Quote:
Originally Posted by dbussone
Little to No Variety in Modern Food Plants
The reality is that the world today depends on a variety of only 150 food plants. Twenty of these account for 90% of our food. And, of these twenty, only three account for half! What are the Big Three? Rice, corn, and wheat – difficult to digest, grain based carbs that ninety percent of the people who ever lived never even ate!
Considering that there are between 30,000-80,000 edible plants in the world and that traditional cultures such as the American Indian regularly consumed about 1,100 of these, it seems virtually impossible that a “plant based diet” of today would contain enough variety to ensure health. Surely, a modern “plant based diet” could only lead to nutritional deficiencies and ill health in the long run given these statistics.
Despite the American Indian’s consumption of a wide variety of nutritious food plants from soil that was arguably much richer and more fertile than the monocrop farms of today, guess what? They still ate meat!
What about the hunter-gatherers? They sampled between 3,000 and 5,000 plants and still consumed animal foods as well.
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What's interesting is that the rice, corn and wheat of today bears little resemblance to the same plants of a thousand years ago. So many strains have been crossbred and do not have the same nutritional value.
The other thing to note s that our ancestors did not have fresh fruits and vegetables year round. They really only had then for a few weeks, maybe a few months of the year. When the plants ripened on the vine, they were eaten. In most parts of the world, that was only weeks and months.
Meat was available year round. It wasn't until about 300 years ago that we discovered ways of preserving fruits and vegetables.