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Veganism or omnivore?

Discussion in 'Self Improvement' started by LonerWolf, Jan 14, 2019.

  1. ProtagonistOfMyLife

    ProtagonistOfMyLife Fapstronaut

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    Thank you for your meaningful and mature addition to the conversation.
     
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  2. ClaritySeeker

    ClaritySeeker Fapstronaut

    This is unsustainable, especially because you eat too much meat "If I don't eat meat during lunch or dinner, I feel like I've only eaten a snack." I'm not saying don't eat meat, but the levels we're eating them at are unsustainable and unhealthy.
    Eating in moderation makes sense when you talk about healthy things, like eating apples in moderation. It does not apply to unhealthy behaviors, like watching P in moderation. Unless you also want to accept heart attacks in moderation because your risk of those will be like the average person and heart disease is the worlds number one killer.
    Incomplete digestion is due to fiber, that's normal, it helps your gut bacteria become more healthy and to fight off cancers. That's a good thing.
    That's the nice thing about a plant-based diet, you can eat all you want because it's healthy...the same cannot be said of a meat based diet. Also our digestive tracts are most similar to apes, not carnivores.
     
  3. Red Eagle

    Red Eagle Fapstronaut

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    Well that's not necessarily the case. We don't have a smaller gut because we have to eat more calorie dense food. We have it because we cook our food and cooking makes nutrients and calories more easily absorbable. So the extra long gut is not necessary.
     
  4. Mr Sitter

    Mr Sitter Fapstronaut

    You just disagreed with me and then went on to repeat my points, which is odd. Eat good quality meat in less quantity. I agree with your point about the level of meat consumption, especially in industrialized countries, being unsustainable. I am all for environmental sustainability and ethical meat consumption.

    Where I am originally from, we are tiny, sea-locked country that relied on fish as a staple food to survive. The soil was too salty to grow too many varieties of plants for large scale human consumption, and we would've died out long before the age of exploration if it wasn't for the fish-heavy diet. Nutritionists had often praised our lean physique, stamina and general heart health for decades. Ever since we became a high middle income country in the early 2000s, the amount of Sodium and sugar in our diet increased tenfold and gave rise to a whole myriad of conditions in young people never seen before, such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure etc. Meat consumption has remained fairly consistent even after the turn of the millennium.

    I think you're parroting the same, tired old arguments that all vegans/vegetarians make, and that is to assume that all meat eaters will suffer heart diseases in the future, and that people who follow a plant-based diet are immune from these. The fact is that they compare their plant-based diets with the Standard American Diet (SAD), and let's be honest, that's setting the bar really low. Pretty much very diet in the world is healthier than the SAD. Humans were eating meat long before fat Americans, and even longer than McDonald's and their unethical practices came into existence. I was lucky that my family have always been very health conscious, so we make an effort to have a staple food (mostly rice) along with lots of veggies and a small portion of meat in our meals. And growing up, I remember that my Mom hardly ever added salt while she cooked, and that's how I cook myself.
     
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  5. ProtagonistOfMyLife

    ProtagonistOfMyLife Fapstronaut

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    If find it baffling how people look at a few studies and study the topic for a certain period of time and claim that what they found is the universal truth, and 'scientifically-proven'.
    Well that's why social/ empirical 'sciences' are and will always be inferior to sciences that rely on mathematics.
    All the studies about food, vegetarians, vegans rely on empirical data. That means they rely on obeservation and drawing conclusions from observations.
    That means that there is no 'right' and 'wrong' like 1 + 1 = 2 but probabilities and likelyhood of certain things being true.

    Well met, since you have now ascertained that it's 'scientifically-proven' that a meat-free diet is superior. Let me give you 'scientific' studies that claim the opposite.

    https://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/pros-and-cons-of-a-vegetarian-diet / The study-sheet: (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0088278&type=printable)
    --------------------------------

    https://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/news/20180118/are-there-health-downsides-to-vegetarian-diets
    ---------------------------------

    https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/89/5/1627S/4596952

    "Vegans tend to be thinner, have lower serum cholesterol, and lower blood pressure, reducing their risk of heart disease. However, eliminating all animal products from the diet increases the risk of certain nutritional deficiencies. Micronutrients of special concern for the vegan include vitamins B-12 and D, calcium, and long-chain n-3 (omega-3) fatty acids. Unless vegans regularly consume foods that are fortified with these nutrients, appropriate supplements should be consumed. In some cases, iron and zinc status of vegans may also be of concern because of the limited bioavailability of these minerals."

    ----------------------------------------------------------
    https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/vegetarians-study-lower-risk-death

    "People go vegetarian for lots of reasons, says the University of Alberta’s Timothy Caulfield: Animal welfare. Personal branding. The “health halo.”

    It just won’t prolong their life, suggests a large new study.

    Researchers who tracked nearly a quarter million adults aged 45 and older in New South Wales found no significant differences in all-cause mortality, meaning the likelihood of dying, of any death, between those who followed a complete, semi- (meat once a week or less) or pesco- (fish permitted) vegetarian diet, and regular meat eaters."

    "The Australian study is based on data from the “45 and Up Study,” described as the largest study of healthy aging in the Southern Hemisphere. The analysis is based on 243,096 men and women (mean age 62). After an average of six years of follow-up, the researchers counted up the number of deaths.

    Out of 16,836 deaths in total (6.9 per cent of total), there were 80 deaths in vegetarians (5.3 per cent) and 16,756 deaths (6.9 per cent) in others (which includes pesco-vegetarians and semi-vegetarians.)

    After adjusting for other factors, such as age, smoking and alcohol consumption, and a history of ever being diagnosed with high blood pressure or conditions like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke the researchers found no evidence that any of the variations of vegetarian diets had a protective effect on early death."

    “It’s important to note that the news is not that bad for vegetarians — they basically have much healthier lifestyle behaviours than non-vegetarians,” said co-author Seema Mihrshahi, a senior research fellow at the University of Sydney. Vegetarians were less likely to smoke, drink excessively, or be overweight or obese. They were also less likely to report having heart disease or cancer at the start of the study."

    The work appears in the journal Preventive Medicine.

    "Caulfield, of the U of Alberta, said a longer follow up is needed. However, he said other studies have come to similar conclusions."

    --------------------------------------------------
    And again, another study:
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19166134

    "Vegetarians form a non-homogenous group consisting of semivegetarians (plant food, dairy products, eggs and fish), lacto-ovo vegetarians (plant food, dairy products, eggs) and vegans (plant food only). According to pure vegetarian ideologists, people consuming vegetarian diet have better health and live longer than nonvegetarians, because persons consuming milk, dairy products, meat, eggs and fish are at health risk. In fact the most healthy people in Europe are inhabitants of Iceland, Switzerland and Scandinavia, consuming great amounts of food of animal origin. Meta-analysis of several prospective studies showed no significant differences in the mortality caused by colorectal, stomach, lung, prostate or breast cancers and stroke between vegetarians and "health-conscious" nonvegetarians. In vegetarians, a decrease of ischemic heart disease mortality was observed probably due to lower total serum cholesterol levels, lower prevalence of obesity and higher consumption of antioxidants. Very probably, an ample consumption of fruits and vegetables and not the exclusion of meat make vegetarians healthful. "
    ---------------------------------------------------
    And another study:
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032716323916
    https://lifesum.com/health-education/going-vegetarian-be-aware-of-some-possible-side-effects/
    "According to a study on vegetarian diets and mental health, researchers found that vegetarians are 18 percent more likely to suffer from depression, 28 percent more prone to anxiety attacks and disorders, and 15 percent more likely to have depressive moods. Unfortunately, no reason was accurately ascertained for these mental conditions."
    -----------------------------------------------------



    Here a good statement from a Washington University PhD:
    https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/vegan-betrayal-the-myths-vs-the-realities-of-a-plants-only-diet/

    Here is what Harvad Medical School found:
    (https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/becoming-a-vegetarian)

    "Heart disease. There's some evidence that vegetarians have a lower risk for cardiac events (such as a heart attack) and death from cardiac causes. In one of the largest studies — a combined analysis of data from five prospective studies involving more than 76,000 participants published several years ago — vegetarians were, on average, 25% less likely to die of heart disease. This result confirmed earlier findings from studies comparing vegetarian and nonvegetarian Seventh-day Adventists (members of this religious group avoid caffeine and don't drink or smoke; about 40% are vegetarians). In another study involving 65,000 people in the Oxford cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-Oxford), researchers found a 19% lower risk of death from heart disease among vegetarians. However, there were few deaths in either group, so the observed differences may have been due to chance."


    "Cancer. Hundreds of studies suggest that eating lots of fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of developing certain cancers, and there's evidence that vegetarians have a lower incidence of cancer than nonvegetarians do. But the differences aren't large. A vegetarian diet can make it easier to get the recommended minimum of five daily servings of fruits and vegetables, but a purely vegetarian diet is not necessarily better than a plant-based diet that also includes fish or poultry. For example, in a pooled analysis of data from the Oxford Vegetarian Study and EPIC-Oxford, fish-eaters had a lower risk of certain cancers than vegetarians."

    "If you stop eating red meat (whether or not you become a vegetarian), you'll eliminate a risk factor for colon cancer. It's not clear whether avoiding all animal products reduces the risk further. Vegetarians usually have lower levels of potentially carcinogenic substances in their colons, but studies comparing cancer rates in vegetarians and nonvegetarians have shown inconsistent results."

    "Type 2 diabetes. Research suggests that a predominantly plant-based diet can reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes. In studies of Seventh-day Adventists, vegetarians' risk of developing diabetes was half that of nonvegetarians, even after taking BMI into account. The Harvard-based Women's Health Study found a similar correlation between eating red meat (especially processed meats, such as bacon and hot dogs) and diabetes risk, after adjusting for BMI, total calorie intake, and exercise."

    " In the EPIC-Oxford study, 75% of vegans got less than the recommended daily amount of calcium, and vegans in general had a relatively high rate of fractures. But vegans who consumed at least 525 milligrams of calcium per day were not especially vulnerable to fractures."

    "People who follow a vegetarian diet and especially a vegan diet may be at risk of getting insufficient vitamin D and vitamin K, both needed for bone health. Although green leafy vegetables contain some vitamin K, vegans may also need to rely on fortified foods, including some types of soy milk, rice milk, organic orange juice, and breakfast cereals. They may also want to consider taking a vitamin D supplement."

    "Vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 is found only in animal products, but those products include dairy foods and eggs, so most vegetarians get all they need. If you avoid animal products altogether, you should eat foods fortified with vitamin B12 (certain soy and rice beverages and breakfast cereals) or take a vitamin B12 supplement to avoid a deficiency, which can cause neurological problems and pernicious anemia."



    ----------------------------------------------
    https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45409471
    "A recent analysis, which pulled together the results of 10 previous studies comparing the health of vegetarian and vegans against that of omnivores, suggests it will.

    The researchers found being a vegetarian or vegan was associated with a significantly lower risk of heart disease and cancer, though there was no difference in all-cause mortality.

    In other words, being a vegetarian or vegan was associated with being healthier but not necessarily with living longer.

    I say "associated with" because these were not the gold standard randomised controlled studies, where you take a large group of people and randomly allocate them to being vegan or omnivorous and see what happens. Such studies would be very hard to do.

    Instead, they compare people who are vegans with meat eaters and look for differences." (Very scientific)

    "Since vegans are likely to be more health conscious than the general population, it is possible that the health differences have nothing to do with the diet itself."




    Leaving out the fact that there is a lot of people who are not perfectly healthy and would make their condition worse by eating no animal products, there is a truck-load of people who went back from being vegan, to omnivore again, because their health declined.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41158365



    Now here why Cholesterol is not bad for your body:
    https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/how-its-made-cholesterol-production-in-your-body
    "In fact, cholesterol production is so important that your liver and intestines make about 80% of the cholesterol you need to stay healthy. Only about 20% comes from the foods you eat." (If you eat more cholersterol your body will simply produce less)

    • Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particles are even richer in pure cholesterol, since most of the triglycerides they carried are gone. LDL is known as "bad" cholesterol because it delivers cholesterol to tissues and is strongly associated with the buildup of artery-clogging plaque.
    • High-density lipoprotein (HDL) particles are called "good" cholesterol because they remove cholesterol from circulation and from artery walls and return it to the liver for excretion.

    If someone wants any credibility at all, one must differentiate between HDL and LDL
    ---------------------------------------------------
    https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-and-cholesterol/cholesterol/

    "The discovery half a century ago that high blood cholesterol levels were strongly associated with an increased risk for heart disease triggered numerous warnings to avoid foods that contain cholesterol, especially eggs and liver. However, scientific studies show a weak relationship between the amount of cholesterol a person consumes and his or her blood cholesterol levels (22)
    For most people, the amount of cholesterol eaten has only a modest impact on the amount of cholesterol circulating in the blood. (24) For some people, though, blood cholesterol levels rise and fall very strongly in relation to the amount of cholesterol eaten. For these “responders,” avoiding cholesterol-rich foods can have a substantial effect on blood cholesterol levels. Unfortunately, at this point there is no way other than by trial and error to identify responders from non-responders to dietary cholesterol."

    And UK-Doc's opinion:
    https://articles.mercola.com/sites/.../16/cholesterol-regulates-cell-signaling.aspx


    -----------------------------------------------
    What we can conclude:
    Vegetarians/Vegans tend to lead generally more healthy life-styles. They smoke less, drink less, do more sports and are more concious about what they eat (more fruits and vegetables). This of course, impacts studies.
    Scientific reasearch is not conclusive.
    Though, for now it is more in favour of veg-diet in regard to coronary disases (heart attack etc...) only.
    There is no lower all-cause mortalitly, regarding to scientifc studies.
    A veg-diet may cause worse mental health, regarding to scientifc studies.
    Empiric studies are not all-mighty.
    In fact, there are lots and lots of studies that disprove each other.

    But you dude, have no regard for objectivity, mistake causation and correlation, and overall seem like you just want to push your ideology down the throat of others rather than get to the bottom of the truth.

    Usually I don't like to waste my time on things like this, but I guess something about your complacently spouting 'universal truths, that are wellknown' just rubbed me the wrong way.

    And that's my problem with vegetarians and vegans. Not that they do what they do. In general I find it admireable that they don't eat meat in order to not hurt animal life.
    My issue with them is that many, out of my life experience, fancy themselves 'better than meat-eaters' and 'morally superior'. Just beause you don't eat meat doesn't mean you are a saint or better than other people. It may mean that you made an arguable morally 'better' choice in regard to your diet. You can still do wrong things and be a bad person.

    And don't go spouting like there is no downsides with such a diet at all. You have to artificially supplement your diet with vitamins and minerals and want to tell others "humans are meant to go veg".
    I think that speaks for itself.



    EDIT:
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4191896/
    you didn't even read the study you quoted, now that's just cute.
    "Previous studies of the relationship between vegetarian dietary patterns and mortality have yielded mixed results. In the first Adventist Health Study, a study of 34 198 California Seventh-day Adventists,27vegetarian dietary patterns were associated with reduced all-cause mortality and increased longevity.4,17 In contrast, the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition–Oxford (EPIC-Oxford) cohort study did not show an all-cause mortality advantage for British vegetarians (among 47 254 vegetarian and nonvegetarian participants),28 and pooled results have shown reductions only for IHD mortality.16"



    Here is a fairly objective pro-con-list about vegetarianism:
    https://vegetarian.procon.org/
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2019
  6. Dblst

    Dblst Fapstronaut

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    Most of the studies that you posted are about vegetarianism, not veganism. I think vegetarians can be less healthy than omnivores due to the large amount of dairy in a vegetarian diet. Dairy is not healthy. If you want to drink breast milk why not find your mother? You're not a baby cow, don't drink the milk from another animal.

    Also, the statement vitamin b-12 is only found in animal products is false. Vitamin b-12 is created by bacteria. Livestock animals are lacking in dietary b-12 due to sterilization of crops and which is why they are given vitamin b-12 injections.

    Vitamin D can by synthesized in our bodies from ultraviolet radiation, and even mushrooms exposed to UV have vitamin D. Any deficiencies can be corrected with a vegan supplement, although I don't think it's necessary given adequate eating habits.

    there's a difference between vegetarians and vegans
     
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  7. ProtagonistOfMyLife

    ProtagonistOfMyLife Fapstronaut

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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12

    "The only organisms to produce vitamin B12 are certain bacteria, and archaea. Some of these bacteria are found in the soil around the grasses that ruminants eat; they are taken into the animal, proliferate, form part of their gut flora, and continue to produce vitamin B12.

    Because there are no reliable vegetable sources of the vitamin, vegans must use a supplement or fortified foods for B12 intake or risk serious health consequences."


    Obviously there is Vitamin B12 in soil or grasses or all all ominvores would have to supplement like vegetarians and vegans do, which isn't the case.
    "Livestock animals are lacking in dietary b-12 due to sterilization of crops and which is why they are given vitamin b-12 injections." - Any reliable source for that statement?

    "Vitamin D can by synthesized in our bodies from ultraviolet radiation" That's right, Vitamin D is produced by the kidneys, that's why it is considered a hormone.
    _______________________________________________

    I agree there is a difference between vegan and vegetarians
    and I don't see any scientifically conclusive health benefits by being vegan over vegetarian or omnivore that are not a trade-off for another thing.
     
  8. Dblst

    Dblst Fapstronaut

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    All the meat eaters in this thread most likely have never tried a vegan diet for an extended period of time, thus are speaking not from personal experience, but from the opinions of others. If you want true knowledge, why don't you try veganism, and then report back here with your experiences? Keep in mind that most vegans were brought up eating animals, so we have the knowledge of both sides. I ate animals for 24 years, and after going completely vegan, i have felt better than I have ever have. As a meat eater, I was more depressed and anxious. I had more "muscle" and could lift heavier weights in the gym, but now I have more energy, more clarity, I am happier. I feel like the only thing holding me back is pmo.
     
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  9. ClaritySeeker

    ClaritySeeker Fapstronaut

    But you're eating meat twice a day, don't you think that's excessive?
    I never said go meat free, I just reduce it significantly, that's what plant-based means. Also, why are the longest living civilizations plant-based? The Blue Zones...
    Yeah, they inject the animals with B12...
     
  10. ProtagonistOfMyLife

    ProtagonistOfMyLife Fapstronaut

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    Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with veganism/vegetarianism. In fact, being an ovo-pesco-vegetarian would be completely okay for me. And I may try it in my life time.
    I just have a problem with people jumping their gun, and assuming things, having no regard for causation and correlation.
    I will of course agree, that too much meat is very likely unhealthy, however the same goes for soyproducts, for example.

    There is nothing wrong with being vegetarian/vegan. Just know that it's a lot more complicated than 'if all people were vegan the world would be a better place'
    There is so much to take in account for and so much more proper research to be done.

    Also, read the pro-con list, it's decent.
     
  11. Red Eagle

    Red Eagle Fapstronaut

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    This study is useless since we are talking about veganism here and not vegetarianism. It is no surprise that low meat diets are healthier than vegetarian diets since vegetarian diets may be very high in eggs and dairy. Especially dairy seems to have detrimental effects on health and is the number one dietary factor for heart disease since it is the number 1 source of saturated fat and cholesterol in most people's diet.

    This is not scientific data but just an article talking about health. Useless.

    Not an actual link to a scientific study but just an article about a study. It's again about vegetarians.

    Again useless. It compares vegetarians to health conscious meat eaters just like in the first study.

    This is actually very interesting. I can't tell by myself but I would agree that vegetarians and vegans have higher rates of depression. Now is this due to diet? We can't say. I'd say it is because vegetarians and vegans have a much more difficult social life and confront themselves with animal cruelty. Two things that are not really good for mental well being. A good social life is important for mental health. Vegans and vegetarians are also much more aware of the cruelty going on in our world. No wonder they are depressed. But this research doesn't conclude if this is due to what they actually eat.

    This one is essentially the same but it's not scientific data. I agree that vegans and vegetarians have more gas. However this has nothing to do with bad health. Having gas can actually be a sign of good gut health.

    That's not scientific data.

    Again, just another anecdote and no scientific data.

    Also just an article.

    CONCLUSIONS:
    This comprehensive meta-analysis reports a significant protective effect of a vegetarian diet versus the incidence and/or mortality from ischemic heart disease (-25%) and incidence from total cancer (-8%). Vegan diet conferred a significant reduced risk (-15%) of incidence from total cancer.

    The study comes to the conclusion that vegetarian diets have better health outcomes. Also, a study lumping vegetarians and vegans together is not very usefull since both dietary groups can be vastly different. Vegetarians is closer to a meat diet than to a vegan diet in terms of nutrition.

    Another worthless anecdote. You can find an anecdote for literally everything.

    This doesn't prove anything. It just says that if you eat cholesterol up to a certain point your body will make it's own cholesterol which is true. But that doesn't mean, that you can't overeat on cholesterol rich foods. The problem also lies with saturated fat and not cholesterol since saturated fat causes the production of ldl cholesterol particles which are the strongest link to atherosclerosis we have.

    This data is pro vegan. The article states that ldl cholesterol is the bad guy when it comes to hearth health. The amount of cholesterol consumed doesn't matter. The amount of saturated fat does as I explained above. In laymans terms: Saturated fats = Animal fats.


    Mercola, really? The guy is totally biased when it comes to diets. I mean, just look at his website. He is a salesman trying to sell people supplements and diets. He also has no scientific data backing up his claims.

    Well that is 1:0 for vegetarian/vegan diets.

    This is a conclusion on the Epic Oxford Study
    https://www.nature.com/articles/0802300

    RESULTS: Age-adjusted mean BMI was significantly different between the four diet groups, being highest in the meat-eaters (24.41 kg/m2 in men, 23.52 kg/m2 in women) and lowest in the vegans (22.49 kg/m2 in men, 21.98 kg/m2 in women). Fish-eaters and vegetarians had similar, intermediate mean BMI. Differences in lifestyle factors including smoking, physical activity and education level accounted for less than 5% of the difference in mean age-adjusted BMI between meat-eaters and vegans, whereas differences in macronutrient intake accounted for about half of the difference. High protein (as percent energy) and low fibre intakes were the dietary factors most strongly and consistently associated with increasing BMI both between and within the diet groups.

    CONCLUSIONS: Fish-eaters, vegetarians and especially vegans had lower BMI than meat-eaters. Differences in macronutrient intakes accounted for about half the difference in mean BMI between vegans and meat-eaters. High protein and low fibre intakes were the factors most strongly associated with increasing BMI.

    Another conclusion

    https://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4131.full

    Results After a mean follow-up time of 11.6 years, there were 812 cases of diverticular disease (806 admissions to hospital and six deaths). After adjustment for confounding variables, vegetarians had a 31% lower risk (relative risk 0.69, 95% confidence interval 0.55 to 0.86) of diverticular disease compared with meat eaters. The cumulative probability of admission to hospital or death from diverticular disease between the ages of 50 and 70 for meat eaters was 4.4% compared with 3.0% for vegetarians. There was also an inverse association with dietary fibre intake; participants in the highest fifth (≥25.5 g/day for women and ≥26.1 g/day for men) had a 41% lower risk (0.59, 0.46 to 0.78; P<0.001 trend) compared with those in the lowest fifth (<14 g/day for both women and men). After mutual adjustment, both a vegetarian diet and a higher intake of fibre were significantly associated with a lower risk of diverticular disease.

    Conclusions Consuming a vegetarian diet and a high intake of dietary fibre were both associated with a lower risk of admission to hospital or death from diverticular disease.

    https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/533S/4689993

    This is what you have mentioned before with british people not showing a differnce between vegetarian and non-vegetarian diets. Well, it, again, doesn't mention vegans.


    Now, your post was funny. You tried to find some data showing that vegan/vegetarian diets are not healthier than diets that contain meat but the only thing you accomplished is proving that vegetarians and especially vegans are healthier than meat eaters.

    The only data that is interesting is the data on depression which doesn't make it clear why vegans and vegetarians have higher rates of depression it just shows that they do.

    There is no reason to suggest that. Soy is a perfectly healthy food and has many health benefits, especially for women as it was shown that it reduces breast cancer risk.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/6604145
    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/185034
    https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/95/12/906/2520284
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2019
    ClaritySeeker likes this.
  12. If by "Blue Zones" you mean, for example, people who live in the Okinawans, they eat primarily pork and fish, not plants. If we take a look at the Eskimos, they suffer from very little disease at all and they can't even grow plants. They eat fish and whale.

    Then you don't know how the digestive system of the ape works. No, our digestive system is not similar to the ape at all. They have more in common with cows than they do with us. Apes are fermentors like the cow is. They will consume food and have it ferment within their stomachs for days at a time, while predators, like humans, dogs, cats, etc will get rid of anything we consume in 2-4 hours.

    The human body has one 6 foot long colon where as apes do not. Instead, their colon is so much bigger than ours and their large intestine is filled with microbes and enyzymes indigenous to the colon of the host, which destroy pathogenic microorganisms that are harmful to the host. Within gorillas, these bacteria (the same in other herbivores) serve the purpose of fermenting, detoxifying food, and breaking down the cellulose within them.

    Our digestion is nothing like theirs. This is the propaganda lies the vegan community keeps spreading and no one seems to fact check or want it to be false. Fruit eating animals have rear gut fermentation chambers (aka large colons) which have caecums which house microbes in order to break down the plant fibers into short chain fatty acids. They absorb over 60% of their energy through SCFA's, NOT carbohydrates. Humans are not capable of this, we have a much smaller colon and do not house these healthy microbes which break down these plant fibers efficiently and without pathogenic repercussions. We are only capable of absorbing 2-9% of our total energy through SCFA's in our colons. PLEASE look into this, it's the SMOKING GUN as to why veganism does not work for people. We are NOT herbivores/frugivores! Human beings are carnivores.

    No amount of soaking, rinsing, sprouting can deal with the fact that plant fiber requires FOREIGN BACTERIA to help you digest plant cellulose, which happens in your small colon. This is a fermentation process which causes a LOT OF bloating and gas in most people. If you do not experience this yourself then chances are you don't eat a lot of food, you are a "caloric maintenance" or "under eating" type of guy. Neither are great for performance or health. Plant food is already so biologically unavailable and nutrient dilute that you need to eat all you can in order to stay on top of things.

    We're the only animal in existence smart enough to be capable of doing what we're doing now. But the only animal dumb enough to intentionally go against our nature. You've ever heard the phrase "you are what you eat"?

    Yeah, that phrase is a little messed up. Let's substitute it with "you eat what you are". Human beings are primarily muscle, fat, bone, and water. And even then, muscle, fat, and bone are protein, so we're protein and water. Plants are primarily sugar. There is not a single natural cell of sugar within the human body. We're not sugar. We're meat and thus, we consume it to maintain it.

    This is completely false for a number of reasons. It should be known that there is no completely vegan civilization in existence because the mortality rates get too high, especially amongst babies. All babies need animal fat (breast milk from the mother) to maintain their physical structure and satisfy their hunger. Attempting to put an infant on a vegan diet will kill the infant.

    Since you mention diabetes, let's talk about diabetes. Despite what some authorities may say, Type 2 diabetes does NOT have to be a chronic and progressive condition as clearly evidenced by the fact that doctors like Jason Fung, David Unwin, Sarah Hallberg, and Ted Naiman to name a few, have been reversing people's diabetes with fasting or a low carb/ketogenic diet. Which is the opposite of the vegan diet, that's a high carb, high sugar diet.

    A doctor named Dr. Richards Thomas Williamson wrote in his 1898 book "Diabetes Mellitus and Its Treatment" that potatoes should be excluded from the diet first, then bread, and gradually all carbohydrates should be cut off.

    In 1797, a military surgeon named John Rollo released a book that described how he treated diabetes with a carbohydrate restricted meat diet. Referring to this, Dr. Williamson wrote:

    "Ever since Rollo published his book on diabetes in 1797, and pointed out the value of restriction of the carbohydrates in the food, it has been acknowledged that of all forms and methods of treatment, this dietetic one is the most important."

    The concept of avoiding grans, also known as "bigu" has been around for 2000 years, going back to the Han Dynasty. A man named Wang Xuan He (he as in the last part of his name) wrote in around the year 680AD that before the times of farming, ancient people did NOT eat grain, so they were long lived. According to him. Of course, this isn't a medical paper, but it's interesting that people back in these times were specifically avoiding grain. More than a millenium ago.

    An Eastern Jin Dynasty scholar named Ge Hong claimed that there was not one fat person among those practicing bigu for spiritual reasons. So how exactly are carbohydrates a factor in the development of diabetes if these people were able to cure and prevent diabetes from avoiding carbohydrates? Well, we need to take a look at what's filling your fat cells, making you fat. Or to be more specific, that something isn't just filling your fat cels up with fat, it's pinning that fat there and preventing it from being pulled out of that fat cell to be burned for energy. What's filling up these cells is insulin.

    As those reading should know (or if not, you'll know now), insulin is an anabolic hormone that has many functions, but one is that it acts as a "fat storage" hormone and by inhibiting three important enzymes (hormone-sensitive lipase or HSL, adipose triglyceride lipase or ATGL, and CPT 1), it prevents you from burning fat. Simply put, the more insulin you have floating around in your blood, the harder it is to empty your fat cells and it continues to build.

    Humans fill up their fat cells because in the diets that they're doing (omnivore to vegan, especially omnivore which is what the vast majority of people are, if anything, vegan is the least common diet out there) sucks at burning fat because they're eating too much glucose!

    Take America, since there's quite an obesity problem here. America puts a hard focus on productivity as opposed to other countries like Thailand, where they put an emphasis on family as opposed to work. So people here are constantly filling up their schedules with school studies and work, giving them very little time to go home and do any cooking (assuming they wanted to cook at all). This is why fast-food resturants do so well here, however, fast food places place all kinds of glucose and vegetable related ingredients in their food, or even worse things! Subway, for example, was hit with a lot of controversy when they announced that they were removing a chemical called ADA from their bread. ADA was used to bleach their flour and make the dough stronger, but it's also found in yoga mats and rubber shoe soles. Really goes against their health policy, doesn't it?

    Because of this, Americans produce way more insulin than they should be, storing all of the glucose their consuming as fat instead of just kicking it out of the system like most other predators do. Thus causing the obesity epidemic. This is especially prevalent in wide-spread areas where you need a car to get around. In the state I'm in, anytime I'm leaving the house, I'm getting in a car unless I plan to walk around my neighborhood. If I have to go to the store, I need a car. If I want to go to the movies, I'm getting in the car. If I want to get to my campus, I'm getting in the car.

    However, in places like New York city, it's almost stupid to drive a car there because people use public transportation systems over there all the time! Thus having people simply walk to their destinations and burning off all the excess glucose in their bodies. Which is why in New York city, there's a lot less fat people.

    Glucose comes from carbohydrates raises insulin more than protein and much more than dietary fat. Plants are carbohydrates. We are not made from carbohydrates. Ergo, carbohydrates are not good for you. I'll stop here for now, unless you want me to keep going with this point.

    Again, not true, see above. If meat is the cause of heart disease, cancers, and diabetes, explain how the Eskimo thrive in the extremely cold climate they live in with no ability to grow plants in ice, only consuming fish and whale.

    Also, understanding how the human body works, the term "vegan bodybuilder" is an oxymoron and doesn't exist. They can say they're vegan, but it doesn't mean they are. If Subway can mislead people into believing they're consuming something "health concious" as opposed to yoga mat chemicals, "vegan bodybuilders" can mislead people into believing that they can grow muscle from glucose, sugar, and an amino-acid profile that's completely wrong for the human body.


    Again, no, these "blue zones" are not on plant-based diets because said diet can't maintain our physical structure. It's like you're trying to argue by saying "this exists, so clearly it does work" while ignoring everything that's been said on how the human body works. Before you can sell anybody on the existence of vegan civilizations, you need to show everybody how humans can thrive on plants (which they can't).

    In fact, recently, the "carnivore diet" has become quite popular, thanks in part to the famous University of Toronto professor Jordon Peterson as well as his daughter, having used this meat-only diet to alleviate certain health issues.

    This still might sound extreme to most people since it means no carbs, which people have a hard time giving up since carbs are cheaper, taste good, and many people are addicted to them as well as no fruit.

    I, myself, don't completely follow the carnivore diet simply because I like fruit because dayum, they're juicy and I like carbs because they help me bulk and get energy for a workout. However, I understand that I need dense meat to maintain and build my dense muscles. But why would the carnivore diet work?

    A man named Dr. Shawn Baker, a big carnivore diet advocate has been on this diet for 7 years and has a website called www.meatheals.com. As of August 26th of 2018, up to 100 people have shared their stories of how they improved their health by eating only meat and how veganism ended up ruining it.

    In fact, before anybody advocates going vegan, it's important to read about the testimonies of both vegans and ex-vegans. Many people have ruined their lives by going vegan. So the fact that @Ultramarine thinks he should go vegan because he can't reconile anything that's been read here is deeply anti-rational and an extremely dangerous way to think.

    What if those that advocate eating primarily meat are right and what if vegans are wrong? What you put in your body is crucial to your survival and thinking you can switch it before doing any amount of good research into both diets (setting aside any previous presuppostitions you may have had as well as claims you think are right) and moving on from what you find. The reason why most people go vegan is because it pulls at their heartstrings. It sounds good to say you don't kill or use the killed, but that doesn't mean that's how this world works. If anything, that's exactly how our world works. And human beings are the only creature in the world to actually doubt that claim. Amazing. Moving on.

    These people go on to say they healed things like depression, various gut issues, and rheumatoid arthiritis with 77 of them experiencing weight loss, 61 of them commenting on improved mood, and 31 people seeing improvements in their skin. Plenty of similar stories are found elsewhere in the Internet. A man named Michael Howard on Twitter had acne on his legs and experienced joint pain. 7 weeks into the carnivore diet, all of his acne went away and the skin on his legs became almost flawless.

    So whatever "diet camp" you happen to be in, investigating why this diet seems to help people could provide some useful information that you may apply to your own diet, even if you have no intention of eating a bunch of meat.

    The first concern people may have when it comes to eating primarily meat is the possibility of getting scurvy or some vitamin deficiencies. In the 1960 book, "The Fat of the Land" by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, he describes his experience with the Inuit of Canada in 1910. He states the following in the book:

    "If meat needs carbohydrate and other vegetable additives to make it wholesome, then the poor Eskimos were not eating healthfully till the last few decades. They should have been in wretched state along the north coast of Canada, particularly at Coronation Gulf, where I began to live among them in 1910 as the first white man most of them had ever seen. But, to the contrary, they seemed to me the healthiest people I had ever lived with. To spread abroad the news of how healthy and happy they and I were on meat alone was a large part of the motive for writing this book."

    Pick up the book yourself if you doubt what was stated here. He also said the the Inuit remained completely scurvy-free, "except for a few who worked for white men and ate their food..."

    First of all, certain animal parts like the liver contain vitamin C, so you could simply eat some of the liver, or if you're more adventurous, the adrenal gland, brain, and spinal cord of animals are very high in vitamin C. But it seems that some of the recent advocates of the carnivore diet are scurvy free and doing just fine while rarely consuming organ meats.

    It was discovered by Birch and Dann in 1953 that even the skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle of animal meats contains small amounts of vitamin C, but that's somehow been forgotten. However, are these small amounts enough?

    An interesting thing to consider is that our bodies work differently on this kind of diet. Because glucose (or carbohydrate) and vitamin C are actually structured similarly, they actually compete for glucose transporters. So too much glucose can inhibit vitamin C transport. So to put it simply, the less glucose you consume, the more efficiently you can utilize Vitamin C, so the less Vitamin C you require.

    I'll stop here since this is getting long.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 24, 2019
  13. Mmm, but this comes from the implication that too much of something is a bad thing. Which is true. Eating, say, a steak, a hotdog, and a burger in one sitting is waaaaaay too much for the kidneys to handle. However, eating some kind of meat in the majority of your meals throughout the day, as well as drinking plenty of water since your body LOVES water (especially the kidneys) and you'll be fine. You'll be great, actually. You'll likely see an increase in intelligence and quick thinking, loss of fat, and clearer skin as well as less anxiety.

    EDIT: Of course, you're better off looking into it yourself since I'm just a stranger on an online forum. As far as you're concerned, what I'm saying could be false. I could be a shill (although I haven't tried to obfuscate the subject matter as shills do) trying to trick you into following a false diet, as the above may be doing. And I think with this kind of thing, people shouldn't take that kind of risk of believing whatever they read and trying it out. Of course, you could always just switch the diet, but I prefer information over action. :p
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 24, 2019
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  14. ClaritySeeker

    ClaritySeeker Fapstronaut

    Yes, now the Okinawan diet is becoming more Westernized and they are getting more chronic diseases. Prior to this, they ate very little pork/fish. They mostly ate purple yams (I believe around 70% of their diet). Is that all you could find to disprove the most important point I made, the Blue Zones?
    We are definitely not carnivores. We're Omnivores.
    Yes, in the beginning it did cause a lot of gas, but now my body has adapted to it. That's the point, you need to eat lots of plants to stay on top of it. Starchy plants have good enough caloric density to get your fill of calories. Beans, fruits, sweet potatoes, brown rice, etc.
    Yes, my stomach is a garden, whereas people on a mostly carnivorous diet have a graveyard in their stomachs.
    We're mostly water and anyways, this doesn't really mean anything because there are vegans who do fine on plants alone. Same as big muscular and big boned rhinos/horses/bulls - all plant eaters...I know we're human, but same general concept, we can get everything from plants.
    This is completely false. There are Adventists in Loma Linda that live a completely vegan life and they are thriving (again, part of the Blue Zones). Nobody is saying babies can't have breast milk, they should be drinking breast milk. Also, I'm not saying vegan and if I did I meant plant-based. Are you denying the Blue Zones are plant-based? Are you denying they are the healthiest civilizations in the world?
    These are all short-term studies. Yes, people lose weight on keto/paleo, that's why they improve their diabetes, but long-term health is compromised. Again, no societies with virtually no heart disease, except for Blue Zones.
    Thailand is also a Buddhist country and they eat lots of greens too...
    They get a lot of heart disease...
    Our brains run on glucose primarily, so we thrive on it. The problem is processed carbs/sugars, not plant carbs. Plant carbs are slow release and don't cause insulin spikes.
    But it definitely does exist and you're lying to yourself if you don't acknowledge it. Just Google vegan bodybuilder...
    What are you talking about? Are you ignoring all facts? Blue Zones are plant-based. Plant-based means that 10% or less of their diet is meat, that's not a lot, but 90% is plants! Do you not understand this? And they are THRIVING, it just blows everything your saying out of the water. It doesn't matter what explanation you come up with, they are the proof in the pudding. There is no carnivore society that thrives like they do. Sorry...
    How can you argue something when you don't even practice it. That's just funny business...I'm glad you're eating your fruits though.
    Did you know animal protein damages the kidneys and plant proteins do not?
     
  15. HegHeu

    HegHeu Fapstronaut

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    Just a passing thought I think we all should eat what our own ancestors have ate from time immemorial. Let the japs eat what their ancestors ate let the Americans eat what their ancestors ate. My own grandmother is living an ripe age of 95+ so I think I will stick to her diet which has no meat in it.
     
  16. Huh, @Mr Sitter was right. You're disagreeing with me, but all you're doing is hiding behind assertions and fallacies. For example:

    "It doesn't matter what explanation you come up with, they are the proof in the pudding. Sorry..."

    You don't even explain anything here, you just say things without actually reading what the other person is stating in the majority of your half-assed responses. Which means you're not interested in teaching or are you interested in considering what your opposition has to say. And I don't mean considering as in just meeting me half way or even blindly agreeing with me, you're just parroting things you've read to me without actually providing the reasoning behind why you think the way you do. Thus I used the term "half-assed". You're giving me the conclusions without the reasonings behind it. An argument has two parts to it, a conclusion and reasoning. Since you've failed to give the latter, you're half-assing what you say to me.

    Here's one of your fallacies:

    "How can you argue something when you don't even practice it. That's just funny business..."

    So a fitness coach who's fat can't instruct people on how to work out properly. Even though he knows exactly what makes the muscles grow, what to eat and what not to eat, and how exactly to hit the muscles properly. When there's a chance he was fit in the past and just stopped caring to work out or some other similar reason. It's like you're not even trying.

    Since I'm not going to get any good opposition from you nor from the last guy, this conversation between us is over since I'm not convinced you're here to actually provide anything substantial. Come back when you do.
     
  17. This is part of the fallacy (chronological snobbery) that the thinking and ways of an earlier time is inheritly inferior or superior to modern day behaviors. We can't just start or stop doing something because our ancestors did the same, that implies they were right at all, which would completely undermine everything that's been said here.

    It also assumes that human ancestors were primarily vegan at all. To which I ask, are you sure?

     
  18. ProtagonistOfMyLife

    ProtagonistOfMyLife Fapstronaut

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    Have an attitude if you want. I never said that I will only post studies, most if not all articles I posted talk about the studies, which you could open from the articles. I am not your baby sitter.
    Let's just conclude that you and I are not able to hold a meaningful conversation. You didn't even read about my main points and just judged 'this is an anecdote and that is an ancetode and this is useless and that is useless' without even explaining why it is useless on top of being totally wrong.

    I don't care about what you eat, be vegan if you want. If it makes you happy good. Just don't try to tell people 'the truth' about things, that are not proven.
     
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  19. ClaritySeeker

    ClaritySeeker Fapstronaut

    That's right, they will be a less effective fitness coach if they are not fit. Who would motivate you more? A fit or unfit coach?
    I'm trying, but you're not understanding. We can argue day and night behind different/opposing mechanisms of human health, but the end result is what's most important. Can you refute that? If there is proof of the longest living and healthy civilizations, shoudn't we say, "that's the goal, that's what we should be doing, let's understand that more."?
    You were not able to prove otherwise that the Blue Zones are not the healthiest societies/civilizations on this Earth. I proved my point. I think you are upset that it's "half-assed" because the argument is so simple and straightforward and true.
    But they are proven...Blue Zones...
     
  20. ProtagonistOfMyLife

    ProtagonistOfMyLife Fapstronaut

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    In his book, Buettner provides a list of nine lessons, covering the lifestyle of blue zones people:[13]

    1. Moderate, regular physical activity.
    2. Life purpose.
    3. Stress reduction.
    4. Moderate caloric intake.
    5. Plant-based diet.
    6. Moderate alcohol intake, especially wine.
    7. Engagement in spirituality or religion.
    8. Engagement in family life.
    9. Engagement in social life.
    The people inhabiting Blue Zones share common lifestyle characteristics that contribute to their longevity. The Venn diagram at the right highlights the following six shared characteristics among the people of Okinawa, Sardinia, and Loma Linda Blue Zones:[12]

    • Family – put ahead of other concerns
    • Less smoking
    • Semi-vegetarianism – the majority of food consumed is derived from plants
    • Constant moderate physical activity – an inseparable part of life
    • Social engagement – people of all ages are socially active and integrated into their communities
    • Legumes – commonly consumed

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone
    _____________________________________
     

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