vegetarian/vegan really that healthy?

[DQueens]

Ok, so i know that because Steve is vegan and this is his page's forum everyone is singing the praises of vegetarianism and veganism and spraying all us dairy and meat consumers with scorn and contempt. But, i think that before you spread the gospel of the wonders of a meat and dairy free diet, which the main protein and calcium sources are made up of soy (soy milk, tofu, soy enriched products) that you should look into this site. Not trying to deter anyone from cleaning up a poor diet by going vegan to increase natural foods and veggie intake or animal rights activasts and environmentalists from trying to better our earth but i think that we should acknowledge that any extreme way of eating has it's pitfalls:

Soy's Thyroid Dangers

just something to think about.

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by DQueens

But, i think that before you spread the gospel of the wonders of a meat and dairy free diet, which the main protein and calcium sources are made up of soy (soy milk, tofu, soy enriched products) that you should look into this site.

There is some controversy about soy right now, but this doesn't in any way invalidate the vegetarian/vegan diet. Nobody says you have to eat tons of soy if you're vegan or vegetarian. Soy is a good source of protein, but certainly not the only source of it. And it's not a particularly amazing source of calcium. Both calcium and protein are found in other foods like vegetables, nuts, and legumes. Even bread has protein (gluten). There are also alternatives to soy milk, like almond milk and rice milk. Don't dismiss the veg diet just because of soy controversy.

[opalblue]

Hey everyone!
I am opal!
I am about 18 years old,though i don't feel like it.My life is right now pretty hard....you know with the peer pressure,college,studies,parents,BOYS and everything!
Currently i am a vegetarian(well that's because its in my religion,we are hindus of the priestly caste),passive smoker and an occasional drinker.
I was thinking about trying out that 30 day raw vegan diet thing and hopefully you know i have the will power to sustain that and hopefully its all worth it!

And I am totally open to encouragement and advice from all!

Take care!
opal

[Dimond]

Raw Vegan and regular vegan/vegetarians are not the same thing at all. Majority of vegan/vegetarians are still eating quite unhealthy. Raw vegan does not include any soy.

[Monique7nuns]

It's my understanding that some don't feel that much protein is needed. The idea w/veg/vegan and raw is that oxygen is more important. Raw food, esp juices, have the ability to deliver this to the body most effectively. This woman, Rozalind Gruben, explains it in the last part of this lecture.

Btw.. I'm a Cro Magnon.. I eat meat, dairy and sugar. I've lost over 100lbs due to Crohn's disease and lifestyle changes. Currently in a long research stage of different diets where I ran across this information.. that I found very interesting.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by DQueens

before you spread the gospel of the wonders of a meat and dairy free diet, which the main protein and calcium sources are made up of soy

That the main protein and calcium source on a vegan diet is soy is a false assumption. Vegan doesn't necessarily mean lots of soy, or soy at all. Many vegans eat no soy.

But yeah, vegan doesn't always equate healthy. It's possible to eat quite unhealthily on a vegan diet too, especially if you eat lots of processed foods or grains.

But processed foods and grains are unhealthy on an omnivore diet too.
Additionally to meat and dairy.

[funchy]

But, i think that before you spread the gospel of the wonders of a meat and dairy free diet, which the main protein and calcium sources are made up of soy (soy milk, tofu, soy enriched products) that you should look into this site. Not trying to deter anyone from cleaning up a poor diet by going vegan to increase natural foods and veggie intake or animal rights activasts and environmentalists from trying to better our earth but i think that we should acknowledge that any extreme way of eating has it's pitfalls:

Vegetarians and vegans do not all rely on soy products. Some eat it only occasionally. Some don't eat any soy at all. Incorrect assumption.

There is also some debate about soy: some studies show health concerns but some studies show positive qualities. Is the potential danger of a serving of soy worse than a greasy, preserved, horomone-filled oversized burger?

Calcium and protein are in plenty of foods; animals and soy are not required.

A low or no meat diet isn't "extreme". In meat-happy America it's seen as extremist, but many parts of the world they eat very little meat.

If anything is extreme, it's the standard American diet, where we've convinced ourselves something isn't a meal if there's not a huge hunk of meat in it. In America, the odds are extremely likely for the average American to end up with heart disease and/or cancer. There are countless studies and science that show a high meat diet is one of the main risks for heart disease & cancer. This diet is very literally killing us.



Meat is an interesting thing: it's loaded with saturated fats. A saturated fat is one which is solid at room temperatures (lard, butter, etc). Now imagine all that fat coagulating into solids in your blood vessels. When you digest meat, the saturated lipids enter your bloodstream and solidify in your arteries, forming plaques. Enough plaques and you're set up for ideal cardiovascular problems: heart attack, bypass, clots, clogs, high blood pressure, and more.

[brandongilbert]

I think it depends on the person and their lifestyle. Some people need some animal products, some do better with out them. I dont think there is one correct way.

Processed food is really extreme in almost every sense. Eating a more wholesome diet of unprocessed food is not. Whether or not that includes some animal products or not. Humans have relied on animal products for a really long time. It is certainly natural.

[funchy]

Originally Posted by brandongilbert

I think it depends on the person and their lifestyle. Some people need some animal products

Can you prove this? Can you give a biological reason why one would need animal products?

I hope you don't mind me debating this idea with you.

Humans have relied on animal products for a really long time. It is certainly natural.

Do you mean natural as in needed and healthy? Or natural as in "could exist in nature"?

If we rely on looking at history to determine if meat is necessary or healthy, I'll argue that history & mankind's evolution shows otherwise.

Take a look at our body physiology:
-- Animals that eat alot of meat (even omnivores) have pointy teeth for tearing the meat. Even dogs, which can eat whatever is available, have canine teeth. We have: flat not pointy teeth in the front and lots of big flat molars. Our teeth look more like a horse's teeth than a dog or cat's.

-- Look at our intestinal track: it's longer and similar in design to that of a heribivore. We also don't have the protections to eat raw meat. Humans can get very sick or die from eating old or tainted meat. Compare that to something like a domestic dog which can eat raw or scavenged meat.

-- Look at the rest of our body for clues on how we should obtain our food: we have long flexible fingers, like a primate. No claws. No ability to hunt without tools. I challenge any of the non-veg*ns here to take down a small animal and then eat it raw, without the help of others, tools, and cooking.

Or look at it from the angle of evolution of the human race:
The more advanced a population became, the more civilized they are said to be, yes? Civilized is a word that means civil which in turn means commonwealth or state. What transformed humans from a wild band of roaming hunter/gatherers is agriculture. For a village to remain in one spot, they needed a steadier food source than the seasonal fluctuations of wildlife. Agriculture allowed people to stay in one spot and grow. If we were meant to be mainly meat-eaters, we'd all still be wandering the tundra in small bands, looking for a mammoth to spear.

If we were meant to eat meat, we wouldn't get so many health problems directly linked to diet. We know meat is the major reason why people get problems with cholesterol and heart disease. We know cardiovascular problems are one of our modern nation's top killers. How can we say it's "natural" (=good), if it's killing us?

People used to ingest lead compounds. Lead adds a sweet taste to food. Lead is also toxic, and the longer you take it, the more damage is done. But lead is natural, and people can tolerate tiny doses of it. If lead is good to eat because it's natural, is that enough of an argument to prove meat should be eaten?

[Lauxa]

Originally Posted by funchy

Can you prove this? Can you give a biological reason why one would need animal products?

I can't give a reason, but I have one friend who has to eat red meat at every meal or he absolutely cannot function. It has taken him almost 20 years to figure this out, during which time he has had many health crashes where he moves very slowly, loses strength, etc. At times he has seizures or muscle lock-ups as well. I have known him for 8 years now, and his health has improved steadily as he has added more and more beef to his diet. Now he carries around beef jerky for emergency fuel when he is doing intense activity or has to go too long between meals.

I think it is likely good for people to eat meat... depending on what the animal has been eating. Primates eat insects, and that is a form of "meat". Meat is a more concentrated form of whatever the animal ate, such as vegetables. Modern humans don't have anywhere near the capacity for eating raw veggies as chimps, try chewing accacia leaves sometime. Eating meat allows people access to more dense nutrition sources. Maybe that is not as needed in modern times with more abundant food supplies, but certainly it has been good for humans as a species.

I don't believe that saturated fats are bad for you, in fact I think they are beneficial to health. But I base this mostly on reading Sally Fallon's book, Nourishing Traditions, and like minded people like Dr. Mercola. They cite many studies, but I haven't really taken time to read through all the research myself. Have you evaluated all the evidence? Which studies convince you that your opinion is correct?

No one is arguing for hormone-pumped factory-farmed meat (at least I'm not), but the debate is far from closed on whether meat is beneficial to health or not.

[RubberDuck]

When I became a vegetarian, it was actually because of empathy for the animals more than health reasons.

To me it is not acceptable the way animals are treated in the industrialized animal plants... Mass production of animals is simply not possible to do ethically correct!

Today I don't really associate meat with food, so I don't even miss it.

RD

[Excellent Lodestar]

Is meat really the problem here?...
Yes and no. the "problem" with animal protien today is a product of the food industry,not nature. animals fed corn, wheat and soy and kept alive( because they are toxic to animals too) by hormones and antibiotics just long enough to make slaughter. So in it's current form(your corner market) Animal protein and farmed fish are not healthy.
That said, Range -free poultry grass fed beef and other protien sources are perfectly fine.(i didn't say easy to find)
The enemy here is not food, it's "food Products". Eat real food.
Our paleo ancestors didn't pick "vegan tofu burgers" from a tree. they ate plants, insects and animals-probably in that order, not because they preferred it but because that's what was available. Our genetic blueprint is omnivore.
While the Agricultural revolution is unquestionably responsible for our cultural advances a a species, our poor genes never adapted to the changes. Egyptian mummies show the first known cases of Diabetes and Tooth decay

Michael Pollan has two brilliant books on the subject -"the Omnivore's dilemma
and " In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto" Michael Pollan - In Defense of Food
Some tips that come to mind: If your Great Grandmother wouldn't recocgnize it as food, don't eat it.
If it doesn't go bad--don't eat it( for instance, you could will a box of Twinkies to your children and the expiration date would still be good)
If it has More than five ingredients..stay away
If it contains high fructose corn syrup...welcome to hell..I mean the western diet.

Eat Food.-REAL food (see above) Mostly plants. Not too much
My experiences show me that works
Peace,

Lodestar

[funchy]

Lauxa,

Forgive me for such a long post. You raised some great points, and I wanted to explore them further.

First, I want to thank you for your reply. You have given me quite a bit of food for thought! I love it when someone challenges my ideas. It gives me a reason to re-examine everything.

I am not yet convinced by Dr Mercola's theories but I am not dismissing them yet either. I am reading the site right now and comparing his ideas with the studies/theories that I am aware of.

Originally Posted by Lauxa

I can't give a reason, but I have one friend who has to eat red meat at every meal or he absolutely cannot function. It has taken him almost 20 years to figure this out, during which time he has had many health crashes where he moves very slowly, loses strength, etc. At times he has seizures or muscle lock-ups as well. I have known him for 8 years now, and his health has improved steadily as he has added more and more beef to his diet. Now he carries around beef jerky for emergency fuel when he is doing intense activity or has to go too long between meals.

That's really unusual. The curiosity in me makes me want to know more. What happens if he carries around snacks of other foods such as fruit, non-meat proteins, or a non-meat fat source? What happens if he eats throughout the day, instead of 2 or 3 big meals? His symptoms sound like hypoglycemia . Docs had advised on adding protein snacks, which makes sense if that's is what he's doing. But newer thinking is that cutting out all carbs may add to insulin resistance, making the problem worse. In other words, is jerky the ideal food? If the person were to eat more often and healthier, would he still have the episodes? (sorry for all the questions -- I am curious by nature)

I think it is likely good for people to eat meat... depending on what the animal has been eating..... Meat is a more concentrated form of whatever the animal ate, such as vegetables.

It's also the bad byproducts of the animal's metabolism. It's the pathogens (prions, viruses, and bacteria). It's also the bad byproducts of the bacteria. I'll admit to being a little grossed out by meat because I know that the moment an organism dies, decomposition starts. Blood coagulates, lysosomes begin dissolving cells, and natural bacteria in the body are no longer held in check. One thing that really grossed me out: good red meat is supposed to be aged. "Aging" is actually letting grow bacterial colonies grow on the dead tissue (visualize a meat locker). I won't get into how commercially produced chicken meat is "washed" to knock the pathogens down to safe enough levels.

And in the modern day, if the animal is concentrating nutrients, it's also concentrating other things: the pesticides in the hay/grain, contaminants in the environment/soil (eg mercury from power plants ends up in meat), the huge amounts of grain they get to fatten them up, the hormones, the antibiotics, the other drugs, and other environmental contaminants. Now we add into the mixed genetically altered livestock feeds which may be making other proteins in addition to the desired traits. And coming soon are transgenic cows, sheep, and pigs which have all sorts of genes spliced in.

Some people believe that a sick or stressed animal transfers that bad 'energy' into the meat, be it in the form of unbalanced nutrients or stress hormones. Modern farm animals are lucky if they get sunlight and the ability to walk on something other than manure-covered cement.

So to be fair, we should be focusing on what people really do eat: the sickly, greasy, factory farmed meat products. If almost nobody has access to grass-fed, healthy, untainted meat, discussing its benefits is a moot point.

Modern humans don't have anywhere near the capacity for eating raw veggies as chimps, try chewing accacia leaves sometime.

Why not? Look at the wonderful success Steve Pavlina has had with his raw (and meat-free) diet, and he's not the only one. One can be vegan/vegetarian and not necessarily eat everything raw.

While I understand your analogy of chimps, humans' preference not to eat acacia doesn't mean we're not able to eat many raw veggies. Acacia is a thorny African desert shrub, and there are so many tastier choices.

I don't believe that saturated fats are bad for you, in fact I think they are beneficial to health. But I base this mostly on reading Sally Fallon's book, Nourishing Traditions, and like minded people like Dr. Mercola. They cite many studies, but I haven't really taken time to read through all the research myself. Have you evaluated all the evidence? Which studies convince you that your opinion is correct?

One Dr who is doing alot of work on diet and heart disease is Dr Ornish. Good overview article about his work in NewsWeek.

One study:

Reversing Heart Disease
July 21, 1990, The Lancet published the findings of Dean Ornish, M.D., who demonstrated that heart disease can actually be reversed without medicines.Until then, most doctors were not even attempting to reverse heart disease, even though it was, as it is now, the most common cause of death. The traditional way to remove them was to wait until they became severe enough to warrant a bypass or angioplasty.

At the U of California in San Francisco, Dr. Ornish tested the theory that a more potent diet, along with other lifestyle changes, might actually reverse heart disease. He selected patients who had plaques that were clearly visible on angiograms and split the patients into two groups. Half were referred to a control group in which they received the standard care that doctors prescribe for heart patients. The other half began a vegetarian diet in which less than 10 percent of calories were contributed by fat. They were also asked to begin a program of modest exercise and learned to manage stress through a variety of simple techniques. Of course, smoking was not permitted.

Dr. Ornish’s patients started to feel better almost immediately, and continued to improve over the course of the year. They had previously been struggling with the crushing chest pain of heart disease, but “most of them became essentially pain-free,” Dr. Ornish said, “even though they were doing more activities, going back to work, and doing things that they hadn’t been able to do, in some cases, for years.”

Not only did their cholesterol levels drop dramatically, but, after a year, 82 percent of the patients who followed Dr. Ornish’s program showed measurable reversal of their coronary artery blockages. The plaques were starting to dissolve with no medications, no surgery, and no side effects.

The control group, following the more traditional medical routine, did not do so well. For most patients, chest pain did not go away, but continued to get worse, and their plaques continued to grow, cutting off blood flow to the heart a bit more with every passing day.

The work of Dr. Ornish and others has made previous recommendations obsolete.

Many doctors still recommend “chicken and fish” diets, even though a number of studies have shown that, in general, heart patients who make such moderate dietary changes tend to get worse over time. Those who adopt a low-fat, vegetarian diet, get daily physical activity, avoid tobacco, and manage stress, stand the best chance of reversing heart disease.

Or other info linking heart disease to meat consumption:
PCRM >> Health >> Preventive Medicine and Nutrition >> 121208The Major Killers of Americans: Research and Prevention


It does raise the question: if you feel saturated fats are not connected to heart disease, then what is?

Do you feel blood cholesterol levels are meaningful in predicting heart disease risk? What is their alternative explanation of the cause of heart disease (and why it's rising)?

No one is arguing for hormone-pumped factory-farmed meat (at least I'm not), but the debate is far from closed on whether meat is beneficial to health or not.

You do raise a good point. I agree with you they're not the same thing.

However, in modern America, it's nearly impossible to find meat that isn't grain-fed, drugged, and confined. I live in farm country where neighbors sell cattle to slaughter. Even the smaller farm's steer, who live most of their life on grass, are confined to a small lot 30-60 days before slaughter to "finish" them (fatten them up on a huge diet of grains, soy, and other additives). True grass-fed beef is difficult to find, even know it's been shown to have heath benefits from cattle fed grain.

I do agree with your sources that fat does play a role in a diet. It makes sense to me that a little fat in a meal gives a slow steady burn of energy once the simple sugars have worn off. This may not be needed if we grazed all day on real food, but most of us don't. And then there's the whole debate about which fatty acids we need and how much (eg. Omega 3's and 6s). I also agree the body needs fat, but what the Fallon/Mercola information seems to gloss over (at least the web pages I found) was that the body MAKES the lipids we need: fat, fatty acids, needed cholesterol, etc. We don't need to eat butter to store energy or have good cell membranes.


The scientists are learning new things every year. The science of nutrition is really a changing, evolving thing. I look forward to future discoveries.

[Lauxa]

Originally Posted by funchy

That's really unusual. The curiosity in me makes me want to know more. What happens if he carries around snacks of other foods such as fruit, non-meat proteins, or a non-meat fat source? What happens if he eats throughout the day, instead of 2 or 3 big meals? His symptoms sound like hypoglycemia . Docs had advised on adding protein snacks, which makes sense if that's is what he's doing. But newer thinking is that cutting out all carbs may add to insulin resistance, making the problem worse. In other words, is jerky the ideal food? If the person were to eat more often and healthier, would he still have the episodes? (sorry for all the questions -- I am curious by nature)

Well, I will agree with you -- it's really unusual!! In fact I have never heard of it before and cannot find anything about another person with these same symptoms even on Google. But for him, apparently it has to be red meat, although he claims that dark meat chicken is about 40% as effective as beef. If he goes about 2 days on just chicken he'll probably have a crash, but 1-2 sticks of beef jerky down the hatch and 15-20 minutes later he is much better. Beef broth appears to work as well. He has recently added beef sausage at breakfast (instead of turkey) and noticed marked health improvements. His working theory is that there is something essential for him that his body isn't storing/producing properly and is only found in red meat, but he hasn't been able to isolate it.

Originally Posted by funchy

So to be fair, we should be focusing on what people really do eat: the sickly, greasy, factory farmed meat products. If almost nobody has access to grass-fed, healthy, untainted meat, discussing its benefits is a moot point.

Well, I have access to grass fed beef at the farmer's market. But it is definitely more pricey and inconvenient to acquire.

One Dr who is doing alot of work on diet and heart disease is Dr Ornish. Good overview article about his work in NewsWeek.

A quick google of Mercola's site for Ornish reveals the following article (Low Grain and Carbohydrate Diets Treat Hypoglycemia, Heart Disease, Diabetes Cancer and Nearly ALL Chronic Illness):

When discussing the "dietary heart hypothesis", the work of Dean Ornish, M.D., is often cited as clinical evidence for the efficacy of dietary fat reduction. However, while Ornish is a major proponent of the "low fat diet", in his studies a number of coronary artery risk factors are addressed, in addition to the dietary changes.

In Ornish's work, study participants underwent vigorous lifestyle changes, which included smoking cessation, stress management, exercise and a low-fat (near vegan) diet (the only animal products allowed were egg whites and one cup of non-fat milk or yogurt per day).

After following these changes for one year, the experimental group did show an overall regression of atherosclerotic plaque, Ornish's study is extraordinarily important because he was able to demonstrate, in quantifiable terms to the medical community, that lifestyle changes could be as powerful as drugs in managing a serious disease. However, to extrapolate that this study proves the value of the low fat diet is fallacious.

Ornish manipulates four separate variables in his study, all of which have purported association with cardiovascular disease. To suggest that any one variable or combination of variables is more important than the other cannot be concluded from Ornish's data.

Even if diet alone is examined, there are multiple variables within the diet, that in and of themselves could have significance. Was it the omission of trans fatty acids (which have been linked to cardiovascular disease)? Was it the increase of antioxidants provided by the intake of fresh fruits and vegetables? Was it the fact that the experimental group experienced an average loss of 22 lbs?

Again, to conclude that it was the "low fat diet" which was primarily responsible for the experimental group's success (as the study is often interpreted), is quite disingenuous...

ANY diet, whether it be high fat - low fat (or anything in-between), if it promotes imbalances in fatty acid profiles, will in the long run have negative health consequences. In the mid '50s, the biochemist, anthropologist, and explorer Hugh Sinclair suggested an alternative explanation for the relationship between dietary fat and cardiovascular disease.

Sinclair noted that several people groups existed that consumed relatively high amounts of fat and yet were free of heart disease. Sinclair detailed the dietary habits of the Eskimos (previously discussed); the Masai people of Kenya who ate large quantities of ruminant milk and meat; and Jamaicans who ate large amounts of saturated fat in the form of coconut oil. All three groups, all consuming high fat diets, were relatively free from heart disease.

Sinclair suggested that the polyunsaturated profiles of these diets were protective, and concluded that the rise in cardiovascular disease was more related to their exclusion from the diet rather than the inclusion of saturated fats or cholesterol. Since Sinclair's day, our biochemical understanding of fat has increased exponentially. We now realize it is not just the polyunsaturated content of the diet, but the ratio of N-6 to N-3 polyunsaturates that may ultimately determine health.

Both dietary extremes discussed fail to introduce balance in this ratio. High carbohydrate diet due to their high grain and plant content will ultimately be low in N-3 fats (especially long chain N-3 fats - i.e. EPA/DHA), thus unbalancing the N-6/N-3 ratio. Low carbohydrate diets, in their popular form, rely heavily on commercially raised grain-fed meats and poultry (the fatty acid profile of the meat from wild game, free range beef and poultry have a significantly higher N-3 to N-6 ratio), eggs (free range hens also make better eggs) and cheeses.

A diet based on these foods will also greatly unbalance the N6/N3 ratio. Although the precise ratio remains controversial, the N6/N3 ratio should probably be in the range of 4-3/1 to optimize human health, western diets rich in vegetable oils, cereal grains and grain fed live stock, drive this ratio to an unprecedented 50-10:1. This imbalance may have implications in a host of diseases, including hyperinsulinemia, artherosclerosis and tumorgenesis.

Originally Posted by funchy

It does raise the question: if you feel saturated fats are not connected to heart disease, then what is?

Do you feel blood cholesterol levels are meaningful in predicting heart disease risk? What is their alternative explanation of the cause of heart disease (and why it's rising)?

This article addresses this question with the hypothesis that it is the imbalance of fatty acids (omega 3 to omega 6 ratio and trans-fats) that is causing the health problems (which you also mention). Like you said, almost no one eats healthy grass-fed animal products these days. But also, polyunsaturated fats like corn oil are substituted, and these are highly unstable when heated and when the bonds are broken apart they are likely to recombine as trans-fats which are even worse than saturated fats.

Oy! Thanks for drawing me into this, because I haven't been thinking about all this stuff so much lately. I have been feeling budget-strapped and not making the effort to get the high-quality foods I really should be eating.