
Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword (1999) [pdf] - primroot
http://www.2ndchance.info/birdlover-cerealsword.pdf
======
pierrec
So in countries where nutritionally varied food is not widely available,
people are so reliant on cereal sources that they become afflicted by deficits
in many nutrients. Doesn't have any easy solution.

But the paper also raises multiple times the point that vegetarian diets tend
to be too reliant on cereals, such as here:

" _Because the bioavailability of zinc from meat is four times greater than
that from cereals [113], it is clear that the displacement of animal-based
foods by cereal-grain- and plant-based diets is not only responsible for
impaired zinc metabolism in developing countries, but also in western
populations adopting vegetarian diets [114, 115]._ "

It's so much easier to have a vaguely balanced nutrition when you add a bit of
meat. It's also perfectly possible to have it as a vegetarian, but it really
requires that you know what you're doing and that you make sure you get
necessary nutrients. This can be challenging if you only use "traditional"
food, but it's made easier by products like Vega powder (which I've been
having recently, pretty good!), which specifically try to compensate frequent
shortcomings of a vegan diet, or I suppose HN favorites like Soylent and
Mealsquares. I'm not sure the last two are really appropriate as vegetarian
complements, though.

~~~
Spooky23
The crowd is generally right about things. Over the last 10,000 years or so,
_everyone_ with the resources to do so has adopted a omnivorous diet. You
offset the cost of meat and fresh fruits with grains. There's a reason that
you'll get a potato and asparagus with your $50 steak at a restaurant.

In our society today, we've created a desert in a sea of abundance. We have
the ignorant and lazy getting by on a diet of cheap bread, ramen and sugar
fortified with vitamins. Then then we have the decadent white folks with first
world problems complicating things with crazy vegan diets.

~~~
stevoski
How do you explain the roughly 500 million vegetarians in India?

~~~
Mikeb85
That consume plenty of dairy - which offers the same nutritional benefits as
meat.

~~~
kleer001
But doesn't [directly] kill any sentient being. Yay! <milk production still
abuses said animals bred for production>

As aesthetically pleasing as I find it I still can't go totally vegitarian. I
have however and somehow released my eating of beef. Tiny steps, right?

As aesthetically pleasing as I find it I still can't expect everyone else to
go totally vegitarian. But I think we may have to edge there over the coming
decades as it's so wildly inefficient.

edit: pedantry

~~~
DanBC
Cows only produce milk for their young. A milk cow is constantly bred to
produce young which she then produces milk for. We want the milk, so we tale
the calf away from the mother. Male calves are mostly useless and are killed
young for veal. Some of the females are kept to replenish the herd.

Make whatever choices you want, but cows milk is not something that just drops
out of cows.

~~~
kleer001
Very true. Thanks for the reminder. Even goats have the same situation. I
guess the truest non violent solution would be to milk soy beans or nuts. At
least no one can hear empathize with them as fellow sentient beings.

~~~
Mikeb85
Even in the production of vegetables and grains many sentient beings are
killed. They just happen to be mostly insects or smaller mammals.

Try going into a garden without stepping on anything, or using a thrasher
without killing a single thing.

That's why Buddhists don't get too crazy with the whole vegetarian thing, most
eat meat (albeit not necessarily in our North American super-size me
portions)...

------
ComteDeLaFere
Except...

The Importance of Dietary Carbohydrate in Human Evolution

[http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682587](http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682587)

~~~
primroot
I cannot access that link, but I think it's important to note that the subject
of the publication is mainly cereal grains (seeds of gramineae). Other sources
of carbohydrates (such as root vegetables) have very different nutritional
profiles (e.g. many are a source vitamin C). Chris Masterjohn has written
about the consumption of starch among hunter-gatherers.

------
PhantomGremlin
I know that multivitamin pills have bad rap in various circles. But the
bioavailability of many simple vitamins is very high when given in tablet
form.

So what I'd really like to know is what happens with

    
    
       cereal / vegetarian / vegan diet
    

plus

    
    
       cheap, easily available multivitamin
       and mineral supplement pills
    

Maybe that's most of what's needed? The article does mention supplements, but
only piecemeal.

Of course, people still need protein. You won't get that from a cheap vitamin
pill, and it's tricky to do right with a vegan diet. Fortunately I live in the
USA and beef is relatively cheap. "Beef. It's what's for dinner".

BTW I have vague recall of Northern vs Southern diets in the US Civil War. The
claim was that this played an important part in the health and strength of the
soldiers. The Union soldiers had more beef and wheat in their diets. The
Confederate soldiers had more pork and corn. The Union won.

~~~
a_c_s
Bioavailability is rather complicated: for any given nutrient it can be
enhanced by the presence of certain other nutrients but diminished by others.

Your comment also ignores phytonutrients* (which includes flavonoids and some
anti-oxidants) and the effects of diet on gut flora, both of which topics we
are just beginning to understand.

This is why, until we really understand the nitty-gritty of all of the
hundreds (thousands?) of chemicals contained in food and how they interact,
the best recommendations involve eating a variety of foods, both fresh and
cooked.

* [http://extension.psu.edu/health/news/2012/the-importance-of-...](http://extension.psu.edu/health/news/2012/the-importance-of-non-vitamins)

~~~
primroot
And then, there's the (IMO certain) outcome that, when we come to "really
understand," we'll realize that "eating a variety of foods, both fresh and
cooked" is the most economically viable option for keeping optimal health,
when there is access to a healthy natural environment.

------
quelsolaar
Everything is a double-edged sword. Even a single-edge sword is a double-edged
sword.

~~~
gyom
Nice !

It's not really a paradox, though, because "being a double-edged sword" is a
comparison that's being made with regards to the _decision_ of using that
particular single-edge sword.

And "being a single-edge sword" here is a technical description of the
physical object.

But that quote is something worth writing down somewhere.

~~~
coldtea
It's written down here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNtgdspXypo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNtgdspXypo)
(NSFW)

It's from a Louis C.K. routine.

------
caligastia
There is a set of tools here that allow for a hyper-efficient lifestyle based
on a new kind of wheat bread superfood:

[http://breadflower.com/](http://breadflower.com/)

~~~
iand675
You're kidding, right?

