Minimal diet = deficiencies

Andrew Brock wrote:IIf livestock eats vegan and and humans get all the rda of minerals/vitamins second hand from livestock, why is it so hard to believe that humans can't as well?

I can only speak for myself, but my personal reservations about taking supplements are these: 1: They seem expensive. 2. Do they actually contain the nutrients I need to be healthy?

I think maybe some people see supplements as "unnatural," though to me, we live such very unnatural lives anyway with our cars, our computers, etc, it seems arbitrary to draw the line at dietary supplements. I have a superstitious fear of "pills" even though I sometimes take aspirin, Benadryl, or an antipsychotic. But that superstitious fear is there, even when I'm taking these organic supplements I just bought to try to fix my crappy diet problem...I realise my fear of supplements is arbitrary and probably irrational. I'm not expecting to get all of my nutrition from the pills, and even though I'm taking these supplements; I intend to try to improve my diet otherwise with better food choices.

Tyler Ludens wrote:Looks like my endeavor to eat what I grow and reduce purchased food may have back-fired. I seem to have symptoms of multiple deficiencies - B vitamins (probably mostly B12), and minerals. This is causing some creepy physical symptoms plus probably exacerbating some pre-existing health problems.

So we're going to try to adjust our diet with a little more store food, and some supplements.

I wanted to post about this because I've posted a lot about frugality and trying to live without much money, and I want people to know about my failures as much as my successes. I want others to be aware of cheaping out too much on diet and the possibility of deficiencies if you aren't able to grow a large enough variety of food and/or the soil is not optimum.

It seems like most folks here are better at growing stuff than I am.

Trying not to feel like a failure!

It has probably already been pointed out, but anything we learn from an experience means it was not a failure.

I'm a lurker for the most part learning from you all and having little to add, if anything. Maybe this means I will start jumping in here and there.

Anyway, thanks for letting us know of the dangers of not getting enough in this ongoing experiment. As I also am wanting to rely on what I grow, but haven't been able to grow what all I need, I will certainly keep an eye out for not getting all I need nutritionally.

I do hope it all starts on the upside for you however that might be.

K Putnam wrote:The best way to optimize my care of the earth would be to optimize care of myself. I know that if I put my personal health over almost all other considerations, the earth would actually be a healthier, more sustainable place. [...] I'm looking younger as I get older.

One of the first rules of being a healer is that you have to take care of yourself if you want to take care of others. [...]

K. Putnam: I'm right there with you. With self-care as the primary focus of my life, I am much more empowered to nurture others. I feel healthier and stronger today than ever before in my life. I think more clearly. My tribe loves it, when when we're doing an activity, and I say, "Be right back, I gotta go drink some salt water.", or "Sorry that I gotta quit helping, there is a break in the clouds right now, and I haven't had my sun-time yet today." My health is much more important to me than any squeamishness about eating a dead mammal from The Corporation, or killing a mammal with my own hands.

I think feeling empowered to look after ones self is vitally important . Also the knowledge that what may be right for you may not be right for others and to learn to respect other choices even if we disagree with them .
For me my diet and being in control of it , is a reflection of my mental health . So for me a minimal diet is the elimination of processed food, eating and growing as much as I can . I don't make the mistake I often see of changing everything at once I try to evolve .
Eventually I will increase the amount of veg and food I grow to over. 80% of what I eat . I don't want to ear supplements for similar reasons to Tyler .but I think the key Is to mix things up

David Livingston wrote: For me my diet and being in control of it , is a reflection of my mental health. So for me a minimal diet is the elimination of processed food, eating and growing as much as I can .

I don't advocate a minimal diet. I think a diverse and abundant diet is probably better for most people. My poor mental health was unfortunately reflected in my poor decisions about diet, which became a feedback loop of worsening health. I hope I can reverse it quickly. But I can't magically become a better gardener overnight or magically have more money to spend on better food, so I'm still feeling pretty discouraged about it (and everything else, to be honest).

I hope I'm misunderstanding people who seem to be saying one should put one's personal health above the health of the planet. I think what they actually might be saying is that true human health is a reflection of planet health and vice versa. I hope they aren't saying "my personal health is the most important thing and everyone else and the planet be damned."

If I have to choose my personal health over health of the planet, I would choose the health of the planet. If my health depends on eating the flesh of mammals from the store, I will choose to be unhealthy.

Do you understand what I am saying?

Yes, I do, and I am saying that choosing illness is unsustainable.

Now, I'm not offering an opinion on veganism, vegetarianism, or eating meat. I am saying our health and the health of this planet go hand in hand on multiple levels. The choices that make me healthier almost always make the planet healthier. The healthier I am, the more energy I put into being a better steward of my personal land and community, which then feeds me.

I come at this from having been in an unhealthy place physically, mentally, spiritually and well on the road to an early death. The only thing giving up my health gave me was perspective on how hard it was to get back. And I could definitely still be healthier.

More importantly, if you multiply the numbers out, asking people to give up their own personal health in the attempt to heal the planet is unsustainable because it does not pass a test of logic. It is martyrdom. There are hundreds of daily choices that can bring us closer to health while reducing our impact on the environment. In my case, it's a matter of a) figuring out what those are, b) choosing them over the lazier option, c) attempting to minimize the number of days I just really want a Starbucks breakfast sandwich.

R Scott wrote: I still can't get a crispy pickle, though

We're busy lacto fermenting and recently learned there is an enzyme present in the ends of the cucumbers that naturally helps it decompose and the new seeds grow. Cut off the ends and also adding an Oak or Bay leaf is supposed to help with crispiness too. We're doing both and hoping for some crispies!

K Putnam wrote:
More importantly, if you multiply the numbers out, asking people to give up their own personal health in the attempt to heal the planet is unsustainable because it does not pass a test of logic.

Nobody in this thread is asking people to give up their own personal health in the attempt to heal the planet. So I don't even know why it is being repeated.

Nobody in this thread is asking people to give up their own personal health in the attempt to heal the planet. So I don't even know why it is being repeated.

It is an example of following an idea to its natural conclusion to explore whether it works or not, which is generally the point of having an interesting discussion.

This is the point in the discussion where someone has decided that I am entrenched in a position because I am exploring an idea and it is time to move on. I hope your health improves quickly.

Andrew Brock wrote:It is absolutely possible for humans to exist without animal products. Millions of vegans gave already demonstrated this. My blood work is flawless. I only take b12 and D when I don't get sun. These the only 2 supplements needed. There are vegan athletes performing at high levels such as Scott jurek, rich roll, Tim shieff, frank Medrano, mike arnstein, Patrick baboumian, and on and on. There have been multiple omnivores in this thread that supplement so I don't see any issue..almost all plants have all 9 essential amino acids, even white rice. If one incorporates leafy greens, legumes, grains and seeds all minerals, vitamins, and essential fats are easily obtained. Michael arnstein won the hurt 100 mile trail race 2 years in a row and he literally eats only fruit. If livestock eats vegan and and humans get all the rda of minerals/vitamins second hand from livestock, why is it so hard to believe that humans can't as well?

I disagree that "millions of vegans" have demonstrated that it is possible to exist and do it in good health on that diet. Following this statement immediately with the fact that you supplement B12 helps prove my point. If there are ANY supplements needed, then your diet is lacking, wouldn't you agree? If your diet was complete, you wouldn't need to supplement anything.

"Livestock" can do lots of things that humans can't as far as digestion, food, nutrition, and the like. If you don't believe this, simply try living on hay for a month. Animals can create their own vitamin C, as well as being able to digest plant matter that humans simply can't. As far as people like Arnstein, here is a quote from his site:
"I’ve tried raw fish, clams and oysters a number of times in both curiosity and the ever evading issue of the B12 nutrient.
I’ve had a few marshmallows over the living room fire place with my kids.
I’ve also had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, coca cola, loads of maltodextrin energy gels and even ramin noodle soup in a few of my 100 mile ultra marathon races."

To me whether he follows the diet perfectly or not is irrelevant, he is only human, and humans are never perfect. Regardless, to say he "literally only eats fruit" simply isn't true. His diet is outlined on his site, and you'll see he eats mostly fruit, also vegetables, nuts, seeds, and he admits that B12 is a problem. I understand people that strive to follow a vegan diet, and if I thought it were healthy, I may do the same. I already eat much less meat than many people and the eggs I eat are from my chickens. I don't think the equation is as simple as I stop eating meat and I make the world environment better. I have a small and growing food forest, I have large and growing annuals gardens that use no external inputs other than free mulch I get from the city compost area made from people's yard "waste", I compost, I recycle, I feed my soil. I feel pretty good about my environmental standing and the direction I am going.

Todd Parr wrote:If your diet was complete, you wouldn't need to supplement anything.

I'm leaping to the conclusion that 99% of the people on this forum supplement their diet with something either in the form of food from the store or animal feed. Many of these products contain supplements. We talk about adding supplements to the soil all the time. Why is it ok to add supplements to a deficient soil but not ok to add supplements to a deficient diet? I think most vegans will agree a vegan diet is deficient in B12. That's more or less an accepted vegan thing.

It appears we can supply B12 with supplements, we don't have to eat dead animals.

For the record, I personally eat some dead animals, I just try to avoid what I see as the most damaging to the planet of all dead animals, the dead cow. I do sometimes eat dead cow, they are delicious, but dead cow is not a significant part of my diet.

In my ecosystem, meat seems like one of the most planet friendly foods. Around here, the land devoted to meat production is primarily the badlands... It's too dry, or too steep, or too rocky to farm. So the land is left wild, and a few animals are ranged over it while it is not snow-covered. The number of animals grazed is far below the carrying capacity of the land. The meat is essentially produced without the use of fossil fuels. The land isn't tilled. The wildflowers, wild-animals, and wild trees continue to grow just like they always have. Around here, we might only be raising grains or vegetables on 5% of the land. The other 95% of the land supports foraging animals. We export huge amounts of meat to the rest of the world. Yes, that meat is exported by The Corporation, but there is still a cowboy, riding a horse to herd the cattle up into the mountains in the spring, and bring them back to the valley in the fall. There is still a sheep-herder and a pack of domesticated wolves living with the flocks.

I'm leaping to the conclusion that 99% of the people on this forum supplement their diet with something either in the form of food from the store or animal feed. Many of these products contain supplements. We talk about adding supplements to the soil all the time. Why is it ok to add supplements to a deficient soil but not ok to add supplements to a deficient diet? I think most vegans will agree a vegan diet is deficient in B12. That's more or less an accepted vegan thing.

I guess so! And I think it is totally OK to do that. The native Americans had trade routes bringing fish eggs and seaweed inland, thus solving the iodine problem. (They were mostly meat eaters, so the B-12 problem probably didn't exist for them.)

In my ecosystem, meat seems like one of the most planet friendly foods. Around here, the land devoted to meat production is primarily the badlands... It's too dry, or too steep, or too rocky to farm. So the land is left wild, and a few animals are ranged over it while it is not snow-covered. The number of animals grazed is far below the carrying capacity of the land. The meat is essentially produced without the use of fossil fuels. The land isn't tilled. The wildflowers, wild-animals, and wild trees continue to grow just like they always have. Around here, we might only be raising grains or vegetables on 5% of the land. The other 95% of the land supports foraging animals. We export huge amounts of meat to the rest of the world. Yes, that meat is exported by The Corporation, but there is still a cowboy, riding a horse to herd the cattle up into the mountains in the spring, and bring them back to the valley in the fall. There is still a sheep-herder and a pack of domesticated wolves living with the flocks.

This seems right; we don't want to live on beef, but I think beef can be part of a diet. Or bison, or venison.

What about zinc? This seems to be another nutrient that might be a problem for a home grown or simplified diet.

I agree, Joseph. There are a few places, in my opinion, where grazing animals might be planet-friendly - specifically as you indicate, very dry, cold climates. In most other places, grazing cows is among the least efficient or planet-friendly means of producing food for humans, as far as I can tell. My personal experience of ranching derives from observation of my neighbors, most particularly my rancher neighbor across the road, who does not tolerate the full array of nature on his place. The only animal he seems to tolerate is cows, he seems to shoot most others including the beneficial and inoffensive armadillo. He even sprays herbicide on the native fruit trees because raccoons eat the fruit and he doesn't like raccoons. Possibly he believes they eat baby cows.

Dead cows in the store do not, in my opinion, derive from planet-friendly ranching in most cases. I will believe in ranching being planet-friendly when ranchers allow wolves, cougar, bear, etc on the range along with the cattle. In my neck of the woods, they do not.

These ranchers do: http://www.malpaiborderlandsgroup.org/

Gilbert Fritz wrote:What about zinc? This seems to be another nutrient that might be a problem for a home grown or simplified diet.

I think there could be any number of deficiencies in a simplified diet, that's why I think they are a bad idea. I think they don't reflect what we evolved with - the hunter-gatherer diets are typically extremely diverse, and folks knew and used an enormous variety of plants and animals. I recall reading that the Cherokee used something like 200 kinds of plants for food and medicine. Maybe it was 400, I don't know but it was a lot. Even the best "developed" store-bought diet can't hope to get close to that, but I think we can in our permaculture systems, with some effort. My ideals are far beyond my abilities at this point, but I didn't need to fail as horribly as I did.

I'm going to admit just how horrible my diet had become - on some days I was probably getting most of my calories and nutrients from saltine crackers and peanut butter! Those aren't on anybody's list of food that's good for you, I bet! So we've stopped buying that crap.

...saltine crackers and peanut butter!

Don't know about the Saltines, but peanut butter is health food in my estimation.
A jar of it doesn't last too long in my pantry.

@Tyler L: "My ideals are far beyond my abilities at this point, but I didn't need to fail as horribly as I did."

I can't recall just now, Tyler, if you mentioned how much growing food was a part of your upbringing. But just to take the average American at this point as a benchmark: What you did in even *attempting* to think about and take control of your own food is nothing short of radical, relative to the rest of the population. On occasion, I have a chance to interface with the other side....the side that is 100% born and raised to be thoughtless, uninvolved, and uncaring about their food and their environment. As others here have already point out, just like the job that you don't get is the one you don't apply for, the success you don't achieve is the kind you never tried to reach. You are at least reaching....and with "the reach" comes "the fail" as part of the path along the way.

This thread just keeps on going. Right now I'm making cheese and about to go out and milk. If it fits in an individual's situation. I highly recommend a milk animal, along with what ever animal a small farmstead has for eggs. It makes quite a contribution to home grown food. Yogurt cheese whey milk ice cream creme fraishe, the list goes on and on. The whey can be carmelized without the addition of sugar, and becomes carmel sauce. So, you get a "natural" sweetener to hold yourself back from over indulging in, full of the same protein, vitamins and minerals as whey ricotta, and a lot more nutritious than the whey powder some folks are so avid about.

It would be great with peanut butter!

I've been trying to grow food for 14 years now. Every year, I'm determined that I will make a big dent in our food bill. Every year, I fail in that sense. I've got a lot better, but I'm maybe 2 percent there, instead of 0 percent. That is a big improvement, but the Journey forward is long.

Two things: one, we used to buy bulk whole grains; rice, buckwheat, etc. These can be cheap and still fairly good for you, and rice does not even have to be ground to be edible. But it should be stored cool and dry, refrigerated if possible. We stored it in large sealed glass jars. It might work out to being cheaper then saltines.

Two, I'm still looking into making leaf cheese. If we can pull it off, we could extract and concentrate all the minerals, vitamins, and protein in tree leaves, while getting rid of the excess water, tannin, anti-nutrients, and rough fibers. And anyone can grow tree leaves, I think. Ash and Linden are both candidates.

I think that could be a huge step forward for a home grown diet. All kinds of edible leaves could be added for diversity.

I'm not really sure why it matters if a diet requires 2 supplements to be successful. Whether or not it can be considered complete is irrelevant. In industrialized society its possible and its successful for myself and many others. I am at my peak physicality and health without having my own ethical conflicts.

Gilbert Fritz wrote:What about zinc? This seems to be another nutrient that might be a problem for a home grown or simplified diet.

according to Elaine Ingham, there isn't a soil in the world that doesn't have all minerals, its just a matter of making them bioavailable for the plant. Really, healthy soil is the foundation for solving global warming and feeding the world

I didn't mean getting zinc into the soil, I meant getting zinc into us. Even grown in a perfect soil many (most) plants are not a concentrated source of zinc. Just like calories; even in perfect soil, lettuce is not a good source of calories.

Gilbert Fritz wrote:I didn't mean getting zinc into the soil, I meant getting zinc into us. Even grown in a perfect soil many (most) plants are not a concentrated source of zinc. Just like calories; even in perfect soil, lettuce is not a good source of calories.

right. Sorry I didn't expand. Food sources high in zinc are legumes, grains, and leafy greens. I meant if one has healthy soils and grows the foods that accumulate zinc, then bases are covered. This is where eating a wide variety of foods comes in handy. I put about 8-12 different plants into my daily smoothie. It ends up being about 500 calories...btw I get about 138% of zinc RDA everyday. It spread out among all the foods I eat but the smoothie has a good bit of percentage!

Hi Andrew,

What is all in that smoothie?

Gilbert Fritz wrote:Hi Andrew,

What is all in that smoothie?

mint, ginger, Thai basil, spinach, kale, purslane, banana, berries (varies seasonally but usually straw,rasp,blue), mango, broccoli and sometimes if I'm feeling wild date sugar. It ends up being about 36-48 oz. I'm pretty full afterwards

Andrew Brock wrote:

Gilbert Fritz wrote:Hi Andrew,

What is all in that smoothie?

mint, ginger, Thai basil, spinach, kale, purslane, banana, berries (varies seasonally but usually straw,rasp,blue), mango, broccoli and sometimes if I'm feeling wild date sugar. It ends up being about 36-48 oz. I'm pretty full afterwards

Sounds great just needs some citrus of Loquat leaves!

That sounds good. I've been thinking about growing citrus in my greenhouse. I could surely have a reliable source of leaves!

concerning grazing: i would not look too much at the failures of other farmers. i d look at the good examples. i am watching the permaculture movie "inhabit" on youtube. one guy is committed to building soil on his farm. he said like: when i got sheep, we saw more richness in what the soil could do in one season of grazing, than what we had in 6 years before.
(starting at 9:09 minutes into the video).

i do not think, that "don t do it ever" is the solution to grazing. i think: "do it the right way" is the solution.
... but... it depends on the given situation.



and in general... when you re learning, it s not a real failure.


EDIT: i am wondering. please NOBODY take this personal. when i think about lowering my footprint and impact on the planet/nature, then i come to think that it s quite evil what i do. i consume. stuff that s industrially produced. even now, typing this. electricity, internet, using up the laptop etc. i do negative stuff. most the time. i am very sensitive to stuff. i see things and the things behind the things. i tend to look deeply, maybe most often too deep, so that becomes not healthy for me. so looking into topics like sustainability, loosing of topsoil, expanding deserts, the suffering caused by that etc. ... that can be really hard for/on me. and to some extend i (and most people in my country) are part of that (or at least some, or other) problem.
am i now to condemn and hate myself?
i do NOT want to go down that road. never. i believe that i (and we) can make a positive impact. that we actually can do good. that we can green the desert (in the literal sense, but also in a social/emotional/spiritual sense of meaning). i believe that we overcome the evil by doing good (in MOST cases, of normal life. i m not talking about hugging armed shooters/terrorists here, but maybe hugging them years before might prevent them from becoming one of these ...).

i want to feel empowered to change stuff. i want to have the confidence that i can grow stuff and even generate surplusses to give away. i want to make positive contributions by sharing and by improving stuff. so i cannot let failures (and i did many... very many in gardening) overwhelm me. because that way of thinking (perspective, looking on failures) would prevent me from finding solutions, learning and making things better.

I agree, Tobias. Condemning ourselves and feeling guilty is harmful, it doesn't ever help anything, in my opinion. I try to remind myself of that. I think I can look at my life critically and try to make changes, but that isn't the same as condemning myself and feeling guilty. And I don't think guilt is an effective means to change people's minds. Changed minds come from knowledge which changes the way a person feels about things, I think, and leads them to change their behavior.

@Tobias B: "... i m not talking about hugging armed shooters/terrorists here, but maybe hugging them years before might prevent them from becoming one of these ..."

Ironically, this thread is titled "Minimal diet = deficiencies". In all of the other hoopla surrounding the issue you raised, cider-pressy though it may be, you are indeed correct. The best evidence points to a "minimal/starvation emotional diet" as the foundation for what produces such anger.

john... i had intended to add... "if you green other peoples deserts (talking about land) they might not become terrorists." but that hit s into an area of political uncorrectness, cider-pressness, over-generalization etc. . might be true in some cases. but most people in these countries just want to have a healthy, happy, fullfilling life.
for me whenever i see greening the desert efforts in lands with problems with terrorism n stuff, it fills me with real hope. because it touches some of the real causes of it.
it s awesome that this generation has the tools to really change things and they are very easy available through the internet.

when you green the desert people will get hope and confidence, that they can change stuff for the better ... and this will nourish other areas, like emotions, arts, social etc.

the three permaculture ethics in action ...

Eating animals is often equated to bad practice if the industrial system which is destroying the world. The thing is, we have the methods of management to do a great job, but things will never be as they were. There would have been enough Buffalo and other migratory animal to feed everyone, but we all claimed ownership of land and put fences and roads across everything. The nature of our society is such that it's just not compatible with nature. As sep holtzer said now you must do the work of the pig... Our society has done nothing natural, but has yet to take responsibility for their choices & damage. Growing animals does not have to be damaging and the discussion of efficiency in their raising is not valid, I think, really. Animals make protein and soil from large areas that would never be used in any meaningful way otherwise as well as producing nutrients we must have. Zinc and minerals and vitamins are all abundant in the organs of the animals we throw in the trash. So, again the problem is our choices. Including the coice to forget the ways of the past and live a modern scientific, industrial life and eat the "ice cream" of the plant/animal world. The only consideration given by the centralized food system is profitability. Unfortunately profitability often leads to exactly the wrong choice, but then money is "required" to function in a false world of greed. We don't value the only things that have true value, like our future health. As long as this is the case ranchers will most often choose what is both easy (no management) and what is profitable over what is right.

It's only the crisis that helps us decide to change what "we" do or how we do it.

Choosing to not eat a cow because it's weed and grass conversion rate on otherwise unused large land areas is really rather lacking in my opinion; As is saying producet is evil because society's money making ranches choose earth destroying practices. On the other side of the coin it's good that people have a conscious sensitive enough to avoid using products that are causing problems because of how industry produces it or because they respect all life. Unfortunately the masses will have to meet crisis before they think about any change.

With health problems and cancer sky rocketing as they are one would think more people could connect the dots. I think it is possible to have a truely complete diet, but old wisdom and a paradigm shift in society is going to have to made. In fact society's have had a 100% falure rate in the past. It's necessary to have a global food system just to just survive with our unnatural centrilized populations and it may be necessary to have higher dieoff rates to have a sustainable society. I, however, would prefer to do a bit better that only sustain..

I think we need more people trying to live 100% on what they can produce! In only this way we will rediscover what we truely required. Trade is perfectly normal natural for humans. It's not that we need to truely produce 100% of wht we need, but rather that the land produce 100% of what we need in the form of direct foods as well as a tradable surplus to fill all our needs from food to shoes and Internet, lol. It been done for thousands of years and it's only in this modern life of a few hundred years that we forgot how to live.

I suspect the source of our programing to belittle people who try to live off the land apart from society is partly our middle and lower brain function as well as the need that government and mega rich families that need you to come to town and spend a portion of your life sustaining their fortunes. That part of society that is just not going to produce anything useful what so ever. The 1 or 2%..

Dan alan wrote:Growing animals does not have to be damaging and the discussion of efficiency in their raising is not valid, I think, really.

I think it is very much in line with permaculture principles to be concerned with producing human food on the least amount of land, which means using the most efficient practices.

From Permaculture A Designers Manual, by Bill Mollison:

Chapter 1, page 6-7:

"As the basis of permaculture is beneficial design, it can be added to all other ethical training and skills, and has the potential for taking a place in all human endeavors. In the broad landscape, however, permaculture concentrates on already-settled areas and agricultural lands. Almost all of these need drastic rehabilitation and re-thinking. One certain result of using our skills to integrate food supply and settlement, to catch water from our roof areas, and to place nearby a zone of fuel forest which receives wastes and supplies energy, will be to free most of the area of the globe for the rehabilitation of natural systems. These need never be looked upon as 'of use to people', except in the very broad sense of global health."

Page 7:

"We abused the land and laid waste to systems we need never have disturbed had we attended to our home gardens and settlements. If we need to state a set of ethics on natural systems, then let it be thus:

- Implacable and uncompromising opposition to further disturbance of any remaining natural forests, where most species are still in balance;

- Vigorous rehabilitation of degraded and damaged natural systems to stable state;

- Establishment of plant systems for our own use on the least amount of land we can use for our existence; and

- Establishment of plant and animal refuges for rare or threatened species."

Page 9

"We create our own life conditions, now and for the future. In permaculture, this mean that all of us have some part in identifying, supporting, recommending, investing in, or creating wilderness habitats and species refuges..."


"As will be clear in other chapters of this book, the end result of the adoption of permaculture strategies in any country or region will be to dramatically reduce the area of the agricultural environment needed by the households and the settlements of people and to release much of the landscape for the sole use of wildlife and for re-occupation by endemic flora. Respect for all life forms is a basic, and in fact essential, ethic for all people."

Here's a thread for discussing the above concepts https://permies.com/t/56225/permaculture-design/Mollison-Permaculture-Zones-happened-Zone It is off-topic to discuss them in this thread.

Thank you Neil, One of the things that is a mystery to me is why people buy and take daily multivitamins when it has been shown in several trials that our bodies can't take up the forms present in these multivitamins.

I do use supplements but they are all chelates or accompanied by the right enzymes to help our bodies make use of the supplement vitamins and minerals.
The human body functions a lot like the plants function, where they need bacteria and fungi to help them get at the minerals that are all around them, so do we need bacteria, enzymes, as helpers.

Yes Carnosine is cynthesised by our bodies the question is, how well does our body do this and what do we need that will make it more efficient at synthesis of the needed nutrients.
I think that if we come up with a way to enhance our own bodies so they have everything they need to thrive, that would be of benefit to all humans.
So far we are getting there slower than one might think.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Thank you Neil, One of the things that is a mystery to me is why people buy and take daily multivitamins when it has been shown in several trials that our bodies can't take up the forms present in these multivitamins.

I do use supplements but they are all chelates or accompanied by the right enzymes to help our bodies make use of the supplement vitamins and minerals.
The human body functions a lot like the plants function, where they need bacteria and fungi to help them get at the minerals that are all around them, so do we need bacteria, enzymes, as helpers.

Yes Carnosine is cynthesised by our bodies the question is, how well does our body do this and what do we need that will make it more efficient at synthesis of the needed nutrients.
I think that if we come up with a way to enhance our own bodies so they have everything they need to thrive, that would be of benefit to all humans.
So far we are getting there slower than one might think.

perhaps in misunderstanding the last part but it seems like we have everything the human body needs to thrive. This has been demonstrated by the existence of humans for thousands of years before industrialization