who was the healthiest tribe

[fuggles]

out of the 12 tribes

who was the healthiest, what did they eat ? , how long did they roughly live

[majormark]

I think it was the Maori.

[RawZi]

out of the 12 tribes

who was the healthiest, what did they eat ? , how long did they roughly live

    Are these WAPF tribes?  Suni?  You have to specify which tribes when you start a new topic.  Did you finish middle school/junior high?

[wodgina]

I think he said the Maori and there was one other he made a point to mention.

There's still some pretty spectactular looking Maori around today of course most have sucumbed to physical degradation in some form.

[TylerDurden]

The irony is that the Maori are described as gradually regaining their health/population c.1900 once they turned to western diets. Much before that as the British first came in,  they'd been forced into swamp-land and forced to eat even more of the grains they normally ate in their diets so became even more unhealthy than they were in pre-colonial times.

[Hans89]

Did you finish middle school/junior high?

 

[wodgina]

The irony is that the Maori are described as gradually regaining their health/population c.1900 once they turned to western diets. Much before that as the British first came in,  they'd been forced into swamp-land and forced to eat even more of the grains they normally ate in their diets so became even more unhealthy than they were in pre-colonial times.

You keep referring back to the information in that highly contradictory article.

I lolled too.

[TylerDurden]

You keep referring back to the information in that highly contradictory article.

Well I find it telling as it revealed that  WP's notions of the Maori turning from a supposedly healthy ancestral diet to a modern, unhealthy one, were somewhat inaccurate.

Well, anyway, that article was one of the very few which also focused on maori health in pre-colonial times. I got interested because a Maori-descended NZer from a non-diet-related forum had told me that the Maori had always been in poor health throughout history and had mentioned some anthropologist who had examined maori bodies in pre-colonial times. I'd had concerns about WP before with his claims re supposedly "healthy" grains and dairy, so it confirmed my suspicions. Plus, there've been other cases where WP's claims didn't quite fit the facts from other sources.

[wodgina]

We've been through this before, WAP wasn't perfect but he did show the effects of modern foods on dental arches.

I think having a deformed head from eating white man foods was his sole point. These peoples ate some grains and some dairy yet had wide palates, no crowding and excellent occlusion.

[chucky]

   Did you finish middle school/junior high?

I don't think school makes someone write better or make ones expressions more intelligent (although school helps with overall intelligence but it's not the case). During writing, he could have been either drunk, still non-paleo with brain fog, with low thyroid or with some other metabolic dysfunction. Have you noticed how people on raw paleo/paleo are more intelligent than people on regular diets ? When someone does not have any disturbing factors in his diet (like MSG or a metabolic) he/she does much better.

[cherimoya_kid]

Well, anyway, that article was one of the very few which also focused on maori health in pre-colonial times. I got interested because a Maori-descended NZer from a non-diet-related forum had told me that the Maori had always been in poor health throughout history and had mentioned some anthropologist who had examined maori bodies in pre-colonial times. I'd had concerns about WP before with his claims re supposedly "healthy" grains and dairy, so it confirmed my suspicions. Plus, there've been other cases where WP's claims didn't quite fit the facts from other sources.

I thought the Maori were supposedly the most feared warriors of the south Pacific.  How could that be, if they were so unhealthy?

[TylerDurden]

I thought the Maori were supposedly the most feared warriors of the south Pacific.  How could that be, if they were so unhealthy?

 They were feared - they were even cannibals. But the idea that aggression and general savagery are linked to a healthy diet is misguided. Indeed, the opposite could be said to be true, that an unhealthy diet makes one more prone to mood-swings, increased aggression etc.(at least that's what happened to me when I was on a SAD diet).  The Maori are described as being physically fit due to heavy levels of exercise like any other hunter-gatherers; but it seems that like the Masai, they had various health-problems, the majority of which would get worse with old-age(which most Maori never reached due to very low average life-span of c, 25-29 years, last I checked).

[wodgina]

References for Maori being fit from exercise,short lifespan and various problems from illness?

[TylerDurden]

References for Maori being fit from exercise,short lifespan and various problems from illness?

That link you mentioned(the one I originally presented on the rawpaleodiet yahoo group and here(PP referenced it in my journal, last I checked), had all that (pre-Colonial and post-Colonial) data. I find it most interesting that their average lifespan was even lower than in the Palaeolithic era.

[TylerDurden]

Oh, these were 2 links on the subject:-

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/events/ruralhealth/2005/papers/8nrhcfinalpaper00603.pdf

http://www.nzbr.org.nz/documents/publications/publications-2006/maori_eco_development.pdf

[invisible]

The Maori? The Native American were the healthiest

[TylerDurden]

The Maori? The Native American were the healthiest

  Many of the Native Americans ate grains in the south or pemmican in the North, hardly healthy traits.

The Inuit appear to be the most likely candidates for the best health among all tribes in the world, having a higher intake of raw animal foods, espeically rotting raw animal foods(ie high-meat) which RVAFers know fends off to some extent some of the negative aspects of cooked foods re digestion.

[William]

  Many of the Native Americans ate grains in the south or pemmican in the North, hardly healthy traits.

The Inuit appear to be the most likely candidates for the best health among all tribes in the world, having a higher intake of raw animal foods, espeically rotting raw animal foods(ie high-meat) which RVAFers know fends off to some extent some of the negative aspects of cooked foods re digestion.

Inuit ate pemmican.
Pre-contact Northern Amerindians may have been at least as healthy, and there is no Stefansson to speak for them.

[invisible]

 Many of the Native Americans ate grains in the south or pemmican in the North, hardly healthy traits.

The Inuit appear to be the most likely candidates for the best health among all tribes in the world, having a higher intake of raw animal foods, espeically rotting raw animal foods(ie high-meat) which RVAFers know fends off to some extent some of the negative aspects of cooked foods re digestion.

I mean the ones in the WP book. They only ate Bison. Price mentions they ate raw meat, with raw adrenal glands being the first thing  they ate after a kill. No specific mention they ate cooked meat but I think obviously they would have. They had the best health from the tribes studied in the book. The Inuit had the second best health from the tribes and I would say Australian Aborigines would rank third.

[TylerDurden]

Inuit ate pemmican.
Pre-contact Northern Amerindians may have been at least as healthy, and there is no Stefansson to speak for them.

  According to Stefansson's book "Not By Bread Alone", the Inuit didn't eat pemmican, pemmican was a staple of the forest indians. That's in my review of the book. 'll bring up the reference re page-number  in a couple of days.

Not that it matters, really. Even if Stefansson was wrong re the above(and he is on many other issues), the raw portion of the Inuit diet would have offset, if only to some extent, the negative harm to health caused by pemmican.

[William]

Even if Stefansson was wrong re the above(and he is on many other issues), the raw portion of the Inuit diet would have offset, if only to some extent, the negative harm to health caused by pemmican.

Considering the known positive effect on health of pemmican diet, what evidence is there that eating pemmican has a negative effect?

[TylerDurden]

Considering the known positive effect on health of pemmican diet, what evidence is there that eating pemmican has a negative effect?

Well, of course, there is no known positive effect of pemmican on health(indeed the only genuine studies on the effects of rendered-fat-intake have shown evidence of very harmful(atherosclerosis-inducing)oxidised cholesterol and a higher rate of BSE for cattle fed on rendered fats. And there is plenty of anecdotal evidence from the many on rawpaleoforum(Ioanna/DJR-81 etc. etc.) who have actually tried pemmican who have found pemmican to be very harmful to their health.

[Treisee]

As a NZ Maori, I find this thread topic quite interesting... and rather amusing.

The statements that have been made in this thread about the people of my race and culture have definitely been made out of ignorance and unbalanced research.

I come from a long lineage of Maori people. We are a race of oral history and it takes 4 hours to recite my family lineage orally nonstop.
My family have those that have lived short lives such as 20 years of age, and those that have reached grand old ages and rankings of high Kaumatuas or elders due to wisdom and longevity of life.

There has been many stories of those in our family full of health and those that are of sickly nature, as well of those who are people of peace and those who are people of war and fighting.

But one thing that you actually miss in this thread about the Maori people is their true history and knowledge of what they actually ate.


The Maori people have been touted as Hunter Gatherers and Paleo type people. This is complete fallacy.

Maoris have always been farmers.

Yes they gathered herbs, roots, ferns, fronds, sea vegetables and berries. Yes they hunted fish, and other sea creatures as well as birds including the famous Giant Moa... look that one up, it would make any true paleo drool for months :-D

But the one thing that has been over looked in many circles is the NZ Maoris weakness and addiction to Kumera, this vegetable they farmed for dear life and would fight for the best Kumera patches all over NZ. The Maori arrived in NZ on dug out canoes bearing loads of Kumara with which was a prized staple food being high in starch alas called the sweet potato.

The first Maoris came to NZ with their farming instincts well ingrained and a normal part of their social structure, this definitely makes them agrarian.
But if you wanted to learn about the true Paleolithic peoples of NZ then you could do a little research on the Mori Oris, the original people group who lived in NZ before the Maoris arrived, and of which were all wiped out by the aggressive new arrivals, the Maoris.

So my pick for the "Best out of the 12" is... definitely not Maori.

[wodgina]

Maori are some of the most well built people I have seen. Although most have succumbed to NAPD there is still some pretty cool looking ones.

My Maori neighbour has calves as thick as my head, I'm pretty envious, doesn't even do weights. Usually they are really chilled and happy.

There's some beautiful girls aswell.

I know they like heaps of fatty meat, seafood plus the usual junk.

[wodgina]

I don't mind Kumera either, I really need to get to NZ again. Got friends and free accomdation at Raglan!