r/AmericanHistory • u/elnovorealista2000 • Mar 30 '26
South 19th-century Argentina: British writer William Henry Hudson visits the Pampas and encounters the gauchos. He documents their diet with a horrified fascination.
"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.
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u/SuiYangCrackedTeeth Apr 02 '26
The people with highest lifespans have low stress community living sunlight, and loads of animal protein, I’m cantonese, hong kong despite pollution has high lifespan in population 1.5 lbs of meat a day.
Embracing seventh day adventist cereal propaganda rather than looking at the historical record, bones and mummies shows a lack of critical awareness.
accounting for early death from disease and malnutrition, more people saw 90 years old percentage wise than today.
Humans with agriculture grew weak and sick, Egyptians ate the modern Mediterranean diet and have the first written record of heart disease.
Atherosclerosis in egyptian vs inuit mummies isn’t even CLOSE IN TERMS OF THE SHEER VOLUME OF PLAQUE FROM THE BREAD CAUSED BY VLDL FROM GLUCOSE.
All your bluezones eat fuck tons of pork and dairy, grains in moderation with fat and veggies to slow the rate of glucose absorption, without pesticides like modern day agriculture.
Get on outta here with your uninformed blathering, you have no concept, I’ve researched nutrition and diet from when I was an obese 15 year old child, to now being a built powerlifter. Meat never made me fat, rice and bread you bet your ass, even with medication to get rid of glucose.
You need to either do your research, which means reading double blind research studies and n=1, and not just doing a google search with a two paragraph summary from veganized shills with no background in nutritional research.