Re: Scandinavia (wasRe: a few carb questions (Deanna, Heidi, Wanita)

[Guest guest]

>This is maybe irrelevant, but let's us not forget that the

>Lapps are racially different from the Germanic peoples.

Most of the world has had goats forever though. Goats

are now thought to have been one of the very first

domesticated animals, right up there with dogs (more

than 10,000 years ago). And they've found dairy residue

on some of the very earliest pottery shards. Anyway,

my grandad had goats: they were everywhere, not much

thought of. Goats multiply like mad when they have no

predators and eat far less, per pound, than cows.

They did eat a fair bit of grain too: but it was

mainly barley and rye (and pine, according to

that one article!). Wheat was prized, but more expensive

which means the richer folk got it. For some reason

wheat grew better in the New World than the barley

did, so the US has been a wheat-eating nation.

Anyway, I agree that " grain eating " goes hand

in hand with " civilization " and in fact pretty

much defines civilization. This was true in America

too, for the Native Americans. The Aztecs and Maya

built great populations based on their grains, and in

fact suffered some of the same problems that

Europeans faced by relying mainly on grains as

a food. But what I was saying is that *wheat* in

particular is a newer grain for most genotypes,

because even where it was available it wasn't

terribly common. Even in the Middle East, the heart

of wheat-growing, they ate a lot of barley (and

again, the poor people and slaves got more barley

than wheat). None of Price's healthy natives

had a wheat-based diet.

Compare that to today, where EVERYONE eats

wheat with every meal, and barley, rye, and oats

are mainly for animals. The fact that humans dropped

the not-so-glutinous grains as soon as they could

afford the high-gluten one, and increased the

gluten content hugely, probably testifies to the

addictive quality of gluten!

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

>>None of Price's healthy natives

had a wheat-based diet.

Heidi,

I'm wading through the examples in the book at the moment, and have extracted

the following comment:

The most physically perfect people in northern India are probably the Pathans

who live on dairy products largely in the form of soured curd, together with

wheat and vegetables. The people are very tall and are free of tooth decay.

I don't think he devoted a whole chapter to these people ( I haven't read the

whole book, yet). I was just reading this part myself and then read your post

and thought I might butt in.

I'll pull my head back in now and continue reading

[Guest guest]

>>>None of Price's healthy natives

>had a wheat-based diet.

>

>Heidi,

>I'm wading through the examples in the book at the moment, and have extracted

the following comment:

>The most physically perfect people in northern India are probably the Pathans

who live on dairy products largely in the form of soured curd, together with

wheat and vegetables. The people are very tall and are free of tooth decay.

>I don't think he devoted a whole chapter to these people ( I haven't read the

whole book, yet). I was just reading this part myself and then read your post

and thought I might butt in.

>

>I'll pull my head back in now and continue reading

>

>

Good point ... the folks of Crete too, have wheat in their diet and

are in good shape (or at least better than average). I must have

missed that one!

There are a couple of points about this though:

1. The folks who do better on diets with wheat

are usually VERY inbred populations. So they

don't have the problematic genes anymore.

2. They are often using softer wheat (less

gluten) that grows in warmer climates.

3. They are often using whole wheat or wheat that

is whole and course-ground (less sticky).

These same populations start doing really bad

when they get Canadian or American wheat,

which is typically " hard " wheat and finely ground.

A New Dehli online magazine was reported that celiac

is " epidemic " in India right now: much of India has

traditionally eaten Sorghum-based diet (or it may

be their traditional wheat was a lot different than

modern wheat).

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

>That process started changing on the '60s under the USA " food-aid " initiatives.

>India started receiving tonnes and tonnes of US and Canadian wheat under the

" food-aid "

>programmes.

>It was ostensibly intended to " help " the poverty stricken countries feed their

hungry

>masses, but had more to do with politics in the Western world (agri-business

lobbies,

>trade wars, price protection, etc.)

>

>It is probably not a co-incidence that the average health started going

downhill around

>that point.

I agree: it's a huge tragedy and some of the food-aid people have

talked about it. Even though some of the communities that

get food aid have always had wheat to some degree, they

didn't have hug tons of it and what they had was low-protein

wheat. They get sick off the " hard " wheat.

What makes it doubly tragic is that a lot of DOES have to

do with supporting agribusiness. Soft wheat and millet

and sorghum and barley are all *cheaper* than wheat.

However there is also the idea that " high protein " is better,

and nothing beats hard wheat for high protein (except lentils?

Actually lentils seem like a better choice to me).

The one food aid program I really like is the heifer program ...

send those folks some farm animals, not bags of wheat!

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

--- Heidi Schuppenhauer <heidis@...> wrote:

> I agree: it's a huge tragedy and some of the food-aid people have

> talked about it.

> What makes it doubly tragic is that a lot of DOES have to

> do with supporting agribusiness. Soft wheat and millet

> and sorghum and barley are all *cheaper* than wheat.

It is interesting how you can chart the course of modern politics and sociology

with the

changes in human diet.

The cultivation and consumption of grains is a great example.

Grains made the industrial revolution possible (and not just by creating

Aspies:)

OTOH, the industrial revolution made the process of grain cultivation,

processing and

transportation much easier than before.

Grains are the most processed food today.

You can say that grain processing created the culture of convenience in the

Western world

(now being replicated in the " third-world " ).

Microwave dishes, TV dinners, infant formula, etc. enabled people to spend more

time at

work (and driving to work), and less time in the house.

By the same token, it perhaps enabled women of the household to leave home and

enter the

work force, thereby creating the post-war II " prosperity " in Western Europe and

the US.

Today, grains is second only to oil in the way it drives local and international

politics.

The agri lobby is one of the strongest in the US.

Even in India, a few years back, the Govt. burned tonnes and tonnes of wheat

under

pressure from the agricultural lobby to prevent prices from crashing.

People in the West often hear about drought and floods in India ruining crops

and prices

escalating and govt. giving subsidies to the farmers as a result.

In years when there are no floods or droughts and there is a super harvest, the

Govt.

steps in by burning excess grains to prevent prices from crashing.

And then they give subsidies to the poorer communities of people to buy the

grains at the

fixed prices.

The Western countries " dump " their excess grains as food aid at the same time !

Fascinating, innit?

-Pratick

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[Guest guest]

>Microwave dishes, TV dinners, infant formula, etc. enabled people to spend more

time at

>work (and driving to work), and less time in the house.

I read a great article once about how we really ARE

living in the " Jetson " age ... complete with

food tablets and " push button finger " (carpal tunnel!).

It's scary, really ...

Heidi Jean