Feeding Animals Grain, vs hay, produce, morality?

[michaels4gardens]

The Elder did go on to tell me about the sadness he has about the lack of spirituality exibited by the last few "lost"generations, the drug abuse, and decadent life style, no interest in their culture and traditions, and other problems of his people.
But-- he was encouraged by some recent interest shown by some of "his people" to learn old ways and stories, as well as starting to grow their own Taro [the sacred food] for their own food supply. [I used to be a grower / supplier of about 50 Taro varieties, and was a supplier to many mainland growers, as well as providing protocol for cooking / canning times , for some taro [colocasia esculenta] varieties]

 

[Heartbased Homestead]

Many people also believe that the iron found in certain plants, for example, spinach, is readily used by our bodies. Not so! The oxalic acid in many greens tie up the iron so that it cannot be properly separated and absorbed in the intestines,( the oxalic acids, though, love to enter our bodies, and for some people, set up housekeeping as kidney stones)

Love your comments. I'm not sure if you're still active here and this is an old threat, but I found it and I had to dig it back up to add:
There is also zero vitamin A in plant foods. Zero. All that talk about how carrots and orange plants "help your eyes" is another lie about the human-available nutrients in plants. What plants do have (rather than true vitamin A) is a precursor which not only blocks absorption of true vitamin A in animal foods, but it the precursor is only converted into true vitamin A at the highest possible ratio of only about 5%. On top of this, many humans cannot make this conversion whatsoever - such as infants under 2 year old and diabetics - so if there are no animal food in their diet they are dangerously deficient and even if there are animal foods, the presence of these plant foods also blocks the available nutrition of the animal foods.

I love me some sweet potato and a few raw carrots, I'm not afraid of eating them as the rest of my diet is meat-based and very healthy, but I certainly do not eat them for health (as I used to, when I was at my most unhealthy state as a vegetarian)

The iron in red blood is the best way to get the Heme iron we need to build blood and other tissues. Fish have a glycerine based/enhanced blood supply- not too good about releasing iron.

This is so interesting about fish. I had no idea. And the bit about fish not being a complete protein?! This is new info to me, but it makes sense. Thank you for sharing this info

 

[maize&soy]

Love your comments. I'm not sure if you're still active here and this is an old threat, but I found it and I had to dig it back up to add:
There is also zero vitamin A in plant foods. Zero. All that talk about how carrots and orange plants "help your eyes" is another lie about the human-available nutrients in plants. What plants do have (rather than true vitamin A) is a precursor which not only blocks absorption of true vitamin A in animal foods, but it the precursor is only converted into true vitamin A at the highest possible ratio of only about 5%. On top of this, many humans cannot make this conversion whatsoever - such as infants under 2 year old and diabetics - so if there are no animal food in their diet they are dangerously deficient and even if there are animal foods, the presence of these plant foods also blocks the available nutrition of the animal foods.

I love me some sweet potato and a few raw carrots, I'm not afraid of eating them as the rest of my diet is meat-based and very healthy, but I certainly do not eat them for health (as I used to, when I was at my most unhealthy state as a vegetarian)



This is so interesting about fish. I had no idea. And the bit about fish not being a complete protein?! This is new info to me, but it makes sense. Thank you for sharing this info

I just want to say that even though vegetables contain carotenoids and not actual, preformed vitamin A, it's not really accurate to imply this means they're a bad source of vitamin A. For example, two medium sweet potatoes contain 34,527 ug of beta carotene. If your body converts just 2% of that into vitamin A, that's 690.64 ug of vitamin A - almost (but not quite) your entire daily requirement, which is about 700 ug.

The conversion rate is low because the carotenoid content of a lot of plants is REALLY high, especially green leafy vegetables cooked and eaten in large amounts, and your body doesn't need staggeringly high quantities of vitamin A. I mean, there's a reason vitamin A toxicity is a *thing* that can occur.. your body only needs so much vitamin A and it is fat soluable, so it can't readily excrete it if too much is consumed via ridiculous quantities of liver or supplements.

It's the same with vitamin D, an overdose via food or supplements is possible, but not via sunlight because the body will only create what it needs. I know we as a society tend to think that the more vitamins, minerals, protein .etc. the better, but your body doesn't necessarily agree with that.

Beta carotene also does not block the absorption of retinol - retinol is absorbed by passive diffusion, as in your body doesn't really do anything in particular to absorb it, while beta carotene is absorbed by active transport and converted into retinol by an enzyme. There's no mechanism that would cause beta carotene to act as an antinutrient in this context. They don't compete at all.

If anything, retinol inhibits the absorption and conversion of beta carotene, since the protein responsible for transporting it and the enzyme responsible for converting it into retinol are downregulated whenever the body already has enough vitamin A/retinol.

 

[Heartbased Homestead]

Thank you for your comment Maize&Soy. I will have to review the issues I see in further detail later when I have more time. For now, it is imperative to not allow more misinformation to be spread without challenge. There has been an anti-scientific attack on Vitamin A in the media and mainstream sources. I ask that everyone remain open to this idea as they review the following sources...

(Note: I had no idea about this either and I understand your take is valid and logical, it's just possibly based on corruption in the scientific community and not your fault or problem in the slightest. This is no shade to you, or attempting to outwit. This is an open conversation so if you have more to add after reviewing my info I'd be grateful to recieve.)

 

[Heartbased Homestead]

I hope you don't mind but most of my resources will be from the Weston A Price Foundation. I consider it very high quality but you will have to decide for yourself, many other sources are discussing this issue online but I have not had time to verify them. A quote from this article is apologetically, very dry (most of the article itself isnt), yet sums up Price's work and the corruption in the media, and the biggest missing truth:

That Vitamin A is the most important nutrient for humans

From their writings:

Weston Price considered the fat-soluble vitamins, especially vitamin A, to be the catalysts on which all other biological processes depend.9 Efficient mineral uptake and utilization of water-soluble vitamins require sufficient vitamin A in the diet. His research demonstrated that generous amounts of vitamin A insure healthy reproduction and offspring with attractive wide faces, straight teeth and strong sturdy bodies. He discovered that healthy native peoples especially value vitamin-A-rich foods for growing children and pregnant mothers. The tenfold disparity that Price discovered between indigenous diets and the American diet in the 1940s is almost certainly greater today as Americans have forsworn butter and cod liver oil for empty, processed polyunsaturates.

In Third World communities that have come into contact with the West, vitamin-A deficiencies are widespread and contribute to high infant mortality, blindness, stunting, bone deformities and susceptibility to infection.10 These occur even in communities that have access to plentiful carotenes in vegetables and fruits. Scarcity of good quality dairy products, a rejection of organ meats as old fashioned or unhealthful, and a substitution of vegetable oil for animal fat in cooking all contribute to the physical degeneration and suffering of Third World peoples.

Supplies of vitamin A are so vital to the human organism that mankind is able to store large quantities of it in the liver and other organs. Thus it is possible for an adult to subsist on a fat-free diet for a considerable period of time before overt symptoms of deficiency appear. But during times of stress, vitamin A stores are rapidly depleted. Strenuous physical exercise, periods of physical growth, pregnancy, lactation and infection are stresses that quickly deplete vitamin A stores. Children with measles rapidly use up vitamin A, which can result in irreversible blindness.

 

[Heartbased Homestead]

This article might better showcase the corruption in the media and science community, specifically. Although there are multiple articles which show this multifaceted media mis-coverage phenomenon.

 

[Heartbased Homestead]

multifaceted media mis-coverage phenomenon

The things we come up with to avoid the word conspiracy. Apologies for any snobbiness my tone exudes.

 

[maize&soy]

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think preformed vitamin A is bad - I just disagreed that plant foods are not a good source of vitamin A due to their limited conversion. Just felt that it was too much of a generalization, and a little bit misleading (though not intentionally so, I'm sure, you don't strike me as that type of person at all.)

Of course, there are polymorphisms (genetic variants) that individuals can have that prevent them from making the conversion and you're correct in that very young children, babies and individuals with conditions like diabetes also have difficulty.

I brought up vitamin A toxicity only as another explanation for why the body's conversion of beta carotene can be so low; if it converted all beta carotene ingested, it would create too much vitamin A, especially when you take into account how many vegetables some people and cultures will eat. Think the Southern USA's tradition of collard greens with bacon grease/ham hocks or the West African habit of stewed greens... or think about what happens to a pound of spinach when you cook it, haha.

You can really end up eating quite a lot in a sitting or throughout the day and since leaves are low in calories, but quite abundant and easy to gather, I think it makes sense that our bodies possess the ability not to stupidly overconvert beta carotene. Think back to medieval peasants without much else to eat come spring after they've eaten everything over winter or hunter gatherers after a failed hunt. The body must also use energy (calories, ATP, yadayada) to DO the conversion, while preformed vitamin A is just passively absorbed by the digestive system with no extra effort, so with an eye toward efficiency the body won't do more of the former than it has to.

Those were very insightful articles and I agree that animal foods are very important and that they've been unfairly maligned, especially (imo) in terms of obesity and chronic disease. I was raised vegan myself and so I never really developed much of a preference for them, but animals and by extension foods derived from animals are integral to both human health and food security, as well as the sustainability of agriculture. I mean, sure, you can manufacture supplements to fill in the nutritional gaps, you can use a gas guzzling tractor to plow your fields instead of an ox or horse, but you can't do it indefinitely and you certainly can't do it independently.

That's unsettling, to say the least.

I plan to eventually eat dairy as I enter middle age, so I don't develop sarcopenia going into my 60s and beyond. My parents, bless them, look like a gust of wind could snap them in half. They were fine when I was a kid, but it seems like old age and veganism do not mix. I also think that veganism and illness or traumatic injury probably don't mix, as well as veganism and childhood/pregnancy. I mean, I was/am fine, but I think I am just benefiting from being Indian lol. India has been vegetarian for millennia, so I think for me genetically vegan is not too much of a leap.

 

[Lil Acorn Acres Farm]

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think preformed vitamin A is bad - I just disagreed that plant foods are not a good source of vitamin A due to their limited conversion. Just felt that it was too much of a generalization, and a little bit misleading (though not intentionally so, I'm sure, you don't strike me as that type of person at all.)

Of course, there are polymorphisms (genetic variants) that individuals can have that prevent them from making the conversion and you're correct in that very young children, babies and individuals with conditions like diabetes also have difficulty.

I brought up vitamin A toxicity only as another explanation for why the body's conversion of beta carotene can be so low; if it converted all beta carotene ingested, it would create too much vitamin A, especially when you take into account how many vegetables some people and cultures will eat. Think the Southern USA's tradition of collard greens with bacon grease/ham hocks or the West African habit of stewed greens... or think about what happens to a pound of spinach when you cook it, haha.

You can really end up eating quite a lot in a sitting or throughout the day and since leaves are low in calories, but quite abundant and easy to gather, I think it makes sense that our bodies possess the ability not to stupidly overconvert beta carotene. Think back to medieval peasants without much else to eat come spring after they've eaten everything over winter or hunter gatherers after a failed hunt. The body must also use energy (calories, ATP, yadayada) to DO the conversion, while preformed vitamin A is just passively absorbed by the digestive system with no extra effort, so with an eye toward efficiency the body won't do more of the former than it has to.

Those were very insightful articles and I agree that animal foods are very important and that they've been unfairly maligned, especially (imo) in terms of obesity and chronic disease. I was raised vegan myself and so I never really developed much of a preference for them, but animals and by extension foods derived from animals are integral to both human health and food security, as well as the sustainability of agriculture. I mean, sure, you can manufacture supplements to fill in the nutritional gaps, you can use a gas guzzling tractor to plow your fields instead of an ox or horse, but you can't do it indefinitely and you certainly can't do it independently.

That's unsettling, to say the least.

I plan to eventually eat dairy as I enter middle age, so I don't develop sarcopenia going into my 60s and beyond. My parents, bless them, look like a gust of wind could snap them in half. They were fine when I was a kid, but it seems like old age and veganism do not mix. I also think that veganism and illness or traumatic injury probably don't mix, as well as veganism and childhood/pregnancy. I mean, I was/am fine, but I think I am just benefiting from being Indian lol. India has been vegetarian for millennia, so I think for me genetically vegan is not too much of a leap

Raw Goat Milk is the bomb diggity.

 

[john]

I just want to say that even though vegetables contain carotenoids and not actual, preformed vitamin A, it's not really accurate to imply this means they're a bad source of vitamin A. For example, two medium sweet potatoes contain 34,527 ug of beta carotene. If your body converts just 2% of that into vitamin A, that's 690.64 ug of vitamin A - almost (but not quite) your entire daily requirement, which is about 700 ug.

The conversion rate is low because the carotenoid content of a lot of plants is REALLY high, especially green leafy vegetables cooked and eaten in large amounts, and your body doesn't need staggeringly high quantities of vitamin A. I mean, there's a reason vitamin A toxicity is a *thing* that can occur.. your body only needs so much vitamin A and it is fat soluable, so it can't readily excrete it if too much is consumed via ridiculous quantities of liver or supplements.

It's the same with vitamin D, an overdose via food or supplements is possible, but not via sunlight because the body will only create what it needs. I know we as a society tend to think that the more vitamins, minerals, protein .etc. the better, but your body doesn't necessarily agree with that.

Beta carotene also does not block the absorption of retinol - retinol is absorbed by passive diffusion, as in your body doesn't really do anything in particular to absorb it, while beta carotene is absorbed by active transport and converted into retinol by an enzyme. There's no mechanism that would cause beta carotene to act as an antinutrient in this context. They don't compete at all.

If anything, retinol inhibits the absorption and conversion of beta carotene, since the protein responsible for transporting it and the enzyme responsible for converting it into retinol are downregulated whenever the body already has enough vitamin A/retinol.

And not to mention, the whole carrot thing was military deception. During WW2 Allies just received the radar in England. They launched a publicity campaign to say that British pilots ate carrots to attempt a masquerade for the German Spies to hide the fact they had it.
A WWII Propaganda Campaign Popularized the Myth That Carrots Help You See in the Dark

 

[Heartbased Homestead]

I wrote a really kind response but left it halfway finished and it was missing when I got back to it. I just want to make a few important points without having to dance around feelings. I'm sorry if it comes of curt, you are an amicable discussion partner and I value gut feelings and novel ideas more than most, but the evidence points in another direction and I must point that out since there are multiple factors in this conspiracy. Those factors are:

1. false propaganda of Vitamin A toxicity in mainstream media,
2. false propaganda of the importance of Vitamin A in mainstream media (A is the single most important vitamin)
3. Vitamin A is also the hardest vitamin to come by, and especially the hardest to procure enough of in modern culture.
4. the war against fat and animal products, (lack of dietary animal fat completely corrupts Vitamin A intake - as well as precursors).
5. the vegan/plant-based/SAD diets destroying Vitamin A intake by the lack of the most important mineral: zinc (and the high intake of copper which prolongs this issue).
6. that Vitamin A is the single most important nutrient for all body functions and growth, including sleep/circadian rhythms, fertility, organ formation, bone density, height, muscle growth, .
7. high dose vitamin A (even from synthetic sources) has been shown as a cure for almost every disease affliction imaginable. Studies show this, yet the media fails to report these studies, focusing only on the 2 anti-scientific toxicity studies.
8. the symptoms of aging (such as auditory issues, muscle and bone degeneration) are the result of chronic Vitamin A depletion
9. almost all birth defects are the result of Vitamin A depletion

Vitamin A toxicity is essentially impossible from natural sources. There's only been 2 deaths recorded and that's from synthetic vitamin A over many months, it is almost impossible (and would be highly uncomfortable) to make it to the levels of vitamin A toxicity by eating whole food. Even seal and polar bear liver, the highest possible concentrations in nature, cannot induce toxicity to the point of harm: the toxicity symptoms are mild, yet easy to notice, and do not leave any lasting damage whatsoever.
"Within a few hours of ingesting several million units of vitamin A from polar bear or seal liver. These symptoms cleared up with discontinuation of the vitamin A rich food. Other than this unusual example, however, only vitamin A from “megavitamin tablets containing vitamin A. . . when taken for a long time” has induced acute toxicity, that is, 100,000 IU synthetic vitamin A per day taken for many months."

Your theory makes sense at first glance, and I can see why you arrived at that conclusion, but it doesn't hold up to the evidence. It must be reconsidered in light of the factual evidence rather than just emotional reasoning. Alternatively, the lack of Vitamin A has lead to uncountable deaths, diseases, and disfigurements worldwide.

I will provide sources for the rest of the claims, whatever interests you. I still don't have as much time as I wish to dedicate to this most important conversation. I apologize for the directness and bluntness of all this, but it is so important.

Thank you for sharing your history of veganism with me. I was a vegan for 3 years in my teen/young adulthood, and it did so much damage, much of it permenant. But some of it was reparable with 3 years of carnivore. You would be interested to know the history of India prior to vegetarianism. India was unconquerable when they ate red meat. I can't find this source using google/bing now as the internet has been scrubbed, but in 2017 I remember reading a history which detailed a leader implemented vegetarianism in India in order to invade, and after a decade or two they were able to walk in and take over without a single fight.

 

[maize&soy]

I wrote a really kind response but left it halfway finished and it was missing when I got back to it. I just want to make a few important points without having to dance around feelings. I'm sorry if it comes of curt, you are an amicable discussion partner and I value gut feelings and novel ideas more than most, but the evidence points in another direction and I must point that out since there are multiple factors in this conspiracy. Those factors are:

1. false propaganda of Vitamin A toxicity in mainstream media,
2. false propaganda of the importance of Vitamin A in mainstream media (A is the single most important vitamin)
3. Vitamin A is also the hardest vitamin to come by, and especially the hardest to procure enough of in modern culture.
4. the war against fat and animal products, (lack of dietary animal fat completely corrupts Vitamin A intake - as well as precursors).
5. the vegan/plant-based/SAD diets destroying Vitamin A intake by the lack of the most important mineral: zinc (and the high intake of copper which prolongs this issue).
6. that Vitamin A is the single most important nutrient for all body functions and growth, including sleep/circadian rhythms, fertility, organ formation, bone density, height, muscle growth, .
7. high dose vitamin A (even from synthetic sources) has been shown as a cure for almost every disease affliction imaginable. Studies show this, yet the media fails to report these studies, focusing only on the 2 anti-scientific toxicity studies.
8. the symptoms of aging (such as auditory issues, muscle and bone degeneration) are the result of chronic Vitamin A depletion
9. almost all birth defects are the result of Vitamin A depletion

Vitamin A toxicity is essentially impossible from natural sources. There's only been 2 deaths recorded and that's from synthetic vitamin A over many months, it is almost impossible (and would be highly uncomfortable) to make it to the levels of vitamin A toxicity by eating whole food. Even seal and polar bear liver, the highest possible concentrations in nature, cannot induce toxicity to the point of harm: the toxicity symptoms are mild, yet easy to notice, and do not leave any lasting damage whatsoever.
"Within a few hours of ingesting several million units of vitamin A from polar bear or seal liver. These symptoms cleared up with discontinuation of the vitamin A rich food. Other than this unusual example, however, only vitamin A from “megavitamin tablets containing vitamin A. . . when taken for a long time” has induced acute toxicity, that is, 100,000 IU synthetic vitamin A per day taken for many months."

Your theory makes sense at first glance, and I can see why you arrived at that conclusion, but it doesn't hold up to the evidence. It must be reconsidered in light of the factual evidence rather than just emotional reasoning. Alternatively, the lack of Vitamin A has lead to uncountable deaths, diseases, and disfigurements worldwide.

I will provide sources for the rest of the claims, whatever interests you. I still don't have as much time as I wish to dedicate to this most important conversation. I apologize for the directness and bluntness of all this, but it is so important.

Thank you for sharing your history of veganism with me. I was a vegan for 3 years in my teen/young adulthood, and it did so much damage, much of it permenant. But some of it was reparable with 3 years of carnivore. You would be interested to know the history of India prior to vegetarianism. India was unconquerable when they ate red meat. I can't find this source using google/bing now as the internet has been scrubbed, but in 2017 I remember reading a history which detailed a leader implemented vegetarianism in India in order to invade, and after a decade or two they were able to walk in and take over without a single fight.

Don't apologize for being blunt or curt - honestly, I didn't get that impression at all. I'm not very easy to offend. We disagree, and that's OK. No hurt feelings incurred on my end.

I'd love if you could post sources when you have the time; I am always open to learning something new, and potentially being wrong. For one thing, I was not aware that vitamin A toxicity was that uncommon. I certainly was not under the impression that it was an EASY feat by any means to accomplish, either via food or supplements (vitamin D isn't either, for awhile I took 10,000 IUs/day for 12 months and my levels were still within normal range when I had blood work done), but still possible.

For example, with cats if you were to feed them a hefty serving of beef liver every single day for many months, they'd eventually develop vitamin A toxicity. I know people are not cats, but.. most animals work somewhat similarly, yeah?

Also, I don't know anything about the political origins of vegetarianism in India, but different ethnicities have different genetic variants when it comes to enzymes and other... things.. related to processing food. That's why I said I've probably done ok as a vegan due to being Indian.

Indians are really good at converting ALA from vegetables and seeds into DHA and EPA, Japanese people have higher levels of amylase for processing starches, while native Americans tend to be lactose intolerant and some European people cannot efficiently convert beta carotene.

My sources just so you don't think I'm pulling this out of my butt:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien...lymorphisms also affect the,in UK women (43).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien...tivity was assessed,and was unrelated to sex.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6181916/#:~:text=The mean total amylase activity,(179 U/l).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30157936/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27188529/
I'm sorry you suffered as a result of veganism and I'm glad you've found health again and recovered somewhat. It's an unnatural diet for a lot, if not most, people.

I welcome being wrong about vitamin A. If I am incorrect, I want to update my opinion.

 

[HerbertHomestead]

I am very impressed by this discussion. It is so nice to see respectful discussion online.