresh meat cure scurvy unless it contained whatever was lacking if indeed scurvy is a deficiency syndrome and not merely the symptom of carbohydrate poisoning?

I doubt that a folate deficiency and neural tube defect are associated with an all beef diet. Unless we can find a study that actually tests this diet? Instead I think they are both associated with a high carb, low fat, calorie restricted diet. Precisely the diet recommended by the dietary guidelines. Indeed, I think that no matter what disease we look up, we'll find it associated with the same high carb, low fat, calorie restricted diet. We wouldn't, for instance, find an association between a low carb diet and a disease since a low carb diet returns us to good health. In other words, the dietary guidelines is a persistent common denominator.

Whether they are based directly on the dietary recommendations or not makes little difference. It's the dietary recommendations that drive deficiencies to begin with. Therefore, whatever DRI we come up with is intended to remedy the damage done by the dietary guidelines. It is de facto based on it.