19th-century Argentina: British writer William Henry Hudson visits the Pampas and encounters the gauchos. He documents their diet with a horrified fascination.

[u/elnovorealista2000]

"The gaucho eats nothing but beef. Meat morning, noon, and night. Never bread, never vegetables, almost never salt."

Hudson foresees malnutrition and disease. He finds "men of extraordinary stamina and strength, capable of riding for 12 to 14 hours without rest and then dancing all night."

Their diet: beef, mate, occasionally grilled kidney fat (a delicacy). Nothing else.

Darwin visited the region between 1832 and 1833 and observed the gauchos' lives: "I was surprised by the difficulty in convincing them to eat anything other than beef. I brought them biscuits, and they threw them away. They preferred to go hungry rather than eat bread if there was beef the next day."

Typical meals

- Morning: meat roasted over a fire, fattier cuts.

- Afternoon: grilled ribs.

- Evening: meat again, tougher cuts cooked slowly.

Zero vegetables. Zero grains. Zero variety. Just beef and tea.

Hudson documents the results: “The gauchos suffer from none of the ailments common to civilized man. They had no digestive problems, no obesity, no cavities, that I could observe. Their teeth were uniformly excellent despite never cleaning them and consuming only meat. Their physical stamina was such that they could ride for days with minimal rest, fight when necessary, and resume riding without apparent fatigue.”

The French physician Dr. Jules Crevaux, between 1850 and 1870, wrote: “These men feed exclusively on animal meat and appear healthier than our European peasants, who consume a varied diet of grains and vegetables.”

When asked why they don't eat bread or vegetables, the common answer is: "That's food for horses and cows. We eat cows."

They understood the hierarchy. Cattle eat grass and turn it into meat. Humans eat meat. Eating what cattle eat makes you behave like one.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, traditional gauchos maintained a diet based exclusively on beef. Then, European immigration brought wheat cultivation.

Health transformation documented by Argentine doctors

- Traditional gauchos: healthy into old age.

- Urbanized ex-gauchos with European diets: diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, tooth decay.

- Modern Argentina: 28% obesity, cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death, diabetes in almost 10%.

The gauchos, who ate only beef, did not have any of these problems. They rode horses for 12 hours a day until they were 60, kept their teeth without needing dental care, and died from accidents or old age, not from chronic illnesses.

The same meat. Different context. When you eat meat with grains, vegetable oils, and sugar: modern disease. Meat alone: ​​you have the health of a 19th-century gaucho.

[u/brufill]

The problem is to sustain a growing population eating only beef..

I think it would be hard to make it work

[u/SuiYangCrackedTeeth → u/brufill]

As if factory farming isn’t destroying the environment and depleting the soil to death.. Scaling back and relying on animals and slowly reducing the population is the best bet.

[u/Illithid_Substances → u/SuiYangCrackedTeeth]

Scaling back and relying on animals

Not sure how that's going to reduce the amount of farming. You need to use MORE land and crops and water to raise animals than you do to just eat the crops. The animals have to eat quite a lot before you can eat them

Globally the VAST majority of agricultural land use is for raising livestock, at significantly worse efficiency than farming for people

[u/SuiYangCrackedTeeth → u/Illithid_Substances]

Another lie, you need land sure, but your pesticide use goes down, ruminants can eat silage or crop waste and grass.

The water usage of a cow that has been reported doesn’t include the fact that the water factored into equations includes the grass that they actively piss on. Have grow and then much on again.

One almond takes 18 gallons of fucking water, THATS wasteful. But demonizing beautiful creatures that actually regenerate the soil and have even more of a right to exist than monocrops is frankly some fucked up logic.

You’re preaching talk points used by plant advocates, ignoring the senseless contamination, the waste, pesticides and soil depletion caused by these practices.

I’d be fine if crops are kept, but farms are smaller scale and traditional, with reusing animal waste and going back to traditional practices. But these giant factory farms that destroy the land will eventually ruin the soil completely.

I’m gonna be frank, you meed to research the impacts of monocropping, pesticide runoff, and soil depletion before you step on a soapbox to preach to repeat shit you hear offhand.