Changed 19-05-2024, 18-05-2025
The diseases of the wealthy from eating red meat and red wine, such as gout, are now supplemented by diseases of modern processed food and intensive production, vehicle fumes, as well as the benefits of the supply of better quality vegetables to the cities though, of cause, not as good and nice as fresh picked and eaten. Better health services, depending on the country, for some or for all, alternatively, traditional living, food and the use of natural medicine also work. A mediaeval banquet as seen in the films with beef of old England, game, wine, beer, fruit and spirit was the food of kings, but they also learnt to eat their fruit and vegetables as a necessary penance or encouraged as natural pleasures. Eating wild berries and fruit is a pleasure that seems to have gone out of fashion, perhaps displaced by sweeties and smart devices? Sweets were popular with Mum, perhaps starting from her wartime ration, but never interested Dad much. They were a sort of gift to the first world after WW2, but they then became normal rather than a treat, even though fruit and veg became more available as well. Parts of the UK live on a lot of animal product's and to even get vegetables on a plate in the Midlands is a difficult request still, and even if your chosen item is a vegetable dish, such as eating out in Birmingham (I was told this, as an old truism before I started contract working near Birmingham and found it still very true). An anecdote on Facebook of parents and grandparents who live mostly on meat in the Midlands.
The conventional anthropological view is that humans descended from apes and that fire and meat-eating distinguished us from our ape ancestors. Furthermore, the theory is that the brain developed from hunting, but we have still ended up in a major extinction event of our making that we see and understand. There is more than an element of truth that humans left their passive, plant-eating "Garden of Eden" for a more aggressive life, fighting, killing and building cities. In the film "2001 A Space Odyssey" - Chapter 1, Dawn of Man, the author Arthur C Clarke was a science fiction (prediction) writer, but this view was more in keeping with the 1960s when it was written and is not wrong, but only part of our anthropology. Plant-eating people who occasional hunt live a very easy life in the lowland with lush vegetation, than those living in higher arid land where life is a struggle (From Eden to Ethiopia, Radio 4, 1988*). Change occurs in our case is not due to the small population under pressure, but is a consequence of the opportunity to exploit, manufacture and produce cheap factory meat and other food for people living in the first world. We greatly overproduce and waste food. Food that many people ate before World War One was often poor, and the conscripts joined in poor health. The pressure led to popular support for Communism in the UK between the two world wars, when the starvation of post-World War I Europe led to the rise of Hitler and WW2. Hence the cold war was initiated very soon after WW2 turning on our great ally the USSR, and crippling it financially eventually 40 years later rather than have the idea Communism spread.
* Lowland living people in places like Africa the radio programme explained did perhaps 4 hours a week if you can discern any work done. The children looking after the smaller children. 19th century European Missionaries visited in there 10's thousands and stayed and the phrase 'gone native' was coined for them. During the 1980's Ethiopia suffered famine though food was still grown but was being exported to us in the first world and fed the visiting journalist was an issue the journalist drew our attention to, then.
The common thing in the post-war period with all the allies was that meat was put on the tables, and although fingers were pointed at what the Soviet Union did not have, they did have meat at every meal, just the same as we did, if we and they chose. Russian visitors who spoke in Tunbridge Wells in the 1980s also said they were very supportive of Mrs Thatcher.
- Type O are the hunter's type and is better suited to meat eating.
- Type A is suited to vegetable eating.
- Type B has adaptations for milk and wheat.
- Type AB is a combination of both A and B.
It turns out that my blood type is A+, not the Hunter type. I am sensitive to eating meat, and red meat is particularly bad and gives me a very bad headache. After a long abstinence, many years, from milk, I find that hay fever, constipation are greatly reduced, and there are other benefits. Having said that, the personal observation may also partly be an adverse reaction to the products of intense farming methods. At a Tunbridge Wells UNA meeting in October 2015, I heard worryingly that the productivity of modern farming is (Barrie Bain, a consultant to the International Fertiliser Industry Association, advising on United Nations affairs).
- Chicken is 2 times the input for a given food output. Vegan groups say the same (Animal Aid).
- Lamb 4 times, which in the UK mostly roam freely.
- Beef 7 times. Animal Aid said this summer (Kent Vegan Fare 2015) that the intensity is not so high and has a figure of 15 times for beef,
- Goose meat, 100 times.
The world cannot sustain this level of consumption and has already stopped providing people with grass-fed meat and free-living animals as a food source for nearly all people, progressively producing poorer quality food, such as bland factory chicken with spice and seasoning added rather than naturally very spicy wild jungle fowl*. The world has to be managed sustainably, and consumption must not grow, whether denied or acknowledged, but avoided either way. The modern culture of home-delivered pizza and the couch potato also leads to less socialising and more information, therefore spun by the media. This only works for us whilst money is created in London, plus another income from keeping the world in conflict through war.
The UK is now the biggest arms exporter in the world (Radio 4, in recent years, 2025).
*A BBC interview decades ago with a British visitor returning from a visit to South East Asia how different their wild jungle fowl to our British domestic chicken and turkey.
Farming rings a considerable amount out of animals, and this motivates people to mistrust at least and be concerned about what we lose in quality and humanity to achieve such productivity. The constant pressure on all production to cut corners without compromising appearance, and the paperwork, should be called the human race rather than the cliché rat race.
Personally, I find some meat, and I suspect it is low-standard factory farmed, has a strong stink of urine eye-stinging smell. This type of meat gives much more severe headache if I eat it. Cow's milk has a yuckiness in its taste. I used to refuse to eat meat when I was very young, so Mum and Dad spent a lot of time coaxing me to eat meat. But I am certain that my reaction was right in that case, but suppressed in later childhood, consequently. In my adulthood mum told me children know what is right for them, contrary to the outdated but still held view when I was a baby that fat babies are healthier. I have spoken to other parents of my generation who were advised by the NHS to put more weight and to feed their babies with animal products, but did not do that and that children grew up to be very athletic.
In discussions on Facebook;
Books have been written on human anthropology, but a view that fire and eating meat gave humans an advantage so that our stomach size could be reduced. "Catching Fire" by Richard Wrangham. Has been recommended to me.
In the summary of the book, cooking and eating meat gave humans the genetic opportunity to reduce the amount of body mass taken up by chewing and digesting.
The blood group type article would coincide with that more recent history case. Humans moving into colder climates, I guess, similarly to the Inuit, who traditionally lived hard but short lives. Having said that, there is a path for us back to the Garden of Eden (with tablet computers and mobile phones) or at least the diet that goes with it, but there is no other path on offer that involves the continuation of the amount of pain, consumption and exploration humans cause now. I found my Blood donor's card turns out that I am A rh D+, whatever that means, but I think it means that I am of the vegan blood group. But I am not convinced, and neither are many others, it is like most people I have lived with, feeling unwell but not knowing anything else, problems with consuming, animal and wheat. The problem is compounded by the intensity of production and the greater availability of poorer foods don’t just harm me, but harm everyone and everything.
Fruit, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds are optimal foods for humans. I have been working on tuning my senses to my body's needs. Something my dad coached me on is to learn to like what is right and to not like what is poisonous, for example sweet smell of paint. But I’d say the Skull Bar's vegan food and beer is bad, but unusually very nice, hence their food awards. The more in tune with what is right for me, and I have corrected in my diet, the better I feel and the more sensitive I have become to what is good or bad for me.
Another book recommended was Grain Brain. It apparently says our brains developed with the use of grains. That makes sense, the group B or AB blood type being more recent than the hunter blood group O.
A friend also recalled some information about uric acid in meat ... due to the stress of modern killing methods ... meat eaters are, in effect, eating urine. I can confirm that I do, and I can smell it (cooking meat can make my eyes sting depending on the quality of the meat). As that friend can also. And I agree with her that, " But frankly, given the delicious beans and grains and veg", I have cut the quote.
Many of the vegan food places have reduced their range or closed since I wrote this blog. My savings in more ethical unit trusts have been reducing in value, no doubt against warfare investment in recent years. Such a bad trend, good things are being talked down, and the BBC is pressing the Labour government to spend badly and unethically. For so long, Conservative or Labour governments have only done good things if they don’t get noticed. The only time this was not so was after World War 2, when people had been billeted together, isolated from the media, but talking to each other about what they wanted next: better homes, work, a welfare state, and an NHS (my father explained).
My experience of being vegan or being mostly vegan is feel very good on it, the more strict I am about it, lethargy after a meat has no equivalent with any other food. But in the discussion, some people have said they honestly tried, and they have problems. There are junk food vegans who will expose themselves to the risk of scurvy as much as any meat-eater can. If you want to live like royalty, you still have to eat your fruit and veg, and the veg is lightly cooked or raw. As I said above, "Where's the meat?" You soon get over that first reaction; in any case, nuts and seeds are better. It is important to change slowly, introducing vegan things and reducing animal products, but giving your body time to adjust.
What we choose to eat probably overrides our natural instincts. When I was not too bothered about what I ate, that was up until about 1985, I still found Coca-Cola and McDonald's very horrible, but then I never conformed and went vegetarian when I left home. In recent years, McDonald's has introduced vegan options, plus their black coffee is the best thing on the menu, provided they put the correct item in the box, which is the nature of that business; they make mistakes.
In Conclusion, it is not companies doing bad things, though some do, but that people and the media could instead cultivate better. No wars, arms sales, kindness to each other, the environment and in our food. But I observe the BBC will cover everything but spend much time on promoting the negative during their most popular viewing times. As ordinary people, we can set the agenda by using our buying and discussing powers.
I have included personal anecdotes, but they are difficult to argue or to say are coincidences, such as do people with blood group O also get bad headaches or feel mildly lethargic/unwell after eating meat, hence take care with those comparisons of blood types?
Will you feel better on a vegan diet, yes, but how well or long a life is affected by how they compensate following an earlier life health issue and whether they are an empowered, feisty personality, as well as what they eat.
Related links:
https://www.peta.org/living/food/really-natural-truth-humans-eating-meat/
LinkedIn article - not promoting veganism, but a Mediterranean diet.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-what-eat-why-your-diet-matters-brain-mylea-charvat-ph-d-
Anatomy and The Plant-Based Vegan Diet
https://youtu.be/BuJspO5TcsE?si=AuUM6pRlRaCKJWpl
Postscript: The environment.
Carl Sagan's TV 1980s series Cosmos is very good and has stood the test of time particularly well because he uses more certain explanations and observations. That is not to say Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago may be wrong there were second thought by the authors of some of the theories. Science needs to remain evidence-based rather theory built on theory but having faith in peace and kindness is a good strategy.
Since then, we have learnt the biomass is greater than we thought in the sea, but the sea has been absorbing 25% more CO2 than it had been before industrialisation, at the cost to shell and coral life among so many other things. Humans have gone beyond breaking point, but Gaia systems have absorbed more than anticipated and kept us alive but with much broken and lost!
Wind and solar power now supply greatly more than could have been anticipated. In 2025, 90% of new energy production are by renewables. These use a combination of simple rules for placing and assembling, and high technology in their development and savings due to mass production. Plus, storage using heated bricks is an established technology for storing energy where traditional hydroelectric storage won't meet the needs and demand management which the power supplies have not had traditionally.
https://www.sgr.org.uk/projects/climate-change-military-main-outputs
Education and more equitable sharing of wealth should stop population growth.
https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson_how_economic_inequality_harms_societies
?I can not find the TED talk on education results, more opportunities and population reduction?
Acceptance of dilution of pollution is okay, it is not, but all that can be done having got to where we are and should not have got too.
https://www.ted.com/talks/mike_biddle_we_can_recycle_plastic
Kindness towards each other, the environment, such as for wild flowers to return to the fields like they used to be in 1961, when I was 2 or 3. Our culture and the way it works is steered by manipulators who affect enough of us, and our stated view of war is usually that it is bad, but of a specific war, Britain sells arms to is good. Meat and excessive consumption were good given post World War 2, but have not been treated as enemies consistently, but the government is pressed by the BBC to promote growth, and war, rather than better equality and living within our means.
https://www.ted.com/dubbing/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think
