Biology Reference
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carnosine, and Vitamin E. Venison is also more tender but loses redness quicker. The best P:S
ratios are for kudu, impala, warthog, and zebra. The meat is also free of hormones, steroids,
human induced stress, castration effects, and pesticides. Cape buffalo is not quite as good as
plains animals but still has a third of the total fats of beef. There is however, a caveat; once
deer are farm raised on grain fodder, the beneficial effects of wild deer, free range, raised on
grass, is lost. Indeed, of African game meat, only one farm raises fodder fed tame animals,
namely eland. Reindeer appear to have more benefits than farm raised deer. Generally,
younger animals, females (both more tender), unstressed, summer slaughtered, free range
cropped, more normal pH, and pelvic hung meat tastes better. In South Africa, meat cropping
and preparation regulations are as strict as for beef and have to meet European Community
Standards.]
We return to the question then of why did humans become pastoralists and farmers in a fairly
short time? As stated there are many theories but none entirely convincing or all encompassing,
since this trend occurred in many epicenters, such as China, the Fertile Crescent, eastern North
America, northern Africa, and Central America. Most explanations are that it was inevitable,
but this does not entirely hold true. Others claim that environmental pressures were the reason,
namely to have a resource to fall back on during periods of drought, but this also seems to be a
challenge because wild animals tolerate in Africa drought much better than any goats, sheep, or
cattle. For what it is worth, having observed hunter-gatherers and pastoralists and white Boer
farmers on the Lebombo plains and Bushveld, and grown up in a family descendent for many
centuries of farmers in Southern Sweden (a twelfth century forefather was an admiral in the
Kings navy, in other words, to be more precise, a Viking Chieftain), some comments may be
apropos based on observation. The life of northern Sami is a harsh one. It requires energy
expenditure for little financial gain and the ability to purchase goods and luxury items. Thus,
my Swedish family farming further south produced wheat, and later potatoes, cows, pigs and
chickens. This was logical from the point of food security and energy expenditure. Hunting of
hare, duck, moose and deer further supplemented the protein source. The hunting of moose was
mostly as a meat source for the egalitarian sharing in the family. Trophies were not important
but most of my aunts and uncles homes had a shoulder mounted moose hanging in the den or
staircase. Even recently my cousin Karina shot two moose that were shared with the family.
Chickens, however, were the main staple protein despite the fact that fowl runs were regularly
raided by foxes. One full mooned winter night I was stationed as a teenager among the milk
cows in the barn to shoot a fox that was raiding the fowl run. He showed up around 2 am but in
the full moon and snow scape he looked very handsome and I did not have the heart to shoot
him. The next morning, of course, my older cousin whom I often followed in the woods for
hunts for pheasant, deer, and hare, discovered the tracks. What was there to say? According to
documents another of my cousin has found of our ancestry in the same area my families
survival mode of hunting, agriculture, fishing and pastoral animals goes back to the 1200s.
Furthermore, dairy cattle were kept for milk, producing butter and cheese. These skills were
used by my mother when my father kept a herd of cattle for fresh milk and a type of African
“yogurt” called “maas.” For this security in obtaining food (“food security”), particularly
when my grandparents had to plow the fields with beautiful Clydesdale horses (I still
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