Re:Civilizational Collapse, Part 4
by chrisco255 on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @04:41PM
(#20814223)
You're talking about the loss of solar energy, which all life derives from. That has nothing to do with caloric energy and nutrients derived from food. I get that plants have the largest biomass on the planet and animals syphon off a tiny fraction of their energy, but a hunter-gatherer doesn't give a damn about the trophic equation. Isn't even aware such a thing exists.
This article is false. The Navajo / Clovis Indians never stopped eating meat. They continued to hunt and they raised lamb and goats. Mutton formed a staple of their diet, along with fried bread and goat milk. Clothing was formed from deer skin and yucca fiber. Note, they hunted the deer. And note, they ate the deer. They also ate the yucca, but it wasn't all they ate.
"The people in this area responded in an interesting way: by focusing much more on gathering, and less on hunting. We know this from their improved tools for processing plants, especially yucca roots."
Just because they improved tools for eating yucca doesn't mean they stopped hunting. Presumably, all of their tools improved, including hunting tools.
They also raised lamb and sheep. I've been to the Taos Pueblo near there, it's 1000 years old and it has a large meat rack centered in the village, for drying meat out for jerky and pemmican.
The caloric density of meat and protein / fat content is much, much higher than found in vegetables...especially wild vegetables.
And no, we don't have the same gut bacteria or digestive tracks as livestock. Sheep, goats, and cows all have four chambered stomachs and are ruminants. They have trillions of microbes in their stomach to process grass and break down cellulose. They also have a digestive tract that is 27 times longer their bodies versus a human's 3 or 4 times length. We couldn't digest grass like them if we tried. Plant foods are much harder to process than animal foods, because of cellulose. The human gut length ratio is similar to an obligate predator like cats.
This article is false. The Navajo / Clovis Indians never stopped eating meat. They continued to hunt and they raised lamb and goats. Mutton formed a staple of their diet, along with fried bread and goat milk. Clothing was formed from deer skin and yucca fiber. Note, they hunted the deer. And note, they ate the deer. They also ate the yucca, but it wasn't all they ate.
https://navajopeople.org/navajo-food.htm
"The people in this area responded in an interesting way: by focusing much more on gathering, and less on hunting. We know this from their improved tools for processing plants, especially yucca roots."
Just because they improved tools for eating yucca doesn't mean they stopped hunting. Presumably, all of their tools improved, including hunting tools.
They also raised lamb and sheep. I've been to the Taos Pueblo near there, it's 1000 years old and it has a large meat rack centered in the village, for drying meat out for jerky and pemmican.
The caloric density of meat and protein / fat content is much, much higher than found in vegetables...especially wild vegetables.
And no, we don't have the same gut bacteria or digestive tracks as livestock. Sheep, goats, and cows all have four chambered stomachs and are ruminants. They have trillions of microbes in their stomach to process grass and break down cellulose. They also have a digestive tract that is 27 times longer their bodies versus a human's 3 or 4 times length. We couldn't digest grass like them if we tried. Plant foods are much harder to process than animal foods, because of cellulose. The human gut length ratio is similar to an obligate predator like cats.