That puts us at 0.006% of the global population. How did I arrive at 500k? I kinda made it up based on carnivore study populations, but its super duper tiny. I looked everywhere, I can't really find a solid estimate. But we are totally in the dozens of us category.
I NEVER meet another zero carb carnivore anywhere organically. Plus there is huge stigma for being a carnivore. EVERYONE thinks I'm crazy.
- Omnivore - 73% - 6,000M
- Flexitarian - 14% - 1,100M
- Vegetarian - 5% - 400M
- Pescatarian - 3% - 250M
- Vegan - 3% - 250M
- Zero Carb Carnivore - 0.006% - 0.5M
Using ipsos (broad strokes good enough) for the other eating pattern data
It's fine to be a minority group. Live and let live.
There are some people who simply cannot suffer us in our little corner of the internet at all. My poor little community script runs every day and bans many accounts for just downvoting all the posts in the community. https://discuss.online/modlog/696952
I've dug into the many of the non-obvious-sockpuppet accounts, and it seems most of the hate directed at us comes from our nearest neighbor at 3% total population. A group 500x more popular.
I really wish we could just be friends, let's agree that whole foods, totally unprocessed is good, and leave each other alone as allies in improving everyone's health. I'd like that. This childish animosity doesn't help anyone.
Perhaps this is just the cost of being a small fringe eating pattern, easy target for other less small groups to hate.
Eyeballing daily active users on the fediverse it looks like we have about 7,000 unique users every day. There are about 3 carnivores - which puts us at 0.04% of the lemmy population.
It's a small point of order, but China has been using sesame oil in food for at least 1500 years. The first recipe we have is in the 齊民要術 (Qimin Yaoshu / "Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People" vol. 8 ch. 70 (zh)) from c.544 CE where scallions are fried in white sesame oil as part of a meat sauce recipe.
Earlier than that it was used for warfare, torches, lamps etc. More info on sesame agriculture in: Chen et al., 2024. Sesame use in Turpan during the Tang dynasty: evidence from the Astana Cemetery. Journal of Archaeological Science
That is a great point, if people are hand crushing their sesame oil perhaps that should count as a whole food.
I haven't read any papers on hand crushed sesame oil being any less inflammatory then other seed oils, but maybe? They will have plant sterols which will interfere with cholesterol - regardless.
I'm a bit of a subscriber to the theory that the body has a certain inflammation budget capacity, under that level of inflammation you don't have any issues; perhaps hand crushed flaxseed was under the 500 year old chinese inflammation budget? I'd love to read more about it
Do you know how common it was? like what % of dietary fat did it represent? Was it significant?
No clue about dietary percentages, unfortunately. The recipes and agriculture instructions we have in the Qimin Yaoshu (amongst a few others) do indicate a large amount of grain and legume consumption, but I expect the proportions of what people ate depended on how good the yield was for any given year anyway.
What we have left of the old recipes suggests sesame was likely cheaper than animal fats, because it's mentioned as a possible substitute for when you don't have animal fat available - the theory is that sesame oil production is how stir-frying came to be one of the big Chinese cooking techniques.
Something we do know that backs that theory is that sesame oil was being produced and traded in multi-barrel quantities for military campaigns. So it had to be a pretty sizable operation, even 1500 years ago.
Stone mills were used for extraction and there's suggestion that was happening thousands of years earlier - sesame isn't native to China. The paper I linked says they even found a jar of sesame seeds in Tutankhamun's tomb, which is pretty cool.
Sesame wasn't the only plant oil around in China in 500CE either, mustard oil and occasionally vegetable oils are mentioned in the texts. We also know hemp oil was being produced in China, but I don't think we know that anyone used it for cooking.
None of that has any bearing on inflammation, but I'm not sure we can really compare the circumstances of a 500CE citizen to the world we live in today anyway - there are way too many variables at play to draw a meaningful conclusion based on sesame oil consumption in ancient China.
100%
Sesame oil is used as a seasoning in Chinese cuisine, and not a frying oil. Traditionally, foods in Chinese cuisine are fried in lard. Scallions in sesame oil would be considered a condiment, to increase the fragrance of the food it was added to.
ok - so synthesizing this.... maybe a more correct statement would be
seed oils (not a significant component of dietary fat > 150 years ago)
how does that sound?
Sounds good!
Maybe it's worth drawing the line between cold pressed oils, like sesame and olive, and industrially refined oils, like rapeseed oil (canola) or rice bran oil.
I think its getting too complicated. The message gets muddied
The whole food message is to return to a historical eating pattern and remove unknown variables; But how to say it compactly?
Whole Foods (hand pressed oils for taste, not as a source of dietary fat)?
The best source I can find is use in russia and poland during religious fasts, but no solid data on % energy intake.