Hi all. I am a vegan and I've been following this group for quite some time, and while having read the pinned posts, as well as the miscellaneous threads, I do have some questions. I will try and muddle them down into just two questions. Forgive me if either has been answered before; I am not an avid facebook user. (I put a tl;dr at the bottom for those who do not have time for my ramblings)
1) Vegans. I know we all come in many varieties, and as I've seen here, many of you have been vegan before, too. I consider myself a vegan for the welfare of animals. This means I am strongly opposed to factory farming; however, if I am able to catch a fish in the wild, I would gladly eat it. If I had chickens, I would eat their eggs. You get the idea.
My question here is, it is stated under Principia Carnivora that all meat is fair game (no pun intended), so long as it doesn't exceed carb counts, however, is it common on ZC to consume factory farmed animals? If so, welfare aside, how do you reconcile the health benefits of ZC with the consumption of (usually) very diseased and hormone pumped animals?
2) The second question is regarding health. I'm young myself, so give me a pardon if I sound like I'm trying to know it all... I've been studying the effects of various diets, and have given each about 6-8 months of experimentation. The diets I have done have been keto, paleo, vegetarian, pescetarian, and vegan. I was curious how each one would make me feel. Perhaps 8 months was too short a time span? I digress.
My point being, most research points to the Sardinian and Okinawan diets as being the healthiest. These are from the Mediterranean and Japanese areas, respectively. It is also not hard to believe this, as Okinawa and Sardinia have the highest rates of centenarians (people who live to be over 100 years old), so while they live long, they also live well. These two diets are primarily made up of seafood, little grain, in season vegetables and fruit, high fat, and little to no red meat.
From a ZC perspective, how would this be refuted? And I would like to make clear that I am not interested in weight loss (though I understand its importance). I am interested in longevity.
tl;dr:
1) Do you consume factory farmed products? Why or why not?
2) Why is a ZC diet superior to other diets that have proven to provide longevity and health?
Thank you for your time
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Hi there, Jenya. I live in New Zealand and most of the cattle here are raised on grass and are looked after their whole lives. Humans have moved to an agrarian lifestyle over the last 15,000 years or so and while there are a number of places in the world where people are still predominantly hunter gatherers, they are few and far between. We have not however changed much in our nutritional needs. We still need the nine (out of 22) essential amino acids and two essential fatty acids. The most straightforward way to get these are from animal flesh.
For most of us these days it is going to have to be a compromise. We have, as a society, moved away from living off the land. This may change in the future, but we have no way of knowing for certain. There is little doubt in my mind that the most nutrient dense way (and therefore most efficient) is to eat animals. Everything else represents a compromise as to how far one will go toward plants as food.
One thing for certain is that our species is rapidly outgrowing the capacity of our system to provide the most nutritious food for us. We may have to take steps to reduce our population (it does seem to be slowing). We need to make sure we are managing the land in the best way and that may mean going back to the prairies of old and allowing the soil to remain healthy.
