Hi Robert >Keith Addison wrote: > > > Hi Kirk > > > > Interesting one - I posted it before, but no harm in posting it > > again. There was some discussion on it: > > http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/BIOFUEL/31859/ > > > > A couple of weeks ago it came up at SANET, the SustAg list, with > > quite a lot more discussion, including some objections by Biofuel > > member Kim Travis, with which I agreed. I posted a response to the > > original post there, from Misha - sustainable food production and > > sustainable fuel/energy have a lot in common, quite a lot about both > > in my reply, so I'll post it again here: > >It seems as if we have some contradictory information here. On one >hand, the Richard Manning article claims that the the four cereal grains >commonly grown for human consumption are largely responsible for the >decline in soil health. Hunting and gathering, the traditionally held >"occupation" of early humans, is stated to have produced healthier >people than early agriculture could sustain. So why would anyone bother >domesticating grain?
I think there was much more to it than that, including complicated movement, displacement, migration, settlement patterns of different peoples with different cultural influences and different needs and techniques, along with climatic and vegetation changes (retreat of forests etc), geological changes opened new routes and closed others. I don't think it's all very clearly understood yet, probably never will be. Manning's picture is perhaps a bit simplistic. I don't think a bunch of cavemen suddenly decided, Hey, sod this hunting and fishing lark, let's domesticate some grain so we can get take-away pizzas, and then found themselves envassaled to the Pizza King. > This seems strange to me from a purely anthropological and >physiological perspective. I have been a vegetarian for since age 7 or >8. I didn't want to "hurt animals" by eating them, everybody in my >family thought I was crazy and would end up unhealthy, but I've stuck >with it and though I'm now into my 40's, I'm far from unhealthy. We >humans have a relatively long intestinal tract, in which >biomagnification of toxins consumed in flesh foods can easily take >place. (In the natural world, predators tend to have sharp teeth and >short intestines.) Although we're fairly large creatures, we don't run >fast and without tools, we're not terribly effective hunters. Maybe it depends on who exactly is "we". I was reading an account of a Turkana hunter who chased a male ostrich non-stop for three days and then killed it with his spear. I found myself asking, What kind of a man would an ostrich run away from? An ostrich is not something you meddle with, not just an oversized chicken. It has this kind of leaping run, 17ft per stride, comes at you like a train and kicks forward and up with that big sharp claw... ie it disembowels you a couple of microseconds before it kicks your head off. Anyway, we do have tools, and we also know how to work together - very important, and so easily forgotten by the free-trade trickle-downers who insist we're mainly "competitive". It makes all the difference. Even lions do that, or they don't make a kill, very often. (Often they let the hyenas do the killing and then chase the hyenas away - I can see humans doing something like that too.) Caribou run faster than wolves, don't they? Wildebees are faster than Cape hunting dogs, but the dogs separate one from the herd and then use the whole pack working in relays to chase it round and round in a circle until it gets tired. Also I think hunter-gatherers do a lot of trapping of smaller stuff. >We >produce ptyalin in our saliva--an enzyme that serves to break down >starches, which is a curious characteristic for creatures many believe >depended primarily on animal protein for survival in pre historic >times. (Why would we have starch breaking enzymes in saliva if the >starch grains weren't part of our diet in ancient times?) We have very >thin enamel on our teeth, which suggests that even plant foods HAD to be >cooked in order for our ancestors to chew for years on end. (Also, some >plants are totally indigestible unless they are cooked first!) The >physiological characteristics of human anatomy suggest the hunter / >gatherer / cook model is likely an accurate one. So if a community of >hunter / gatherer / cooks is thriving, why switch strategies? Why indeed? Quite a lot is known about their diet, and I don't think this is at issue any more, or shouldn't be, the answers are there. Seems we're not carnivores, and we're not vegetarians either, we're omnivores, non-specialists, and we can specialise if we like, as long as we do it properly. Then it becomes a question of, not so much "vegetables" as "which particular vegetables"? Grown how, in what kind kind of soil, how fresh, prepared in which way? As with meat. Of course it matters anyway, but probably more so if you specialise. There are or recently have been successful and very healthy traditional societies that eat meat and not much else - meat and fish, or meat and milk and cattle-blood, for intance - and other successful and very healthy traditional societies that eat very little meat, but no traditional societies that ate no meat - or at least none that managed to sustain an agricultural system without livestock. Soil needs animals and plants both. We discussed this before, eh? I've tried to find out, through research and through my own work over 25 years, if it's possible to replace livestock in a sustainable food system with the humans themselves (humanure) and worms (vermicomposting), but I doubt it - if it is possible it sure wouldn't be easy. Um, please excuse me Robert... Kirk, Alan, somebody told Robert that Weston A. Price was a crank who promoted eugenics. I tried to disabuse him of this baseless slander of a great scientist and a great human, but it seems apparent he hasn't read "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" yet, and I'm sure you'll agree he definitely should! Price had NOTHING to do with eugenics, nor would he, that's a really gross misrepresentation of Price's work. Robert, I'm certain Kirk and Alan and probably others will agree with me, and that you should read Price. Surely you can't believe that any of us would have anything to do with someone pushing eugenics? Have you read this? http://journeytoforever.org/text_price.html The Darwin of nutrition - Weston A. Price Then read Steve Solomon's review, linked from there, and that should convince you - the full book is online. Very clear that Manning hasn't read Price either, he wouldn't be so negative if he had, and a olot better informed. King's "Farmers of 40 Centuries" helps too. > Aboriginal people in North America, who depended on a hunter / >gatherer economy before Europeans arrived, generally scraped by through >"feast" and "famine" cycles dictated by the weather. (Except in >California, which was particularly gentle on the aboriginal >inhabitants.) It seems likely, to me anyway, that planting cereal >grains and storing them enabled the "wheat - beef" people in Europe to >survive the "famine" cycles afflicting their neighbors. In Keith's >follow up post, a quote from G.T. Wrench suggests that the organization >enabling the "wheat - beef" people to protect their harvest from nomads >seeded the "top down" command structure characteristic of wealth and >power distribution of modern human society. > > So if people developed agriculture as a means to prevent starvation, >and if the four major cereal crops contribute to the break down of soil >fertility, it seems very ironic that the strategy used to ensure our >survival and domination as a species could contribute to our downfall. I share your scepticism, as you'll have gathered. But, Robert, what downfall is that? We're going strong, indeed we face a whole bunch of very urgent and vexing questions and challenges, which could mean the end of us and everything if we get it all wrong or just bury our heads, but that's nothing new, though the urgency mounts. We haven't failed yet, there's no indication that failure is inevitable, there's every reason for optimism. News of our demise is premature. > In contrast to this conclusion, the "small farms" resource page on >"Journey to Forever" suggests that small farms, using intensive methods >involving multiple crops, trees and livestock, represent a sustainable >method for food production. How can this be, given that the grains we >grow for food contribute to soil depletion? (Rice farming in Thailand >is an example of this quandary.) Is it? Not that I know of. Could you explain? Rice-farming systems are sustainable, but note that rice is nutritionally inferior to wheat - see Robert McCarrison, and also Wrench, previously referred to, in "The Wheel of Health", both at the Small Farms Library: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html. One of the reasons for legumes in the rotation. > I've spoken to several local farmers who insist that cows produce >low volumes of poor quality milk if they aren't fed grain, And are fed what? Grass is grass is grass? No way. Good pasture means good everything. >and I've >wondered what milk was like in the days before grain feeding became >common. High quality, where pasture management was well understood and practised, as is still the case. >Also, if grain grasses are not climax vegetation, how can our >animals be adapted to consume them? If we HAVE to feed grain to our >cattle, swine and poultry in order for their products to be fit for >human consumption, and if the grains we're feeding them destroy our >soil, what other options do we have? Stop listening to ADM and Cargill? It's complete crap that we have to feed them grain. > Or, perhaps, are the conclusions about soil depletion and cereal >grains argued by Richard Manning are inaccurate? Baseless, IMHO. regards Keith >robert luis rabello >"The Edge of Justice" >Adventure for Your Mind >http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/9782 Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
