Vegetarianism/ Veganism

[AppleMango]

Quite bluntly I could care less if it is healthier or not. Veganism, and even vegetarianism to a lesser extent, is so limiting I would find that the increased health is NOT worth the cost. What worth is living if you can't have 9/10ths of what you like? If there was anything that ever FORCED me to be vegan I am honestly not sure I could go on living.

 

Maybe this makes me "weak" in your eyes, but I will be honest in that I don't care.

I don't think it's as limiting or expensive as you think it is. If you tried it you might be surprised.

I don't care what you choose to eat, but saying that veganism or vegetarianism are limiting isn't really a good reason. I guess they are limiting when you're eating out, but there is so many delicious things you can make at home.

 

Just want to add that I'm not saying this to try and force you to change or anything, like I don't think you need a reason to want to or not want to eat meat. I'm just saying that if the only thing keeping you from trying it is you think it will be limiting it might be worth giving it a go. Or if you eat out a lot, maybe be like a social meat eater, so you eat meat when you go out, but cook vegetarian at home. Just wanted to clarify that I am cool with whatever you do though, I see a lot of posts shaming and trying to force one way over another and I don't think that's cool.

[Arwen17]

Actually, look up at my last post and I think you'll find I've already given you something like eight or nine reasons for diabetes, not one of which is directly related to eating meat and of which high-fat diets is a component factor but not itself the defining factor.

 

And meat does not cause strokes. How do I know? Because my research is on stroke, and at no point does it come up in any of the literature I've reviewed. And I have read all the papers that talk about stroke risk factors. I mean all of them. There were hundreds. And the main reason for stroke is actually hypertension, of which there are multiple causes from lifestyle and from other sources. Within lifestyle it is an unhealthy diet that is a contributing factor - not directly a meat-inclusive diet, but any diet with high volumes of fat. Combined with obesity, low physical activity, smoking, alcohol and stress, you have a recipe for hypertension which then leads to other diseases. So to say meat => stroke shows just how poorly a person understands risk factors, stroke, and medicine in general.

 

Vaccines are very clear-cut. If you receive a vaccine, you are less likely to catch the active disease and/or you are in a better state to fight it off. We know this through over a century of research, scientific process, medical understanding and refining of techniques, the near-eradication of once-common diseases, and in recent years the increasing outbreaks of such diseases that directly correlate to areas/populations that have not taken the vaccine. That is what scientific method is about. It is through scientific studies - from lab tests to lit reviews to patient focus groups to case studies to randomised control trials and everything in between - that I can say with confidence that vaccines work.

 

You are not offering scientific studies. You are offering blog posts and Youtube clips and websites run by people with little to no scientific grounding, who make assumptions almost entirely on false science, anecdotal evidence, and a whole lot of fairy dust. You are trying to pass off your limited experience, almost-nonexistential medical knowledge and some random internet ramblings as "science" which, if anything, I find humorous.

 

But you are right. Take two twins, force them to have either an omnivorous diet or a vegan diet, and the twin on the vegan diet will more often than not be admitted for malnutrition and the parents investigated to a greater or lesser degree, and ultimately required to have regular meetings with healthcare professionals and allied health professionals as to how to properly care for their baby and make sure they don't kill it.

 

Also, little point: alcoholics don't have to be drunk to be alcoholic. An alcoholic is someone who relies/misuses alcohol, not someone who is permanently drunk. And feel free to walk up to some of the alcohol misusers I've dealt with and tell them that they're drunk; I'll keep a bedspace free to patch you up afterwards. Because it is insulting to them, and no amount of telling them "but it's the truth!" will stop them from pointing out in very blunt, knuckle-y terms that they disagree.

I was speaking of vaccines connection with autism because someone mentioned it in their post before me. I was not talking about vaccines themselves.

 

Meat does cause stroke:

https://www.google.com/#q=meat+causes+stroke

 

I am providing links to articles and videos which tell you the name of the studies so you can go find those studies yourself. The articles and videos are starting points I can quickly throw up here to answer questions rapidly. But look what happens if you delve deeper. It's not hard to find these studies they talk about: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/94/2/417

 

 

As for your advice that it's ok because you should eat it in "moderation". Well of course risk goes down if you only do it in moderation. If you only smoke or drink in moderation, your risks go down, but they don't vanish completely. It's the same with unhealthy foods. You will have an advantage over the people who absolutely gorge on meat, but the vegans will still beat you on risk factor.

 

 

"Unsuccessful" vegan parents are the only parents that make it into the news. Why? Because it's dramatic news that they are unsuccessful and it appeals to the meat-eater's ego "see those vegans failed! obviously I have to eat meat!". People love to hear good news about their bad habits.

Successful vegan parents are neither news nor exciting. You just have to google "vegan children" to find all kinds of successful vegan parents telling you what they did to raise their kids without issues.

And research supports this. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2912628/

 

 

 

I wasn't talking to alcoholics. I was talking to the people here who keep nitpicking what terms I use. "Don't call people with bad habits weak." "Don't call Inuits Eskimos." The political correctness police are out in full force.

 

 

And lastly, diabetes:

https://www.google.com/#q=meat+causes+diabetes

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21831992

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19279076

 

Where did I find the academic studies? By reading the articles and going to the sources they cited.

 

 

Of course diabetes has more than one risk factor, such as smoking. But how many people smoke compared to how many people eat meat? The reason we have an EPIDEMIC of diabetes is because we have an EPIDEMIC of meat-eating. The vast majority of people don't smoke anymore. about 17% still smoke. But almost everyone eats meat with every meal.

The other major risk factors for diabetes are caused by the same poor meat-eating diet. (high blood pressure, IGT, overweight, low levels of HDL, and high levels of triglycerides.)

 

 

"This is most commonly due to being overweight and thus creating a build-up of fatty deposits - which can come from any sedantry/over-eating/low-exercise lifestyle regardless of diet. So while diet does play a part, it is still the greater lifestyle regardless of diet. You can be a fat, lazy vegetarian after all. "

No, you can't be a fat HCLF vegan unless you are stuffing in the food until you're sick. You can be a fat processed-food vegan. But HCLF is self-limiting. It's very difficult to overeat, unless you are forcing yourself to eat past satiety at every meal for years.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Arwen17

[Arwen17]

I said nothing about anything being insulting. I was bringing up that alcoholism is a serious addiction and disease, and it is not something we should bring up lightly, which I kind of felt like you were doing by bringing it up in comparison to... eating meat.

 

Also I'm confused...

 

 

 

You're totally allowed to have more than one reason for believing something, but you haven't just been arguing for human health. And there is already a very good post in this thread about how meat doesn't lead to diabetes. So let's look at your other health reasons:

 

 

 

And another study pointed out what I was saying earlier in terms of other risk factors.

 

 

 

Fact is, there is not sufficient evidence to show that a vegan diet 100% always leads to a healthier life with less health risks. If you choose to follow the diet for health reasons and have seen a benefit in your own life, that's great. But it's not the only way to live.

 

And besides that, why is it your place to tell people how to eat? My life, my choice.

"You're totally allowed to have more than one reason for believing something, but you haven't just been arguing for human health."

After my initial post (which was a response to someone using a religious argument), I have only used observation of human societies and scientific studies to prove my points. I haven't brought in anything mystical or ethical-animal-related since then.

All of the back-and-forth discussion that has happened for the last several pages has me been arguing purely from the human health standpoint.

 

 

When you are reading these studies you need to know what kind of population they were studying. Were they vegan or vegetarian? Eggs/Dairy are just as bad as meat. In some studies, there is little difference between meat-eaters and vegetarians, but a big difference when you get to the vegans. Also, were they junk-food vegan or whole-foods vegan?

The vegans in Loma Linda and Okinawa are whole-foods vegan.

 

I think you've already pointed out why studies are never conclusive, because people always nitpick the details "did they trim the fat or not?" etc. They can't focus on a single element in meat, because if they could find that "single element", then they would just remove that element from the meat and then declare meat safe to eat. When really its the entire package that's dangerous.

 

"Should we become vegetarians, or can we make meat safer?"

http://oatao.univ-toulouse.fr/4775/1/corpet_4775.pdf

Is it safe to eat meat? The news media reports that meat causes cancer, each time a new scientific study is published. Is the causal link truly demonstrated, or is it only a speculative assumption? Anyway, current recommendations take this risk in account: To reduce the risk of cancer, the 2007 report of the World Cancer Research Fund makes the recommendation to limit the consumption of red meat and to avoid processed meat intake (World Cancer Research Fund & American Institute for Cancer Research, 2007). Based on this report, the French National Cancer Institute recommends: "Limit intake of red meat to less than 500 g per week. Limit intake of cured meats, especially high fat or very salty ones. Those who eat cured meat should choose it less often and reduce portion size." (INCa & NACRe, 2009). If these recommendations were adhered to, cancer incidence may be reduced, but farmers and meat industry would suffer important economical problems, while the impact of meat on the risk of cancer is a controversial topic (Demeyer, Honikel, & De Smet, 2008; Parnaud & Corpet, 1997; Santarelli, Pierre, & Corpet, 2008).

 

Because we wouldn't want the meat industry to "suffer important economical problems", so who gives a crap about human health? Not the meat and dairy industry that's who!

 

One of the reasons I point to the long-lived peoples on earth as the literal living proof of a vegan diet is because we can trade studies back and forth all day. You can find studies claiming smoking is a healthy habit. The smoking industry funds these. Same thing with studies about soft drinks. Soft drink companies love to fund studies that make them look good. So there's no reason the meat and dairy powerhouse can't fund propaganda studies as well. Exactly who makes money funding vegan studies? The fruit and vegetable department? The veggie burger manufacturers (many who are owned by parent meat companies anyway)? The doctors and drug companies certainly aren't going to make money on healthy people. There's very little to no financial incentive to lie about veganism in studies. Because it doesn't inherently push any particular products and it doesn't push people into the hands of the medical-pharma industry via sickness.

 

 

And besides that, why is it your place to tell people how to eat? My life, my choice.

You guys keep getting stuck on this point. I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm only arguing that a vegan diet is optimal if you want to have a life with the lowest risk of diet-driven diseases.

"I am not arguing about meat being a personal choice. I am arguing it is a personal choice that will end in health failure. "

Edited August 27, 2016 by Arwen17

[Arwen17]

Hi coming from a country where Buddhist monks don't eat meat, they do get tons of health problems...

"Nearly half of all monks in Thailand are dangerously obese, according to country officials who are rolling out a nationwide program to help the holy men bust their Buddha-like guts.

Angkatavanich cited a study that revealed 48 percent of monks were obese, 42 percent had high cholesterol and 23 percent had high blood pressure. About 10.4 percent were diabetic. The number of monks participating in the survey was not revealed.

The new food plan includes healthier, fiber-rich food, nutrition training and exercise.

 

According to the study, some monks have more than three evening drinks each day, for they must abstain from eating food. However, some of the drinks offered to monks are not healthy, as they are mostly soft drinks with sugar.

 

A dualtrack campaign is being prepared to teach monks to select healthy drinks, and also to inform food donors about healthy food when offering alms to monks."

 

That doesn't sound like a HCLF vegan diet to me. You have to do more than just cut out meat. You have to eat a variety of plant-based, unprocessed, whole foods.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rosedamai]

"Nearly half of all monks in Thailand are dangerously obese, according to country officials who are rolling out a nationwide program to help the holy men bust their Buddha-like guts.

Angkatavanich cited a study that revealed 48 percent of monks were obese, 42 percent had high cholesterol and 23 percent had high blood pressure. About 10.4 percent were diabetic. The number of monks participating in the survey was not revealed.

The new food plan includes healthier, fiber-rich food, nutrition training and exercise.

 

According to the study, some monks have more than three evening drinks each day, for they must abstain from eating food. However, some of the drinks offered to monks are not healthy, as they are mostly soft drinks with sugar.

 

A dualtrack campaign is being prepared to teach monks to select healthy drinks, and also to inform food donors about healthy food when offering alms to monks."

 

That doesn't sound like a HCLF vegan diet to me. You have to do more than just cut out meat. You have to eat a variety of plant-based, unprocessed, whole foods.

I'm not talking about Thailand lmaoooo....why do you think I'm talking about Thailand. I'm not Thai lol. A lot of Buddhist-related news in my country don't get translated to English anyways.

I'm only arguing that a vegan diet is optimal if you want to have a life with the lowest risk of diet-driven diseases.

You do know that there are people with health problems that CANNOT go vegan because they risk iron-deficiency otherwise, right? That's the part that keeps ticking people off, your insistence that it's the "life with the lowest risk of diet-driven diseases".

Edited August 27, 2016 by ylangylang

[Obscure_Trash]

Because we wouldn't want the meat industry to "suffer important economical problems", so who gives a crap about human health? Not the meat and dairy industry that's who!

 

Even your own study that pointed this out didn't even say people should cut out all meat 100% and go veggie-only.

 

My point with my studies is that our knowledge is varied and that this is not a 100% cut and dried case. There is not one way to be healthy.

 

You guys keep getting stuck on this point. I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm only arguing that a vegan diet is optimal if you want to have a life with the lowest risk of diet-driven diseases.

"I am not arguing about meat being a personal choice. I am arguing it is a personal choice that will end in health failure. "

 

When you keep calling us weak and ignorant, yeah, it 100% comes off as lecturing us and our lifestyles and not accepting our own diet and life/style choices.

 

There is a vast difference between "I went vegan for the health benefits I believe it will give to me" or "I am so much healthier now as a vegan than I was when I ate meat" and "I view you as ignorant and weak because you continue to eat meat and will most certainly get diabetes and cancer as a result of doing so".

 

The first two are personal things. The second is not at all a personal thing.

 

I wasn't talking to alcoholics. I was talking to the people here who keep nitpicking what terms I use. "Don't call people with bad habits weak." "Don't call Inuits E*s." The political correctness police are out in full force.

 

I am sorry that you are so comfortable using slurs and other derogatory, offensive, and rude terminology that people in the actually affected groups have asked people not to use. It's like if someone on the street called you ugly or whatever you might not like being called, and when you ask them to please not call you that, they simply laugh and respond that it doesn't bother them to call you that so they will keep doing it because that is what they think of you anyway. You don't even know them, but it is easier for them to call you some insulting name than bother to ever learn your name.

Edited August 27, 2016 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Kestra15]

I was speaking of vaccines connection with autism because someone mentioned it in their post before me. I was not talking about vaccines themselves.

 

Meat does cause stroke:

https://www.google.com/#q=meat+causes+stroke

 

I am providing links to articles and videos which tell you the name of the studies so you can go find those studies yourself. The articles and videos are starting points I can quickly throw up here to answer questions rapidly. But look what happens if you delve deeper. It's not hard to find these studies they talk about: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/94/2/417

 

 

As for your advice that it's ok because you should eat it in "moderation". Well of course risk goes down if you only do it in moderation. If you only smoke or drink in moderation, your risks go down, but they don't vanish completely. It's the same with unhealthy foods. You will have an advantage over the people who absolutely gorge on meat, but the vegans will still beat you on risk factor.

 

 

"Unsuccessful" vegan parents are the only parents that make it into the news. Why? Because it's dramatic news that they are unsuccessful and it appeals to the meat-eater's ego "see those vegans failed! obviously I have to eat meat!". People love to hear good news about their bad habits.

Successful vegan parents are neither news nor exciting. You just have to google "vegan children" to find all kinds of successful vegan parents telling you what they did to raise their kids without issues.

And research supports this. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2912628/

 

 

 

I wasn't talking to alcoholics. I was talking to the people here who keep nitpicking what terms I use. "Don't call people with bad habits weak." "Don't call Inuits Eskimos." The political correctness police are out in full force.

 

 

And lastly, diabetes:

https://www.google.com/#q=meat+causes+diabetes

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21831992

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19279076

 

Where did I find the academic studies? By reading the articles and going to the sources they cited.

 

 

Of course diabetes has more than one risk factor, such as smoking. But how many people smoke compared to how many people eat meat? The reason we have an EPIDEMIC of diabetes is because we have an EPIDEMIC of meat-eating. The vast majority of people don't smoke anymore. about 17% still smoke. But almost everyone eats meat with every meal.

The other major risk factors for diabetes are caused by the same poor meat-eating diet. (high blood pressure, IGT, overweight, low levels of HDL, and high levels of triglycerides.)

 

 

"This is most commonly due to being overweight and thus creating a build-up of fatty deposits - which can come from any sedantry/over-eating/low-exercise lifestyle regardless of diet. So while diet does play a part, it is still the greater lifestyle regardless of diet. You can be a fat, lazy vegetarian after all. "

No, you can't be a fat HCLF vegan unless you are stuffing in the food until you're sick. You can be a fat processed-food vegan. But HCLF is self-limiting. It's very difficult to overeat, unless you are forcing yourself to eat past satiety at every meal for years.

First, my evidence base as to why meat doesn't cause stroke:

1. Birns, J. (2005) ‘Secondary prevention of stroke’ British Journal of Neuroscience Nursing 1:1 pp. 32 - 37

2. Bloe, C. (2011) ‘Atrial Fibrillation and primary stroke prevention’ Nursing Standard 26:6 pp.49-57

3. British Medical Association (2016) 2016/17 General Medical Services (GMS) Contract Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF): Guidance for GMS Contract 2016/17 London: NHS Employers

4. Cross, S. (2008) ‘Stroke care: a nursing perspective’ Nursing Standard 22:23 pp. 47 - 56

5. Daneski, K., Higgs, P., & Morgan, M. (2010) From gluttony to obesity: moral discourses on apoplexy and stroke Sociology of Health & Illness 32:5 pp. 730–744

6. Department of Health (2007) National Stroke Strategy London: Department of Health

7. Department of Health (2010) Progress in Improving Stroke Care London: Department of Health

8. Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party (2012) National Clinical Guidelines for Stroke (4th Edn) London: Royal College of Physicians

9. Ireland, S., MacKenzie, G., Gould, L., et al (2010) ‘Nurse case management to improve risk reduction outcomes in a stroke prevention clinic’ Canadian Journal of Neuroscience Nursing 32:4 pp. 7 – 13

10. Jones, C., Pollit, V., Fitzmaurice, D. et al (2014) ‘The management of atrial fibrillation: summary of updated NICE guidance’ BMJ 2014:348 pp34-37

11. Lawrence, M., Fraser, H., Woods, C. et al (2011) ‘Secondary prevention of stroke and transient ischaemic attack’ Nursing Standard 76: 9 pp. 41 - 46

12. Lawrence, M., Kerr, S., Watson, H.E, et al (2009a) ‘A summary of the guidance relating to four lifestyle risk factors for recurrent stroke’ British Journal of Neuroscience Nursing 5:10 pp. 471 – 476

13. Lawrence, M., Kerr, S., Watson, H.E., et al (2009b) ‘A survey of stroke nurses’ knowledge of secondary prevention lifestyle issues’ British Journal of Neuroscience Nursing 5:11 pp. 518 – 523

14. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2006a) Clinical Guideline 43: Obesity: Guidance on the prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children Manchester: NICE

15. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2006b) PH10: Brief Interventions and Referral for Smoking cessation Manchester: NICE

16. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2008) Clinical Guideline 68: Stroke: Diagnosis and initial management of acute stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA) Manchester: NICE

17. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2010) Public Health Guidance 24: Alcohol-use disorders: Preventing harmful drinking Manchester: NICE

18. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2012) Clinical Guideline 162: Stroke Rehabilitation: Long-term rehabilitation after stroke Manchester: NICE

19. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2013) PH45 Tobacco: harm-reduction approaches to smoking Manchester: NICE

20. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2015) NICE Guideline 28: Type 2 diabetes in adults: management Manchester; NICE

21. O’Donnell, M.J., Xavier, D., Liu, et al on behalf of the INTERSTROKE investigators (2010) ‘Risk factors for ischaemic and intracerebral haemorrhagic stroke in 22 countries (the INTERSTROKE study): a case-control study’ The Lancet 376:9735 pp. 112 – 123

22. Prochaska, J.O. & DiClemente, C.C. (1983) ‘Stages and processes of self-change in smoking: Toward an integrative model of change’ Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 51:3 pp. 390 – 395

23. Rehm, J. (2006) ‘Alcohol consumption, stroke and public health – an overlooked relation?’ Addiction 101 pp. 1679 – 1681

24. Sit, J.W.H., Yip, V.Y.B., Ko, S.K.K., et al (2005) ‘A quasi-experimental study on a community-based stroke prevention programme for clients with minor stroke’ Journal of Clinical Nursing 16 pp. 272 – 281

25. Stroke Association (2013) Stroke Statistics Stroke Association

26. Sullivan, K.A. & Katajamaki, A. (2009) ‘Stroke Education: Promising Effects on the Health Beliefs of Those at Risk’ Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation 16:5 pp. 377 – 388

27. Sullivan, K.A., White, K.M., Young, R. McD., et al (2008a) ‘Predictors of Intention to Reduce Stroke Risk Among People at Risk of Stroke: An Application of an Extended Health Belief Model’ Rehabilitation Psychology 53:4 pp. 505 – 512

28. Sullivan, K.A., White, K.M., Young, R. McD., et al (2008b) ‘Developing a stroke intervention program: What do people at risk of stroke want?’ Patient Education and Counselling 70 pp. 126 - 134

29. Williams, J. (2005) Advances in prevention and treatment of stroke and TIA. Nursing Times; 101: 14, 30–32

30. World Health Organization (1978) Cerebrovascular diseases: a clinical and research classification. Geneva: WHO

So somewhat more robust than a Google search. You've put up a link to newspapers, blogs, and a handful of papers with dubious outcomes. I've gone through 325 papers and presented to you the evidence base of the most robust 30 or so.

 

It is my job, and my calling as a scientist with multiple degrees, to analyse any base of evidence - and I applied the same rigorous criteria to looking up your "evidence" as I do to anything else. However, it is one of the weakest and most heavily-biased evidence bases I've ever seen. But then again I'm used to debating and working with actual scientists, not internet denziens. However, for the sake of completeness and to give you an idea I may as well go through a selection of your sources:

 

http://www.nomeatathlete.com/iron-for-vegetarians/ - The author is writing a blog; there is no requirement for peer-review and therefore the rigor of the post is automatically in question. It has not been reviewed by experts in the field or any form of health professional. Matt does have the advantage of being a Registered Dietician and so comes with the knowledge and regulation of such, but once again without a reference list this is what we call an 'opinion piece' and so is considered the weakest form of evidence when undergoing systematic anaylsis.

 

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/09/a...r-herbivores-2/ - The author is writing a blog, so same issues as above. The author is...well, nothing, really. He has no education background, no evidence base to his work, is no form of registered or regulated professional. There is no reference list or evidence base - he is simply making claims without backing them up. He is himself a vegan and that automated bias is very heavy through his work. And his unwillingness to allow people to provide feedback on his work shows a very closed mind that is unable or unwilling to accept constructive criticism or healthy debate.

 

https://www.google.com/#q=vegans+canine+teeth - a Google search is not evidence of any sort.

 

http://www.forksoverknives.com/fat-insulin...ce-blood-sugar/ - an online advice outlet. Again an author with no actual credition other than being the 'food, wellness and health editor.' All that means is she is a writer and not a scientist or health professional of any form. She isn't citing her own sources, she is citing another person's sources and not making reference to them in-text. Using resources from the 1930s is practically worthless - would you want a doctor working on evidence over eighty years out of date, and even then was a study on rabbits? As for the rest of the article she is doing what is called "cherry-picking," whereby she is taking only the quotes she wants to reinforce her point without actually discussing anything else. Those papers do talk about fat build-up leading to insulin resistence, but she doesn't give any discussion to any of the other points raised. And you yourself are guilty here of saying meat = fat => meat = diabetes. The article is discussing how fat build-up is a contributing factor to Type II diabetes mellitus, not that meat-eating will make you diabetic.

 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/...10814141432.htm - Similar to above, while this is a more respectable source what the article is saying is what we already now; fat is a contributing factor to insulin-resistent diabetes. Not the sole source, and certainly not that meat is the only source of that fat; they are proving which of the hundreds of enzymes in are body are inhibited by a high-fat diet. You will find that "Meat" doesn't at all appear in the summary you provide, so it doesn't add to your argument about veganism>>omnivore.

 

- a Youtube video is never considered any form of proof. Anyone can edit something and put it online. However I still had a once-over and I noted that there is no reference list (The fact that they used "Science: Harvard Medical School" as their source actually makes me laugh!), and once again a natural bias that appears halfway through the blurb on the video. Again it started out good by discussing how high-fat diets can contribute to Type II diabetes mellitus but then veers sharply off into the editor's bias of vegetarianism and veganism with no actual sources to back it up.

 

 

http://www.thalassemiapatientsandfriends.c...php?topic=230.0 - Really, a forum post to back up a forum post? Every single fallacy we have pointed out of your argument applies. But even then, this is still simply anecdotal evidence. What works for one person does not mean it works for all. That's like saying every person in a 50mph car crash survives with no major injuries because I managed to survive one - but I'll be happy to tell you that is never the case, and some of the horrendous injuries I've seen in 30mph collisions make me thankful every night that I walked away.

 

So yes, I am looking up your evidence myself. The problem is the rigor of the evidence in that there is nearly none. If you want to construct an argument you don't do it by "throwing up" articles and tell me to look myself; you bring some actual evidence to the table to build and support your claims.

 

No, vegans do not beat me on risk factors - again you simply do not understand what risk factors are. You can be an overweight vegan filling your face with sugary foods all day long and do no exercise with a genetic predisposition to diabetes and you will still be as likely as an overweight omnivore filling their face with meaty goodness all day long and do no exercise with a genetic predispisition to diabetes. The key is the obesity/lack of exercise/poor diet, of which vegans and non-vegans are both as likely to fall into. Meat consumption is only a tiny part of that. And since I've been talking about references, here's some more:

 

1 - Turner, H.E. & Wass, J.A.H. (2009) Oxford Handbook of Endocrinology and Diabetes (2nd. Edn) Oxford University Press; Oxford.

2 - Diabetes Health Intelligence (2009) Diabetes Health Profile - An Overview: Norfolk PCT  Yorkshire and Humber Public Health Observatory

3 - Jerreat, L. (2003) Diabetes for Nurses (2nd Edn) Whurr Publishers; London.

4 - Diabetes.co.uk (2014)

5 - Department of Health (2001) National Service Framework for Diabetes: Standards

6 - NICE (2008) Clinical guideline 87: Type 2 Diabetes

7 - Weller, B. F. (1997) Bailliere’s Nurses’ Dictionary (22nd Edn) Bailliere Tindall; London.

8 – Neal, M.J. (2005) Medical Pharmacology at a Glance (5th Edn) Blackwell; London

 

Ah, now we some actual criticism - that only bad news makes good news! But isn't that true the other way round? You've been linking us to news articles which say "Meat is terrible!" and find that solid, irrefutable evidence but when met with the opposite you call it rubbish and mock it? Actually that's fine, because that is the development of critical thinking and also how you work basic debates. You're right, there are plenty of vegans with good diets, just like there are plenty of meat-eaters with good diets - as you said yourself, in moderation is fine. That's how you feel the Japanese do it after all - small amounts are healthy. But in the same way that a meat-heavy diet will cause problems, so will a vegan diet that consists of little more than lettuce and tofu; you need to have a good, moderated diet regardless of your life choices. If you have a good, balanced, moderated diet - be it with meat, fish, dairy produce, vegetables, or just nuts and berries off the ground - you will be fine.

 

It's okay dearie, I understand how your small female mind cannot comprehend the complexities of science. Go back to just cooking my dinner like a good little girl, okay?

Does the above feel insulting to your intelligence? Your self-worth? That the personal struggles you've made in life and the sacrifices you've made have just been smeared in the dirt let alone the decades of women who have made advances in science, politics, human rights and equal rights? Because when you decide not to 'nit-pick' or that 'political correctness police' are on patrol, it is stuff like the above quote that can be thrown out at you in response by someone who shows the same disregard and disrespect as you do towards others. Fortunately the above is simply a quote and not my own opinion; given that I work in a scientific field that is female-dominant I certainly don't believe or endorse the above quote.

 

And once back to diabetes, you have made a very terrible fallacy there. You have presumed meat is the overriding factor and so the reason we have so much diabetes is because there is so much meat-eating. It shows that you haven't actually read any of the evidence or understood what risk factors are and how they contribute; you've just taken a small piece of evidence and blown it out of context (are you sure you're not Jeremy Hunt? He's doing the exact same thing...).

 

And yes, you can be a fat vegetarian. A lot of my colleagues who I played Capoeira with were vegetarian or vegan - of the thirty of us who went camping every year I was the oddity in that I was the only meat-eater, so after three weeks of vegan-only meals I was feeling very queasy. But here's the thing; I wasn't the only overweight one there. A couple of the other life-long vegetarians or vegans were. Now, they may may not be your acronym-of-the-week vegetarians, but HCLF is not the only kind of vegetarian out.

 

In conclusion: learn to find solid evidence sources, use them to back up your arguments, and how to analyse them. And please understand what risk factors are.

[Nectaris]

I don't think it's as limiting or expensive as you think it is. If you tried it you might be surprised.

I don't care what you choose to eat, but saying that veganism or vegetarianism are limiting isn't really a good reason. I guess they are limiting when you're eating out, but there is so many delicious things you can make at home.

 

Just want to add that I'm not saying this to try and force you to change or anything, like I don't think you need a reason to want to or not want to eat meat. I'm just saying that if the only thing keeping you from trying it is you think it will be limiting it might be worth giving it a go. Or if you eat out a lot, maybe be like a social meat eater, so you eat meat when you go out, but cook vegetarian at home. Just wanted to clarify that I am cool with whatever you do though, I see a lot of posts shaming and trying to force one way over another and I don't think that's cool.

I mean limiting in the terms that I would be cutting out the majority of the foods I actually like, rather than tolerate. There may be "delicious" foods out there in your opinion, but you don't know me and my taste buds. I can guarantee you that the number of delicious of foods out there that are vegan that I would like to foods that I don't is so very few that it is not worth it.

 

Also keep in mind that I have decided to not have any soy products. My mom can't have them because it messes with the cancer fighting anti-estrogen medicine she takes. Not only would it be a massive inconvenience to make foods she cannot eat(primary reason for cutting it out), but I have become suspicious of the effect eating a lot of soy has.

 

Lastly, keep in mind that I am only referring to myself when it comes to it being too limiting. If you are happy with such a diet, that's fine. Just don't expect me to be happy with the same thing.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Nectaris

[Ribombee]

Belligerent citing of biased opinion-based sources, the inability or lack of desire to understand actual science, and the constant willingness to believe cherry-picked data and correlation is causation will be the downfall of our world.

 

I can type "vegan is bad" into Google and get just as many (and equally non-rigorous) sources as have been used, and I can easily spin them in a way that makes it look like plants are horribly unhealthy for us. A key skillset which scientists are taught over many years (and many tears, because journal and grant proposal reviews will rip you apart for the slightest bias!) is finding bias in studies, knowing when something is being spun to better fit the authour's opinion, and locating the flaws in a study. But who am I to have an opinion on this? We should leave professional opinions to the professionals, in this case, that's scientists. It's not as though I'm a published scientist with a graduate degree. Oh, wait, yes I am.

 

Something that really bothers me is that people won't question the opinion of their mechanic, their accountant, their roofer, and frequently not their vet or doctor. As a scientist, I say, by all means, question everything! That's the basis of science. Yet people generally trust the educated opinions of professionals when it falls in line with the main body of same-field professionals. That trait falls apart when it comes to science. People don't trust the main body of science, instead going to their neighbor, a celebrity, or an outlier in the field who goes against the main consensus. It's maddening.

 

Circular, insular logic is not science nor evidence. Opinion is not evidence. "It works for me!" anectotes are not evidence unless you happen to be part of a well-designed, peer-reviewed trial (in which case, just link the paper). Non-peer reviewed studies are not evidence, no matter how sciency they look. Studies with blatant design flaws are not evidence, even if they manage to squeak their way into some journal of questionable repute. There are many predatory journals which will accept most anything so long as the authour pays. It LOOKS scientific on the surface, but we people with the fancy science and medical degrees have learned how to spot them.

 

If I sound condescending, it's because I am. I never judge a person for their career choice (so long as it's legal and moral by reasonable standards), unless a person who is NOT an expert in a field poses as one. Then, yes, I'm glad to pull out my, "Excuse me, I actually am a scientist," card. I don't claim to be an expert on art nor post my opinion as fact, but if I did, I would expect an actual art critic to blow apart any fallacies I was spouting, too.

 

Keep in mind that it's an assumption (since no viable evidence has been brought forth in this thread) that meat is unhealthy in and of itself, whereas there is a considerable body of evidence that processed "junk" food is unhealthy. Comparing reduced amounts of meat and reduced amounts of junk food is NOT the logical equivalent. By that same false logic, if someone ate nothing but iceberg lettuce then reduced their intake of it in favour of a more varied diet, yes, they'd be healthier, but iceberg lettuce isn't BAD for people just because we shouldn't eat it to the exclusion of other food items. Thus far, the published studies point to an overconsumption of meat, not meat itself, as the correlary between health and diet. Meat is a much more calorie (as well as some nutrients) dense food which is far easier to digest than plant matter. A person (and animals) don't need to eat as much. That's why grazers spend all day eating whereas carnivores can get away with eating once a day or less. It's not that meat is bad for the carnivore, but if they ate as often as herbivores did, they'd be very unhealthy. Unfortunately, many humans in western societies DO eat as often and as much as herbivores do. When we do that with calorie dense foods like meat, it becomes a problem. Also bear in mind that the majority (I am tempted to say ALL, but not having read every possible good study in existence on the subject, I won't) of well-designed, peer reviewed studies linking meat to health problems are looking at heavily processed meats, which goes right back to processed foods likely being the problem rather than meat itself, and the conclusions general state as much.

 

All of that being said, by choice I eat a plant-heavy diet. I prefer it to meat. My husband is a heavy (too heavy, especially in the heavily processed side of things) meat-eater. I've slowly been getting him to eat more vegetables, but I also end up eating more meat than my own palate prefers. I do like Asian foods, and like the average Japanese citizen (since that's been brought up so much), I eat more fish than red meat. By the way, the average Japanese citizen eats a half a pound of fish a day. The average American eats ~0.36 pounds of meat a day. LESS than the average Japanese eats. An even larger amount of dairy is consumed in Japan (surprised? Me too!) than fish. A big difference between Japanese and western diets is that Americans consume more processed foods and sugary foods. Japanese eat far more pickled foods (pickling has some health benefits). Meanwhile, France typically has a very high consumption of animal products and a low incidence of coronary problems (search "French paradox"). Furthermore, cancer rates went DOWN in Japan in the same time period that meat consumption went up. Japan has a much higher rate of osteoporosis, too. We also eat a lot more potatoes. Maybe a higher consumption of potatoes are why we have higher rates of some (but not all!) cancers. Probably not, but if we are assuming our higher red meat consumption is causing it, it's just as (il)logical to assume potatoes are causing it.

 

"In his doctoral thesis about coronary heart disease in Japanese emigrants, British physician Dr. Michael Marmot also described a Japanese paradox. Dr. Marmot discovered that when the Japanese in Hawaii maintained their cultural traditions, they were protected against heart attacks, even though their cholesterol increased as much as in Japanese emigrants who adopted a Western life-style and who died from heart attacks almost as often as did native-born Americans." (1). By no means is this article a perfect dissemination of science, but it does very nicely point out several fallacies of thought that have been rampant in this thread.

 

This is why it's very important to distinguish between correlation and causation, as well as to recognise that things like diet and health problems are rarely cut-and-dry. They are very complicated, and every person's biochemistry, genetics, and microbial community (which has a LOT to do with how we digest and use nutrients) is unique. That doesn't even take into account non-diet cultural differences, which can also have a big impact on disease risk. People who are vegetarian/vegan for health reasons tend to be health-conscious in all aspects of their life, not just diet. That's a hugely confounding factor that must be taken into account if a study comparing diets is to be done properly. Every evidence thus far points to a healthy, varied diet--whether it is vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, or fully omnivorous--as being equally good. Even if it didn't, people know the risks of smoking, drinking, extreme sports, being in front of screens too much (need I go on?) and still do it. Yet if a person drones on about how much better they are for not smoking, exercising more, or being a teetotaler, most people would call them a self-righteous, holier-than-thou jerk. Just saying...

 

Unfortunately, since one medical professional has already cited several excellent sources, only to be "countered" by links to a Google search, YouTube videos, forum posts, and blogs, it's clear that, once again, evidence will not dislodge belligerent dogma. Therefore, the remainder of my discussion will be ignoring all non-evidence. If someone brings me a well-designed study showing a direct benefit to a healthy vegan diet over a healthy omnivorous diet (all the referenced studies I've waded through thus far only showed a benefit to a healthy vegan diet over an unhealthy omnivorous diet, which only gives evidence that eating healthy, no matter your diet type, is better than not eating healthy) I'm happy to discuss it with an open, scientific mind.

 

(And yes, I'm firmly not taking a side on diet for the above-stated reasons. Eat healthy, get exercise, socialise, have hobbies you enjoy, be happy, be you. Follow that advice, and all evidence points to you being healthy no matter which diet you adhere to.)

 

Now I'm taking my own advice and going for a walk after stuffing a ridiculous amount of watermelon in my face.

Edited August 27, 2016 by harlequinraven

[Shienvien]

So in other words, you want to believe what you want to believe and have no interest in looking at actual evidence. congrats

Pardon? I'm a scientist at heart; I look at *all* evidence, from all sides, check its credibility, and draw my conclusions from that. I know how biased a lot of research is. I've seen the back end of it. I have worked with scientists since I was 20. I have looked at actual evidence, and, having reached wholly different conclusions, I disagree with you. I even referred to parts of an article you yourself had linked that was telling completely different things from what you yourself had said when linking said article. This leads me to doubting you had actually read it thoroughly.

 

But no matter how leanly you slice the meat/dairy/eggs, they will ALWAYS have fat.

SOME fat is healthy. So is some cholesterol. Our body needs it to build cell membranes, the myelin covers of our neurons, a whole lot of things...

[Arwen17]

Even your own study that pointed this out didn't even say people should cut out all meat 100% and go veggie-only.

 

My point with my studies is that our knowledge is varied and that this is not a 100% cut and dried case. There is not one way to be healthy.

 

 

 

When you keep calling us weak and ignorant, yeah, it 100% comes off as lecturing us and our lifestyles and not accepting our own diet and life/style choices.

 

There is a vast difference between "I went vegan for the health benefits I believe it will give to me" or "I am so much healthier now as a vegan than I was when I ate meat" and "I view you as ignorant and weak because you continue to eat meat and will most certainly get diabetes and cancer as a result of doing so".

 

The first two are personal things. The second is not at all a personal thing.

 

 

 

I am sorry that you are so comfortable using slurs and other derogatory, offensive, and rude terminology that people in the actually affected groups have asked people not to use. It's like if someone on the street called you ugly or whatever you might not like being called, and when you ask them to please not call you that, they simply laugh and respond that it doesn't bother them to call you that so they will keep doing it because that is what they think of you anyway. You don't even know them, but it is easier for them to call you some insulting name than bother to ever learn your name.

When you keep calling us weak and ignorant, yeah, it 100% comes off as lecturing us and our lifestyles and not accepting our own diet and life/style choices.

 

Yeah see its not a lecture, its a discussion, because there is a constant back-and-forth conversation of information. Lecturing is talking and not letting others ask any questions or provide any rebuttals.

Also, I accept you've made a choice, but I don't have to accept that is a good choice. I repeat, the only thing I'm arguing is that HCLF vegan is the optimal human diet. I'm not arguing you have a choice to choose differently and reap the consequences.

 

The word Eskimo means nothing to me other than as a word used to refer to a group of people who live up north. If you want to look up research about said group of people, you would have to use that term "eskimo" to find some of the research. Not all research is filed under "inuit". I know they want to be overly-sensitive and politically-correct about terminology, but because of historical reasons that word is now associated with them and it will always be associated with them. Are you going to go into every previous document in existence and change the word from "eskimo" to "inuit"?

Rather than "is this speaker using politically-correct terminology at all times?" the question should be "what is the intention of this speaker?" Are they using terms to demean people, such as calling them "ugly"? or are they simply using the term to identify a group of people so their listeners know who the heck they're talking about?

 

"There are at least two different types of Eskimo: Inuit and Yupik. In Canada and Greenland, the only type of Eskimo is the Inuit. However in the United States, both types are present and in Russia, only the Yupik are present. So, Eskimo couldn't really mean anything other than Inuit in Canada whereas in Alaska it could very well be referring to either. In Russia, it could only mean the Yupik.

The point is that Eskimo is a more general word than Inuit. All Inuit are Eskimos but not all Eskimos are Inuit. The two words aren't synonyms.

According to Wikipedia, the term is offensive in Canada and Greenland, but not elsewhere."

 

 

People are always asking me what I want to be called because my real name is too long. I always tell them "I don't care. Call me whatever you want, just be kind to me."

It's not how they mispronounce your name, but how they treat you and their intentions toward you that matters most. I've had my name misspelled on awards before and I didn't care and never mentioned it. And the one time someone actually noticed, months later, my entire name had been horribly misspelled and they were so apologetic and asked if I wanted it reprinted. And I was like "No, its just a silly name. I know who I am without having to worry about others spelling it right. It's not worth the waste of the ink."

They were amazed.

The only time accuracy truly matters is stuff like driver's license and social security since they need accurate proof of your identity.

 

 

There is a vast difference between "I went vegan for the health benefits I believe it will give to me" or "I am so much healthier now as a vegan than I was when I ate meat" and "I view you as ignorant and weak because you continue to eat meat and will most certainly get diabetes and cancer as a result of doing so".

I say this only because I believe there is scientific proof your chances are highly likely of it happening. I'm not saying it to be cruel, mean, or demeaning, I'm saying it because the science and real-life observation of certain groups of people shows that's what happens.

 

 

 

Even your own study that pointed this out didn't even say people should cut out all meat 100% and go veggie-only.

Because that study doesn't want the meat industry to "suffer important economical problems".

 

My point with my studies is that our knowledge is varied and that this is not a 100% cut and dried case. There is not one way to be healthy.

I don't agree with this. The results of how society has lived for the past several thousand years on a HCLF diet doesn't agree with this. All animals in the zoo have an optimal diet that is fed to them. Humans have an optimal diet too.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Arwen17

[Arwen17]

First, my evidence base as to why meat doesn't cause stroke:

 

 

Ah, now we some actual criticism - that only bad news makes good news! But isn't that true the other way round? You've been linking us to news articles which say "Meat is terrible!" and find that solid, irrefutable evidence but when met with the opposite you call it rubbish and mock it? Actually that's fine, because that is the development of critical thinking and also how you work basic debates. You're right, there are plenty of vegans with good diets, just like there are plenty of meat-eaters with good diets - as you said yourself, in moderation is fine. That's how you feel the Japanese do it after all - small amounts are healthy. But in the same way that a meat-heavy diet will cause problems, so will a vegan diet that consists of little more than lettuce and tofu; you need to have a good, moderated diet regardless of your life choices. If you have a good, balanced, moderated diet - be it with meat, fish, dairy produce, vegetables, or just nuts and berries off the ground - you will be fine.

 

It's okay dearie, I understand how your small female mind cannot comprehend the complexities of science. Go back to just cooking my dinner like a good little girl, okay?

Does the above feel insulting to your intelligence? Your self-worth? That the personal struggles you've made in life and the sacrifices you've made have just been smeared in the dirt let alone the decades of women who have made advances in science, politics, human rights and equal rights? Because when you decide not to 'nit-pick' or that 'political correctness police' are on patrol, it is stuff like the above quote that can be thrown out at you in response by someone who shows the same disregard and disrespect as you do towards others. Fortunately the above is simply a quote and not my own opinion; given that I work in a scientific field that is female-dominant I certainly don't believe or endorse the above quote.

 

And once back to diabetes, you have made a very terrible fallacy there. You have presumed meat is the overriding factor and so the reason we have so much diabetes is because there is so much meat-eating. It shows that you haven't actually read any of the evidence or understood what risk factors are and how they contribute; you've just taken a small piece of evidence and blown it out of context (are you sure you're not Jeremy Hunt? He's doing the exact same thing...).

 

And yes, you can be a fat vegetarian. A lot of my colleagues who I played Capoeira with were vegetarian or vegan - of the thirty of us who went camping every year I was the oddity in that I was the only meat-eater, so after three weeks of vegan-only meals I was feeling very queasy. But here's the thing; I wasn't the only overweight one there. A couple of the other life-long vegetarians or vegans were. Now, they may may not be your acronym-of-the-week vegetarians, but HCLF is not the only kind of vegetarian out.

 

In conclusion: learn to find solid evidence sources, use them to back up your arguments, and how to analyse them. And please understand what risk factors are.

It's okay dearie, I understand how your small female mind cannot comprehend the complexities of science. Go back to just cooking my dinner like a good little girl, okay?

 

No, that actually doesn't bother me. That's just another person I would label as "ignorant" or has managed to get his panties in such a twist that he has to resort to name-calling. It's actually a kind of good feeling. It means you've argued them to a standstill that they have to resort to such tactics.

Also, goes back to the previous reply I made before about how its the intention of the speaker that matters. If the intention of the speaker is to demean vs just using a term to neutrally refer to someone.

 

I'm not a feminist so I don't get all bent out of shape over such things. I work in a male-dominated field.

 

 

Don't I keep saying it MUST be a whole-foods HCLF vegan diet??? I'm not endorsing other kinds of vegan/vegetarian diets! I've been on non-hclf vegan diets. They don't work in the long-term for absolutely optimal health, that's why I ended up on HCLF. HCLF works for everyone. That's why okinawans live the longest out of the entire japanese population. We know ALL of the japanese live really long, but who consistently lives the longest? The okinawan group who eats almost zero amounts of animal products. I said before they only eat it on very, very special occasions. If you smoke only 1 cigarette every six months, that's hardly going to effect you.

 

The fact that you keep claiming "many vegans are fat" is what is so outrageous about your ideas.

Once again, by your logic, people can get fat on "lettuce and tofu" or all of the japanese would be fat.

http://www.andjrnl.org/article/S2212-2672(...1113-1/abstract

"Researchers found that average BMI was lowest among vegans, while average BMI was highest among the meat-eaters. Looking specifically at obesity (defined as having a BMI over 30), researchers found that vegans had the lowest percentage of people who were obese — just 9.4 percent — while meat-eaters had the highest percentage of people who were obese — 33.3 percent. About 24 percent of semi-vegetarians were obese, 17.9 percent of pesco-vegetarians were obese, and 16.7 percent of lacto-ovo vegetarians were obese.

Even though calorie intake was similar across all the groups, there were differences in the types of nutrients consumed. Meat-eaters had the lowest intake of plant proteins, beta carotene, fiber and magnesium, and the highest intake of heart disease-linked fatty acids."

 

Since this study isn't separating out the junk-food vegans vs the HCLF vegans, this is why we don't have a 0% rate of obesity for the vegan group. But even with them throwing all of the vegans together in one group, look how low their obesity level is anyway.

 

 

 

Pull up all of the scientific studies "praising meat-eating" that you want. No scientific study is going to overturn what we see happening before our very eyes in places like Okinawa and Loma Linda, as well as the historical evidence of what ancient societies around the world lived off of.

There is an optimal diet for humankind, and it's not just any diet you feel like eating.

 

 

As far as your sources are concerned, I can't read a lot of them. I tried googling them and it kept wanting me to pay money to read them.

If you go to a "neutral" website and read about the causes of stroke, it says stroke is caused by stuff like blockages in the brain. Ok great....but what caused the blockage in the brain in the first place? It never mentions that. It just goes on to list risk factors: high cholesterol, diabetes, overweight, sleep apnea. Ok what caused all of those things? Once again, the pages are silent.

 

Finally found a study that I could read for free from your list:

Lawrence, M., Kerr, S., Watson, H.E, et al (2009a) ‘A summary of the guidance relating to four lifestyle risk factors for recurrent stroke’ British Journal of Neuroscience Nursing 5:10 pp. 471 – 476

A summary of the guidance relating to four lifestyle risk factors for recurrent stroke: tobacco use, alcohol consumption, diet and physical activity.

Ok so far very generic information on what causes stroke.

 

SIGN (2007) and the Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party (ISWP) recommend that, in order to prevent stroke, the diet should be low in saturated fat, include two portions of fish per week (of which one should be oily) and incorporate at least fi ve portions of fruit and/or vegetables per day (SIGN, 2007; ISWP, 2008; NICE, 2008b).

 

So they say avoid saturated fat, but recommend fish. At least they recommend a lot of fruits and veggies.

We all know why they recommend fish. Because fish already has lower amounts saturated fats compared to red meats. However, that is still not ZERO saturated fat.

The American heart association says to limit saturated fat. No where do they say ANY amount of saturated fat is good for you. They say to limit it even further if you've got issues like high cholesterol.

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLivin...sp#.V8H3AU0rKUk

Limit saturated fat and trans fat and replace them with the better fats, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. If you need to lower your blood cholesterol, reduce saturated fat to no more than 5 to 6 percent of total calories. For someone eating 2,000 calories a day, that’s about 13 grams of saturated fat.

 

So that's the argument? Eat fish if your body's genes are strong enough to handle the poison. But oops! if you get sick, you need to scale back and eat more like a vegan?

This is evidence we were all supposed to be vegan to start with. Venturing into animal product land is a place fraught with peril.

 

What people mean when they say "there's lots of ways to be healthy" is that sometimes people get lucky and don't experience side effects. Same as someone who smokes all their life, but is lucky enough to not suffer any health problems. Yet no one claims that smoking was healthy for them even if they got off without any side effects.

 

 

There's no reason to "gamble" your health by eating meats that could cause problems when plants already provide everything you need without the risks attached.

Whole-foods HCLF Vegans do beat you on risk factors because they aren't gambling their health on hoping their body can handle the meat and doesn't become ill one day.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Arwen17

[Arwen17]

Belligerent citing of biased opinion-based sources, the inability or lack of desire to understand actual science, and the constant willingness to believe cherry-picked data and correlation is causation will be the downfall of our world. 

 

I can type "vegan is bad" into Google and get just as many (and equally non-rigorous) sources as have been used, and I can easily spin them in a way that makes it look like plants are horribly unhealthy for us. A key skillset which scientists are taught over many years (and many tears, because journal and grant proposal reviews will rip you apart for the slightest bias!) is finding bias in studies, knowing when something is being spun to better fit the authour's opinion, and locating the flaws in a study. But who am I to have an opinion on this? We should leave professional opinions to the professionals, in this case, that's scientists. It's not as though I'm a published scientist with a graduate degree. Oh, wait, yes I am.

 

Something that really bothers me is that people won't question the opinion of their mechanic, their accountant, their roofer, and frequently not their vet or doctor. As a scientist, I say, by all means, question everything! That's the basis of science. Yet people generally trust the educated opinions of professionals when it falls in line with the main body of same-field professionals. That trait falls apart when it comes to science. People don't trust the main body of science, instead going to their neighbor, a celebrity, or an outlier in the field who goes against the main consensus. It's maddening.

 

Circular, insular logic is not science nor evidence. Opinion is not evidence. "It works for me!" anectotes are not evidence unless you happen to be part of a well-designed, peer-reviewed trial (in which case, just link the paper). Non-peer reviewed studies are not evidence, no matter how sciency they look. Studies with blatant design flaws are not evidence, even if they manage to squeak their way into some journal of questionable repute. There are many predatory journals which will accept most anything so long as the authour pays. It LOOKS scientific on the surface, but we people with the fancy science and medical degrees have learned how to spot them.

 

If I sound condescending, it's because I am. I never judge a person for their career choice (so long as it's legal and moral by reasonable standards), unless a person who is NOT an expert in a field poses as one. Then, yes, I'm glad to pull out my, "Excuse me, I actually am a scientist," card. I don't claim to be an expert on art nor post my opinion as fact, but if I did, I would expect an actual art critic to blow apart any fallacies I was spouting, too.

 

Keep in mind that it's an assumption (since no viable evidence has been brought forth in this thread) that meat is unhealthy in and of itself, whereas there is a considerable body of evidence that processed "junk" food is unhealthy. Comparing reduced amounts of meat and reduced amounts of junk food is NOT the logical equivalent. By that same false logic, if someone ate nothing but iceberg lettuce then reduced their intake of it in favour of a more varied diet, yes, they'd be healthier, but iceberg lettuce isn't BAD for people just because we shouldn't eat it to the exclusion of other food items. Thus far, the published studies point to an overconsumption of meat, not meat itself, as the correlary between health and diet. Meat is a much more calorie (as well as some nutrients) dense food which is far easier to digest than plant matter. A person (and animals) don't need to eat as much. That's why grazers spend all day eating whereas carnivores can get away with eating once a day or less. It's not that meat is bad for the carnivore, but if they ate as often as herbivores did, they'd be very unhealthy. Unfortunately, many humans in western societies DO eat as often and as much as herbivores do. When we do that with calorie dense foods like meat, it becomes a problem. Also bear in mind that the majority (I am tempted to say ALL, but not having read every possible good study in existence on the subject, I won't) of well-designed, peer reviewed studies linking meat to health problems are looking at heavily processed meats, which goes right back to processed foods likely being the problem rather than meat itself, and the conclusions general state as much.

 

All of that being said, by choice I eat a plant-heavy diet. I prefer it to meat. My husband is a heavy (too heavy, especially in the heavily processed side of things) meat-eater. I've slowly been getting him to eat more vegetables, but I also end up eating more meat than my own palate prefers. I do like Asian foods, and like the average Japanese citizen (since that's been brought up so much), I eat more fish than red meat. By the way, the average Japanese citizen eats a half a pound of fish a day. The average American eats ~0.36 pounds of meat a day. LESS than the average Japanese eats. An even larger amount of dairy is consumed in Japan (surprised? Me too!) than fish. A big difference between Japanese and western diets is that Americans consume more processed foods and sugary foods. Japanese eat far more pickled foods (pickling has some health benefits). Meanwhile, France typically has a very high consumption of animal products and a low incidence of coronary problems (search "French paradox"). Furthermore, cancer rates went DOWN in Japan in the same time period that meat consumption went up. Japan has a much higher rate of osteoporosis, too. We also eat a lot more potatoes. Maybe a higher consumption of potatoes are why we have higher rates of some (but not all!) cancers. Probably not, but if we are assuming our higher red meat consumption is causing it, it's just as (il)logical to assume potatoes are causing it.

 

"In his doctoral thesis about coronary heart disease in Japanese emigrants, British physician Dr. Michael Marmot also described a Japanese paradox. Dr. Marmot discovered that when the Japanese in Hawaii maintained their cultural traditions, they were protected against heart attacks, even though their cholesterol increased as much as in Japanese emigrants who adopted a Western life-style and who died from heart attacks almost as often as did native-born Americans." (1). By no means is this article a perfect dissemination of science, but it does very nicely point out several fallacies of thought that have been rampant in this thread.

 

This is why it's very important to distinguish between correlation and causation, as well as to recognise that things like diet and health problems are rarely cut-and-dry. They are very complicated, and every person's biochemistry, genetics, and microbial community (which has a LOT to do with how we digest and use nutrients) is unique. That doesn't even take into account non-diet cultural differences, which can also have a big impact on disease risk. People who are vegetarian/vegan for health reasons tend to be health-conscious in all aspects of their life, not just diet. That's a hugely confounding factor that must be taken into account if a study comparing diets is to be done properly. Every evidence thus far points to a healthy, varied diet--whether it is vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, or fully omnivorous--as being equally good. Even if it didn't, people know the risks of smoking, drinking, extreme sports, being in front of screens too much (need I go on?) and still do it. Yet if a person drones on about how much better they are for not smoking, exercising more, or being a teetotaler, most people would call them a self-righteous, holier-than-thou jerk. Just saying...

 

Unfortunately, since one medical professional has already cited several excellent sources, only to be "countered" by links to a Google search, YouTube videos, forum posts, and blogs, it's clear that, once again, evidence will not dislodge belligerent dogma. Therefore, the remainder of my discussion will be ignoring all non-evidence. If someone brings me a well-designed study showing a direct benefit to a healthy vegan diet over a healthy omnivorous diet (all the referenced studies I've waded through thus far only showed a benefit to a healthy vegan diet over an unhealthy omnivorous diet, which only gives evidence that eating healthy, no matter your diet type, is better than not eating healthy) I'm happy to discuss it with an open, scientific mind.

 

(And yes, I'm firmly not taking a side on diet for the above-stated reasons. Eat healthy, get exercise, socialise, have hobbies you enjoy, be happy, be you. Follow that advice, and all evidence points to you being healthy no matter which diet you adhere to.)

 

Now I'm taking my own advice and going for a walk after stuffing a ridiculous amount of watermelon in my face.

hello! welcome to the crazy discussion channel!

 

I wanna talk about this part the most:

All of that being said, by choice I eat a plant-heavy diet. I prefer it to meat. My husband is a heavy (too heavy, especially in the heavily processed side of things) meat-eater. I've slowly been getting him to eat more vegetables, but I also end up eating more meat than my own palate prefers. I do like Asian foods, and like the average Japanese citizen (since that's been brought up so much), I eat more fish than red meat. By the way, the average Japanese citizen eats a half a pound of fish a day. The average American eats ~0.36 pounds of meat a day. LESS than the average Japanese eats. An even larger amount of dairy is consumed in Japan (surprised? Me too!) than fish. A big difference between Japanese and western diets is that Americans consume more processed foods and sugary foods. Japanese eat far more pickled foods (pickling has some health benefits). Meanwhile, France typically has a very high consumption of animal products and a low incidence of coronary problems (search "French paradox"). Furthermore, cancer rates went DOWN in Japan in the same time period that meat consumption went up. Japan has a much higher rate of osteoporosis, too. We also eat a lot more potatoes. Maybe a higher consumption of potatoes are why we have higher rates of some (but not all!) cancers. Probably not, but if we are assuming our higher red meat consumption is causing it, it's just as (il)logical to assume potatoes are causing it.

 

Dairy causes osteoporosis, that's why its on the rise. The Japanese didn't used to eat so much dairy. They learned this habit from the West. Ask yourself in what form do most Americans consume their potatoes? oil-saturated French fries. Most of the potato production in this country goes to the french fry industry.

I'm specifically focusing in on the Okinawans in Japan since they're the longest-lived compared to the rest of the island. Their diet is based around sweet potatoes.

http://fanaticcook.blogspot.com/2010/07/tr...diet-sweet.html

This is a blog which talks about a STUDY.

 

I think you're overestimating how much fish they eat since 70%+ of their diet is carbs. But its also probably because fish is lower in fat compared to red meat. Hypothetical: If Americans are eating .36lbs of red meat vs the japanese eating more fish, then the Americans are still going to have more problems because red meat is worse than fish. But it still doesn't excuse fish.

 

Potatoes are extremely healthy for you. Potatoes are how the Irish survived their famine.

Some of the Irish survived on potatoes and water alone during the famine. That's how nutritious potatoes are. Potatoes are the native, ancient diet of the South Americans. And there also have been many potato-heavy or potato-only health studies:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1252113/

The 1927 experiment.

In 1927, a study was published by Stanislaw Kazimirz Kon, who studied the effects of an all-potato diet on the human body. A healthy man and woman in their twenties, who were very athletic, were put on a diet where most of their calories came from potatoes. To that they added only a few fruits, and butter or oil.

Now, this wasn’t an all-potato diet, but it’s important to note that although fat was added to the diet, this fat provided no protein. Yet, on a diet where virtually all of the protein was derived from potatoes, it was found that protein intake was adequate. The entire experimented lasted almost 6 months, and the participants said that “they did not tire of the potato diet or had any cravings for change.”

 

There is no French paradox. French doctors underreport deaths via heart disease and France recently started eating this way. Whereas Americans have been eating meat-heavy diets for generations. France's bad habits haven't completely caught up with them yet because it takes years and years for symptoms to start appearing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1115846/

This guy pulls out a bunch of studies to walk thru the French paradox:

With time, it will catch up to the French, they don't have magical bodies, they're as human as the rest of us. Japan does well because they are eating the leanest of the meats, fish, and because their diets are mostly non-meat/dairy/eggs. But I know that animal products is on the rise in Japan because the West has popularized it. So we may see the Japanese lifespan eventually drop as well. Okinawans have it right. Hope they stay on their sweet potato diet forever as the rest of the world's diets crumbles.

 

 

Yes, I will probably die of screen death. Or at least go blind. But my job and many others have us working at the screen all day. So unless I go out and become a farmer and work in the fields all day...

Edited August 27, 2016 by Arwen17

[Arwen17]

Something that really bothers me is that people won't question the opinion of their mechanic, their accountant, their roofer, and frequently not their vet or doctor. As a scientist, I say, by all means, question everything! That's the basis of science. Yet people generally trust the educated opinions of professionals when it falls in line with the main body of same-field professionals. That trait falls apart when it comes to science. People don't trust the main body of science, instead going to their neighbor, a celebrity, or an outlier in the field who goes against the main consensus. It's maddening.

uh maybe people have a hard time trusting scientists because scientists are often changing their conclusions as new evidence flows in, or doing research that is fueled by a biased interest group. There's plenty of times "consensus" was overturned later on. Scientists are human beings, not gods. No matter how smart they are, they're going to make mistakes or change their minds. Science investigates, but it is not always correct.

I agree people should be questioning everyone, not just the scientists. But I think the scientists are going to be the most harshly questioned because they are the ones inventing the theories that all of those doctors, vets, roofers live by. The scientists are the foundation that all of those other professions are built upon. If your foundations are weak, the rest of the structure will automatically be weak as well.

 

Scientific Consensus Redux: http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/29/agreeing-to-agree

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories

 

So don't be so hard on those who aren't mainstream. Many ideas are wacky, but some may have a very good point.

 

[Arwen17]

I'm not talking about Thailand lmaoooo....why do you think I'm talking about Thailand. I'm not Thai lol. A lot of Buddhist-related news in my country don't get translated to English anyways.

 

You do know that there are people with health problems that CANNOT go vegan because they risk iron-deficiency otherwise, right? That's the part that keeps ticking people off, your insistence that it's the "life with the lowest risk of diet-driven diseases".

Thailand is what I information I could find since you still aren't providing any information about which Buddhist monks you are talking about. Whatever these monks are doing in your country, it isn't whole-foods HCLF vegan or they would be healthy. Unless they have another lifestyle factor making them sick outside of diet: drugs, smoking, drinking, bad hygiene, etc.

 

 

Even if they truly cannot go vegan because their bodies are messed up for whatever reason, it doesn't change the fact that it's still the "life with the lowest risk of diet-driven diseases". If they cannot be on a vegan diet for whatever, then YES their life has an increased risk of disease.

But thankfully, most people would have no issues going vegan and a lot of anecdotal evidence suggests that even those with certain conditions do find a way make it work, or nearly work by eating animal products sparingly.

 

The only reason I offer anecdotal evidence instead of studies for things like this is because these studies don't exist yet. There's nothing wrong with trying out some anecdotal ideas from other people that seem reasonable and find out if it actually works. I've tried plenty of things that worked, didn't work, and some that did work but needed a tiny bit of tweaking.

 

You've got maybe 1% of people on the entire planet who whole-foods HCLF vegan diet might not work without some serious manipulation of the foods..... because they've got such serious health issues that interfere with processing food. But if those 1% of people hadn't been exposed to a bad diet to begin, or if they hadn't inherited a bunch of stuff from their parents who had bad habits, we would have zero people this diet doesn't work for.

Mutations and problems don't appear out of thin air for no reason. They are a response to the environment. So you've gotta ask what kind of environment were these people in? What about their parents' environment?

 

And please separate blame from cause. I'm not blaming anyone. I don't blame the kid in Africa for starving, or the kid born to a mother who drinks, or the mother who may drink because she's been raised in a culture where that is mostly acceptable behavior.

I'm only pointing out causes of mutations, not blame.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Arwen17

[Kestra15]

So to clarify; regardless of what we say, do or demonstrate, as far as you're concerned the only diet that is completely healthy and includes no risk factors for anything is your acronym diet?

 

Okay Go for it. I'll keep enjoying my steak.

 

Also my sick leave is coming to end and so I'm going back to doing SCIENCE!

[Shienvien]

HCLF works for everyone.

And I can objectively, with absolute certainty, tell you that it does not. Humans are not all equal. If you ever believe that, you're liable to end up doing someone serious harm.

 

You've also told us very little of your health. Have you been ill during the last decade? (Which climate do you live in?) Sick? Fainted? Felt fatigued? Had sleeping issues? Memory problems? Been unusually irritable? Depressed? Could you, for instance, keep up with me during a two-week mountain trip? When did you last have complete analysis of your blood and thorough medical health check done? Was anything out of order at all? How can you confidently say your own diet hasn't been slowly damaging your health in ways that are not immediately apparent (especially if you have no blood tests to show from the past half a year)?

[Amaterasu-sama]

Quite bluntly I could care less if it is healthier or not.  Veganism, and even vegetarianism to a lesser extent, is so limiting I would find that the increased health is NOT worth the cost.  What worth is living if you can't have 9/10ths of what you like?  If there was anything that ever FORCED me to be vegan I am honestly not sure I could go on living.

 

Maybe this makes me "weak" in your eyes, but I will be honest in that I don't care.

Believe me not all vegetarian food is healthy (or bland).

 

Is it perfectly doable to be obese and unhealthy by eating junk (veg) food like burgers and pizzas and what nots.

 

And being a vegetarian never made me feel like I was missing out on something because my mind doesn't register meat as edible. I think a lot of that is culture based though because every other person here is vegetarian and there is a plethora of absolutely lip smacking vegetarian food choices. If anyone thinks veg food is bland, you are probably not experimenting with it enough. In fact I have been to pretty remote places while traveling and people told me to pack food as there will be no veg food available, I found that to be not true at all. In some places choices are more and in some there are less, but you can always find veg food anywhere. And if you do your own cooking then choices are endless.

 

 

Not saying you have to be vegan/veg or anything, I am myself not a vegan because I love cheese. But more like 1) veg food isn't as bad as it is perceived to be taste wise, it is not like we are eating grass and loathing our life every moment. I am quite a foodie myself.

 

And 2) on a completely opposite end of spectrum, yeah if I were forced to be nonveg for some reason I couldn't go on living either, so strange as it is, *I completely understand your sentiment*. The one time someone played a prank on me and replaced my veg burger with chicken one, I had such terrible reaction that only one bite made me throw up followed by food poisoning. So I suspect I would *literally* die of terrible body reaction if I got fed meat in some extreme scenario.

[SullenCat]

I'm a pescetarian/pescatarian. I eat fish and shellfish, (organic, cage-free) eggs, (local farm) dairy and obscene amounts of veggies. My SO used to grow veggies and herbs before she went into the night, I'm not green-fingered but I'm doing my best.

I love raw oysters, raw everything and, yes, I know that fish is still meat. Still, if I could live of sashimi, I would. Only time I refused to eat, was when a sushi chef in Cali arrived with a tiny blue crab. Sorry, can't eat something I was introduced to.

For some reason I can't stand eating mammals and birds. Probably this will sound hypocritical but, while I have a kind-of emotional connection with them, I've none with red snappers. When I'm at the fish market I check the sustainability before I buy but that's it.

By the way, no GMO Monsanto soy for me, thank you very much.

Americans do not like regulations, I wish for a regulation that would end factory farming. NOW. Is this realistic? I hope. Not sure would be, considering cost. Fish and shellfish are all but cheap, in particular if wild-caught. Same for organic and local everything. How many of us can afford to buy?

[CitrusFlavours]

I started slowly moving towards a vegetarian diet the summer before university so I could get used to cutting meat out of my diet. Considering I'd spent 18 years before that eating meat (a lot) it was pretty hard.

 

A year on, it's going pretty well. Every once in a blue moon I've ended up eating meat (like three times in the last year oops) but I became vegetarian mainly for the environmental reasons to it. I love animals but the environmental reason always felt more solid for me to stop eating meat.

 

 

[Arwen17]

And I can objectively, with absolute certainty, tell you that it does not. Humans are not all equal. If you ever believe that, you're liable to end up doing someone serious harm.

 

You've also told us very little of your health. Have you been ill during the last decade? (Which climate do you live in?) Sick? Fainted? Felt fatigued? Had sleeping issues? Memory problems? Been unusually irritable? Depressed? Could you, for instance, keep up with me during a two-week mountain trip? When did you last have complete analysis of your blood and thorough medical health check done? Was anything out of order at all? How can you confidently say your own diet hasn't been slowly damaging your health in ways that are not immediately apparent (especially if you have no blood tests to show from the past half a year)?

 

~~~~~My responses will be slower from now since I have to go back to real life.~~~~~

 

 

My last blood tests were a perfect score, I'd have to go digging thru papers to find them, but I specifically remember my total cholesterol number being 130, and the sheet saying over 200 was dangerous. Some other vegans I know posted their results too, (all of them had been vegan for a wildly different number of years 1-20), and they were all in the 125-135 cholesterol range with all other numbers being perfectly normal too. I don't know if there's a "standard range" for cholesterol for vegans, or if previous conditions will continue to affect it, but that's the range my particular circle all had.

 

My bloodtest also had some kind of ranking system where it predicts the likelihood of you having a heart attack and it said something like you have 1% chance of having a heart attack lol.

 

I had blood tests immediately after a year of veganism, so I could have something to post to all my friends online after losing 80lbs in a year on a vegan diet alone (no exercise). But I didn't take any blood tests before my journey into eating healthy. It's a shame I have nothing to compare to, but I knew I was unhealthy before I changed my life. At that point in time I had no desire to see a blood test to prove what I already knew. They were supposedly worried I was on the edge of being pre-diabetic before I changed my life and were pushing me to get a blood test done. But doctors sometimes say anything they can just so they can order a blood test and make money. When they pushed me for a blood test, my immediate thought to myself was, "I don't need a blood test to show how poor my diet is. F* the tests. I'll fix this by changing my diet."

And I didn't start out knowing or wanting to be vegan. I just wanted to eat healthier. But the more research I did into eating healthy, the more obvious it became vegans have the healthiest and most long-term results at weight loss, and avoiding disease and all manner of complications.

My doctor is lactose-intolerant himself, so he never pushes dairy. But he also can't recommend meat to me since my blood tests are so perfect. But regardless, I hold all in the medical industry in high suspicion since it is a profit-driven industry, not a health-driven industry.

My mother is a nurse herself and helps me know when I'm being bulls*ed by the doctor because she speaks medical. Or I just look it up myself from various sources before I say "yes" to anything. Most people just accept the doctor's word as the word of god. OR the doctor really is giving them good advice such as "eat healthy", but they don't like what they hear, so they go to another doctor who prescribes them a pill to keep their symptoms at bay so they can continue to eat horribly for a little while longer before it kills them.

Doctors are all about pushing pills and operations so they, and the drug companies, can make money. They're not into teaching prevention and how to live healthy life. And lot of it is the patient's fault too. The patient doesn't want to hear it. They want a pill, a magical solution to their bad habits.

 

 

I did have a blood test in the past few months because of the mumps outbreak in Indiana and other places. I was vaccinated as a child, but this outbreak has specifically infected people who were already vaccinated as children. Basically, when I looked it up, they think mumps is the most likely element of the MMR vaccine to wear off after many years. I'm not even in college, but I got a light case of it anyway. Must have picked it up from a restaurant where some of these kids work. But I am in the right "college age" range like the rest of the victims who are getting it.

 

And that's it. That's the only time I've been sick for the past 3 years. I used to get 2-3 colds every year in winter, but that has completely stopped. (Many vegans commonly report their yearly colds disappear and getting sick becomes a rare occurrence.) I still get a little bit of allergies during the spring, but it lasts like a couple days and is very, very mild. I used to have to take allergy medicine to get it under control and it would last weeks. Having a healthy diet gives your body the ability to fight things off and heal much, much faster. It might even be the reason why my mumps case was so mild compared to others. Maybe I had some resistance left over from the MMR vaccine years ago, but perhaps it was also diet helping out.

 

 

And of course I can't rock-climb a mountain because I don't exercise on a regular basis and I work at a desk. But just losing all that weight means I can do several push-ups just because I'm lighter now. I couldn't do any push-ups before. I always tell people if you want to be healthy, eat vegan. If you want to be strong, you need to exercise as well. I can walk 8+ hours straight whenever I go on trips, without any kind of preparation, even tho I'm sedentary on a normal day. I did this for two weeks on a trip to Japan and backpacking thru the hostels and some mountain temples. I'm not rock-climbing a mountain, but I am walking a mountain to see temples.

Was I a little sore after two weeks? Of course, since that was a spontaneous adventure outside of my normal sedentary life But if you're light and not overweight, there's A LOT you can immediately do, even if you don't regularly exercise. Not everyone wants to be a body-builder or run a 10k or whatever. And that's fine. Because lack of exercise is not what kills you, having clogged arteries or cancer growth from the food is what kills you.

 

You cannot out-exercise what you eat. Exercise is a drop in the bucket compared to how important diet is. Anyone who's lost weight and kept it off long-term knows how important diet is compared to exercise.

Just because I'm a nerd and not interested in being an athlete, doesn't mean there aren't tons of vegan athletes and bodybuilders out there.

http://www.greatveganathletes.com/

http://www.cheatsheet.com/health-fitness/1...html/?a=viewall

 

Loma Linda and Okinawan vegans don't do anything strenuous. They do yoga-like stuff to keep their joints flexible and go for long walks, work in their gardens, clean the house, etc. They're not running marathons.

Though it certainly sounds like they could if they wanted to. Look up "Banana George", the 92 year old barefoot water skier. His trademark stunt is clutching the rope in his teeth while holding a banana in each hand.

 

You cannot escape diet, if you want to be healthy. You can escape exercise, if you don't care about being an athlete.

 

 

[Arwen17]

So I suspect I would *literally* die of terrible body reaction if I got fed meat in some extreme scenario.

Yes, please do not try to trick vegans/vegetarians into eating any animal products they don't normally eat. There's a very high chance we will get sick and throw it up, or at least be terribly uncomfortable as our body struggles to process it. I have that problem if someone even adds too much oil because my diet is normally so low in fat. Too much fat and I get extremely nauseous. So far I've avoided outright puking, but it's been a near thing on several occasions. I had to sit down or lay down immediately for 30 minutes or risk puking.

 

 

We don't lose the ability to digest these things entirely, but the level of enzymes that break down meat and fat decreases A LOT in our digestive tract. So it takes a week or two of slowly reintroducing animal products for these enzyme levels to rise again.

 

So think about that when vegans refuse your animal food. It's not only because they don't want to eat it, it's also because we literally get sick from eating it.

 

[Arwen17]

I'm a pescetarian/pescatarian. I eat fish and shellfish, (organic, cage-free) eggs, (local farm) dairy and obscene amounts of veggies. My SO used to grow veggies and herbs before she went into the night, I'm not green-fingered but I'm doing my best.

I love raw oysters, raw everything and, yes, I know that fish is still meat. Still, if I could live of sashimi, I would. Only time I refused to eat, was when a sushi chef in Cali arrived with a tiny blue crab. Sorry, can't eat something I was introduced to.

For some reason I can't stand eating mammals and birds. Probably this will sound hypocritical but, while I have a kind-of emotional connection with them, I've none with red snappers. When I'm at the fish market I check the sustainability before I buy but that's it.

By the way, no GMO Monsanto soy for me, thank you very much.

Americans do not like regulations, I wish for a regulation that would end factory farming. NOW. Is this realistic? I hope. Not sure would be, considering cost. Fish and shellfish are all but cheap, in particular if wild-caught. Same for organic and local everything. How many of us can afford to buy?

I think being pescetarian is better than eating red meat, and fish was the last meat I stopped eating, especially sushi, since sushi tastes awesome and is tiny.

But you really might want to watch stuff like this and decide if you want to keep eating fish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcPZlAt-5h4

 

But dairy is probably the worst of the things you listed. Even the meat-eating paleo dieters agree with the vegans that dairy is unnatural and unhealthy.

Cow's milk is designed for cows, not humans. It raises the risk of osteoporosis and some cancers.

Drink some kind of plant-based milk (coconut, almond, soy, rice, cashew, etc) if you want a replacement. And green leafy veggies, oranges, beans, rice, bread,potato etc all have calcium too.

You eat a varied diet and you'll get enough calcium. I don't even drink plant-milks any more because they are high-fat like dairy. I get all my calcium from veggies/fruit/beans/rice/potatoes.

 

 

[Arwen17]

So to clarify; regardless of what we say, do or demonstrate, as far as you're concerned the only diet that is completely healthy and includes no risk factors for anything is your acronym diet?

 

Okay Go for it. I'll keep enjoying my steak.

 

Also my sick leave is coming to end and so I'm going back to doing SCIENCE!

"no risk factors" is the keyword there.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather be on the diet where I can 99.999% guarantee I won't end up with breast cancer or some other issue. I want to be in control of my health destiny, outside of getting hit by a car or bolt of lightning.

 

Back before I knew anything about diet, I remember seeing breast cancer posters with dire statistics posted in public buildings like some of my schools. Stuff like "1 in 8 women will get breast cancer."

And it listed unhelpful risk factors like "not getting pregnant before 35 increases your risk" etc.

My thoughts were "you mean I have to have a baby in order to avoid breast cancer? What if I never find anyone to marry? What if I decide I don't want a baby? Am I doomed to breast cancer?" Because 1 in 8 women is a lot of women. And I already knew plenty of people in my life who had mentioned they had a relative with breast cancer. Everyone has been touched by that disease in some way, no matter how distant.

 

So I felt like a helpless victim, powerless to do anything to ward off what could very likely happen in my future according to the poster. These posters mentioned nothing about this disease being diet-driven or avoidable via a diet change. It always listed every risk factor, except diet. This info is available on the web, but they sure weren't putting it on the posters or teaching it in class.

What they would teach in class is eat healthy, eat fruits and veggies. But then never mention all of the diet-driven diseases. Never mentioned how important eating healthy was with the current epidemics. As far as I was aware, the epidemics we see today had nothing to do with diet, just bad luck. Because that's how they teach you in class. No-blame-game.

 

 

I have to specify the whole-foods HCLF (high-carb-low-fat) vegan diet, because there are junk-food vegans who live on oreos and high-fat, processed veggie burgers, or vegans who douse their whole-foods in olive oil and claim its healthy. Then they wonder why they're overweight or having other health issues even though they're vegan.

My last vegan meetup had one obese vegan at the table. Great sweet person, but she did stick out because everyone else was thin. I very gently asked what sort of vegan foods she was eating because we were all sharing what kinds of things we regularly eat, to get ideas for vegan cooking and meal-planning, and she waxed poetic about how much she loved oreos and was so glad oreos were vegan so she didn't have to give them up.

There are some people who are vegan purely for the animals and not for their own health. So they don't care if they eat oreos all day.

Whereas I'm the opposite extreme. Human health first, animal+environmental health second.

This comes from the fact that we are more intelligent than the animals, so we should put ourselves first. But at the same time, because our intelligence allows us to make moral choices, we do have a responsibility to the animals/environment as well. Plus, if the planet dies, we die. No more farming. With great power/intelligence comes great responsibility.

 

 

[Shienvien]

My blood tests are likewise perfect or very close to it (may vary a bit depending on the month - some months just don't allow me to pick when and where I eat, while traveling especially), as noted before. Perfect blood pressure, pulse in the sixties. Etc, etc. Lower end of normal weight - I'm actually quite thin. No physical or mental health complaints. Never fainted in my life, never needed a surgery, so on and so forth.

 

I was last ill last spring (with something that was probably mild flu, a mild annoyance at worst - I actually stayed at my usual level of activity, if stuck to being at home since I didn't want to contaminate the people at office, did not take any medicine or anything, it just went away on its own after a week), before that I was ill in 2012, also towards spring, and by then I had not been ill for another couple of years (note that children are ill more often because their immune system is still developing, not necessarily because their diets are wrong). And mind you, I live in the "cold dark north" with its maybe 3h of sunlight during the peak of winter ('cept it's probably cloudy).

 

I also suspect I'm naturally physically much stronger and more endurant than you. (My grip is scary strong, and I don't even know why... Are those muscles from typing or something? Sure, let's go with typing. My typing muscles are most likely powerful enough to snap a human radius between my fingers...)

You mentioned being sore: if you're sore after exercising, this means you overexerted yourself and actively worked on destroying your muscles. I've only been "sore" once in my life, my upper arms only, and that was after spending a good twelve hours splitting logs during a single day, with only one break for dinner. I don't exercise regularly, either, for the matter - mostly just when I feel the excess energy, or otherwise remember to, aside of the somewhat more regular hand-to-hand combat training. I don't chase times, and I don't definitely build body. It's mostly just the baseline of my body.

(Though running 10km should generally be something any healthy person can do without any prior training ... the walk from the bus station to my home when I was at school alone was 6km, for comparison. If you can't hold a steady jog for that distance, you are unhealthy / have some kind of physical ailment. - Just in case, I'll note that physical ailments don't make a person worth any less - I myself have several scars on my right hands, which at times makes using my right thumb a bit more difficult.)

 

By all medical standards, I'm perfectly healthy, and continue being so. Not one of my relatives, my entire extended family included, has ever had any form of cancer or diabetes, or heart troubles before 85. Most people related to me that did not die to a tragic accident or be murdered by the Soviet forces lived to over 85...

 

And you can find plenty of evidence to back that balanced and sufficient omnivorous diet that contains unprocessed meats/eggs can be as healthy as any balanced and sufficient vegetarian or vegan diet. Please, do try to comprehend that your diet is not the only one to be healthy for humans, and may in fact not work for everyone. Especially for people with different genetic makeups from yours.

You can't say that an Aborigine, an Indian, a Japanese person, a Nigerian, a Finnish person, a Hispanic, a Native American, a Mongol, a German, etc, are all the same. They physically are not. They are dozens of generations of different influences, genetic predispositions, etc, apart. There is a lot of variety in humans - if you ignore that, you'll end up harming most people you're trying to help.

 

Furthermore, this is false:

I don't know about you, but I'd rather be on the diet where I can 99.999% guarantee I won't end up with breast cancer or some other issue. I want to be in control of my health destiny, outside of getting hit by a car or bolt of lightning.

You have no guarantee of that. None. Even less an absurd percentage like "99.999%". No matter what you do, there is a much, much more significant chance. Maybe it's 95%. Maybe. I don't know your family history, I can't search your genome for markers. Even when you get your diet down perfectly to the last molecule, there are so many other factors in your genes and environment. And sheer, dumb coincidence.

For instance, skin cancer is notably more common than breast cancer in my country. Why? Most likely because sunlight causes skin cancer. Count of people who have had skin cancer I personally know in real life? 3, thus far, including one devout vegetarian. Breast cancer? 0. (...1 in 8?)

Outlandishly untrue claims that directly contradict any observable truths do not lend credibility to any standpoints that one might try to defend. Vegans and vegetarians - even those who do not suffer from any deficiencies - routinely do get those ailments. Slightly less frequently than hamburger-eaters and processed food affectionados, but not overwhelmingly so.

 

 

 

As a sidenote, there are two foods I can think off the top of my head I would not enjoy - liver (especially liver pate) and tofu. I think tofu is the least pleasant part of vegetarian cuisine I've thus far encountered, and it's quite common to boot... I've heard people state tofu is quite bland, but for me it's always had rather distinct, "vomity" taste. (Or what I assume vomit tastes like, anyway ... my age was in single digits when I last threw up. On second thought, vomit probably tastes much more like acid...)

The only soy product I have in my house right now is this one: https://www.mitoko.com/media/catalog/produc...180820025-1.jpg