how old is too old?

[santiago]

hydrochloric acid is there in your belly for a purpose, ancient man if you believe in science was an opportunistic herbivore that possibly turned into a more carniverous omnivore, basically he would scavenge whatever was left over from the lion kill. bear grylls is not the most excellent role model i know but he is pretty much the only dude to really demonstrate to an average audience besides army dudes that you can eat pretty much anything, as humans we are pretty much the ultimate opportunistic omnivore. if shit hits the fan im going to have no problem eating as many bugs as i can find but i am in training at the moment eating as much stale scraps as i can when the situation arises, stale cheese is fine...i would stay away from mould if possible, unless starving to death though but i still think you would be fine. hydrochloric acid is our best friend.

[Francois le Danque]

jabez: it definitely IS the bacteria on the pets that confers the evolutionary advantage,

but don't you think maybe in past times people with allergies just died and you never would have seen them? whereas now we have treatments. i don't think it's necessarily connected to sanitation.

[Psylo]

Children are feeble & pallid compared to the times before the generation X parents (and, in some localised cases, the parents of Gen-X scabs) and their pathetic quest for perfect cleanliness. And these weak, skinny, fretful children grow up to be sickly, wimpy, emotional, thin-skinned overgrown babies when they reach adulthood.

Bring back the grime, and society will prosper !

And why is it these days people think that EVERY product needs to be refrigerated ? Sorry, Vegemite, Peanut Butter and Tomato Sauce do not belong in the fridge. Even (real) butter can stay in the pantry during winter.

[Sallubrious]

Sorry chilli but those statistics you posted on page one of this thread don't show me that we live longer at all.

I can't help myself but I have a bit of an issue with life expectancy statistics.

I have a book somewhere written by a doctor (I can't remember what it is, it's buried in a mountain of books somewhere)

The issue with life expectancy statistics is that they give a false impression that we are living longer when the truth is that we actually dying much younger than people from third world countries (once those people get past about age 10).

The statistics are a gross misrepresentation of child mortality rates affecting the average age of death of any group of people. The statistics in chilli's chart can be used prove this.

If I take a group of 100 people and they all live to an age of 70 then the average lifespan for that group is 70 years old.

But if I take another group of 100 people and 40% of them die at less than 5 years old then average lifespan that group is dramatically lowered. If the sixty percent that actually survive past childhood they are likely to live much longer than westerners or people from developed countries.

So if the second group had 40% of them die at age four and the rest of them were to live to 100 then the average lifespan would only be 64 years old. (I haven't had my coffee yet so I could be off the mark, maybe someone like CBL could crunch some numbers and prove/disprove this, mental arithmetic isn't one of my strong points) When they die before 1 year old it has an even more dramatic effect on average lifespans.

All those statistics show me is that we are a lot better at preventing childhood mortality and if you survive past childhood you are much more likely to live to an old age in a third world country. In my book this referred to as the doctor effect.

[chilli]

Sorry chilli but those statistics you posted on page one of this thread don't show me that we live longer at all. I can't help myself but I have a bit of an issue with life expectancy statistics. I have a book somewhere written by a doctor (I can't remember what it is, it's buried in a mountain of books somewhere) The issue with life expectancy statistics is that they give a false impression that we are living longer when the truth is that we actually dying much younger than people from third world countries (once those people get past about age 10). The statistics are a gross misrepresentation of child mortality rates affecting the average age of death of any group of people. The statistics in chilli's chart can be used prove this. If I take a group of 100 people and they all live to an age of 70 then the average lifespan for that group is 70 years old. But if I take another group of 100 people and 40% of them die at less than 5 years old then average lifespan that group is dramatically lowered. If the sixty percent that actually survive past childhood they are likely to live much longer than westerners or people from developed countries. So if the second group had 40% of them die at age four and the rest of them were to live to 100 then the average lifespan would only be 64 years old. (I haven't had my coffee yet so I could be off the mark, maybe someone like CBL could crunch some numbers and prove/disprove this, mental arithmetic isn't one of my strong points) When they die before 1 year old it has an even more dramatic effect on average lifespans. All those statistics show me is that we are a lot better at preventing childhood mortality and if you survive past childhood you are much more likely to live to an old age in a third world country. In my book this referred to as the doctor effect.

Yes, there is a difference between average life expectancy from birth and average life span calculated from a certain age. This is not controversial, but as you say is a common source of confusion.

Taking all this into account, the average person living in the 'developed' world still has dramatically increased life expectancy and life span compared to 'third world' nations and to any other period in history.

Edited November 6, 2012 by chilli

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Would people think I'm gross if I said during winter/spring I rarely refrigerate my vegan food ie curries/pies etc? It gets covered obviously with the vessels lid and sits in the dark... I eat these foods for 3-5 days and have NEVER gotten sick once!

I picked it up when I dated an Indian girl who's parents would leave food out for a week, with meat in em, and NEVER got sick...

I heavily use spices so that migt have something to do with it...

[Anodyne]

Nah, I didn't even own a fridge when I moved into my first flat. It was midwinter, so it was fine - we just put stuff outside at night to keep it cool and bought a fridge when the milk started going off in spring.

Use lots of salt and spices, and don't keep opening the pot after the food has cooled - it'll keep a good long while. Plus a bit of fermentation probably helps to make stuff more digestible. Up to a point, anyway.

[CβL]

Such a thing totally didn't occur to me SallyD, but that's an /extremely/ interesting prospect (That the average life expectancy is heavily skewed by the unnaturally high infant mortality rates).

Considering the other studies that have adjusted for that, certain lifestyle choices more common in other cultures often give people an increase in age - I remember an advantage was statistically conferred to religious people (I can't remember if they had to be "practicing" - or just ticked a box and had a book somewhere in the house). My guess is that this would be a primary factor in the longevity of people in other cultures - especially those which haven't abandoned close ties between people.

Regardless of whether the life expectancy is misleading, I contend that the tacked on years of life are largely wasted by Westerners anyway. If they weren't afraid of death, I'm sure at least some would choose it instead of a further 10 years decaying on a couch, watching stale, predictable TV, in a constant drug-haze that has all but eroded their sense of self, and eating tasteless paste and sipping bland liquids - especially once the stigma of ending your own life ends (if it ever does).

Edited November 6, 2012 by CβL

[Wameron36]

I picked it up when I dated an Indian girl who's parents would leave food out for a week, with meat in em, and NEVER got sick...

I heavily use spices so that migt have something to do with it...

 

I think with heavy spice use I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the spices and food poisoning when I went to the toilet haha.

[Sallubrious]

Yes, there is a difference between average life expectancy from birth and average life span calculated from a certain age. This is not controversial, but as you say is a common source of confusion.

Taking all this into account, the average person living in the 'developed' world still has dramatically increased life expectancy and life span compared to 'third world' nations and to any other period in history.

 

Yeah for sure chilli, especially in some African nations and a few south American countries where wars and warlords are common place. In places like Rawanda a 30 year old is an old man. Then you have factors like famine and drought etc which decimate large populations in a very short time.

My issue is the misleading use by health authorities that use some statistics to portray that we live longer because of medicines and hospitals etc.

Getting back to the food issue.

I keep thinking about about a book I have that uses a phrase quite often - "shelf death"

All the processed shit our supermarkets are packed with are refined to the point where the food is dead, all the enzymes the food should contain are gone and what remains is designed to keep on a supermarket shelf for a very long time, unlike the foods our ancestors ate which either rotted or was preserved through fermentation etc.

Shelf life = Shelf death

[Psylo]

blue vein cheese is poison.

 

You take that back ! Blue Cheese is boss.

Especially when washed down with a homemade 'funky' beer that's been ageing under a pellicle like this:

[Stillman]

I'm a chef and I have seen some frightening shit over the years regarding spoiled (and yet still used) food. 5 things I never ever push the love with are

Old: Seafood particularly shell fish, poultry, funky soft serve. Orange juice and onions. (the last being prime carriers for botulism).

Edited November 7, 2012 by Stillman

[quarterflesh]

Looks like the inside of a septic tank Psylo.

[Psylo]

Looks like the inside of a septic tank Psylo.

 

There is beer under there, no doubt intended for drinking after a year festering in the barrel. Sometimes (but not often) brews are deliberately 'infected' with Brettanomyces, Pediococcus & Lactobacillus, and a frightening looking pellicle forms on the surface

[whitewind]

What British people die of

[Psylo]

British people are the living dead.