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Human as frugivore article


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Very interesting article by Herbert Shelton.

 

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/hygienic.review.articles.htm

 

Here are some fascinating ideas:

(what's in red is still from the article and author, I just underlined it)

 

Comparative anatomists tell us that "there is an excellent, although not perfect correlation between the food habits of the animal and the length and shape of the intestine." It is my opinion that where this correlation is not perfect, it is due to the fact that the "adaptation" is not completed. I shall refer to this again towards the end of this article.

 

 

It is commonly thought by vegetarians and fruitarians that the diet of an animal is determined by the internal adaptations of the animal — that an animal eats what he does because he is what he is. The lion, for instance, eats flesh because he is constructed and constituted for such a diet, his claws, his teeth, his digestive tract, his instincts fit him for this bill-of-fare.

 

That this is true today seems evident enough; but has this always been so? Was the lion always a flesh-eater, a killer, and was he always adapted to the flesh diet?

We do not think so. We think that internal and external adaptations are largely determined by feeding habits. We think that a change of feeding habits results in a change in adaptations, so that, in the end, feeding habits determine not only the anatomy and physiology of the organism, but even its status and its survival.

We said that man's digestive tract is twelve times the length of his body. This is not always so for, the same correlation of structure with habit is seen in the human species as is found in the order of bats. The Eskimos have a shorter digestive tract, the difference being found chiefly in a shorter intestine, than the white races.

Are the Eskimos carnivorous because they possess a shorter digestive tract, or do they possess a shorter digestive tract because they practice carnivorism? Which comes first, habit or adaptation?

Were the primitive ancestors of the Eskimos carnivorous, or were they frugivorous or omnivorous? Have the Eskimos acquired a shorter digestive tract since they were driven into the far North and forced to live largely on flesh food, or did their ancestors from the South bequeath to them their shorter digestive tracts?

It is my view that the shortening of the digestive tract resulted from the adoption of a flesh diet: that it is a negative compensation for violation of the fundamental symbiotic requirements of life. I believe, also, that all carnivores are descended from once noble ancestors who lived without stealth and murder. They have undergone modifications of structure and function (chiefly losses) to adapt themselves to their changed way of life and anti-symbiotic diet.

 

To return to bats, which have been previously mentioned, I think we can get a better picture of the correlation of food and food-getting with structure than the various tribes of man can supply.

 

There are a great number of kinds of bats in the world and they are of various sizes. In their dietetic habits they range all the way from strict frugivores to rank carnivores and cannibals. One variety of bat has actually become a blood sucker — a vampire. Some of them have not completely abandoned their fruit diet, but eat both fruit and flesh. Some are insectivorous, others are known to catch fish. It is interesting to note that the intestines of the vampire bat is shorter in proportion than that of any other beast, while its stomach is prolonged into a long tubular pouch. Its teeth are unlike that of any other bat - in bats generally the incisors are small and the "canines" are large, but in the blood-sucker the upper incisors and "canines" are both large and very sharp edged, while its grinders, not being required by its blood-diet, have degenerated into small and unimportant vestiges. The fruit eating bats are larger than their meat eating relatives.

 

The last sentence is good to know, for us vegans

And the next sentence is good also, we do not have the monstruosity and bad odor of carnivores

 

It may not be amiss to point out that the repellent features and odor of insectivorous, carnivorous, cannibalistic and vampire bats are lacking in the fruit eating bats. Indeed, one naturalist says of the fruit eating bats that "with their keen, intelligent-looking, doe-like heads." they "inspire nothing but friendly interest when seen at close hand, and might quite probably be popular as pets if they were better known." The hammer-head bat of the Gabu district of French Equatorial Africa, a fruit eater with a great partiality for figs, is an exception to the better-looking qualities of the frugivorae. He is described as hideous, though in his photograph he is not as hideous as the carnivore. Monstrosity is everywhere the outgrowth of illegitimate food and food-getting.

 

The bats show us an unbroken descent from strict frugivorae to frugo-carnivorae. to carni-vorae, to cannibals, to near parasites with a corresponding degeneration of form and loss of status with each step of their dietary degradation. They suffer negative compensations — losses and modifications of structures and functions—which are entailed by their illegitimate food supplies and methods of food-getting. The vampire bat has actually undergone some of the modifications seen in parasites.

 

It would be possible to extend our study of comparative anatomy to cover many other parts of the body, but space limitations do not permit. It must suffice for the present that we say that among the higher apes there are several species of them whose alimentary organs in all respects very nearly resemble those of man and in that species which approaches closest to man in general organization and appearance, the alimentary organs, in almost every particular, so closely resemble those of man, that they are easily mistaken for them.

 

Sylvester Graham used the alimentary organs of the orang-outang as "the true type with which we are to compare those of the human body, in order to ascertain the natural dietetic character of man. He pointed out that "in all that the organs of the orang differ from those of man, they bring the orang between man and carnivorous animals; and thus, as it were, push man still further from a carnivorous character."

 

Graham wrote several years before Darwin derived man from an "ape-like arboreal ancestor." It has always seemed unaccountable to the present writer that transformationists (they have stolen the term evolution, and miscall themselves evolutionists), while insisting that man and the apes are brothers (or cousins) and are descended from a common ancestor and that man (or his ancestor) formerly lived in the trees (frugivorous) also at the same time, insist that primitive man was carnivorous, even cannibalistic. For, while his organization places him at the apex of creation and shows him to be the arch-type of the frugivorae, they have pictured him as more beastly than any beast."

 

In his Outline of History, H. G. Wells, following the "scientific" pattern (or line) describes our early ancestor, just after he had emerged from the ape-stage, and says: "When he found dead animals, semi-putrid, he would relish them nonetheless. He would eat his unworthy children. He would seek larger animals in a weak and dying state. Failing to find them, dead and half-rotten examples would be made to suffice."

 

This is the crowning achievement of our carnivorous biology. This "early man" who has been created by biological speculation, should have descended from a jackal or a hyena, not from an ape. His dietary habits as "described" by Wells, relate him to saprophytes (scavengers) and carnivorae and not to the frugivorae from which, according to the hypothesis, he sprung.

 

It is our contention that, instead of early man being the degraded beast that Wells and most Darwinians picture him, the carnivores and saprophytes of the present and past have "fallen" from their once high estate to their present state of degradation.

My opinion is the same as one comment I found on another vegan forum:

 

"I thought misc was off-topic. That's a good comparitive chart, better if frugivore was on it also, although frugivore is meant to be type of herbivore, according to Wiki, but that has man down as Omnivore, being a mouthpiece for the Elite.

Diet is the same with many other topics, orgonite, god, conspiracies etc. People don't want the truth if it rattles their beliefs.

It looks to me as if man as Omnivore is one of the main beliefs that causes grief on the planet. For one thing it would be hard to kill 300 million animals with vivisection if we weren't killing millions for meat, and vivisection is what holds up allopathy that kills millions, addicts millions every year."

Edited by I'm Your Man
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@2097

Yes, 811 gets little pricey sometimes. I decided to be 90% 811 from May to November each year, when we have more domestic fruit in markets. But when I say I follow 811, I mean lots of fruit and as much nuts as I desire. I don't eat much nuts anyway, and I never count percentages. Maybe I'm not following 811 percentages precisely, but who cares, as long as I feel great:)

If I lived in tropics, where all beautiful fruit is available, this would be my diet 100%.

 

What I think is best diet for human is not totally vegan, SORRY: i think people are designed to eat fruits, vegetables, INSECTS and very rarely - EGGS. I think our disgust to insects has cultural reasons, Americans and Europeans may not like insects, but main population of the world consider them very delicious food. Frugivoire monkeys occasionally eat insects, too. I also think that occasional consumption of raw eggs is also natural for humans, even if it is not vegan (sorry folks). Insects and eggs I think is the missing B12 brick in vegan diet.

 

BUT, since I find insects (at least the idea of eating them) disgusting, and I don't want to eat eggs from mistreated chickens, I stay vegan and supplement B12. And I replace carbohydrates from fruit (i should be eating all the time, as human, in my opinion) with carbohydrates from grains and legumes.

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@2097

I don't know... I was just thinking a loud. We can't know exactly what is our genuine diet, since it has changed so much, there were so many influences... Maybe if you were fed insects as a baby you would love their taste, don't know.

BTW, 811 diet suggests we shouldn't eat excito-toxins, such as garlic or onions, since we can't "make a meal out of that" and since we are only thought to like those tastes, but they are not naturally appealing... And I can telll you, as a child, nobody told me I should eat tons of onion, but I begged my mother to peal me an onion, and I would hold it in my hand and eat it as an apple! I don't know what Dr. Graham would say about that! My point is, we can only guess what "ideal" diet is. Some things are clear though - we should eat predominantly plant food. As raw as we can.

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@2097

this is interesting what you are saying. But how the B12 from this bacteria enters our organism? BTW, I don't shower very often these days and I spent the last summer one month having only couple of showers, just swimming in the sea... Does that count?

And if we shower without soap and shampoo, what is happening in that case?

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Thank you for this input, 2097.

Maybe you are on the right track. I bought organic cold-pressed coconut oil a month ago, since I heard that some saturated fat is good for raising testosterone levels. So I ate coconut oil every day a little. I also heard it is good as skin cream, so I used it sparingly after shower to take care of my face.

Result: I have had so many acne lately and I never had acne before! Now I am wondering is it because of coconut oil? BTW, I became more fat and lazy to workout.

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I'm missing 1/2 of my intestines. Should I go back to being a carnivore?
Maybe. Or maybe if you eat only fruits your body will adapt by rebuilding a longer intestine

 

Truth be told, I can't eat a lot of fruit. Gives me stomach aches. The thought of going back to eating meat makes me sick to my stomach.

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@vege

 

I took my research down. It led me down the right path of finding out why we are not producing B12 and how we produce it. I'm going to keep it to myself for the time being.

 

?

 

You mean you found out the truth about b12 and you don't wanna tell us ?

 

Some raw foodists say they absorb the b12 produced in their gut. Or with a natural diet they would get b12 also on veggies.

Some breatharians say there's b12 everywhere, like in the air we breathe.

Both raw foodists and breatharians say people with b12 deficiency is because the diet m,ade of processed, industrial food prevents from absorbing well b12...

 

As for me, I think I may have been b12 deficient during the past few months, I can't be sure though, but I have my nose bleeding slightly for 2-3 days, I was often tired and lacking motivation for a few weeks/months, something inside my head was telling me to get b12 from somewhere, circumstances made that I came accros some b12 energy gums the other day in a new vegan store, each gum has 300% dv dose of B12, once I had one gum, I felt the urge to chew one gum after the other, and to eat b12 fortified food, since 2 days I feel so much more energy that I feel like I can accomplish all the goals I plan to do in my life and I must have had about 10,000% of daily value b12 in the last few days, lol...

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some raw foodists here say that sauerkraut has B12. But not the packaged one from supermarket. Most people here make their own sauerkraut, it is tradition. Basically, you empty the hearts of the unwashed cabbages, pour coarse sea salt in the holes, then you put cabbages in a barrel and pour the clean water. In one or two months you have home-made sauerkraut which supposedly has B12-producing bacteria (and also bacteria beneficial to gut flora). This is practically raw food, just a little salty. But you don't eat tons of it, just a little.

What do you think about his claims about B12 in sauerkraut?

 

BTW, I have just finished my two-months worth bottle of B12 drops. I am not sure if I feel any difference now or if I felt deficiency before taking the supplement. At least I am safe now.

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Breatharians are a load of crap. They have been debunked so many times over its not funny. Ive met 2. Jasmusheen was debunked on Australian TV a few years ago by some doctors whilst she was under supervision. They are crackpots!

 

Herbet Shelton had the theory right but didnt know how to eat enough calories from fruits to do it easy. He wasnt a vegan nor raw. Great pioneer for sure and we owe him a lot. We got it easy today being raw/vegan. Look at the books, athletes, audio, sites, forums etc. NEVER BEEN EASIER! to get enough rice or fruit.

 

 

811 is a fair bit of fat. 10% of total calories is still a large serving of fat if your eating a lot of calories. People should read the book closer.

 

I eat 811 and shop at the organic wholesalers to get cheap bananas/dates. Bananas right now in Australia retail for 5$US a lb!! Dates are 15$ a lb!

 

But hey, I know herion addicts that never complain how much they have to spend to get a hit so I just suck it up and spend it.

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