[ComradePhil]

Definitely not trolling. If you don't know how to prepare vegetables in indegenous culture that you got it from, you are better off not eating it.

Also, even if you did follow indegenous preparation methods, the food industry may have changed the plant by artificial selection or genetic modification such that the indegenous preparation is not as effective, so you're better off ditching them anyway.

Vegetables have significant phytotoxin content without significant nutrient content, specially in forms bioavailable to us (eg. a lot of carotinoids in carrots, except we are terrible at converting that to Vitamin A... we need the retinol form, readily available in milk, eggs, fish, meat etc.).

Plants are living beings and don't want to be eaten. They can't fight or flight so their defense is toxins. We have domesticated some of the plants and learnt how to remove those toxins over thousands of years... but if you don't know how to do that effectively, you're better off not eating them.

[leobg]

Indigenous preparation methods? Sounds interesting.

I remember reading the book “Fatu Hiva” by Thor Heyerdahl, about the island of the same name in the Pacific. He mentions the custom of the inhabitants of fermenting breadfruit in the ground for several years before eating it. One indigenous man is quoted as saying that he cannot digest food unless he has a portion of fermented breadfruit with it.

I haven’t tried it yet. I did start to ferment some breadfruit after reading the book. But that’s only been eight years ago - so not yet good to eat.

[cheese_goddess]

You should try it with lutefisk and century eggs! Sounds like a great combination.

[leobg]

Great idea. Remind me in 8 years, will you?

[spaghetti1535]

I have recently become interested in finding out more about this (and food/nutrition in general). I want to compile an overview of findings and reference studies. How did you learn about this? Do you recommend any scientific resources concerning the themes of your comment?

[ComradePhil]

I started on this path when I was trying to nurish myself back to health over a decade ago when I suddenly got fat. I thought science was the way to go... but was robbed of that notion a couple of years into it when I discovered that the path to health was in the opposite direction of what the science tells us.

Turns out the food industry fully controls the science of food and nutrition. You can start by reading Unsavory Truth or Food Politics by Marion Nestle for better understanding of why that is the way it is.

Having said that, Marion Nestle doesn't really explore one side of it... which is that because of ethical reasons, we'll never have proper human experiments, thus nutrition science will always be limited and incomplete, which leaves a lot of room for manipulation, which the industry is happy to do for profits. This has been covered very well by the YouTube channel What I've Learned: https://youtu.be/xRAw7yeDO-c

The same channel has several other videos on food and nutrition, one of the most important ones imo being the one on seed oils: https://youtu.be/rQmqVVmMB3k

Nutrition and Physical Degenaration by Weston A. Price as described in this thread is one of the best works in support of indigenous foods.

The Hidden Life of Trees is a great book on plant intelligence.

Other than those resources, we have to piece these things together, take long term views... like should we trust a diet that kept a culture of people alive and well for 100s of years over several generations or do we trust studies with couple of dozen subjects done over a few weeks funded by the food industry?

[taurusnoises]

First, I want to ask you to write up a 101/how-to for this diet (and include one for pescatarians like me). Cuz this is great.

Second, my friends and I (years and tears ago) got really into Price and the (recipe /cook) book based on his work, Nourishing Traditions. I recommend this work to anyone into the above. Was this book a part of you coming to these conclusions?

[spaghetti1535]

The “What I’ve learned” channel has been a big contributor to why I’m interested in learning more about nutrition. Thank you for the references!

[dharma1]

Fruit definitely evolved to be eaten (this is how the seeds spread)

[ComradePhil]

True. Fruits and berries.

[nwah1]

Food in general is a poison that is slowly killing you via the byproducts of metabolism.

Meat that is raw puts you at great risk for food-borne illness. Meat that is cooked is full of carcinogens and advanced glycation end products. Almost all meat readily available in the West has very high levels of hormones, bioaccumulated pesticides at higher levels than plants, etc.

[hypertele-Xii]

> Plants are living beings and don't want to be eaten.

Hate to be the one to tell you, but animals are living beings too and don't want to be eaten either.

[urban_strike]

> They can't fight or flight so their defense is toxins.

The very next sentence.

Animals can run away or fight, so they don't have the need to develop other deterrents. I guess aside from a very few exceptions like Amazonian frogs, which would also not be recommended to eat without very special processing. Probably best to keep off the menu altogether, just like most seeds, stems, and leaves for the reasons described in the parent comment.