Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hana Rous on February 7, 2012 at 11:56am

I've met the "no organ meats" opinion many times in my deqalings with American friends. I'm not keen on kidneys or heart myself, although my mother cooked them for us when i was a child, but i do like liver cooked with bacon.I do it about once every couple of weeks. Lambs liver is the tastiest.
Hana

Permalink Reply by BadMoonT2 on February 7, 2012 at 10:29am

A while back I decided to do a fast and dirty survey to see if there's any nutrient we need that we can get only from grains. I went to a page on the "Grains they're Essential" website. I wrote down their list and then Goggled for alternate sources of the various nutrients. The list of alternate sources looked like what you would call a balanced diet, but without the grains, ie. meat, fish, nuts, vegetables esp. green leafy ones. So I for one am not worried one bit.

The only reason to eat grains is to get lots of fast acting carbs. I have seen statistics that half of the population has trouble dealing with said fast acting carbs. If you are blessed with a metabolism friendly to the agricultural revolution, then grains are indeed healthy, but if your metabolism leans more toward a hunter gatherers, grain = poison IMHO.

Permalink Reply by LaGuitariste on February 7, 2012 at 1:44pm

Thanks, BadMoonT2. That's kinda what I suspected. I remember hearing about Asian people getting Beriberi after switching to polished white rice from whole-grain brown rice, but I suspected starvation (lack of food in general) was the real culprit there. I just did a quick search and sure enough, it was prevalent in people who at white rice almost exclusively as their only food (e.g. low-level sailors in Asian navy's of the 19th century.) From the wiki:

"Beriberi is caused by a lack of thiamine (vitamin B1). Thiamine occurs naturally in unrefined cereals and fresh foods, particularly whole grain bread, fresh meat, legumes, green vegetables, fruit, milk, etc. Beriberi is therefore common in people whose diet excludes these particular types of nutrition e.g. as a result of famine."

Permalink Reply by Natalie ._c- on February 7, 2012 at 1:55pm

Meanwhile, remember that in general the East Asian (or at least Japanese) poor may ONLY have had rice to eat, along with a very FEW vegetables, and fish was so rare for inlanders that they dried it and used the shavings as a garnish -- so they did get B vitamins from the brown rice and millet that were their staples, but when they got a LITTLE richer, and were able to afford WHITE rice, like the rich people ate (but without the copious vegetables and fish the rich people ate), then the beriberi epidemic hit -- at first no one knew just what was wrong, but eventually they figured it out. By which time, the diet of the poor people had improved, although beriberi really didn't stop until after WWII.

Permalink Reply by LaGuitariste on February 7, 2012 at 3:04pm

The article said it is also found in modern times in chronic alcoholics -- people who drink their breakfast, lunch and dinner show up in the ER with advanced Beriberi. Very sad.

Permalink Reply by Knightshade on February 7, 2012 at 11:41am

LOL - the food pyramid is a thing of the past....
It has been replaced with a "plate", which has less emphasis on grains.

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/

That said, carbohydrates (one of the main things in grain) are not essential nutrients.

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