Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
profit; whether another viral plague that affects goats in Sub Sahara and Middle East, peste des
pestis, can be eliminated, remains to be seen.
So, after that digression within our own inner world of thoughts triggered by the surrounding
thorny Bushveld as we travel along the road from Bulawayo to Mazunga, we see how these
society changes of herding, to pastoralism and western agrarian advances, back to subsistence
farming, and back to hunter-gathering (poaching) and scavenging are playing out. The San
Bushmen, and later the Shona and Shangaan hunter gatherers, were driven out by the Mzilikazi
pastoralists who in turn were driven out by the Rhode's South Africa mining company that
settled the area with whites. The Shonas then drove out the whites and now the land has
reverted to herders and subsistence farmers and even hunter-gatherers. In another era the
poachers gathering “bush meat” would have been called hunter-gatherers. Indeed, as many
societies struggle with poverty and purchasing meat for protein, they have reverted to hunting,
as is the case even in the USA. Protein, as we have reviewed, is critical for good health and
brain function but we cannot live on it alone and that is why a protein diet, a castaway at sea
eating only fish for example, results in weight loss (see Steven Callahan, Adrift Seventy - Six
Days at Sea). Furthermore, a diet based mostly on vegetarian food and carbohydrates is not
healthy. As pointed out Asiatic Indians have the most severe diffuse coronary disease, even if
not consuming large amounts of spices. Moreover, a high fat diet is not healthy due to the long
term risk of coronary disease and it is rumored that the advocate of the high fat diet dropped
dead on the street of New York from coronary disease. Tobias did a study in San bushmen and
Seftel on mine recruits in 1990 of Southern African blacks and showed that based in agrarian
and pastoral populations of the disadvantaged in Africa, their stature has not changed over
time, and may even have shrunk. By comparison, in first world populations there has been a
positive secular trend of stature. However, in a study Tobias did in 1975 of San Bushmen the
reverse was true compared to other Nguni tribes and they continued to grow in stature. The
obvious reason would be the higher meat consumption and protein availability of first world
and San Bushmen communities, particularly during the critical growth years. The San
Bushmen's heart healthy diet, which we should probably follow, was high fiber carbohydrate
and fruit, wild red meat every four days or so, some fat, low salt, no refined sugars, walking 5
to 6 miles or more a day (at least walking 45 minutes a day) and heavy isometric (gym)
exercise at least once a week (lifting loads of meat).
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