Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Other Raw-Animal-Food Diets (eg:- Primal Diet/Raw Version of Weston-Price Diet etc.) => Raw Weston Price => Topic started by: fuggles on April 08, 2010, 11:36:15 pm
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out of the 12 tribes
who was the healthiest, what did they eat ? , how long did they roughly live
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I think it was the Maori.
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out of the 12 tribes
who was the healthiest, what did they eat ? , how long did they roughly live
Are these WAPF tribes? Suni? You have to specify which tribes when you start a new topic. Did you finish middle school/junior high?
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I think he said the Maori and there was one other he made a point to mention.
There's still some pretty spectactular looking Maori around today of course most have sucumbed to physical degradation in some form.
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The irony is that the Maori are described as gradually regaining their health/population c.1900 once they turned to western diets. Much before that as the British first came in, they'd been forced into swamp-land and forced to eat even more of the grains they normally ate in their diets so became even more unhealthy than they were in pre-colonial times.
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Did you finish middle school/junior high?
:D
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The irony is that the Maori are described as gradually regaining their health/population c.1900 once they turned to western diets. Much before that as the British first came in, they'd been forced into swamp-land and forced to eat even more of the grains they normally ate in their diets so became even more unhealthy than they were in pre-colonial times.
You keep referring back to the information in that highly contradictory article.
:D
I lolled too.
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You keep referring back to the information in that highly contradictory article.
Well I find it telling as it revealed that WP's notions of the Maori turning from a supposedly healthy ancestral diet to a modern, unhealthy one, were somewhat inaccurate.
Well, anyway, that article was one of the very few which also focused on maori health in pre-colonial times. I got interested because a Maori-descended NZer from a non-diet-related forum had told me that the Maori had always been in poor health throughout history and had mentioned some anthropologist who had examined maori bodies in pre-colonial times. I'd had concerns about WP before with his claims re supposedly "healthy" grains and dairy, so it confirmed my suspicions. Plus, there've been other cases where WP's claims didn't quite fit the facts from other sources.
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We've been through this before, WAP wasn't perfect but he did show the effects of modern foods on dental arches.
I think having a deformed head from eating white man foods was his sole point. These peoples ate some grains and some dairy yet had wide palates, no crowding and excellent occlusion.
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Did you finish middle school/junior high?
I don't think school makes someone write better or make ones expressions more intelligent (although school helps with overall intelligence but it's not the case). During writing, he could have been either drunk, still non-paleo with brain fog, with low thyroid or with some other metabolic dysfunction. Have you noticed how people on raw paleo/paleo are more intelligent than people on regular diets ? When someone does not have any disturbing factors in his diet (like MSG or a metabolic) he/she does much better.
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Well, anyway, that article was one of the very few which also focused on maori health in pre-colonial times. I got interested because a Maori-descended NZer from a non-diet-related forum had told me that the Maori had always been in poor health throughout history and had mentioned some anthropologist who had examined maori bodies in pre-colonial times. I'd had concerns about WP before with his claims re supposedly "healthy" grains and dairy, so it confirmed my suspicions. Plus, there've been other cases where WP's claims didn't quite fit the facts from other sources.
I thought the Maori were supposedly the most feared warriors of the south Pacific. How could that be, if they were so unhealthy?
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I thought the Maori were supposedly the most feared warriors of the south Pacific. How could that be, if they were so unhealthy?
They were feared - they were even cannibals. But the idea that aggression and general savagery are linked to a healthy diet is misguided. Indeed, the opposite could be said to be true, that an unhealthy diet makes one more prone to mood-swings, increased aggression etc.(at least that's what happened to me when I was on a SAD diet). The Maori are described as being physically fit due to heavy levels of exercise like any other hunter-gatherers; but it seems that like the Masai, they had various health-problems, the majority of which would get worse with old-age(which most Maori never reached due to very low average life-span of c, 25-29 years, last I checked).
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References for Maori being fit from exercise,short lifespan and various problems from illness?
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References for Maori being fit from exercise,short lifespan and various problems from illness?
That link you mentioned(the one I originally presented on the rawpaleodiet yahoo group and here(PP referenced it in my journal, last I checked), had all that (pre-Colonial and post-Colonial) data. I find it most interesting that their average lifespan was even lower than in the Palaeolithic era.
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Oh, these were 2 links on the subject:-
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/events/ruralhealth/2005/papers/8nrhcfinalpaper00603.pdf
http://www.nzbr.org.nz/documents/publications/publications-2006/maori_eco_development.pdf
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The Maori? The Native American were the healthiest
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The Maori? The Native American were the healthiest
Many of the Native Americans ate grains in the south or pemmican in the North, hardly healthy traits.
The Inuit appear to be the most likely candidates for the best health among all tribes in the world, having a higher intake of raw animal foods, espeically rotting raw animal foods(ie high-meat) which RVAFers know fends off to some extent some of the negative aspects of cooked foods re digestion.
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Many of the Native Americans ate grains in the south or pemmican in the North, hardly healthy traits.
The Inuit appear to be the most likely candidates for the best health among all tribes in the world, having a higher intake of raw animal foods, espeically rotting raw animal foods(ie high-meat) which RVAFers know fends off to some extent some of the negative aspects of cooked foods re digestion.
Inuit ate pemmican.
Pre-contact Northern Amerindians may have been at least as healthy, and there is no Stefansson to speak for them.
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Many of the Native Americans ate grains in the south or pemmican in the North, hardly healthy traits.
The Inuit appear to be the most likely candidates for the best health among all tribes in the world, having a higher intake of raw animal foods, espeically rotting raw animal foods(ie high-meat) which RVAFers know fends off to some extent some of the negative aspects of cooked foods re digestion.
I mean the ones in the WP book. They only ate Bison. Price mentions they ate raw meat, with raw adrenal glands being the first thing they ate after a kill. No specific mention they ate cooked meat but I think obviously they would have. They had the best health from the tribes studied in the book. The Inuit had the second best health from the tribes and I would say Australian Aborigines would rank third.
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Inuit ate pemmican.
Pre-contact Northern Amerindians may have been at least as healthy, and there is no Stefansson to speak for them.
According to Stefansson's book "Not By Bread Alone", the Inuit didn't eat pemmican, pemmican was a staple of the forest indians. That's in my review of the book. 'll bring up the reference re page-number in a couple of days.
Not that it matters, really. Even if Stefansson was wrong re the above(and he is on many other issues), the raw portion of the Inuit diet would have offset, if only to some extent, the negative harm to health caused by pemmican.
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Even if Stefansson was wrong re the above(and he is on many other issues), the raw portion of the Inuit diet would have offset, if only to some extent, the negative harm to health caused by pemmican.
Considering the known positive effect on health of pemmican diet, what evidence is there that eating pemmican has a negative effect?
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Considering the known positive effect on health of pemmican diet, what evidence is there that eating pemmican has a negative effect?
Well, of course, there is no known positive effect of pemmican on health(indeed the only genuine studies on the effects of rendered-fat-intake have shown evidence of very harmful(atherosclerosis-inducing)oxidised cholesterol and a higher rate of BSE for cattle fed on rendered fats. And there is plenty of anecdotal evidence from the many on rawpaleoforum(Ioanna/DJR-81 etc. etc.) who have actually tried pemmican who have found pemmican to be very harmful to their health.
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As a NZ Maori, I find this thread topic quite interesting... and rather amusing.
The statements that have been made in this thread about the people of my race and culture have definitely been made out of ignorance and unbalanced research.
I come from a long lineage of Maori people. We are a race of oral history and it takes 4 hours to recite my family lineage orally nonstop.
My family have those that have lived short lives such as 20 years of age, and those that have reached grand old ages and rankings of high Kaumatuas or elders due to wisdom and longevity of life.
There has been many stories of those in our family full of health and those that are of sickly nature, as well of those who are people of peace and those who are people of war and fighting.
But one thing that you actually miss in this thread about the Maori people is their true history and knowledge of what they actually ate.
The Maori people have been touted as Hunter Gatherers and Paleo type people. This is complete fallacy.
Maoris have always been farmers.
Yes they gathered herbs, roots, ferns, fronds, sea vegetables and berries. Yes they hunted fish, and other sea creatures as well as birds including the famous Giant Moa... look that one up, it would make any true paleo drool for months :-D
But the one thing that has been over looked in many circles is the NZ Maoris weakness and addiction to Kumera, this vegetable they farmed for dear life and would fight for the best Kumera patches all over NZ. The Maori arrived in NZ on dug out canoes bearing loads of Kumara with which was a prized staple food being high in starch alas called the sweet potato.
The first Maoris came to NZ with their farming instincts well ingrained and a normal part of their social structure, this definitely makes them agrarian.
But if you wanted to learn about the true Paleolithic peoples of NZ then you could do a little research on the Mori Oris, the original people group who lived in NZ before the Maoris arrived, and of which were all wiped out by the aggressive new arrivals, the Maoris.
So my pick for the "Best out of the 12" is... definitely not Maori.
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Maori are some of the most well built people I have seen. Although most have succumbed to NAPD there is still some pretty cool looking ones.
My Maori neighbour has calves as thick as my head, I'm pretty envious, doesn't even do weights. Usually they are really chilled and happy.
There's some beautiful girls aswell.
I know they like heaps of fatty meat, seafood plus the usual junk.
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I don't mind Kumera either, I really need to get to NZ again. Got friends and free accomdation at Raglan!
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Hi Treisee, welcome to this forum. In the words of the Lakota oyate (the allied people) ... "Mitakuye Oyasin" (we are all related).
It's nice we have someone from the Maori culture here who can speak from a first-hand perspective. I'm interested in Maori culture and would like to learn more. For example, do you have any Maori music you could share with us? I have a couple tunes I enjoy that are modern but sound like they contain Maori language and some traditional elements.
Did you know that Russell Means, a Lakota activist, started a "T.R.E.A.T.Y. Total Immersion School" system which he says "is based on the successes achieved by the Total Immersion School experience of the Maori Peoples in New Zealand"? Do you know anything about the "Total Immersion School" system in New Zealand? Means claimed that the "successes were so remarkable [in New Zealand that] the government of New Zealand adopted the concept throughout the country and established over 180 Total Immersion Schools."
He talks about it a little in this interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3RhU6l_550
Here's the school system's website: http://treatyschool.org/
....The Maori people have been touted as Hunter Gatherers and Paleo type people. This is complete fallacy.
I haven't noticed anyone referring to the Maori as hunter gatherers in this thread, nor did Weston Price use the term "hunter gatherers" or "Paleo" people for the Maori, nor I think for anyone else, in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Price did refer to pygmies and tribes of the Nile as "hunters". Are you referring perhaps to a different thread or a different book or article?
But the one thing that has been over looked in many circles is the NZ Maoris weakness and addiction to Kumera, ....
Yes, I've heard of kumara. As I've mentioned elsewhere in this forum, after the advent of cooking, every people I've read about that had access to tubers took advantage of them, either by gathering wild tubers or growing domesticated ones or doing both.
But if you wanted to learn about the true Paleolithic peoples of NZ then you could do a little research on the Mori Oris, the original people group who lived in NZ before the Maoris arrived, and of which were all wiped out by the aggressive new arrivals, the Maoris.
Thanks for the reference. Can you share more about them or do you have a good source to refer us to so we can learn more about the "Mori Ori"?
So my pick for the "Best out of the 12" is... definitely not Maori.
Personally, I wouldn't even focus on one "best". It wasn't Weston Price's point and it has never been mine either. I agree with Daniel Quinn and Survival International that there is "no one right way to live." I think people generally fare better in the long run when they adapt to their local habitat and try to live somewhat in harmony with nature, rather than force a single way of life or even WOE on the entire planet.
Sláinte mhaith to you, which means "good health" in Irish (Gaeilge).
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I don't mind Kumera either, I really need to get to NZ again. Got friends and free accomdation at Raglan!
Kumera is sweet potato, right?
I'm experimenting with sweet potatos for 2 of my children to replace rice.
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Had some about 3 years ago. It was nice with raw butter. Too nice!
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Had some about 3 years ago. It was nice with raw butter. Too nice!
It's not raw but it seems to be energy packed without the hypglycemic causing effects of fruit.
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My 86 year old grandmother eats sweet potatoes regularly she seems to be in better health than most young people
I bake one for my children about twice a week and they seem to be doing very well,
I drench it in butter to balance the high carbs
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the older generation can eat crap and get away with it. They are less damaged...epigenetics.
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It's not raw but it seems to be energy packed without the hypglycemic causing effects of fruit.
The pink variety of sweet potatoes can be delicious raw, I'm very found of it. Polynesians call it kumara.
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I personally hail from a long lived race of hill fokes(Scott's, Irish, German with a splash of Indian) that settled the mountains of eastern Kentucky
Most of the people in my family tree lived into their late 80s or 90s on an old fashioned cooked diet,
The human body is amazing in its ability to adapt to any environment, and regenerate it self.
But its a delicate balance that has been upset by the addition of industrial toxins into the cooked food supply.
My grand parrents ate organic, before they knew what organic was, they trapped small game,had chickens hogs, made and drank moonshine, and still lived healthy into old age,
My grandmother is 86 and eats meals like sweat potato casserole or
Boiled carrots, potatoes,onions, with a portion of cube steak. and snacks on slices of banana
She wasn't vaccinated with poisons at birth, so her liver could handle the toxins produced by cooking
Her father who lived into his 90s fed her farm fresh food from the time she was weened from the breast.
Not only old age but quality of life is important ,I sware that my people kept sharp mind into old age without any of the problems that are occurring in this younger generation
My other grand mother and father drink like fish and smoke like a train and eat crap, and are still alive and well into their mid 70s(they have bionic livers I swore its true)
There wasnt any health problems in the family until we were hit with the curse of vaccination and factory food.
Now nearly everyone I can think of is afflicted the the diseases of civilization( no exaggeration)
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I have to eat RZC else I feel like absolute shit.
My Dad will drink a pint of chocolate milk before a race and still win
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Hi Treisee, welcome to this forum. In the words of the Lakota oyate (the allied people) ... "Mitakuye Oyasin" (we are all related).
Hello Phil, Ka pai (thank you) for the welcome, I have been here for around a year but have been a bit of a lurker really, just reading and soaking in what others have to say about this WOE.
Did you know that Russell Means, a Lakota activist, started a "T.R.E.A.T.Y. Total Immersion School" system which he says "is based on the successes achieved by the Total Immersion School experience of the Maori Peoples in New Zealand"? Do you know anything about the "Total Immersion School" system in New Zealand?
I haven't heard of Russell Means, but I do know of the Total Immersion School system. It is very popular here in NZ with Maori families that are fluent speakers of Maori (called Te Reo) and who use it as their primary language at home. This is a video on one of the first TI Schools in NZ called Te Hoani Waititi. It is not far from where I live. I do not send my own children to a Maori school mainly because we are a homeschooling family, but if they would be attending a school of some sort then a TIS would be the first place I would send them. They are very effective in raising children up in their culture and language.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxmdG-FDsNQ
I haven't noticed anyone referring to the Maori as hunter gatherers in this thread, nor did Weston Price use the term "hunter gatherers" or "Paleo" people for the Maori, nor I think for anyone else, in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. Price did refer to pygmies and tribes of the Nile as "hunters". Are you referring perhaps to a different thread or a different book or article?
Weston Price didn't use the specific term "hunter gatherers" or "Paleo" people but he did title his first chapter in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
as 'Why Seek Wisdom from Primitive Races'. With a quick look online to a thesaurus on the word primitive, it comes up with;
Main Entry: primitive
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: barbaric, crude
Synonyms: animal, atavistic, austere, barbarian, barbarous, brutish, childlike, fierce, ignorant, naive, natural, nonliterate, preliterate, raw, rough, rude, rudimentary, savage, simple, uncivilized, uncultivated, uncultured, underdeveloped, undeveloped, undomesticated, unlearned, unrefined, unsophisticated, untamed, untaught, untrained, untutored, vestigial, wild.
These synonyms speak to me of some of the characteristics that have been associated with hunter/gatherers and Paleo types of people and my using those specific words was just a way of speaking to those in this thread in general language that many would clearly understand especially when we are in a forum that is focused on Paleos and their way of eating.
The Maori people have been seen in NZ as hunters and gatherers. It is a part of the history and social structures of NZ to see Maori in this way, as it helps to clearly define the Maori into a class of peoples that is entirely different from the class of Europeans that arrived here later in history who would define themselves as cultured, sophisticated, educated and definitely not wild like they saw the Maoris as. So in effect I was not referring to any specific book or article but I was referring to an outlook and idea that is pervasive in the society of NZ as a whole.
Can you share more about them or do you have a good source to refer us to so we can learn more about the "Mori Ori"?
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en Is a great place to start study on Maoris, and there are pieces on the Mori Oris also.
I think people generally fare better in the long run when they adapt to their local habitat and try to live somewhat in harmony with nature.
I agree with you, and the Maori people are amazing specimens of health and vitality when they adapt to living here in NZ. As soon as they begin to eat the modern diet they quickly succumb to many diseases such as diabetes, obesity etc. NZ is a wonderful place to eat the Paleo way, we have easy access to pure and natural foods that are close by and in abundance, we can hunt, gather, raise and grow many beautiful delicious foods but sadly many Maori choose to turn away from them in favor of modern convenience food, we see it everywhere across the country.
Our government has undertaken many educational campaigns to try stem the tide of ill health that is plaguing our country, but we seem to be following in the same footsteps as America, and very few people are listening much less changing the way they eat and sadly it is prevalent in those of my own race.
A Maori saying;
He aha te painga o nga kai reka a te Pakeha - o te rare, o te keke, o te purini, o te winika, o te pepa, o te waipiro?
What benefit is there in the sweet food of the Pakeha - lollies, cakes, puddings, vinegar, pepper and alcohol?
Kahore kau
None at all
Pakeha= White man, New Zealander of European descent, Connotations of a flea.
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It is a part of the history and social structures of NZ to see Maori in this way, as it helps to clearly define the Maori into a class of peoples that is entirely different from the class of Europeans that arrived here later in history who would define themselves as cultured, sophisticated, educated and definitely not wild like they saw the Maoris as. So in effect I was not referring to any specific book or article but I was referring to an outlook and idea that is pervasive in the society of NZ as a whole.
You did not state it that way originally, so I take it that your original words were a misstatement and this is what you really mean.
FYI: not only have I not noticed anyone saying here that the Maori were not farmers or didn't eat kumara, much less that the idea is pervasive here, I have actually seen Tyler mention kumara before you did (emphasis mine): "...it turns out that the severe collapse in the Maori population after the colonists arrived, appears to have been not only due to being shifted onto swamp-land etc.,like I stated earlier, but also to do with the fact that there was a large reduction in the amount of animal food available to them as a result of this transfer, so that they depended mostly on the grains in the ancient Maori diet, such as sweet potatoes(kumara),ferns etc., which caused a devastating collapse in health." (http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/the-avg-lifespan-life-expectancy-canard/msg18601/#msg18601)
So far your words have appeared to be more of an affirmation of what has been said here previously than a negation, very much in step with the statements that have been made here. Perhaps you were thinking of someone else other than this forum, such as NZ society, when you made your original critical comments.
He aha te painga o nga kai reka a te Pakeha - o te rare, o te keke, o te purini, o te winika, o te pepa, o te waipiro?
What benefit is there in the sweet food of the Pakeha - lollies, cakes, puddings, vinegar, pepper and alcohol?
Kahore kau
None at all
True.
Treisee wrote: But if you wanted to learn about the true Paleolithic peoples of NZ then you could do a little research on the Mori Oris, the original people group who lived in NZ before the Maoris arrived, and of which were all wiped out by the aggressive new arrivals, the Maoris.
PaleoPhil wrote: Can you share more about them or do you have a good source to refer us to so we can learn more about the "Mori Ori"?
Treisee wrote: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en Is a great place to start study on Maoris, and there are pieces on the Mori Oris also.
Thanks, here's what I found at that site:
From Demise of the myth of pre-Maori people (http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/ideas-of-maori-origins/5): "Duff’s excavations at the archaeological site of Wairau Bar in Marlborough established conclusively that the moa hunters were an early Maori people. He showed that differences between human tools found in different excavated layers could be explained by the evolution of a Maori culture, and were not evidence of a separate, pre-Maori people in New Zealand."