>B12: I read the email from Guillermo more carefully last night, after having
>dined on red meat and lard. The uneducated public, of course, will have
>dined on margarine and veggie burgers. I hope he will read the introduction
>to Nourishing Traditions in order to educate himself as to the health
>benefits of red meat and lard.
>
>His basic argument seems to be that our ancestors were vegetarians. Actually
>our putative ancestors--monkeys, apes, etc--were all omnivores and in fact,
>when they didn't get enough meat, they went bizerk and rampaging--a clear
>sign of B12 deficiency. (Irrational anger is an early sign of B12 deficience
>in humans).
>
>As a student of anthroposophy and theosophy, I don't buy into the Darwinian
>evolution arguments, and I think a much better argument for the vegetarians
>is that we do NOT come from the animals, but that we are divine beings on a
>spiritual path, temproarily housed in a physical body for the purposes of
>soul development. This argument for vegetarianism has more truth in it but
>it can also be dangerous. I believe that one day we WILL be vegetarians,
>that we will be able to draw down enough of the cosmic forces so as to be
>able to make our own B12, vitamin A, vitamin D, etc. But that time has not
>yet arrived, at least not for most of us and I bristle when vegetarians imply
>that they are more spiritual or more advanced than meat eaters. We all made
>vows before coming into embodiment that we would accomplish certain tasks on
>earth and in order to do so, we need to consume a diet that keeps the
>physical body healthy and in good repair. For the vast majoriety of us that
>means a diet rich in animal products, including red meat and lard.
>
>Sally Fallon
>--
Dear Ms. Fallon:
I enjoy very much your anecdotes, thank you very much for taking the time to write them.
I recommend that you read again my posts in order to see that what I am quoting are not necessarily my ideas but those of specialists backed up by clinical research and epidemiological data. Believe me I am trying to get an education here, and that is why I insist that you, as an author, provide more convincing and professional arguments for your perspective of things.
If Dr. Campbell chooses to respond to my query, I am sure he will do so using his own replicated and peer reviewed studies quoted in its specific context, instead of second hand information generalized and taken out of its "relative" frame of reference to support a specific perspective of things.
I am not saying that you are completely wrong, I do suspect that you have valid points, but education is better served by being open to all possibilities. If I have learn anything in my life is that knowledge is relative, so that is why I am trying to understand under what set of conditions your claims are valid. I am almost certain that your recommendations are not applicable to all human beings under all circumstances. I am sure that as a nutriologist (are you?) you would not recommend the typical supermarket consumer to go out and feast on meat and lard produced by industrial procedures, for example.
Since you mentioned that you are a student of Anthroposophy and of Theosophy. (BTW Do you mean the RS classic book or the philosophical school initiated by Madam H. P. Blavatsky with which Steiner broke up to fund Anthroposophy ?)
I here quote one of the references of Steiner mentioning the topic of vegetarianism:
"But it is no use being fanatic about these things. There are people who
simply cannot live if they don't have meat. A person must consider carefully
whether he really will be able to get on without it. If he does decide he
can do without it and changes over from a meat to a vegetarian diet, he will
feel stronger than he was before. That's sometimes a difficulty, obviously:
some people can't bear the thought of living without meat. If, however, one
does become a vegetarian, he feels stronger -- because he is no longer
obliged to deposit alien fat in his body; he makes his own fat, and this
makes him feel stronger."
(NUTRITION AND HEALTH, Two Lectures to Workmen, Lectures By Rudolf Steiner,
Dornach, July 31 and August 2, 1924
GA 354. NUTRITION AND HEALTH Lecture I, Dornach, July 31, 1924)
IMO RS basically argued that we must develop or rescue our own instincts in order to choose our food. He was quite clear in that he was not interested in giving out guidelines to support a vegetarian diet or a diet that included animal products.
Believe me I am in full agreement with that; I am not questioning what you are saying because I want to support vegetarianism or attack animal products. What I am trying to understand here is your theorethical framework of reference, which I suspect is a bit more interesting and useful than what seems to me as sweeping generalizations.
Let me ask you specifically what I consider to be the key questions here: Do you consider that B12 requirements can not be fullfilled by plant tissues at all, under no circumstances ? Or, If plant tissues can not fullfill B12 human needs because of the quality of the soils and plant nutrition that prevails in modern agriculture ?
Warm greetings and thanks again for your attention.
Guillermo Romero Ibarrola
Comala, Colima, MEXICO
<romerog@Prodigy.Net.mx>
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Feb 06 2000 - 12:00:24 EST