Eat this woe and find out who you are

[HunterMan]

Hello everyone :wave:

I would like to discusses a less discussed aspect of paleo/lc, the effect it has on ones character and morals.

A vegetarian, starch based diet brings about quantity rather then quality of population. An uncontrolled and careless super explosion in the human population had begun on the lush banks of river valleys in the middle east around 10,000 bc when the mass cultivation of grains began, it continues to the present day. It was marked by an immense increase in awful physical and moral degradation. Human beings lost their utmost right to splendid health, beautiful faces of dignity and honor, and stalwart and capable minds and physiques that would allow man accomplish his goals and carry him to accomplish deeds far beyond his wildest imagination.

At the same time large scale chaos and anarchy swept across the world, darkness descended upon mankind as wicked tyrants and deposits arose to dominate and oppress their own people, vice became prevalent as people competed for petty materialistic goods valuing them more than the most precious thing on earth, fellow human beings. Humans lost their unique good-will and respectable behavior towards each other and to their own selves rendering them even lower then animals.

Historians claim 'civilization' only became possible when energy dense crops could be utilized. I ask you how the heck do you define civilization? By the good for nothing merchandise and objects like buildings, factories and cars that have been made in vain, by the wars, killings and oppression inflicted upon the weak, only fulled by distasteful materialistic pursuits, the tremendous devaluation and waste of human life and potential? Many people now a days seem to be foul mouthed, angrier, meaner, less tolerant, uglier, greedier etc. and exhibit less honorable characteristics such as chivalry, respect, courage, kindness etc.


Paleo/lc has already made your body better, but have you yet realized the greater importance in life of maintaining strong personal values and impeccable character which are brought about to a large degree by eating such wonderful, healthy animal meat which your body needs, with their absence you abuse your body and mind and make them take on negative aspects such as unbridled obesity and bad behavior.

Animal foods have always (up till recently thanks in part to that darn television) been known to give both sound bodies and honorable character.

The message here is that our woe should make us take a deep look at our selves and become better not just from what we were and what we want to be, but from who we were and who we want to become.

Have a nice day :)

[ProteusOne]

I can't, in good conscience, call someone immoral or infer a damnation judgment upon them because of what they choose to eat. We're all on a journey, both collectively and individually. Where you or I may or may not excel, others may flounder or flourish.

Choosing an action is up to the actor, just as choosing what to eat. And am not above eating anything if I have to.

[Nancy LC]

I try not to philosophize too much about my diet simply because people who do are usually vegans and they annoy me.

Privately I sometimes tell myself that I'm a superior human being for having such a nutritious diet, but publicly, I keep my yap shut. :p

Look up Jared Diamond's paper called something like, "The Worst Mistake In the History of Humans". I think you'd enjoy it. Also, if you can get the DVD he did with National Geographic called "Guns, Steel, Germs". It is a wonderful look at his theories of why some civilizations "advanced" and others didn't.

[HunterMan]

Hello guys,

Thanks for your responses, i guess my post was a borderline rant. But of course your absolutely right, people have to make there own choices and their actions define who they are, I didn't mean eating some sort of food makes someone morally superior or anything, I don't necessarily mean a vegetables or fruits are bad, I mean a sugary/starchy carb-loded nutrient deficient diet is bad. What I was referring to was the effect food, whether on a cellular or any other level, gives someone a mental predisposition that will guide their actions. For example plant based, mind altering drugs can cause people to act bad, you know the way junkies behave, excess carbs in general might also instigate some similar responses. Devitalized processed foods lack many nutrients necessary for proper brain function which may cause behavior problems as well, think of misbehaving kids after they eat junk food, I wonder if their fits and tantrums that begin at around 2 years of age are related to ingestion of candy. The oppression of African slaves was mainly fulled by the need for people to slave away at the sugar mills in the Americas.

What I am trying to say is that food has a major impact on our selves, physically, mentally and emotionally. The impact it has on us can effect our behavior. So by eating nutritiously and avoiding destructive foods you can become a better person. I think the polish optimal diet guy Jan Kaz... said something about eating low carbs you have a better mental state and are less like to be fooled by the media or governments, but any way eating fat and animal products helps your brain function properly and makes someone more likely to have better character. In movies where people kill an animal and give someone the heart or liver or whatever to give them courage do you think its just Hollywood baloney, no its grounded in truth, people eat organs and meat to give them better strength and character, its not superstition in my opinion, animal products help you function better. Up until people migrated in great numbers to cities, became ignorant of nature and vegetarianism became popular in the media virtually everyone in the world believed animal products would make their bodies minds and behavior better.

I am not boasting any fanatically held dietary belief unjustly, its a law of nature, meat and fat make your body and mind better which helps you develop better character. :thup:

[AimeeJoi]

Yes, I think I know what you mean. When I eat more paleo-ish I feel like I am more in touch with true human nature. Like I am less likely to agree with stupidity just because it's a popular opinion. When you start to think about what is a human's natural diet, you also start to think about what is a human's natural way of life and you start to realize that most people in the world are not living in a way that is natural at all, then you feel like you are weird but the truth is the other people are the weird ones :p .

[Mrs. Skip]

I think we need to remember that many people just have no clue about the proper way to eat...for example, I know that I was trying really hard to eat the "correct" way (as per the food pyramid) until say, maybe four or five years ago. This whole low carb/paleo way of eating was completely a dramatic revelation to me. No doubt there are other people out there who know there MUST be a better way to eat, a better way to feel and think and live, but just don't know what it is :confused: ...so they are feeling "yukky" and out-of-sorts and have just-don't-care attitudes...but don't know how to change anything!

I DO feel more "in tune" while eating this way. :yay: But IMHO I think many people would do it if they only knew about it.

[kallyn]

Besides having no clue on the proper way to eat, I think that many people just don't THINK about what they eat at all. Before I started having some health issues that led me to low-carb, I honestly never gave one thought to what I was putting in my mouth. I was too busy with my social life in high school, too busy with my schoolwork in college. Food wasn't even on my radar.

[ProteusOne]

I've never known the proper/optimal way to eat, and I can't claim to now. What I do know is that approximate Paleo has been good for me. Optimal? I have no way of knowing. Does anyone, really?

I can say this about my disposition: eating this way flattens my moods, that is, the fluctuations at either end seem less spikey. I am more calm, thoughtful, and reserved (believe it or not! Just don't take away my coffee). And I often have the energy to pay attention to myself, and thus others in a better way.

As for morals, I think this gets tricky. I've learned that what may be "moral" to one person may be evil to another. I'm not sure if diet can change this in people any more than, say, going to church can, except maybe to bring out tendencies that are already there, be they good or evil.

[AimeeJoi]

I don't feel any more moral by eating paleo but I do feel more human, like I am more connected to the natural order of things. Also I worry less about things and I am less affected by environmental stressors. It maybe isn't even because of the food i am eating it is just that the whole concept of trying to get back to a natural eating pattern reaches far beyond eating. It helps me to see more clearly my connection to the rest of the world and to the earth and universe. Wow that sounds kinda hippy-ish huh? :lol:

[ProteusOne]

I don't feel any more moral by eating paleo but I do feel more human, like I am more connected to the natural order of things. Also I worry less about things and I am less affected by environmental stressors. It maybe isn't even because of the food i am eating it is just that the whole concept of trying to get back to a natural eating pattern reaches far beyond eating. It helps me to see more clearly my connection to the rest of the world and to the earth and universe. Wow that sounds kinda hippy-ish huh? :lol:

Well, I think I know what you're getting at, except for the "natural order of things" part and the "connection to the rest of the world" part. I mean, really, what are these things? Are they just feelings? And if so, then they may make you feel better, but don't really mean anything otherwise, except that you might become a better person to be around. What about just characterizing this feeling as "feeling good"? Or, feeling "better"? There's certainly nothing wrong with that, is there?

Interesting conversation.

[waywardsis]

I think I get what you're saying Aimee, hippy-dippy as it may be. :) Like you've taken your proper place in the natural order of things (food chain). You feel grounded.

My moods have done a 180 for the better since changing my diet. And I notice when I veer from eating this way (LC mostly, mainly paleo) that I am much more irritable and moody, much less calm.

I try not to philosophize too much about my diet simply because people who do are usually vegans and they annoy me. LOL!!! Try spending a week with fresh outta high school, environmental activist vegans. I remember when I was young and knew everything too. Why is it vegans label everything 'vegan'? A huge bag of granola, labelled 'vegan'. I mean, do other granolas contain chicken or something? Anyway.

[ProteusOne]

Mmmm, chicken granola! Now there's a challenge.

[Blondie888]

Mmmm, chicken granola! Now there's a challenge.

A challenge to make or a challenge to eat? Or both? Probably both...

[PlaneCrazy]

Our mental states, moods and emotions have a great deal more to do with our chemical state than most people realize, or will admit to. I do know that as I smooth out my sugar-induced insulin spikes and valleys that my moods also tend to smooth out. It's not a perfect one-to-one match, nor is it complete and total. But there is an effect.

I also agree that most people just don't know what's the best, or even a better way for them to eat. They're told all kinds of messages that just don't work, but they keep trying to do it anyway, and then they fail and get even fatter, and they just feel like it must be their fault, and either get depressed, or more in denial, or care less.

My personal reaction as I kept getting heavier and heavier was to feel like there was actually nothing I could do to change short of a massive exercise program. I couldn't function well at all when I was hungry, so low-calorie didn't work for me. I couldn't function well with the extreme energy drops whenever I ate lots of carbs without protein (and now I know, fat). I didn't think I had a choice. After all of the hype and advice, I would never have thought of a high-fat, low-carb diet if I hadn't happened to have caught a news magazine show back in Feb. 2004. They talked about one of the recent studies (at Duke?) that showed that low-carb diets were not only safe, but also effective. I looked into it, tried it and it worked.

From an individual level, I don't think low-carbing makes us more moral, or better human beings. From a larger perspective, I also don't think civilization has been all bad. :) You can eat paleo all you want and still die young from infection, unless you have anti-biotics. Literature, film, opera are all art forms that would not have existed without civilization. Wine is also a non-paleo invention that I'm glad has happened.

The question though becomes, are we finding the good out of a huge failure, or was it not that bad, this discovery of agriculture? Frankly, while a fun little mental exercise, I also realize that we have the world we have, and I'd like to put most of my energy into making it as good as we can. Maybe it was a huge mistake, maybe it wasn't. I doubt that paleo life was as rosy as some (not saying anyone on this thread) paint it to be, but it wasn't as nasty, brutish and short as others would like to make it out to be either. It was what it was, and those who lived it made it the best that they could given their understanding of the world, just as we strive to make our world the best that it can be given our still limited understanding of the world.

Actually, I just read a section in Gary Taubes' new book Good Calories Bad Calories about this. He's talking about the theory of the "thrifty gene" that tried to explain why some populations who were quite poor, actually were fat. This theory is summarily dismantled, dismembered and overall smashed into oblivion. In the process, on page 247, he says:
This resiliency of hunting and gathering is now thought to explain why it survived for two million years before giving way to agriculture. In those areas where human remains span the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to farmers, anthropologists have reported that both nutrition and health declined, rather than improved, with the adoption of agriculture. (It was this observation that led Jared Diamond to describe agriculture as "the worst mistake in the history of the human race.")
He cites an article in Discover magazine, May, 1987, pp 64-66 titled, "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race."

Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction and is a facinating look into why the Italians "discovered" America rather than the Cherokee "discovered" Europe.

Plane
Who has to rush off to civilization to make my barter so that I can eat.

[Nancy LC]

Oh good, I found another Diamond fan. :)

[HunterMan]

Hello everyone :wave:

I would just like to say how glad I am to hear of your personal improvements, it is a very good thing that all of us are trying to make ourselves better, congrats, and I hope we all continue to improve. What pleases me the most is how civil such a forum as ours is, one that facilitates the exchange of ideas which are for the most part respected by others, I love sharing ideas and expanding ones understanding by listening to the opinions of others to ultimately decide the truth for myself, thanks, for I have indeed visited such dogmatic dictatorship forums wherein shallow and pedantic cultist fanatics wallow around in fear and ignorance staunchly blocking out the truth from their ears simply because they desire to hold on to their unrelenting dogma, I have found the people who most fanatically impose their beliefs on you are usually the most hypocritical and don't practice what they preach, they weren't low carb forums by the way.

Anyway I will post a few general comments regarding previous posts, they are as follows.

1. There is for the most part, such a thing as human nature, everyone will have to search and find it out for themselves, and if they keep an open mind and harbor no bias they will find it because the natural way for how a human should live is something that with deep searching and thinking and self-pondering will become self-evident.

2. Many people nowadays don't prefer to exercise their own minds and think for them selves, rather they blindly believe what others say with out discovering the truth for themselves, so yes most people don't know how to eat or to live in general, just going with the flow, typical animal herd mentality not fitting for excellent humans.

3. Eating DOES effect your mental state tremendously, an example of its powerful effect on behavior would be a person who wold be a nice mild mannered friendly guy who is normal and consistent in every way but after subject to a period of severe starvation would lose his mind run around screaming and doing crazy things and maybe even kill another person and become a cannibal just to feast off their flesh to keep himself alive. While that is an extreme example I believe over a lifetime of sub-optimal nutrition the brain could suffer from nutritional deficiency and might develop some sort of mental or behavioral illnesses.

4. Rather then saying Morals, I meant to imply behavior and consistent behavorial patterns, character.

5. Morals differ between people, places and times.However I believe that virtually every human can agree on certain moral principles between right and wrong, mainly that one should not harm them self or others and that one should try to help and put others before themselves, I believe every one at every place and time can accept this code of behavior as what is 'right' to do. So by this criterion I realized that when people eat lots of bread, grains or sugar they easily become explosive in terms of anger and tend to think of themselves rather than the impact they have on others, while on low carb and paleo I feel quite easy going and feel like helping other people rather than exploding about my own trivial matters.

6. The way food effects you is through its chemical effect on the mind and the lack of nutrients effect the brain, these deprived thinking patterns effect your decisions, actions and ultimately behavior.

7. And last but not least Plane Crazy change your name, your a very intelligent dude your name deceives you, it dose have satirical value though.

Keep thinking, challenging and learning thats the philosophy of or low carb woes anyway, we followed something considered highly unconventional. We thought, searched,criticized and debated with others and ourselves to find the truth about health and diet that we were previously dumbfounded by thanks to media,authorities and 'common knowledge' so all of you give your selves a pat on the back and feel good. :clap: :thup: :thup:

[ProteusOne]

So by this criterion I realized that when people eat lots of bread, grains or sugar they easily become explosive in terms of anger and tend to think of themselves rather than the impact they have on others, while on low carb and paleo I feel quite easy going and feel like helping other people rather than exploding about my own trivial matters.
I would like to suggest, however, that bread-eating may more likely produce couch-potato-ism than anything. Apathy seems to be the dominant force in our SAD society.

Apathy a dominant force? Funny, huh?

[dragonlfy]

What you're saying is very much in line with what Weston A Price talks a whole lot about in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Definitely agree.

:agree:

[HunterMan]

Right ProeusOne, most people have become apathetic and lethargic, which considered sinful by the Amish populations amongst others.

dragonfly, virtually all traditional people whether I've read about or met in person always have foods they believe give you certain characteristics and qualities, heart for courage, liver for strength, brains to make you smart, tungs to make you a poet, while these seem to be their hopeful wishes I believe they are grounded in truth, if you eat animal muscles it will make your own muscle grow thanks to protein right, so if food can change your body I believe it can influence your mind and thinking patters as well, certain mind altering plants or alcohols can do it through chemical reactions in the brain so why not long term use of foods that have less potency such as sugar grains and possibly every vegetable from the vegetable kingdom, I believe it will eventually effect how you think, how you think influences how you act, your actions define your behavior and morals.

I don't think its eating foods that cause an impact on your character but rather LACK of them, when monkeys were fed a low fat diet they became irritable and aggressive thus poor character on the other hand when people or animals get enough animal fat and meat they are more calm and considerate.

In certain native American populations in the east, they didn't even have a word for 'lie' they were well stocked with animal products and had good character. The concept of 'noble savages' was one of primitive individuals or people who lived in remote areas and ate animals and organs of every description, they had courage to face ferocious animals and criminals but were very soft, warm, kind and generous to guests and friends, they were a chivalrous race thanks in part to adequate nutrition.

I firmly believe lc and paleo helps ensure adequate amounts of animal products to ensure focused mental composure, powerful physical stature and honorable good behavior. Hurray Hurray lc/paleo all the way :cheer:

[PlaneCrazy]

Hey, Hunterman

Thanks for the compliment. My name actually comes from my hobby of woodworking using only hand tools. I use a lot of planes, so I'm crazy for planes, hence, PlaneCrazy. It's a weak kind of joke, but then I first made it when I was still under the influence of carbs. :)

I totally agree, the evidence, both personal as well as scientific, shows that what we eat does affect our mental state. We are a big ol' bad of chemistry and our moods, aggression, affection and interests can be deeply affected by what and how much we eat.

Ancel Keyes (yes, THAT Ancel Keyes) did a very interesting study during WWII on the affects of near-starvation in humans. The government wanted to understand what the affects on humans would be in an imagined post-war Europe where there might well be near-starvation levels of food available. The subjects were all conscientious objectors who volunteered for the study as a way of contributing to the war effort without fighting and killing.

The results were quite facinating. I first heard about them a few weeks ago on a radio show about food called "The Splendid Table." I then read more details in Taubes' book. Several of the men actually had psychotic episodes and had to be taken out of the study. The rest showed obsessive personality disorders around food, including collecting recipes, cookbooks and talking about nothing but food. Interestingly enough, as they began to come out of the lowest calorie levels, as they began to be able to eat more, but still at very low levels, seemed to be the hardest. Several became severely depressed and had thoughts of suicide, just when the study was coming to an end!

So, we know that food, the kinds and amount can definitely affect us mentally as well as physically.

I also agree that there are some basic human motivations that we all share. These tend towards cooperation and mutual help, especially for in-groups. Other, especially social and environmental pressures can change these basic motivations, or can turn them against others we define as out-group. These then become the selfish flip-side of our in-group mutual support inclinations. It seems to all come down to how we define out in-group, and how we define "others."

As for pre-Columbian native Americans, there may have been some peaceful tribes, but there were also a tremendous number who were not so peaceful. There is a great deal of evidence of large-scale warfare among tribes long before any Europeans came on the scene. People are people. They may have moral codes, standards of polite behavior, but that never seems to stop one group from finding reasons to knock another group on the head. And all of that meat they were eating helped give them even more energy with which to do it. :)

So, if we could all eat better, it would help. And if we could begin to expand our perceived in-group to everyone, those would go a very long way to helping us make a better world.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Plane

[ProteusOne]

Plane, I agree, like the lost "instincts" of our race of primates, food may be responsible for a "tendency" toward behavioral predisposition, but doesn't make it happen either way.

As for the idea of you are what you eat, I am wary of that notion -- the heart for courage, liver for strength thing. If that's true then sugar addicts should be very sweet, and we all know that some of them ain't. :)

And to carry it further, eating fat doesn't necessarily make one "fat." Nor does eating muscle make a person more muscular. And eating tomatoes doesn't make me a redneck :D

[perfectfit]

And eating tomatoes doesn't make me a redneck :D

Nor a skilled lover since tomatoes were once considered an aphrodisiac. :)

[ProteusOne]

No, I think tomatoes are an aphrodisiac. Well, for the senses, anyway :)

[HunterMan]

Hello

I would like to discuss my observations concerning the physical effects caused by consumption of certain foods.


The composition of animal parts are made out of materials very similar and bio-available to humans, therefore the consumption of a particular animal organ or material will effect the counterpart human organ and the body in general because it is not just rich, but it is literally made out of the particular material needed by certain organs, below is a scientific observation on how these materials would effect the human organism.




Brains

Brains are one of the best sources of omega-3 a fatty acid essential for brain development, so by eating brains your brain would develop technically making you smarter.

Eyes

Eyes contain much of the bodies zinc, and vitamin A in very large quantities, theses are needed for good sight so by eating eyeballs your own eyes would get the nutrients they need to function giving you better sight.

Heart

The Heart is the best source for co-enzyme Q10 if I am not mistaken, Q10 is essential for cardiovascular health, essential for the heart in particular, so giving your heart these nutrients it will work fine under stressful situations, it gives you courage because your heart won't explode or fail when you are in deadly combat with a killer gorilla (this species of was bread by scientist from common mountain gorilla who were subjected to extremely low fat diets and deprived of sunlight, they kill because of their insatiable hunger for fat and organs).

Liver

The Liver gives strength in many ways, two of them are:

1. Its high usable iron content, making your red blood cell volume increase which makes transport of oxygen more efficient so your cells are strong and wont fatigue due to excess carbon dioxide and lack of oxygen, if you have more endurance your stronger.

2. Liver is an excellent source of vitamin A which is essential for the synthesis of testosterone, this helps build muscle and bone mass and density.

Bones

Animal bones are made out of minerals, so when consumed by bone soups or otherwise the exact minerals your own bones need will be fed by it.

Muscle

Animal muscle tissue is made of all the amino acids essential for human life, so by eating an animals muscles you would have all the protein you need for muscle growth.

Sugar, tomato and whatever

As for the question of why other non animal products don't have similar effects, the answer is simple, they are not as biologically similar or complete as animal tissue. Animals and plants have different kinds of cells and are made of different materials, since animal products are so similar to humans they just get broken down in digestion and virtually every component is absorbed by the counterpart of the human body, since plant cells are different not all of it is incorporated properly because there is no similar organs or materials in the human body, therefore only certain concentrations of unnaturally high amounts of usable molecules are absorbed causing harmful effects, such as the sugar component.

[mlh244]

Oh good, I found another Diamond fan. :)

Well call me a convert, because i'm now a diamond fan too after reading that article about 'humanity's greatest mistake'...although I can't say I agree it is our greatest mistake I do agree with a lot of what he's saying. I think i'll go pick up a copy of guns, germs & steel.

Interestingly enough I came accross a similar discussion in a blog just before I read this thread- just a coincidence but here was the rebuttal offered against Diamond's argument in the aformentioned article:

"Contra leftist anthropologists who celebrate the noble savage, quantitative body-counts -- such as the proportion of prehistoric skeletons with axemarks and embedded arrowheads or the proportion of men in a contemporary foraging tribe who die at the hands of other men -- suggest that pre-state societies were far more violent than our own.

It is true that raids and battles killed a tiny percentage of the numbers that die in modern warfare. But, in tribal violence, the clashes are more frequent, the percentage of men in the population who fight is greater, and the rates of death per battle are higher. According to anthropologists like Lawrence Keeley, Stephen LeBlanc, Phillip Walker, and Bruce Knauft, these factors combine to yield population-wide rates of death in tribal warfare that dwarf those of modern times.

If the wars of the twentieth century had killed the same proportion of the population that die in the wars of a typical tribal society, there would have been two billion deaths, not 100 million."- Steven Pinker

Here's the link to the blog (http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2007/05/jared_diamond_h.html)

Leftist anthropologists? That's a new one. :cool:

[PlaneCrazy]

Hunterman, I'm sure there are some benefits such as you describe from eating organ meats, after all, if the organ is made up of the nutrients, and we can get sources of the nutrients from eating those organs, then our bodies will most likely benefit. And your point about this being true only for animal (or human, for that matter, which was also a practice) since it's really a matter of chemistry rather than characteristics is well taken.

At the same time, these organs are not the only sources of these nutrients, and it seems a rather "magical" route to take in order to get what we need for our bodies. The practice of eating an animal's, or enemy's organs to gain their characteristics is one common form of the most common type of magic practiced all over the world: sympathetic magic.

This is the idea that if we do something related to the end state we're looking for, then we will be able to create that end state: like begets like. Human fertility, or human blood, and the fertility of the harvest, lighting fires to bring the sun back from its winter dimness, creating models or drawings of herds of animals to bring a good hunt, or eating the organ believed to be the center of bravery of a brave enemy in order to gain that person's bravery. (and of course this organ is perceived to be different in various times and places)

It's also called imitative magic, and is still common today. Graphology, hand writing analysis really is a form of sympathetic magic, e.g., the notion that leaving wide spaces between letters indicates a proneness to isolation and loneliness because the wide spaces indicate someone who does not mix easily and is uncomfortable with closeness. One graphologist claims that a person betrays his sadistic nature if he crosses his t's with lines that look like whips.(source) (http://skepdic.com/sympathetic.html)

Homeopathy, believing that the essence of something that once was, will "resonate" into what isn't anymore, and even many of our religious rituals, and since this isn't the flame-proof area I won't mention specifics, are examples of this very old, and very compelling form of "magic." The whole "fat causes fat" hypothesis could be categorized as this form of thinking.

We all find ourselves at times slipping into this primitive form of attempting to control our environment, like believing you have a lucky shirt just because you won once while wearing it, but a little reasonable reflection will show us just how silly it is. Unfortunately, there are many who don't take this pause for reason and instead continue to fervently believe that their practice of putting up pictures of what you want will bring the real thing, or using herbal remedies from plants that look like the affected part of the body will help with that part of the body. See this example (http://chestofbooks.com/health/herbs/O-Phelps-Brown/The-Complete-Herbalist/The-Herbal-World-Part-4.html) of that kind of thinking.

And as for mlh244's reference (not your words, I understand) to "leftist anthropologists" being apologists for the "noble savage" myth, I have to cry bunk. I've never actually read an anthropologist who was espousing these theories. It's usually quite the opposite. Anthropologists, especially field anthropologists, are quite aware of just how violent and bloody all human beings can be. It's those who have never actually studied and lived with these cultures to whom they ascribe this former utopia that tend to paint these rosy pictures. It's people who usually have another agenda who wish to use another culture in another time as a foil to make a point about today.

Some wish to show how "degenerate" we modern civilizations are compared to some ideal earlier time (which never really existed). Or some, like the link above, try to show how we've lost this essential knowledge that only they can bring back to us, and use some mythical time, place or people as an authority for their work. (this is usually around some kind of lost technology, lost "scientific" or spiritual principles, or simpler knowledge of medicine, herbs, exercises, or whatever that was known before, but was lost and has now been rediscovered...)

These appeals to antiquity or "others" as some kind of greater authority are pleasing to think about, and compelling as an idea, but very seldom have any kind of truth to them. This is not to say that everything we do these days is the best way. For example, our diet.

The idea of the paleolithic diet is not appealing to some greater wisdom that our paleo ancestors possessed that we forget. It's not about what they knew, but how they evolved, what they did to survive in their environment. You can bet that if they had found a whole orchard of fruit, they would have stuffed themselves silly and gained a bunch of weight while the fruit was still ripe. They wouldn't have turned away from a time-traveling cake because it was made of easily digestible carbs.

Their concern was surviving. We no longer share that concern to the same degree in the same ways. Ours is not a problem of finding enough food, ours is finding enough food that we know now is good for us, and staying away from the overly abundant food that isn't. We have this knowledge because of science and reason, not because Dr. Atkins, or William Banting for that matter, discovered it in scrolls of ancient wisdom that they are imparting to us.

Both of these points, the sympathetic magic, and the "noble savage", are examples of wishful thinking. Just because something makes us feel good, doesn't make it true. Just because something seems to make sense, doesn't make it true. Yes, the heart of an animal contains nutrients that could be useful to our heart, but so do other parts of the body. It's an historically interesting concept, but I wouldn't use it as a dietary guideline.

Plane
Off on a tear again this morning. :)

[ProteusOne]

Both of these points, the sympathetic magic, and the "noble savage", are examples of wishful thinking. Just because something makes us feel good, doesn't make it true. Just because something seems to make sense, doesn't make it true. Yes, the heart of an animal contains nutrients that could be useful to our heart, but so do other parts of the body. It's an historically interesting concept, but I wouldn't use it as a dietary guideline.

Plane
Off on a tear again this morning. :)
Ah, great post, Plane! I particularly agree with your point that if something makes us feel good, it isn't necessarily true. I often find that I like the "idea" of things, but after careful observation, have to dismiss the notion. There are many things about evolution that I like and don't like, but have to accept them both as the best principles that we currently have.

Cosmic is largely comic.

[Nancy LC]

I'd suggest the Guns, Germs and Steel on DVD. I never did get into the book but the DVD was wonderful. You can rent them on netflix if you have that.

[Kskline]

Well fortunately or unfortunately, I am a picky eater and I don't like organ meats of any kind and don't think I will every like them and I am unwilling to try them. I remember as a kid my mom making liver and once was enough.

Kim

[waywardsis]

Watched GG&S last night! I am now a Diamond fan as well. He makes a compelling argument.

As for sympathetic 'magic' - perhaps its useful as a tool to help us believe that something is true (hearts give me courage in battle) and then make it true (I feel courageous heading into battle, bc I ate a crapload of hearts). Certainly can help get the mind on track, no? :)

[Nancy LC]

Did you fall apart at the part about Germs with the kids in the hospital dying of malaria? Man... that ripped my heart out.

[HunterMan]

Hi,
Apologies for my temporary absence

That was an interesting post Planecrazy, I just would like to add that I believe food contributes in certain but significant ways, it doesn't change our character or strength by its self but it does contribute.

As for natives wageing violent battles, I believe that was a possibility amongst some tribes how ever it was virtually absent from others such as the Australian aboriginals. Any way that is large scale societal conflicts between tribes, I believe individual violence was not very common, nowadays there might not be as many people proportionately affected from warfare violence but there are defiantly more violent individuals who hurt others through robbery, murder, assault etc. so groups of people might not be as violent but individual people are.

Mental diseases such as depression are also at all time highs, but what is their cause, there are many theories but I believe inadequate nutrition is one of the main factors.