Vegetarianism/ Veganism

demonicvampiregirl · August 31, 2016

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

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 may be a optimal diet for you and others but it's not going to work for everyone. You act like HCLF wont make you have any consequences at all, that is where you are being arrogant and very ignorant of the human body. You can eat as healthy as you want, diet, exercise and whatever else you think is healthy and still drop dead tomorrow, find out you got terminal cancer, ect.

Never, and I mean never, underestimate what your body can and will do to itself with and without outside influence. If cancer is in your family, it has been shown to be hereditary in some cases. This implies to you no matter what you eat or do. You have a chance at all times to be sick and come down with whatever nasty disease your body has in store for you.

No diet is going to make you impervious to nature, no matter how much you want to argue and believe it. Human nature will take it's course even if you want to eat and live healthily. It may lower the RISK but it does not REMOVE the risk. You are and always will be at risk for diseases, cancers and whatever else you may think a diet may remove. Do not think you are impervious to anything, your body will do whatever it wants, however it wants and if you are going to have cancer or something in the future, you will have it whether your diet says you can or not. It is nature and you cannot fight it.

As for me, I am over weight, I plan to work on it and improve my diet. Hopefully, I am sadly very picky and if people get on me to try things, I shut down immediately. I absolutely HATE having people take away my choice of what to do, when and how. However I absolutely refuse to go vegan for multiple reasons. I like the taste of meat, I don't want to be restricted and remove my favorite foods all because one diet says it's bad.

Edit to clarify: most of the "yous" are not directly at you.

Edited August 31, 2016 by demonicvampiregirl

Arwen17 · September 10, 2016

@Shienvien and @demonicvampiregirl

The human body is meant to be healthy. The natural state of a human being is to be healthy and not have any of these issues you mention. The causes of ill health are poor choices and the external polluted environment, with a little bit of genetics thrown in. But the gene issue was caused by the poor choices and polluted environment of an ancestor.

Being unhealthy is not nature and it is not fate. You are not a victim. You are in control of at least 80%+ of your destiny even with crappy genes from crappy parents. Unless you are living in times of famine or another extreme.

Sun doesn't help skin cancer, but poor diet can weaken your skin and make skin more vulnerable to the sun. Diet is interconnected with everything. Diet fuels your body and helps it resist bad genes (thank you epigenetics!), chemicals, and the sun. You can never take diet out of the equation and claim it was SOLELY something else that caused poor health.

I can state strongly that this diet works for everyone because all of the major societies for centuries around the world ate a HCLF plant-based diet with only small amounts of meats on rare occasions. When you look at fringe cultures like the eskimos, you see they had poor health.

So despite all of our genetic differences, everyone around the world ate this kind of diet for a looong time, rice in asia, wheat in europe, corn in north america, potatoes in south america, etc.

You are trying to refute centuries of world-wide evidence by saying this diet doesn't work for everyone.

I happen to love tofu and so does the entire island of Japan. But there's no requirement to include tofu. Edamame, peas, beans, potatoes, breads, pastas all have protein. Any food you don't like, there is always an alternative.

People who don't want to change their habits, (such as smoking, drinking, drugs, poor diet), always want to blame it on their genes or some other factor they have no control over. They want to be a helpless victim so they can continue to live the way they've always lived. Whereas I was overjoyed to learn I wasn't a helpless victim and we have a huge amount of influence over our own health destinies in this world.... especially because we're lucky to be born in a first-world country and have an easy ability to make those choices because we aren't starving in africa etc.

P.S.

Soreness in muscles is not a bad thing. It depends HOW sore they are and how quickly you recover. Being sore for a day is different from being sore for several days. Being so sore you can't move vs just a little sore is a big difference.

And yes, the more fit you are, the less sore you are likely to be. I already said that soreness is expected in someone like me who doesn't routinely work out. The point I was making was that I was able to get up and do a lot with very little soreness, despite the fact that I don't routinely exercise.

There are Olympic vegan athletes and vegan bodybuilders galore. Don't use me, the one who doesn't exercise, as an example of what veganism can do for athletes.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Arwen17

AppleMango · September 10, 2016

@Shienvien and @demonicvampiregirl

The human body is meant to be healthy. The natural state of a human being is to be healthy and not have any of these issues you mention. The causes of ill health are poor choices and the external polluted environment, with a little bit of genetics thrown in. But the gene issue was caused by the poor choices and polluted environment of an ancestor.

Being unhealthy is not nature and it is not fate. You are not a victim. You are in control of at least 80%+ of your destiny even with crappy genes from crappy parents. Unless you are living in times of famine or another extreme.

Sun doesn't help skin cancer, but poor diet can weaken your skin and make skin more vulnerable to the sun. Diet is interconnected with everything. Diet fuels your body and helps it resist bad genes (thank you epigenetics!), chemicals, and the sun. You can never take diet out of the equation and claim it was SOLELY something else that caused poor health.

I can state strongly that this diet works for everyone because all of the major societies for centuries around the world ate a HCLF plant-based diet with only small amounts of meats on rare occasions. When you look at fringe cultures like the eskimos, you see they had poor health.

So despite all of our genetic differences, everyone around the world ate this kind of diet for a looong time, rice in asia, wheat in europe, corn in north america, potatoes in south america, etc.

You are trying to refute centuries of world-wide evidence by saying this diet doesn't work for everyone.

I happen to love tofu and so does the entire island of Japan. But there's no requirement to include tofu. Edamame, peas, beans, potatoes, breads, pastas all have protein. Any food you don't like, there is always an alternative.

People who don't want to change their habits, (such as smoking, drinking, drugs, poor diet), always want to blame it on their genes or some other factor they have no control over. They want to be a helpless victim so they can continue to live the way they've always lived. Whereas I was overjoyed to learn I wasn't a helpless victim and we have a huge amount of influence over our own health destinies in this world.... especially because we're lucky to be born in a first-world country and have an easy ability to make those choices because we aren't starving in africa etc.

P.S.

Soreness in muscles is not a bad thing. It depends HOW sore they are and how quickly you recover. Being sore for a day is different from being sore for several days. Being so sore you can't move vs just a little sore is a big difference.

And yes, the more fit you are, the less sore you are likely to be. I already said that soreness is expected in someone like me who doesn't routinely work out. The point I was making was that I was able to get up and do a lot with very little soreness, despite the fact that I don't routinely exercise.

There are Olympic vegan athletes and vegan bodybuilders galore. Don't use me, the one who doesn't exercise, as an example of what veganism can do for athletes.

I get that you think you're doing the right thing, and you believe 100% that a vegan diet really is the best thing for everyone, but I can tell you the way you're going about it is wrong. Trying to force it on people and talking as condescendingly as you are is turning people off.

Apart from that, you are in control of your diet. Only you. Sure when you are younger your parents have a say, but each person is in charge of their own diet. So even if you are correct, it isn't right to try and control others and force a vegan diet on them. Even if it was the healthiest diet for everyone and everything, some people aren't going to want it and that's okay.

Think about the way you are saying the things you are saying, and how much you would hate it if someone who loved eating meat was talking to you and trying to get you to eat meat in the same way that you are trying to convince people to not eat meat.

It's okay to talk about being vegan and encourage others, that's fine. It's okay to want to share it and things like that, just be polite and understand not everyone will want to eat it and you can't force them to.

If you really want to get people to be vegan, a much better way is probably to share your favourite recipes and invite your non-vegan friends over and cook a vegan meal for them.

From my experience, one of the main things stopping people from becoming vegan or even vegetarian is they think the food will be boring and bland, and that there won't be many choices. Show them that isn't true. Sure they might not become vegan or vegetarian, but they might reduce their meat intake, which if you care beyond the point of trying to control other people is a good thing.

Also remember that health isn't the only reason that people do or don't eat meat. There are other reasons.

Shienvien · September 10, 2016

Soreness in muscles is not a bad thing.

Except it is. It means your a) muscles have taken damage or

they are deprived of oxygen. The first will be felt the day after, the latter during exertion or slightly after (up to a few hours).

As I noted, I've only been tangibly sore due to physical exertion *once* in my entire life, for about a day, and that was after me downright aggressively abusing my arm muscles for twelve hours straight. And I'm no athlete; most of what I do with my hands is typing.

And while diet may account for ~40% of your health, there are still ~30% of genetics and ~30% other environment at play (numbers are illustrative and don't carry actual factual value). You cannot dismiss the importance of other factors, or insist that people's health problems would go away if they ate your way. No matter what you state, you're not "safe". Natural isn't perfect. Natural is *mostly sufficient*. And, with the advent of modern medicine, the bar for "sufficient" has been brought down by quite a lot. As it is, our evolution favors social skills and brains over perfect health. Maybe we'll all be cyborgs in a thousand years, who knows...

I am not a victim. My health is, all things considered, nigh perfect. *IF* I ate your way, though, my health would no longer be perfect. I'd be weak and unmotivated, a shadow of my current self. You're actively advocating me to wreck my health by refusing to understand that your diet cannot work for everyone. There are plenty of grievously sick people who do follow HCLF. Such as there are plenty of people who are healthy on it. It works for you. It cannot for everyone. If it works for you, then good. But for the sake of everyone, please do acknowledge that not everyone is physically like you, and your diet is not the only one that works. There are some that will work for different people, and others which would also work for you.

There is no person more ignorant than one who insists that they are right under all circumstances.

Arwen17 · September 11, 2016

@AppleMango and @Shienvien

That is what you believe, but you haven't actually tried it. All I'm hearing is "it would never work for me because I don't like the taste of tofu and I like meat too much. Just ignore the fact that it's worked for centuries for all civilizations around the world... with the fringe civilizations having much shorter lives because they did not eat this way."

I've said several times in my many previous posts, I am not forcing anything on anyone. I am merely stating HCLF whole foods vegan is the optimal human diet based on centuries of history of civilizations around the world, and modern scientific research.

The people who come in here and say "I like meat, I don't care if it's not optimal" I haven't been talking with at all. I just accept that statement. It's the people who are claiming HCLF can't work for everyone, despite the fact that this is the diet humans around the world have eaten for centuries and is still currently the diet that makes the people in Okinawa, Japan and Loma Linda, California live so long.

Example:

1. I accept that you drink alcohol. But I will still say to you: "Alcohol may kill you one day. It's not part of the optimal human diet."

2. The people I've been discussing with have been trying to argue: "No, no, alcohol is optimal for some humans! We're all different! You can't say alcohol is bad for everyone!"

See how nuts that is?

If you're in serious pain or about to have a leg cut off, alcohol can be a great thing in such dire circumstances. But otherwise, you shouldn't be drinking it. Same with animal products. If you're starving in the desert or having some crazy health problem, and meat is literally the only thing that will save you, that's fine. But that doesn't magically make it part of the optimal human diet.

There is no person more ignorant than one who insists that they are right under all circumstances.

So it's wrong to insist that eating fruits and vegetables will make you healthier than you are now?

I think there are some basic capital-T Truths in life that really are correct in all circumstances. You might have to extract elements from the veggies into pills or inject them intravenously, but it's still true the veggies are what improved health.

Truth: if you don't have oxygen or water, you will die.

Truth: if you don't eat enough plants and eat too much meat, you will die sooner than others. (Eskimos being the prime example of this.)

RWyvern · September 11, 2016

or having some crazy health problem, and meat is literally the only thing that will save you, that's fine

I'm not going to stay and debate this time, but I'm seeing things along the lines of 'crazy health problems' cropping up here and there and I just wish for it to be known that's kinda offensive... Some people have health problems, end of story, I don't wish anyone to feel alienated by having their health problems being labelled this strongly... idk maybe it's just me who feels this way after years of feeling misplaced and like there's things wrong with me which just simply are not acceptable.

Also I understand you're trying to raise awareness for this 'optimal' diet and that's cool, but why do you keep on driving it in that if you eat meat, you'll die sooner? Statistically, by how many years? My grandmother eats meat, and she's in her nineties. I'm just curious on this, I have a horrendous fear of the inevitable and don't really want to see lost opportunities just because of texture and taste issues.

AppleMango · September 11, 2016

@AppleMango and @Shienvien

That is what you believe, but you haven't actually tried it. All I'm hearing is "it would never work for me because I don't like the taste of tofu and I like meat too much. Just ignore the fact that it's worked for centuries for all civilizations around the world... with the fringe civilizations having much shorter lives because they did not eat this way."

I've said several times in my many previous posts, I am not forcing anything on anyone. I am merely stating HCLF whole foods vegan is the optimal human diet based on centuries of history of civilizations around the world, and modern scientific research.

The people who come in here and say "I like meat, I don't care if it's not optimal" I haven't been talking with at all. I just accept that statement. It's the people who are claiming HCLF can't work for everyone, despite the fact that this is the diet humans around the world have eaten for centuries and is still currently the diet that makes the people in Okinawa, Japan and Loma Linda, California live so long.

Example:

1. I accept that you drink alcohol. But I will still say to you: "Alcohol may kill you one day. It's not part of the optimal human diet."

2. The people I've been discussing with have been trying to argue: "No, no, alcohol is optimal for some humans! We're all different! You can't say alcohol is bad for everyone!"

See how nuts that is?

If you're in serious pain or about to have a leg cut off, alcohol can be a great thing in such dire circumstances. But otherwise, you shouldn't be drinking it. Same with animal products. If you're starving in the desert or having some crazy health problem, and meat is literally the only thing that will save you, that's fine. But that doesn't magically make it part of the optimal human diet.

There is no person more ignorant than one who insists that they are right under all circumstances.

So it's wrong to insist that eating fruits and vegetables will make you healthier than you are now?

I think there are some basic capital-T Truths in life that really are correct in all circumstances. You might have to extract elements from the veggies into pills or inject them intravenously, but it's still true the veggies are what improved health.

Truth: if you don't have oxygen or water, you will die.

Truth: if you don't eat enough plants and eat too much meat, you will die sooner than others. (Eskimos being the prime example of this.)

Actually, I'm a vegetarian but most of what I eat is vegan. I eat cheese only occasionally and I don't like eggs so I only eat them when they're cooked into other things that I'm eating. Your assumption is wrong.

The way you are talking about it is very condescending to others and is going to turn people off, that's all I'm saying.

Shienvien · September 11, 2016

I don't have a "crazy health problem". I'm perfectly healthy and eat a diet that is optimal for me. I don't take any food supplements or extra vitamins; I don't need them.

If you eat 90% meat and 10% plantmatter, it is not optimal, I agree. I also agree with you that it is easier for humans to survive on 100% plants than 100% meat, but 100% plantmatter is not necessarily the most optimal (and may further be hindered by things such as your location - fruits picked from your back yard are superior to ones that had been traveling boat, plane and truck and then stood in a warehouse for a week). If you eat ~15-20% meat and ~80-85% plantmatter, it is probably about as optimal as it gets.

It's mainly the "high carbon" part of your diet that is problematic for numerous people, as well as it can be harder to obtain some specific nutrients from plants in sufficient quantities. Especially if you live who knows where and tins of kidney beans and avocado fruits are most "exotic" things available. (No, seriously - the closest supermarket to me only sells beans in tin can format. No dried beans or anything.)

But yeah, high carbon. High carbon does not work for me, plants generally do not give me sufficient iron, and most fruits are better classified as chewable drinks, not food. Fruits are basically what I'll eat instead of drinking sodas (I drink tea, usually green, water or homemade low-sugar syrup most of the time, occasionally milk).

Will eating fruits and vegetables make me healthier than I am now? I *do* eat fruits and vegetables (it's harvest season, so I have plenty of fruits from my garden to go around - right now I eat unusual amount of fruits for myself, thusly), and I *am* about as healthy as it gets at the time being. I'm fairly fit, too, so short of gaining literal superpowers, I don't really know how I physically could be any healthier than I am now. So that question does not make all that much sense. Does eating fruits/vegetables contribute to my continued health? Yeah. But eating fish *also* goes into ensuring my continued health.

I never argued that a reasonable amount of fruits/vegetables is bad (everything is bad in too great quantities; you'll generally die from both too much or too little of anything, and that holds true for even things like oxygen and water). I argue that a diet that is ~15% animal, ~85% plant, as little in the ways of pesticides and no heavy processing or long-term storage, is *also* optimal and may work better for some people than your particular diet, depending on their genetics and the selection of foods available to them.

I did try a diet roughly like the one what you described once, as you might recall earlier from the thread, purely because I was a poor second-year-university student and the person I was living with offered that kind of food - then my health actively did worsen. So I tried, it didn't work for me, and the experience was unpleasant enough for me to be unwilling to risk my mental and physical health like that again. I don't want to feel weak, fatigued and unmotivated. I want to feel powerful, capable and full of energy, *as I am now*.

Not sure why you keep insisting I don't eat vegetarian because I'm "just too fond of meat" - sure, I love meat and poultry and cheese and fish, but I also love broccoli, beans (kidney and garden), melons of all sorts, leaf salads, pasta, and a plethora of other things. I find tofu nauseating. But I also find liver paté something I will avoid consuming if I only can.

Now, I love pasta and breads of all kinds - but I also know, for a fact, that those things are unhealthy in large quantities, more so than unprocessed meat.

I also know for a fact that many of the things you've stated are factually wrong. On occasion, even the articles you yourself linked claimed the exact opposite you did. Your diet won't make you impervious to the things you stated it makes you immune to. All cultures everywhere for centuries haven't eaten like that and prevailed thusly. The majority of modern science - again, even some of your own articles - does not agree with you. You choose to aggressively ignore all evidence that is contrary to what you state, and only highlight the parts that seem to reinforce your stance. This is not how science is supposed to be done. This is how biased propaganda is done.

Kestra15 · September 11, 2016

Example:
1. I accept that you drink alcohol. But I will still say to you: "Alcohol may kill you one day. It's not part of the optimal human diet."

2. The people I've been discussing with have been trying to argue: "No, no, alcohol is optimal for some humans! We're all different! You can't say alcohol is bad for everyone!"

See how nuts that is?

If you're in serious pain or about to have a leg cut off, alcohol can be a great thing in such dire circumstances. But otherwise, you shouldn't be drinking it.

And yet alcohol in moderate quantities has been shown to have a potentially protective factor in one form of stroke and also some forms of heart disease. And if you're having a leg amputated alcohol is not what you should be using at all - not for cleansing, pain relief, or anything else.

So, bad analogy

Edited September 11, 2016 by Kestra15

Lythiaren · September 11, 2016

If you're starving in the desert or having some crazy health problem, and meat is literally the only thing that will save you, that's fine.

Truth: Food allergies are not "crazy health problems".

Truth: Soy is one of the most common deadly food allergies.

Truth: Tofu is made of soy.

You are shaming people for things that are beyond control. That is bad. Your lifestyle choice works for you, good on you. Other people's needs and circumstances are not yours and often cannot be compared. In some areas, vegetables are scarce and therefore prohibitively expensive: let's use your example of the native peoples in the far north.

Veggies there are $10+ a pound there (to say nothing of organic) and people who work up there do dangerous physical work for not enough pay, so they are basically denied a varied diet by the economy. Their entire paychecks are often devoured by the grocery bill, leaving only barely enough to cover other expenses. This is called a food desert and a vegan lifestyle is absolutely unsustainable in areas like these. Sure, it's "available", but it's not affordable unless you're rich, and if you're rich you don't live in places like the tundra or way out in the middle of nowhere with only one store that can price gouge because they have no competition.

Furthermore, blaming short life expectancy on the meat content of one's diet is a correlation-not-causation fallacy. The natives of the far north live in a damp, dark, dangerous environment. These factors are much more likely to affect life expectancy than eating a ptarmigan.

While I agree with the idea that livestock should be treated well and their suffering minimized (because ethics), I disagree with the idea that consuming them should be treated as an absolute last resort. Veganism is expensive. Even if you live in a place where it doesn't cost a ton of money, it costs a lot of time that a lot of people do not have. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of research to figure out a plan, and a lot of dedication to stick to that plan. The cause is noble, I will not deny, but the means is far out of reach for large swaths of the population.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Lythiaren

Nectaris · September 12, 2016

Truth: Food allergies are not "crazy health problems".
Truth: Soy is one of the most common deadly food allergies.

Truth: Tofu is made of soy.

Even barring allergies, there are other reasons some people can't have soy. My mom can't have soy because it interferes with her anti-estrogen medicine to help keep her cancer from returning. Hers was ovarian, but this medicine is common in breast-cancer survivors as well.

That is HARDLY a "crazy health problem" and I will remind you that there is a known genetic factor regarding breast cancer, so you can't even say that that was fully their diet either.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Nectaris

Fuzzbucket · September 12, 2016

Preaching and ethical outrage will never do anything to help the cause of veganism/vegetarianism.

Vegan, vegetarian, lacto-ovo vegetarian, piscatarian and omnivorism (if that wasn't a word before, it is now !) and the rest are all perfectly healthy diets if you pay attention to getting the right balance of foods. All can also be terribly unhealthy if you don't.

In my own family, we have 4 vegetarians, two omnivores, one who is allergic to cheese and the only animal thing he eats is chicken - among others. The great thing is that NONE of us tries to force their views on any of the others. We are all quite happy to cook for, and eat together with any of the others (except that I don't happen to LIKE one of the people, but that isn't a food thing. ) We do discuss the issues, quite often - but not screaming at, and trying to convert each other.

This thread is vile. People are calling each other out for not buying into their ethical views. Many of them using totally false information to push their POV. Soy can indeed be a very dangerous allergy and is not the answer to everything; it is indeed linked to breast cancer; it is not true that it is unhealthy not to eat meat; it isn't true that any alcohol will kill you. Lies and misinformation do nothing to further a case; on the contrary, they weaken it.

We don't all have to have the same beliefs. For pity's sake, live and let live. The most that is "OK" in a thread like this is to say "this is how I eat, and this is why." It is not OK to say that everyone who doesn't eat that way is satan-spawn.

It's getting like the religious differences that lead fundamentalists to go around killing other people. Please can it stop.

Edited September 12, 2016 by fuzzbucket

demonicvampiregirl · September 12, 2016

@Shienvien and @demonicvampiregirl

The human body is meant to be healthy. The natural state of a human being is to be healthy and not have any of these issues you mention. The causes of ill health are poor choices and the external polluted environment, with a little bit of genetics thrown in. But the gene issue was caused by the poor choices and polluted environment of an ancestor.

Being unhealthy is not nature and it is not fate. You are not a victim. You are in control of at least 80%+ of your destiny even with crappy genes from crappy parents. Unless you are living in times of famine or another extreme.

Sun doesn't help skin cancer, but poor diet can weaken your skin and make skin more vulnerable to the sun. Diet is interconnected with everything. Diet fuels your body and helps it resist bad genes (thank you epigenetics!), chemicals, and the sun. You can never take diet out of the equation and claim it was SOLELY something else that caused poor health.

I can state strongly that this diet works for everyone because all of the major societies for centuries around the world ate a HCLF plant-based diet with only small amounts of meats on rare occasions. When you look at fringe cultures like the eskimos, you see they had poor health.

So despite all of our genetic differences, everyone around the world ate this kind of diet for a looong time, rice in asia, wheat in europe, corn in north america, potatoes in south america, etc.

You are trying to refute centuries of world-wide evidence by saying this diet doesn't work for everyone.

I happen to love tofu and so does the entire island of Japan. But there's no requirement to include tofu. Edamame, peas, beans, potatoes, breads, pastas all have protein. Any food you don't like, there is always an alternative.

People who don't want to change their habits, (such as smoking, drinking, drugs, poor diet), always want to blame it on their genes or some other factor they have no control over. They want to be a helpless victim so they can continue to live the way they've always lived. Whereas I was overjoyed to learn I wasn't a helpless victim and we have a huge amount of influence over our own health destinies in this world.... especially because we're lucky to be born in a first-world country and have an easy ability to make those choices because we aren't starving in africa etc.

P.S.

Soreness in muscles is not a bad thing. It depends HOW sore they are and how quickly you recover. Being sore for a day is different from being sore for several days. Being so sore you can't move vs just a little sore is a big difference.

And yes, the more fit you are, the less sore you are likely to be. I already said that soreness is expected in someone like me who doesn't routinely work out. The point I was making was that I was able to get up and do a lot with very little soreness, despite the fact that I don't routinely exercise.

There are Olympic vegan athletes and vegan bodybuilders galore. Don't use me, the one who doesn't exercise, as an example of what veganism can do for athletes.

I am so "amused" (oh, so terribly "amused"...) by the "crappy genes from crappy parents" part. Really nice hearing from a stranger that somehow, my parents are crappy along with my genetics because they didn't eat HCLF diets.

However, making the assumption that this diet works for everyone is, let's be honest here, far fetched and you not really knowing much about people genetic wise.

Not everyone can handle things like you can. Do you honestly think someone who has a allergy to things to be able to sit down, eat it and overcome that allergy simply because you believe that with your diet, it is possible?

No.

And it is not possible for everyone to be able to handle that diet either. Genetics, "crappy" or not, sometimes just wont let it happen. You can attempt to train your body to do whatever you want and sometimes it just can't happen.

Genes have grown, they have changed and no matter if you can't believe it or not, not everyone will be able to handle this diet. Simple as that. We are NOT all the same genetically speaking. People have differences, you do, I do, so does the Pope! That does not mean what works for you works for me and whoever else you think it can.

Oh, and no, I don't blame my diet for how I am. I like the foods I like, I don't like going out often and prefer to stay inside. Therefore it's made me unhealthy. I plan to change that with a diet I prefer (meats) and trying out new things to hopefully improve what I can eat so I'm not stuck with the same things day in and day out.

So excuse me for not playing into your helpless victim post but I know where the fault is. It's what I do and don't do. Not what I eat or don't eat. Yes, you have a choice like I do and like I am going to take. However, it wont be the same path and it'll benefit us both in different ways. I will be healthier and so will you. Your diet works for you and my diet works for me. I wont blindly believe that your diet is solely the only choice. It's not and that wont ever change.

There is no person more ignorant than one who insists that they are right under all circumstances.
So it's wrong to insist that eating fruits and vegetables will make you healthier than you are now?

I think there are some basic capital-T Truths in life that really are correct in all circumstances. You might have to extract elements from the veggies into pills or inject them intravenously, but it's still true the veggies are what improved health.

Truth: if you don't have oxygen or water, you will die.

Truth: if you don't eat enough plants and eat too much meat, you will die sooner than others. (Eskimos being the prime example of this.)

Arwen, the thing is, the statements you make, the way you talk, everything about all your posts goes against you each time you say you are arguing for human health and not talking down to people. You said my parents are crappy, your own words. That is shaming and condescending me and my parents all in one line. You have time and time again went against that statement and are still doing it.

You are not even for one second thinking that maybe another person cannot handle this diet that works so great for you. (with proof, reliable, credible sources and their own experiences) If I say I eat meat, it's instant disdain and saying I'm going to die simply because I eat meat and not your HCLF diet you love so much. That's really cold to say to a person, saying that I will die faster than you because I eat differently than you. That's what is turning me off of ever even giving that diet a thought. (Granted, I'd rather die than eat that way, I like meat way to much to just cut it completely out.)

@fuzz

That is actually a word! You made me look it up but it is indeed a legit word!

Edited September 12, 2016 by demonicvampiregirl

Fuzzbucket · September 13, 2016

Just a few sources to show that even SCIENTISTS and DIETITIANS agree that there is no such thing as the optimal diet.

"Science has not identified the healthiest way to eat. In fact, it has come as close as possible (because you can't prove a negative) to confirming that there is no such thing as the healthiest diet. To the contrary, science has established quite definitively that humans are able to thrive equally well on a variety of diets. Adaptability is the hallmark of man as eater. For us, many diets are good while none is perfect."

Source: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/...by_science.html

And these from a vegan who PREFERS raw, but doesn't choose to proselytise as SHE realises that it isn't a matter of optimal for health, but more a matter of personal ethics.

Bottom line: during the two million years we’ve been human (or human-ish), we’ve never eaten a single consistent diet. We’re not adapted to a perfect menu; we’re adapted to adaptability.

In other words, humans are adapted to a softer, more compact diet than other primates. Our bodies have moved away from extremely high-fiber cuisines and are better suited for foods that require less digestive effort.

Basically, what we can’t do is live off of leaves and occasional fibrous fruit for extended periods of time like most primates can. Thanks to our dwarfed colons, we would starve.

Even though I prefer a completely raw diet for the level of clarity and surging energy it brings, I have no reason to think that a 100% raw diet will extend a human’s lifespan or offer more immunity to disease than a mostly raw diet with well-planned cooked foods.

source: https://rawfoodsos.com/2010/03/08/what-is-t...or-humans-part/

there isn't a single diet that can be recommended from a biological perspective.

The most popular diet from a pseudo-scientific perspective is the Paleo diet, saying we should eat what our ancestors in the Paleolithic were eating, but it makes a mistake of forgetting that our metabolism has evolved since then. There are also numerous other flaws in the Paleo diet but I won't go through them all.

(my bold)

Source: http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions...human-diet-look

Most dietitians now agree that the closest to ideal is the "Mediterranean" diet - which isn't so much excluding things as a WAY of eating.

http://www.drdeborahmd.com/which-mediterra...-diet-right-you

But even the argument that our ancestors ate raw and vegan doesn't hold up:

http://www.drdeborahmd.com/paleo-diet

The contest to determine “the best” diet has simply not been run, possibly can’t be and probably never will be. The theme of healthful eating, however, is very well established. Adopt your preferred variation on that theme, but stick to the theme and let the food you love ... love you back.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-m...s_b_950672.html

Just like there is no one true religion, there is no one true diet. So why do so many dieters believe that there is?

"The short answer is that people believe what they want to believe," Fitzgerald wrote in Diet Cults. "The complete answer is that people want to believe that a certain way of eating is the best way because it gives them a sense of identity and a feeling of belonging. It's the work of that old, no-saying human impulse to eat according to the rules of a special group, which is often much stronger than the reasoning faculties."

"It feels good to believe in something."

http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/...by_science.html

There's also a load of good stuff here:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles...killed-her.aspx - though I don't believe Angelina herself was anything other than stupid.

Truth: if you don't eat enough plants and eat too much meat, you will die sooner than others. (Eskimos being the prime example of this.)

Actually - the main reason the Inuit tend to die younger than some of us is the appalling way society treats them. But nutritionally they do pretty well, and get their needs met in unusual ways. The only dietary issue they have is that we introduced them to sugar. Their health has rather suffered as a direct result.

Scientists studying the Inuit in the 1970s found that as a group, they suffered much less than their European counterparts from certain diseases, such as coronary heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes mellitus. Yet their diet was very high in fat from eating foods like whale, seal, and salmon. Discover Magazine called this the “Inuit Paradox.”

Source: http://www.theiflife.com/the-inuit-paradox...ase-and-cancer/

Edited September 15, 2016 by fuzzbucket

Arwen17 · September 27, 2016

And yet alcohol in moderate quantities has been shown to have a potentially protective factor in one form of stroke and also some forms of heart disease.

You get the same protective effects drinking 100% grape juice without the toxic chemicals of alcohol. It's the grapes in the alcohol that have the protective effect. Go eat grapes and skip the poison.

You are shaming people for things that are beyond control.

No, I am not. I've already said if you live in the extreme Eskimo environment or you're starving and meat is the only choice, then eat it because its better than nothing. I am saying over and over again that veganism is the optimal human diet, even if you're not in a position to do it because you live in the frozen tundra... but frozen tundra isn't where most people are living. Most people on this planet don't live in a frozen tundra or other harsh condition. Most people on this planet, including third-world countries, live mainly on rice, because it is the cheapest source of calories. Only rich people (and extreme conditions like the arctic) are living on meat. Just because you have no choice in eating meat, doesn't magically make it an optimal diet. Living in the arctic isn't an optimal environment for humans even if you may be stuck there. If they have the means to leave such harsh conditions, it would be advantageous to them.

The natives of the far north live in a damp, dark, dangerous environment. These factors are much more likely to affect life expectancy than eating a ptarmigan.

If you go back thru my posts, they clearly single out diet as killing the Eskimos in the ones they studied. These eskimos died of heart disease etc, not accidents. A damp environment did not give them clogged arteries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_diet " It has been suggested that because the fats of the Inuit's wild-caught game are largely monounsaturated and rich in omega-3 fatty acids, the diet does not pose the same health risks as a typical Western high-fat diet.[24] However, actual evidence has shown that Inuit have a similar prevalence of coronary artery disease as non-Inuit populations and they have excessive mortality due to cerebrovascular strokes, with twice the risk to that of the North American population.[25][26] Indeed, the cardiovascular risk of this diet is so severe that the addition of a more standard American diet has reduced the incidence of mortality in Inuit population.[27] Furthermore, fish oil supplement studies have failed to support claims of preventing heart attacks or strokes.[28][29][30]"

Here's another one: https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2015nl/apr/eskimos.htm

Veganism is expensive. Even if you live in a place where it doesn't cost a ton of money, it costs a lot of time that a lot of people do not have.

NO, it is not expensive. Rice is the cheapest and most widely consumed food on the planet. Rice, corn, wheat, potatoes (which make up the vast amount of foods HCLF vegans eat) are the cheapest, most popular foods around the world. This is what third-world countries and beyond survive on. NOT animal products.

You only need a little fruit/veggie to supplement rice,corn,wheat,potatoes,etc. You would need a little fruit/veggies even if you were consuming meat. And fruit/veggie is far cheaper to produce than any meat.

You must not look at the american supermarket as the example of what things actually cost to produce. Our gov't heavily subsidizes the meat/dairy industry and the soy/corn/wheat industry (to feed the animals vast amounts of it to fatten them up).

They do not subsidize veggies/fruit. All of our money pours down the drain to make meat cheaper because meat is so expensive to produce, even with mass-scale factory farms lowering the costs. All of that money could be pointed at fruits/veggies and other plant foods, and food would not only become ridiculously healthy, it would be even cheaper than it is today. But like I said, it is already cheap if you are doing the diet properly and basing your meals around rice,grains,beans,potatoes,etc.

Soy can indeed be a very dangerous allergy and is not the answer to everything; it is indeed linked to breast cancer; it is not true that it is unhealthy not to eat meat; it isn't true that any alcohol will kill you.

Alcohol isn't guaranteed to kill you. Neither is smoking. Neither is jumping off a cliff. But it does increase your chances of dying or passing on damaged genes to your children. Alcohol also increases the chances of many social ills: child abuse, spouse abuse, rape, drunk driving, violence, addiction, etc.

Soy has become an allergy because we've been sticking vast amounts of processed soy in all kinds of processed foods! Same goes for wheat! Why are so many becoming allergic to wheat and soy? Because if you flip over the package and read the ingredients list of most processed foods you will see soy and wheat listed! I do this all the time and I am disgusted how they put it in everything. Even my canned veggie soup has heavily processed soy/wheat ingredients used as fillers.

The factory-farmed animals are also fed vast quantities of wheat/soy/corn, and "you are what you eat." The animal eats it, then you eat the animal. So not only do you get all of the bad stuff from the animal flesh itself (fats, cholesterol, acidic animal-protein), you also get the stuff from their poor diet of wheat/soy/corn. This is why people make such a big deal about grass-fed animals.

Dog food is filled out with corn/soy/wheat and it has become the most common allergy in dogs. My own dog is allergic to it and gets a yeast ear infection any time she eats dog food that isn't grain-free. Dogs didn't use to have such a wide-spread allergy, but it happened over time and many generations of eating grain-soy-fillers in dog foods.

Same thing is happening in humans. Instead of eating corn and soy the way the Native Americans and Japanese and other cultures have eaten it for thousands of years, they are consuming it via grain-soy-fillers in 99% of processed foods and indirectly via the factory-farm animals who are fed it.

All of those studies that show soy is "bad" are showing what happens when you eat large amounts of processed soy in concentrated doses. If you eat soy like the japanese have for centuries, and the rest of your diet isn't highly processed either, you wouldn't see this epidemic of allergies happening in so many people.

It is not OK to say that everyone who doesn't eat that way is satan-spawn.

I have never ever said anything like that. I am arguing the vegan diet is optimal for all humankind, regardless if they are in a position to follow it or not. (aka extreme weather conditions, serious health issues or food allergies-->which are caused by generations of humans eating meat and processed foods.) "Food deserts" are a problem in modern countries like the USA, but not really in third-world countries, unless they are outright starving, because rice is the cheapest and most widely consumed food. It's the USA gov't and the way they favor the animal industry with gov't subsidies that makes our economy so backwards, sometimes making the processed foods cheaper than whole foods.

It's getting like the religious differences that lead fundamentalists to go around killing other people.

You really shouldn't use this analogy. Vegans are begging people to STOP killing themselves, the animals, and the planet. The very last thing we want is murder. It's only meat-eaters who want death and murder to continue because "it tastes good".

I am so "amused" (oh, so terribly "amused"...) by the "crappy genes from crappy parents" part. Really nice hearing from a stranger that somehow, my parents are crappy along with my genetics because they didn't eat HCLF diets.

My parents did crappy things. No one is perfect. We all have our vices and virtues. I am not speaking of your parents in particular. When I wrote that, I was remembering all of the people I've met who sat on a sofa and ate ice cream or candy all day long. They clearly knew it wasn't good for their health and just didn't care. Those were the people I was thinking of. The ones that utterly did not care. There's plenty of people who do care and are trying their best with the information they have.

Do you honestly think someone who has a allergy to things to be able to sit down, eat it and overcome that allergy simply because you believe that with your diet, it is possible?

I have never said that in any post. I was simply explaining WHY we have the outbreak of allergies we see today. It didn't happen overnight, it happened over generations. It would take generations of whole-foods vegan eating for the allergy genes to work their way out of a population. However, there is also some evidence that not all allergies are as bad as they seem. Some celiac disease people were found to do just fine on ancient, unprocessed grains compared to modern, processed wheat. So it never hurts to try and find out how allergic someone is. I've also said in previous posts that with the variety of plant foods in existence, there is no way someone is allergic to all of them. They can get good nutrition from plenty of things they are not allergic to.

We are NOT all the same genetically speaking.

No, we are not. But I've said over and over again that high-carb diets have been eaten around the planet. Rice in asia, corn in north america, potatoes in south america, wheat in europe, etc. There is something for everyone. If you don't do well on one food, you are guaranteed to do well on something else in the list. You will not find a person who is allergic to every plant food in existence. The only argument you can make is maybe they don't have access to this food where they live etc. But it doesn't change the fact they would thrive on a HCLF vegan diet if they had the option. I am only arguing HCLF vegan diet is optimal and all of the population can thrive on it. Issues like geolocation, extreme weather, food deserts are other issues. They don't change the fact that a vegan diet would be optimal if they had access to it. Most people have access to rice, potatoes, beans, etc, unless they are living in a country that is so poor they don't have access to food at all. But meat isn't going to solve world hunger, it actually makes it worse. If we weren't so busy spending all of our money fattening up and producing animals with our grains and gov't subsidies, we could make plant-foods so cheap and plentiful, no one would ever go hungry again.

It's what I do and don't do. Not what I eat or don't eat.

Now there's a logical fallacy if there ever was one. What exactly are you "doing"? Eating is doing something to you. Eating is either providing your body with nutrition or slowly poisoning you. So eating has no effect on health whatsoever? Go on an Oreo diet and see how long you last from lack of nutrients.

I wont blindly believe that your diet is solely the only choice.

I'm not asking you to blindly believe. I've provided pages and pages of evidence. And you make it sound like it is a "limitation" to not eat animals. There are over 20,000 edible plant species on the planet, and endless ways to cook them. When you give up animals, you give up about 15 items.

Yes, you do have a choice, but it will increase your chances of disease. We reap what we sow. But that is your choice and I respect your ability to choose because God gave all of us freewill. God respects freewill so much he allowed Adam and Eve to eat from that tree, even tho he clearly told them it would kill them if they ate it. And it did. They were immortal until they ate it. Everything started with someone eating something they shouldn't have.

If I say I eat meat, it's instant disdain and saying I'm going to die simply because I eat meat and not your HCLF diet you love so much.

No, I've said before. For the people who come here and say "I like meat and I won't stop even if it is unhealthy" I don't argue with. It's the people who are claiming meat in the human diet is optimal. That's the part that isn't true. I've said over and over again you increase your chances of dying of horrible diseases. Some people smoke all their lives and never suffer any effects. That doesn't make smoking healthy and most people don't get away scot-free from any symptoms. The top 10 killers in this country are diet-driven diseases. Heart disease alone kills 50% of Americans that do die. You highly increase your chances of dying of these diseases, according to the American death stats. That is why it's not a joking matter. A massive amount of people are DYING because of poor diet and bad nutritional information being pushed onto official gov't and medical websites by the extremely wealthy and powerful dairy/meat industry lobbyists.

Source: http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions...human-diet-look

Let's have a look at this faulty study in detail. http://www.mind.uci.edu/research/90plus-study/

"Over 40% of people aged 90 and older suffer from dementia while almost 80% are disabled. Both are more common in women than men."

Vegans do not suffer from dementia or mobility issues. They are active and healthy in mind and body.

Just because doctors can use drugs to keep peoples' blood pressure down doesn't make them healthy and it doesn't keep them from suffering from a host of aliments that vegans easily avoid. It is often quoted that "people are living longer". But they aren't living longer because of better nutrition. They are living longer because of medicines designed to delay the bad effects of their diet. When you don't have these medicines suppressing symptoms, you die early. Vegans aren't taking medicines and they aren't suffering from "old people" diseases and mobility issues. That's what a healthy diet does for you.

Also keep in mind, they are doing a study over the ENTIRE country.

"The 90+ Study is seeking new participants. If you are at least 90 years old and are willing to participate in twice annual visits and donate your brain to research after death, you may be eligible to enroll in The 90+ Study."

This goes back to the fact that not everyone will have symptoms from smoking or drinking or poor eating. The USA is a huge population sample, aka you will always find some people who live to 90+ despite the way they live. The reason they can't find any correlation to why these people live longer is because there is no correlation when you are looking at a massive population, all with different habits. You are merely cherry-picking out people who were lucky enough to live that long, despite whatever their habits were.

If you look at a controlled population, a population where many different types of people are all living the SAME way, that is the only way to test if a certain diet yields great results. That's why you have to look at the Loma Linda, California vegan population or the vegan population in Okinawa, Japan. Those are populations all living the SAME way, so you can study if it works or not.

Looking at a bunch of different groups across the country who are all doing different things is pointless. It won't tell you anything about what is best for everyone.

The vegans in Lomda Linda have the same genetic genes as the rest of the Americans in the USA, yet they consistently live the longest because they practice a particular diet. They don't just get "lucky". It happens because they are eating healthy.

The most popular diet from a pseudo-scientific perspective is the Paleo diet, saying we should eat what our ancestors in the Paleolithic were eating, but it makes a mistake of forgetting that our metabolism has evolved since then. There are also numerous other flaws in the Paleo diet but I won't go through them all.

I agree the paleo diet is a joke because we aren't cavemen. But HCLF vegan diet is something the peasants were eating only 100-200 years ago, before things like the industrial revolution happened and made a meat diet cheap for everyone, not just the rich kings and queens. Remember, most of the world still lives on rice because they are poor. Meat isn't cheap and never has been until the modern age. Evolutionists claim it takes millions of years for changes to happen. 100-200 years ago is not millions of years. So we should be eating the diet of our most recent pre-industrial-revolution ancestors. Because we definitely haven't suddenly evolved the ability to consume these foods in the past 200 years and it won't be happening any time soon. Hence why there are so many health problems that are diet-driven.

I've already given evidence in my past posts that are ancestors were vegetarians, not meat-eating cavemen. In any case, you still can't use this argument because it's quite clear the modern human body doesn't do well on meat, regardless of what happened millions of years ago.

https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2012nl/jun/paleo2.htm

Early man was not a hunter-gather:

Angelina Jolie and many others in Hollywood take drugs, drink, and smoke a lot. They also under-eat like mad because they are afraid of gaining weight. Whenever someone claims they didn't do well on a vegan diet, my first question is always "Were you just eating salads? Were you undereating?"

Many people unfortunately believe veganism is all about under-eating and living on salads. Whenever I meet people who wax poetic about vegetables and salads when they find out I'm vegan, I'm always quick to point out "You must eat some rice, potatoes, grains, etc or you will lack energy. Never under-eat on this diet. We eat a variety of foods. We do not live on salads or tiny quantities."

When you are coming from a meat-based diet, most people (especially actors/models) have to severely under-eat in order to keep their weight down because animal products are so calorie-dense and full of fat. When they go on a vegan diet, they don't realize they need to stop under-eating so they can get proper nutrition.

You won't find a single example of someone claiming "veganism almost killed me" if the center of their diet was based on whole foods like potatoes,rice,grains,etc with some fruits/veggies on the side, and they weren't doing any recreational drugs etc.

Angelina either was poorly informed on how a healthy vegan diet works aka she was trying to live on salads, or she was doing recreational drugs, or she was making a blanket excuse because she decided she missed the taste of meat. She never goes into detail about what she was eating and why it didn't work. She just claims it didn't work.

Source: http://www.theiflife.com/the-inuit-paradox...ase-and-cancer/

You're going to have to find a link to an actual eskimo study that proves its healthy. All of the links on that webpage are going to "404 not found" pages. As far as I can tell, this article is complete crap with no basis. People in the comments of the article argued against it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12535749/

http://www.onlinecjc.ca/article/S0828-282X.../abstract?cc=y=

mediterranean diets vs vegan diets.

I found these articles that does a good job of pointing out there are many kinds of vegan diets. The oreo-junk-food vegan, high-fat-vegan, then there's the whole-foods-high-carb-low fat vegan.

http://www.theveganrd.com/2014/01/vegan-da...et-is-best.html

https://healthyeatingrocks.com/tag/mediterr...fat-vegan-diet/

If you're a oreo-junk-food vegan, you're going to score lower than a health-conscious Mediterranean. But a wholle foods HCLF vegan diet would win hands down over all of them.

Both mediterranean and HCLF vegan diet are better than junk food diets obviously, But HCLF vegan diet still comes out on top. Remember we are discussing the most optimal diet, not any diet that happens to be better than the junk food diet most people eat nowadays.

Shienvien · September 27, 2016

Vegans do not suffer from dementia or mobility issues.

Except they do. All the time. At roughly the same rate as anyone with a decent diet that contains meat, and more for those vegans who don't do their research.

You also possess a severe misunderstanding of how genetics work, and a lot of the sources you post are full of biases, poor, *poor* research, and a few contain outright lies. A couple of articles you posted even disagree with the claims you posted them with, which implies you did not even read them yourself before posting them.

Multiple people have informed you where you're wrong, and also posted information on it, yet you continue to post the same false, misinformed statements as before. Vegan diet is not "the most optimal one", nor will it keep you safe from the ailments you claim it does.

Fuzzbucket · September 27, 2016

But HCLF vegan diet still comes out on top. Remember we are discussing the most optimal diet, not any diet that happens to be better than the junk food diet most people eat nowadays.

No - YOU are discussing what YOU think it the optimal diet (by the way - there is no such thing as "most optimal" - if it's optimal, that is BEST, and you can't have a most best. Best is best, the end. Same thing goes for unique.)

But there isn't one single decent piece of scientific research that backs you up. There are many that say it's a good diet if you do it right - but it is NOT best for everyone, and there ARE people who are severely allergic to soya, just for one thing. Please - enjoy your diet and leave the rest of us - who have done our own research - to enjoy theirs. Sure, if someone is not taking in any protein at all, or is literally eating nothing but chicken, it would be OK to point this out, but not to tell them your way is the only way.

And the Inuit (those you call Eskimos, which they don't appreciate) were fine till we gave them sugar. You ignored that. Completely.

Basically, you are preaching to us and not providing any real evidence, just your strongly held views. I'm not going to tell you to eat as I do, or as the various people in my family do (one is almost vegan, most are vegetarian, I am an omnivore and we are all equally healthy.) Please don't tell me how to eat. I know I am getting a very well balanced diet, and so are the rest of us.

I worked for years in the health services in two countries, and I have read LOADS of real research on this - it was a part of my job. Kestra has also read up thoroughly in this area and found the same things that as I have.. The sources you have linked are highly questionable - but if you are feeling well on what you eat - more power to you. Just please stop telling the rest of us it's the best way. It isn't the best way for everyone. And nothing you can say will make it so.

Edited September 28, 2016 by fuzzbucket

demonicvampiregirl · September 28, 2016

I am so "amused" (oh, so terribly "amused"...) by the "crappy genes from crappy parents" part. Really nice hearing from a stranger that somehow, my parents are crappy along with my genetics because they didn't eat HCLF diets.
My parents did crappy things. No one is perfect. We all have our vices and virtues. I am not speaking of your parents in particular. When I wrote that, I was remembering all of the people I've met who sat on a sofa and ate ice cream or candy all day long. They clearly knew it wasn't good for their health and just didn't care. Those were the people I was thinking of. The ones that utterly did not care. There's plenty of people who do care and are trying their best with the information they have.

No one has the right to say their parents are crappy, simply because they did not eat this type of a diet. That is wrong to even begin to say. Not one diet is better than the other that has been said, one works for another that wont work with someone even in their own family.

Those people that "don't care" are people who can make a choice on what to eat and do not deserve to be called crappy for it. People can make a choice on what to do, how to eat without being judged and should be respected for it.

What gives anyone the right to say this at all? It's a diet, if it helps or destroys their health that is their problem. I won't go around telling my own father he's crappy cuz he eats ice cream daily or a candy bar. I won't say even yours are crappy because they do one thing and not another. It is WRONG on every front.

A diet is a diet, that does not make a person "crappy" at all. Should I start going around saying that people who only think one type of diet is a crappy person? No, I shouldn't. Why? Because I will respect them if they respect me. I eat meat, I will not stop eating meat because I do not believe the HCLF diet is going to work for me. I won't start talking down to you but it does not give anyone the right to talk down to another for it either.

I have never said that in any post. I was simply explaining WHY we have the outbreak of allergies we see today. It didn't happen overnight, it happened over generations. It would take generations of whole-foods vegan eating for the allergy genes to work their way out of a population. However, there is also some evidence that not all allergies are as bad as they seem. Some celiac disease people were found to do just fine on ancient, unprocessed grains compared to modern, processed wheat. So it never hurts to try and find out how allergic someone is. I've also said in previous posts that with the variety of plant foods in existence, there is no way someone is allergic to all of them. They can get good nutrition from plenty of things they are not allergic to.

That is pretty much what you are saying and what has been clear in your posts. So, let me get this straight with your comments here, you want someone to TOY with their allergies just to see how FAR they can take it? How disturbing is that? I got no more words to say on that, I cannot even fathom where you came up with this, and I am not sure I want to find out.

Now there's a logical fallacy if there ever was one. What exactly are you "doing"? Eating is doing something to you. Eating is either providing your body with nutrition or slowly poisoning you. So eating has no effect on health whatsoever? Go on an Oreo diet and see how long you last from lack of nutrients.

Not exercising for one, which is my biggest problem. Not everything that isn't vegetarian is going to poison me. I actually went a week eating very little, my side started to hurt like hell and finally started eating again but hey, I actually survived that long. Not every single piece of food that don't fall into this HCLF lifestyle is going to kill me.

I'm not asking you to blindly believe. I've provided pages and pages of evidence. And you make it sound like it is a "limitation" to not eat animals. There are over 20,000 edible plant species on the planet, and endless ways to cook them. When you give up animals, you give up about 15 items.
Yes, you do have a choice, but it will increase your chances of disease. We reap what we sow. But that is your choice and I respect your ability to choose because God gave all of us freewill. God respects freewill so much he allowed Adam and Eve to eat from that tree, even tho he clearly told them it would kill them if they ate it. And it did. They were immortal until they ate it. Everything started with someone eating something they shouldn't have.

Actually, you kind of are. You have been saying my parents are crappy for not eating HCLF, people have been posting you are wrong, the articles you have been posting yourself have proven your own diet wrong even. For me, yes, it is a limitation to not eat meat. I prefer it and have ate it since I was little, I wont stop unless I am forced to due to major health concerns that a trained professional tells me. Even then I will probably ask at least one to two others to get more opinions. 15 items? There is a lot more than 15 items on that, a whole lot more.

Please, prove where it is solely the cause of all the diseases I will face, completely ignoring my families health problems that are genetic and the environment factors? Because according to you and what you keep posting, is if I switch to HCFL, I will be effectively immortal. It don't work that way, I hate to inform you. Would you have better health if it works for you? Yes, but it don't guarantee that it'll work for me at all. It could be even worse for me than what I am eating now. (Also note, I do not believe in god so that last part of your statement cannot apply to me in the slightest.) I can't really see the point in responding to that last bit, a bible really cannot be used to argue this for me.

No, I've said before. For the people who come here and say "I like meat and I won't stop even if it is unhealthy" I don't argue with. It's the people who are claiming meat in the human diet is optimal. That's the part that isn't true. I've said over and over again you increase your chances of dying of horrible diseases. Some people smoke all their lives and never suffer any effects. That doesn't make smoking healthy and most people don't get away scot-free from any symptoms. The top 10 killers in this country are diet-driven diseases. Heart disease alone kills 50% of Americans that do die. You highly increase your chances of dying of these diseases, according to the American death stats. That is why it's not a joking matter. A massive amount of people are DYING because of poor diet and bad nutritional information being pushed onto official gov't and medical websites by the extremely wealthy and powerful dairy/meat industry lobbyists.

But that's where you are mistaken, you have again and again gone on about how we are wrong and everything else. Even went as far as to call parents crappy for it. You are claiming your HCLF is optimal but posts from others and your own say otherwise as well. People have stated multiple times that there is NO OPTIMAL HUMAN DIET. You do what works best for you. The way it's worded and phrased things, it's like this HCLF is going to eliminate every single possible way for me to die. That is not possible unless you are living in a bubble. Even then your own genes can mutate into a cancer. Saying a diet eliminates everything is completely wrong. Poor diet, lack of exercise and a whole slew of other reasons as well contribute to that. Even the sheer food serving sizes can and do contribute to that. I have seen pictures of different cup sizes that are considered "large" from other places. Quantity over quality reigns supreme here, more money that way. Not everything is health related, you can be the healthiest person in the world and still get a heart disease or lung disease from environmental or even genetic issues. We are not immortal, we will never be immune to everything, we will die of things even if we take every precaution to not be infected or have that issue. Things happen beyond control of diet and nothing we can do to stop it.

We will die of something. Old age, heart disease, lung disease, whatever else you can come up with, no matter what measures we take, whatever diet we eat. Nothing makes us immune for forever, diseases themselves change and adapt as we do with them. It will never matter what "optimal" diet someone comes up with, we will get a disease at some point in life and we have a chance of dying from it or surviving it. You will get them, I will get them, every person on this thread can get one even if they are following HCFL.

One last note: Fuzz pretty much sums up my entire feelings on this. So, thank you Fuzz for saying it even better than I could.

Edited September 28, 2016 by demonicvampiregirl

Kestra15 · September 28, 2016

So it never hurts to try and find out how allergic someone is.

Except for the part where, you know, it could kill them?

The top 10 killers in this country are diet-driven diseases.

Once again you walk right back into my field of research

It is true that the big killers - heart disease, stroke, cancer - do have an element of what is referred to as modifiable risk factors. My research is actually about trying to get people to change their dietary habits (among others) in order to reduce the incidence of stroke and by extension cardiovascular diseases, and a lot of work is done in stroke and MI survivors in getting them to lead healthier lifestyles. But no one diet has been found to be the healthy optimum

But there are other risk factors that are not modifiable. Age is the main one; no matter how well you live your life, getting older means simple wear-and-tear makes you more susceptible. Arrhythmias can only realistically be controlled by anti-arrhythmic medication and no amount of lifestyle change will make AF disappear. If you are born with an insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus you are a big risk factor all of your own, and that has no dietary causation link since it develops before you ever have your first meal. To name just three examples.

Using the 2015 statistics for top ten deaths in America, let's break them down:

- Cancer (number 2 in the US) is such a broad category, and while cancers of the GI tract certainly have a dietary element, cancer itself is a random mutation caused as much by chance as other factors and so you cannot call it a diet-driven disease. It really frustrates and upsets cancer victims when people naively assume all cancers are the same, when in reality each form of cancer is a seperate condition from the others. It's like presuming all blood loss is the same be it from menstruation, laceration, or not flossing.

- Lower respiratory tract disease (such as COPD) is the third most common cause of death in the US (fifth in the UK). This is not related to diet.

- Accidents come in at number four in the US. I hope I don't have to explain why being killed in an RTC is not a diet-related death.

- Alzheimer's at number six is an interesting one, given we still don't fully understand what causes it. Yes, there is a theory that it may be linked in part to diet, but it is also linked to general cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, direct and indirect trauma, cancer, and many other things. So to call it diet-drive is a bit far-flung.

- Diabetes comes in at number seven. While some forms come about from poor diet and lifestyle, others are autoimmune disorders which do not have a dietary input, and other forms come from trauma. While the key to living a healthy life with diabetes mellitus in all forms is a combination between medical management and dietary, even someone with the perfect diet will still develop problems over the years. But I will accept that this cause of death has a strong dietary element.

- Pneumonia and influenza are not dietary. At all.

- Kidney disease at number nine...well, poor fluid intake is certainly a key issue and long-term dehydration does cause chronic kidney disease. Excessive alcohol and being overweight contributes as well, so a good diet and moderate alcohol intake certainly helps here. But as ever there are some factors we cannot control.

- Suicide at number ten. I hope once again that I don't have to go through why that is not a diet disorder.

So of the top ten, several (heart disease, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease) do have a strong diet-related theme, some (Alzheimer's, cancer) may or may not have an element in it, while the last four (accidents, suicides and respiratory disorders) are unrelated.

In summary; a good diet will indeed reduce your risk of several major killers. However there is still no consensus on the optimal diet, and there is still no proof a vegan diet of any description is that optimal diet.

Edited September 28, 2016 by Kestra15

Whirlaway · October 7, 2016

Over the summer, while working in the Student Conservation Association, because there was one Vegan in the group everyone had to change their entire diets to fit with the vegans. We couldn't have any meat, dairy, or anything that could even suggest not fitting within the vegans dietary "restrictions". It was very annoying because the vegan was the only one with diet restrictions at the camp and we all had to change to it for five blasted weeks.

Only good thing that came from that experiance was that I grew to like veggies.

demonicvampiregirl · October 8, 2016

Over the summer, while working in the Student Conservation Association, because there was one Vegan in the group everyone had to change their entire diets to fit with the vegans. We couldn't have any meat, dairy, or anything that could even suggest not fitting within the vegans dietary "restrictions". It was very annoying because the vegan was the only one with diet restrictions at the camp and we all had to change to it for five blasted weeks.

Only good thing that came from that experiance was that I grew to like veggies.

I don't get the logic behind that, I mean yes you grew to like veggies and added them more to your diet, but essentially in the end either it could have been flipped around on them so they was forced to eat whatever you was or just giving her the option to eat whatever she liked.

Why go to these lengths? Forcing another lifestyle upon another is wrong and shouldn't even be accepted in any form. :/

Shienvien · October 8, 2016

Over the summer, while working in the Student Conservation Association, because there was one Vegan in the group everyone had to change their entire diets to fit with the vegans. We couldn't have any meat, dairy, or anything that could even suggest not fitting within the vegans dietary "restrictions". It was very annoying because the vegan was the only one with diet restrictions at the camp and we all had to change to it for five blasted weeks.

That does not make sense. That could furthermore have lead to severe health complications to other people (as some people do fall ill if they don't eat any animal products for that long - I know I would have protested the decision for the sake of my health). No one individual should unnecessarily infringe upon the rights of others.

Fuzzbucket · October 9, 2016

Forcing another lifestyle upon another is wrong and shouldn't even be accepted in any form. :/

This. Which is what I hate about this thread.

*goes back to cooking a veggie burger and a meaty one for our dinner. In separate pans, but the same oven. We will both be fine with that.*

Lythiaren · October 10, 2016

"Food deserts" are a problem in modern countries like the USA, but not really in third-world countries, unless they are outright starving, because rice is the cheapest and most widely consumed food.

Since everyone else touched on everything else (including your misconceptions about the Inuit), let me just point this one out.

Just. Why.

Did you know? Rice is not a perfect food. It doesn't have a ton of nutrients (excepting golden rice maybe, but that's a GMO hybrid so it probably doesn't count as vegan-friendly) and about the only thing it really provides is starch. I'm Chinese; rice is a staple of my diet. But if I ate only rice, I would eventually die of malnutrition. If I also failed to increase my energy output accordingly, I might instead die of something related to weight gain, because carbs that aren't burned are stored in the body as fats.

You know why it's such a popular food in the third world? Because it's a carb that packs a punch. It's cheap because it's a dry grain that can last years in proper storage and it expands with water, so you can eat a handful of rice and drink a bunch of liquid to fill your stomach. That's how a family of six in a developing country can survive -- not live, just avoid dying -- on about two cups of white rice (not even brown rice, which is slightly better nutrition-wise and therefore more expensive) in a week between them. And after a while, they will die of malnutrition if they can't get other foods that will give them the other nutrients they need. The same happens with any starch. Add water and it expands to fill the aching void of a starving stomach, and it's loaded with energy, sure. But it's not healthy to consume exclusively. Starches alone don't give humans what their body needs in terms of vitamins, minerals, proteins. They're cheap because of an old political ideology that pushed the price of energy-dense foods way down to feed workers. Too bad it didn't extend to keeping said workers healthy.

Food isn't exactly free in developing countries; families that subsist on rice all the time are still poor and struggling to afford proper nutrition. The working poor in developed countries can't even begin to change over to a vegan diet because starches are about the only veggies that are cheap, it's even farther from the reach of the poor in developing countries. The assertion that everyone can afford to be vegan is blatantly classist.

You can't say it's affordable just because one item is cheap, that's like saying I can afford to eat out at a 3-Michelin-starred restaurant every night because the water's free.

Edited October 10, 2016 by Lythiaren

Nagapie · September 23, 2018

Casually reviving this. Seems to have been quite the conflicted thread in 2016, but I hope we can move past that and start anew as I've been curious about what other vegetarians roam this forum for a while now.

I myself have been an ovo-lacto vegetarian for about four years and counting. It's become such a normal, every day thing to me by now that I hardly even think about it nowadays, save for the times it inevitably comes up in the university cafeteria or in similar circumstances. One thing I'm always afraid of when it comes up is the negative stigma associated with vegetarianism due to the pushiness of some vegetarians and vegans. I for one do not care about other people eating meat and don't try to push any of my own habits or opinions on other people. Yet still I feel just saying "I'm a vegetarian" has come to have a bit of a toxic connotation. It's like there's this gut feeling that always tells me to outright declare in the same sentence that I have no problem with others eating meat despite that. On the other hand, I try to think positive and tell myself that with my own behaviour I can show the people around me that not all vegetarians are stuck up and pushy. So far I haven't gotten into any confrontations with my attitude. Well, save for arguments with my father, but he's the type of guy that thinks everyone should eat meat and even jokingly likens vegetarians to vegetables (as in, brain-dead people), so I don't take those occasions that seriously. (He's a funny guy and doesn't really mean any harm, even if his jokes are potentially offensive sometimes.)

I any case, what kind of vegetarians or vegans are you guys? Have you ever gotten into confrontations because of your diet? Have you ever been apprehensive about the times people inevitably find out about your diet like me? What are your general thoughts surrounding the subject?

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