Interesting observation re meat in Africa

[Diana]

Our domestic lady has such beautiful perfect teeth, she is almost 50, but there is no dental decay whatsoever. Here we are in Southern Africa, so I asked her about her diet, assuming she would eat a lot of raw meats. She doesn't. Her whole life she has been eating local home grown foods. They live on a thick stiff maize porridge with vegetables, and 'overcooked' meat (stew) 3 times a week. They eat everything that is edible, organs, fat, bones, whatever. But all of it is well cooked. They do beans regularly, but not too often. As a child her father would kill a cow every 6 months, and they would use it fresh (well cooked) or dried (also well cooked), using all parts till it was finished. Their staples were 2 types of millet, eaten with wild green vegetables, and some wild fruits. Now she is living in town they hardly ever have fruits, because it is too expensive for them.

I wanted to share this with you, it also gives some food for thought. This lady has been on a very low calcium/high phosphorus cooked diet her whole life, and here she is with perfect and strong teeth.

Diana

[TylerDurden]

Threads/posts promoting cooked and/or non-palaeo diets should only be made in the Hot Topics forum. I've moved the thread accordingly to the correct forum.

Re health:- The woman in question seems to have eaten the whole animal, including organs which would have helped considerably. As regards Africans, I recall 1 incident where  I saw Masai who, outwardly ,looked in excellent physical health. However, in hindsight, these Masai had been leading very active lives re physical activity, which would have offset some of the negative aspects of a cooked diet, plus I , later on, read about studies on the Masai which showed a low average lifespan, strong atherosclerotic tendencies  etc. In other words, I'm saying that appearances are, most of the time, very deceptive and don't give a true picture. For example, health of Bantu women in Africa(I presume your domestic woman is a Bantu?) is rather on the low side. Though, I'll grant that there was 1 study made a while back, which showed that Bantu women had excellent teeth/bones despite eating a very-low-calcium diet, mostly consisting of plant-foods.

[wodgina]

The bantu woman probably came from exellent stock so this should be taken into account

[Diana]

Yes, she is a bantu woman. And she is quite representative re dental health and diet (although out here I have also seen many people with bad dental decay when on the refined-foods-wagon. 
It seems that local home grown unprocessed foods have something to do with it. Thinking about it, the wild greens of her youth were loaded with calcium, and  their staple millet has loads of calcium (for one type) and silicon (for the other type). Plus these folks are out in the sun working on their fields all the time.

She looks strong.  I do know how healthy she really is, but her dental health is remarkable.  Not so with her daughter who has grown up in town and who has been exposed to refined foods.

[goodsamaritan]

Yes, she is a bantu woman. And she is quite representative re dental health and diet (although out here I have also seen many people with bad dental decay when on the refined-foods-wagon. 
It seems that local home grown unprocessed foods have something to do with it. Thinking about it, the wild greens of her youth were loaded with calcium, and  their staple millet has loads of calcium (for one type) and silicon (for the other type). Plus these folks are out in the sun working on their fields all the time.

She looks strong.  I do know how healthy she really is, but her dental health is remarkable.  Not so with her daughter who has grown up in town and who has been exposed to refined foods.

Please do some more in depth studying about that woman, how she grew up, how many children she has, how her diets and her habits and traditions are and her ancestors and what her ancestors died from.  Something remarkably works very well with her and we would do well to listen to whatever successes your Bantu woman friend has.  Post a picture too.

[PaleoPhil]

The accumulating evidence indicates that vitamins A, D3 (a hormone) and K2 are key to dental health. The sunlight and foods you mentioned, particularly pasture-fed organs, would provide higher levels of these nutrients than the standard processed Western cooked diet, so these could be factors.

[invisible]

they might not eat raw and eat organs and meats cooked, but most people don't eat that at all. And their meats and vegetables are cooked in a stew with water which is better than frying in some hydrogenated oil like westerners. Basically their diet is not absolutely perfect but it's decently healthy.