I'm sorry, B12 isn't a bacterium. It ias produced by bacteria. It seesm that if you want to get it from well manured vegetables, they need to be fertilized with human manure and then eaten unwashed!

This link is from the vegetarian society - you mught trust it more than something form us meat eaters:

http://www.vegsoc.org/info/b12.html
The current nutritional consensus is that no plant foods can be relied on as a safe source of vitamin B12.

This link to the vegan society is also interesting:
http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/nutrition/b12/

Clinical deficiency can cause anaemia or nervous system damage. Most vegans consume enough B12 to avoid clinical deficiency. Two subgroups of vegans are at particular risk of B12 deficiency: long-term vegans who avoid common fortified foods (such as raw food vegans or macrobiotic vegans) and breastfed infants of vegan mothers whose own intake of B12 is low.

If for any reason you choose not to use fortified foods or supplements you should recognise that you are carrying out a dangerous experiment - one that many have tried before with consistently low levels of success

I'm not having a go. It's just that I have no desire to see you get ill - even if we do not share the same philosophies on food!

IMO, PETA Members may be doing what they think is right on some level, but on a larger scale they don't know what PETA itself is actually DOING!

A lot of members are probably well-meaning animal lovers, totally unaware of what the zealots on the upper levels are doing with the money generated by the "troops".

PF that may be, but if someone is going to join and support an organization, especially in a financial way, wouldn't it be wise to first investigate a little and find out who that organization in turn supports? The links between PETA and terrorist groups like SHAQ and ALF are all over the internet. The average PETA member may not be involved in such shady doings but their financial contributions support it for those that do engage in such things.

Yeah, I agree, Peta is probably not the best example of appropriate activism. It's principles are sound, but it takes the wrong approach.

RCFletcher:

I've seen the vegsociety site and I do realize that eating any vegetable grown in manure rich soil is not going to render it replete with B12. The only non-animal source of B12 I can imagine would be the mushroom simply because of its ability to absorb nutrients. I'm guessing any fungi with similar properties would have the same ability, but I don't know. Oddly enough,I find the psychological aspect of primitive diet(s) quite fascinating.The 'reward system' of fruit and why it's better not to exercise immediately after eating ( scavenging I suppose preceded eating ) are especially neat. I could go on and on.




I don't base the validity of arguments on your depraved morality. I'm kidding, thanks for replying to my posts.

Dear NoLogo,

Quote:
"I don't base the validity of arguments on your depraved morality".

OK, so you're kidding. I have been a vegetarian. I was one for about 7 years right through college and university. I don't regard it as a moral issue. I realised my own reasons for being a vegetarian were seriously flawed and I actually really liked meat so I went back to eating it.

I can't understand if you are interested in primative diets why you don't eat meat. Man has hunted since he started to walk upright and even species of humans which came before Homo Sapiens used fire to cook food. (I have seen preserved remains of fires in caves where Neanderthal (sp?) man lived in both Gibraltar and Torquay, Devon, UK.

From speaking to a vegan friend (yes, I have one) I understand the only real source of B12 available to vegans is yeast extract. (English products like marmite) maybe you should look into this.

I agree, bluesmoke. I was going to say that it sounds like someone is in the mood for a good old fashioned argument. but isn't this what the forum is for? they even warn you about it before you join in. Iv'e got my ringside seat.

Robert,

When or not unfortified yeast has the form of B12 that the body can use is not clear cut. From the Mercola web site http://www.mercola.com/2002/jan/26/...sm_myths_02.htm

Okay. Well if we argue that cooking food is a by-product of evolution, then the potato can't be that bad ( although I no longer eat them myself ). We could then posit that agriculture is a by-product of evolution as well. Again, why meat should be cooked, from this perspective , is not too clear. So basically, and my interest is mainly in science, we can ascribe to either very little fat-high carbs or very little carbs- high fat philosophies. I personally, and you know this by now, practice the latter ( in a modified form ). I also try to cope with the world and its overwhelming array of chioce by simplification. Raw broccoli tastes good and apricots taste good , so therefore by expansion, all food should be eaten raw. I know that sounds like incredibly spartan logic, but it does make sense to me.

As far as reconciling vegan raw foodism from an evolutionary standpoint, I try. I suppose the biggest step towards this would be to resolve the elusive 'sources of B12' conundrum. Also, it remains unclear at what point early man began hunting animals, in the sense that he was not born with a tool in his hand, nor are there any polaroids of said man with his bare hands clutching a sabre tooth. My 0.02. Tell me what you think.

Possibly, but along those lines of thinking, man has been eating meat, cooked or raw, far longer than he has been farming grains; millions of years vs. about 10,000 years. Evolutionarily speaking, 10,000 years is a mere blip on the radar screen and it's debatable whether or not this is enough time for humans to adapt to a grain based diet versus a meat/fat based one with a little gathering of vegetation (in season) thrown in. Humans can survive quite well idefinitely without carbohydrates, but they don't last very long (certainly not long enough to reproduce) without an adequate source of proteins and fats. Archaeology again has shown that as ancient cultures moved away from hunting/gathering and towards farming, the health of the people suffered (bones and teeth tell a great deal about the health of the deceased) and examinations of mummies from ancient Egypt tell a similar story; obesity, heart disease and dental caries, all in a culture that was eating a high grain diet.



Granted, there are no photographs, but there are quite a few ancient cave drawings depicting hunting activities (the cave man version of photos) as well as other archaeological evidence that man has been hunting far longer than he has been farming and before that, he was likely scavanging for the protein and fat after predatory animals had eaten their fill, eating the brains and marrow that the predators couldn't get to (very high in fat!) by breaking the skulls and bones with rocks.



Potatoes have only been routinely eaten for about the past 400 years or so (if that long) and have been highly hybridized since they were first introduced.

In a sense man was "born with a tool in his hand", or at least predisposed to a talent for tool-using. If the tool-using capabilities of modern primates such as gorillas and chimps are any indication, tool using could have begun far before the "early man" stage. I also believe that meat eating began with paleo-primates for a similar reason: modern primates consume animal food when they can get it. Insects are likely the most regular source, but chimps have been documented hunting and eating monkeys.

Here's a good link: http://beyondveg.com/

You might also want to check out the Paleo/Neanderthin board.

Wyv

It is interesting that strict vegetarians who moved to Britain from India went down with B12 deficiency which they had never suffered from in India. When investigated it was found that the rice they were consuming in India had insect faeces and parts of insects in it which the many times washed British rice did not.



You could also argue that atomic bombs and genetic engineering are a by product of evolution using your train of thinking.

Hunter gatherers such as Australian aboriganies are quite fond of many types of insects and grubs - you don't need a weapon in your hand to collect them. Prehistoric peoples living in Scotland left middens (trash heaps) behind which were full of shellfish shells - you don't need a weapon to collect shellfish either. As commented earlier, primates much less evolved than we hunt and kill. I am at a loss to understand why you think humans ever at a vegetarian diet at any part of their evolution.

Potatoes cannot be eaten raw...therefore you don't eat them. There is nothing wrong with potatoes - I agree 100% - unless you are overweight and following a low carb plan to get your body back into a healtthier state. You comment that certain things are nice raw - great, meat is nicer cooked than raw.

By the way, I don't agree that that Nologo is a troll. He is obviously a low carb, high fibre, raw food vegan - and as a low carb comrade we should regard him as a comrade in our jouney to find the healthiest way of eating. He also puts a lot of thought into what he eats - as we do.

In prehistoric times meat was often eaten raw. Some people still eat meat raw. Check out the paleo board here, there's a whole thread about eating raw meat and the health benefits (as well as ways to avoid potential health dangers).

Also, I believe NoLogo is a female (at least based on her profile).

-J

I've known people who liked to eat raw potatoes. It didn't seem to affect their health.

Potatoes were first cultivated about 7000 years ago. It was 400 years ago that Europeans started eating them.

History of the potato:

http://www.indepthinfo.com/potato/history.shtml

They were eaten in certain regions of South America (although they looked very different from what they do now) as long as 7,000 years ago (still even less time than man has been involved in agriculture) and were not widely eaten until about the last 400 years. The leaves of the potato plant are toxic and the raw potato can be toxic if it is grown exposed to too much air and has a greenish tint to it.
The sweet potato is a tropical plant and so would not have been eaten by northern peoples until transportation made that possible. Raw, they are very tough and fibrous and, I imagine, rather difficult to chew.