essentialism

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Gloominary
Posts: 266
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2017 11:10 pm

Re: essentialism

Post by Gloominary »

@Conde
If all of this were a fact, it would be supported by science, but that's unlikely. Eating honey will not ruin your health, unless you only had honey for your whole diet, but that will be pretty much the same outcome if you only eat one of the products deemed as "essential". The fact is humans are omnivorous and what was a sound advice before, hasn't changed much: it's better to eat food from all food groups.
If you ate any two food groups in the essential category, you could live a long life, but if you ate any two 'foods' in the inessential category, you couldn't.
For example, meat and vegetables, eggs and fruits, dairy and whole grains.
You might even be able to subsist on one of them alone, like the Inuit pretty much just ate meat, althou they ate the whole animal.
You might be able to subsist on fruits or vegetables alone, if there's some bugs on them you're also eating.
That's because as delicious and natural as honey is, it's practically empty calories.
Honey is something you supplement your diet with occasionally, it's not something you can eat a lot of, like an essential food.
But just taking away eggs from nests found in the wild will unlikely produce enough of them as to be a regular part of a diet in a group with some reproductive success. It requires a higher degree of control of nature's resources.
If you were in the wild, you could find a few eggs, possibly everyday, along with some fish, some fruit, and you'd be healthy.
You might find some herbs and spices too, but a diet with less eggs in it is a lot worse than diet with less herbs and spices in it, or refined flour, salt, sugar and transfat, because it's far more nutritionally deficient.
That's how it was before Capitalism arose. And it was a mediocre state of society, praised only by friars and other clerics.
Mhm, and the Romans had lots of goods to consume, or at least the rich among them did, nearly right up until they collapsed.
Medieval society was at least sustainable, ours almost certainly is not.
It probably wasn't half as bad as mainline scientists, historians and philosophers say it was, from my research.
I wouldn't want to return us exactly to that, but we, or some of us do need to begin changing course, if not a 180, than at least a 90 or a 45, for catastrophe, a new dark age is upon us.
Last edited by Gloominary on Tue Aug 22, 2017 11:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Gloominary
Posts: 266
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2017 11:10 pm

Re: essentialism

Post by Gloominary »

I think I've proven eggs, fruit, meat and so on, are a lot more essential to a healthy and sustainable diet than say chocolate (which's a drug), honey, pizza and cake, in fact it's essential you at least minimize the latter 'foods' if not eliminate them.
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Conde Lucanor
Posts: 846
Joined: Mon Nov 04, 2013 2:59 am

Re: essentialism

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Gloominary wrote: Tue Aug 22, 2017 11:18 pm @Conde
If all of this were a fact, it would be supported by science, but that's unlikely. Eating honey will not ruin your health, unless you only had honey for your whole diet, but that will be pretty much the same outcome if you only eat one of the products deemed as "essential". The fact is humans are omnivorous and what was a sound advice before, hasn't changed much: it's better to eat food from all food groups.
If you ate any two food groups in the essential category, you could live a long life, but if you ate any two 'foods' in the inessential category, you couldn't.
For example, meat and vegetables, eggs and fruits, dairy and whole grains.
You might even be able to subsist on one of them alone, like the Inuit pretty much just ate meat, althou they ate the whole animal.
You might be able to subsist on fruits or vegetables alone, if there's some bugs on them you're also eating.
That's because as delicious and natural as honey is, it's practically empty calories.
Honey is something you supplement your diet with occasionally, it's not something you can eat a lot of, like an essential food.
The problem is you seem to exaggerate the health risks of what you call "inessential foods" to overestimate the benefits of your philosophy of austerity. Some things have more nutritional value than others, of course, but that doesn't make the adding-up of things for many cultural reasons, counterproductive to human well-being. Actually they can make it better, as well as make it worst, depending on the circumstances. Austerity makes sense in times of scarcity, but overcoming scarcity is a sign of human development. We also know now the negative impact of the excesses of modern consumer society, but that's different, for example, of traditional culinary practices based on those "inessential" ingredients that add flavors, colors, textures, etc.

Gloominary wrote:
That's how it was before Capitalism arose. And it was a mediocre state of society, praised only by friars and other clerics.
Mhm, and the Romans had lots of goods to consume, or at least the rich among them did, nearly right up until they collapsed.
Medieval society was at least sustainable, ours almost certainly is not.
It probably wasn't half as bad as mainline scientists, historians and philosophers say it was, from my research.
I wouldn't want to return us exactly to that, but we, or some of us do need to begin changing course, if not a 180, than at least a 90 or a 45, for catastrophe, a new dark age is upon us.
You're idealizing pre-capitalist stages, but the general consensus about the depressing material conditions of those times is pretty solid. And we don't have to go that far in time, considering the famines that killed millions and made life miserable for entire rural populations in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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