Vegetarian iq?

[Donatas Kaulinis]

Moved to LivinLaVidaLowCarb.com/Blog: Study: Vegans Brainless, But Vegetarians And Almost Vegetarians Are The Smart Ones?
I have been vegetarian for 2 months now. But damn it it's hard for the layman in biology/diets to understand if and how what you eat effects you. I certaintly had more energy in this diet. But the problem is I haven't seen/talked to/read something from vegetarians/vegans/raw foodists that would strike me as intelligent (excluding steve's writing of course ). Most of them seem like hippy dippy people who just believe and look somewhat like religious fundamentalists. And that's the last group I would like to associate myself with. I value knowledge and intelligence a lot.

Also have plans experimenting on increasing my iq substantially (if someone thinks it's impossible for whatever reason please keep it to yourselves). And everything would count doing that. So any thoughts about effects of veganism, vegetarianism etc. on intelligence from people with similar diets?

The link which I provided has some interesting writing about that topic. The author quoted Dr. Rameet S. Uberoi:

.As a meat eater it gives me great pleasure in avoiding problems such as a lack of essential amino acids, anemia and subacute combined degeneration of the cord. Even the highest rates of food poisoning are attributed to greens based salads. I eagerly join Denmark and New York in turning to animal fats as industrially produced trans-fats have become the new source of all our problems. Eating meat is not all that bad after all.

I'm very sorry if I am ignorant and there are in fact a lot of brilliant people with cruelety-free diets. What scientists are there who have made reasonably important contributions to the scientific community who are also vegetarians/vegans/raw foodists?

My friends sister who is studying medicine right now said that I might get mental retardation from a lack of essential amino acids. So why isn't Steve closed in a facility yet?

Thank you very much for your input

[Medusa locked]

Hi, interesting study.

I think that the common deficiency that vegans risk is B12. Maybe that has something to do with intelligence.

I used to be a vegetarian for about 5 years. I never became a twit though.

[Kaie]

I am a veg, and am very intelligent! Most of the vegans I know are as well. Interesting post though, I have never considered these factors.

[firenexx]

Statistically, vegans might be brainless. Statistically, vegans are probably mostly McVegans and eat a whole lot of processed crap that is meant to imitate "real food" because they don't know how to cook or eat and they don't know a daikon radish from a parsnip.
So if most vegans and vegetarians are McVegans and McVegetarians, then the vegans would be dumber because they would eat MORE of the fake processed imitation crap, which is full of preservatives and MSG and ♥♥♥♥, which would make their brains suffer as a result. So in addition to eating fake meat I'm eating fake sour cream and fake cheese and fake yogurt. Have you ever looked on the ingredients on these things? (I'm not talking about the rare exception. Also, I don't actually eat those things, don't worry.)

My friends sister who is studying medicine right now said that I might get mental retardation from a lack of essential amino acids.

Your friend's sister is dumb. (Sorry for the non-scientific answer. But really, that is a very dumb thing for her to say.)

I think that the common deficiency that vegans risk is B12. Maybe that has something to do with intelligence.

This is true, but it is important to remember that non-vegans also have a very significant risk of B12 deficiency. This is due to lifestyle/diet choices and lack of trace cobalt in the depleted soil that food is grown in (or livestock feed) rather than the presence or lack of irradiated, cooked meat or pasteurized dairy in the diet (which wouldn't contain B12 anyways because of the cooking and pasteurizing and lack of trace cobalt in the livestock feed.)

[Andrew Gubb]

Scare tactics. Lack of essential amino acids. It takes about 3 minutes to disprove that forever with a google search. Just find out which amino acids vegetarian food has. It's not so frikkin hard. While you're at it you can find out just how much protein is actually needed by the human body, from a - admittedly vague and nonreputable - source like, you know, The World Health Organisation: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/WHO_TRS_935_eng.pdf

The value accepted for the safe level of intake
is 0.83 g/kg per day, for proteins with a protein digestibility-corrected amino
acid score value of 1.0.

Working from this value, you can do the numbers and see that there is more than enough protein in a calorie sufficient diet consisting of only potatoes. Or any other starchy staple food. Add in nuts and legumes and you'll probably get to double your needs or more.

[Kaie]

Wow, most of my vegan friends eat much better than me, and I am an ovo lacto veg (not mcveg*n.) I know there are plenty of Mcveg*ns, but ignorance in one area doesn't mean dumb all around.

I agree with AG, scare tactics, but then again, everything has a grain of truth, so make your own decision about what is right for you.

BTW, when I was an unhappily married lady, I ate omni, and I was so unhealthy, eating processed (but from the "health food" store ) I had extra weight and was definitely *dumb!*

Now I am awesome, and my intelligence is so brilliant it will blind you!

[JDuff]

It depends how we are defining intelligence. You seem to be equating it with IQ. If this is the case, then it may determined within certain boundaries by your genes, although I'd be interested in hearing it can be substantially increased (my mind is open!). But improving it will probably have less to do with what you eat, and more to do with taking practise IQ tests, practising logic and philosophy, doing puzzles and crosswords and the like.

If you mean something more akin to living well, then the proof is in the pudding so to speak. But people with very high IQ's can be unhealthy, and people with very low IQ's can be healthy. There is also emotional intelligence (and probably many other types).

[Medusa locked]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

Scare tactics. Lack of essential amino acids. It takes about 3 minutes to disprove that forever with a google search. Just find out which amino acids vegetarian food has.

So, is it a myth that vegetarians need to combine grain and legumes to synthesize the amino acids that meat eaters get?

[Andrew Gubb]

Originally Posted by Medusa locked

So, is it a myth that vegetarians need to combine grain and legumes to synthesize the amino acids that meat eaters get?

Very much so. The concept of protein combining was repeatedly discredited and the author of the book that popularised it actually changed his mind about it afterwards.

Amino acids are stored (as you would expect) and so the body can form the right combinations from a pool gained from many meals and not just one. With a varied diet you'll get enough of all amino acids to be absolutely fine.

[Medusa locked]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

Very much so. The concept of protein combining was repeatedly discredited and the author of the book that popularised it actually changed his mind about it afterwards.

Amino acids are stored (as you would expect) and so the body can form the right combinations from a pool gained from many meals and not just one. With a varied diet you'll get enough of all amino acids to be absolutely fine.

What I find strange about the whole food combining concept, is how it emphasizes on what you SHOULDN'T eat together. It ought to be called food separating.

[Kaie]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

Very much so. The concept of protein combining was repeatedly discredited and the author of the book that popularised it actually changed his mind about it afterwards.

Amino acids are stored (as you would expect) and so the body can form the right combinations from a pool gained from many meals and not just one. With a varied diet you'll get enough of all amino acids to be absolutely fine.

* nods head*

[C33]

Is this a product you'd recommend?
A personal trainer recommended this to me ages ago, and I've been using it as a substitute for soy sauce for years.

[Andrew Gubb]

Originally Posted by Donatas Kaulinis

I'm very sorry if I am ignorant and there are in fact a lot of brilliant people with cruelety-free diets. What scientists are there who have made reasonably important contributions to the scientific community who are also vegetarians/vegans/raw foodists?

I forgot to answer this bit.

Colin Campbell is the author of "The China Study" and went vegan (though he eschews the term as he doesn't want to associate himself with all of the baggage it has) because of the conclusions of the scientific work he has done. The study which gave name to the book (though the book is about more than that) was called by the New York Times "The Grand Prix of Epidemiology".

Apart from that I have a vegan scientist friend... however, she isn't, as far as I know, a major player in terms of famous studies or anything like that. Mind you, she's not a high profile person personality-wise and I suspect the other people she works with take a lot of the credit. One of the teams she worked on had a pretty amazing discovery to do with scent. They found that fruit flies can tell the difference between two molecules that are exactly the same but with different isotopes of hydrogen. With that they worked out that scent isn't based on the lock-and-key molecule model as it was thought, but something more quantum-mechanical.

This has techonological ramifications - you can use this information to mimick almost any scent. But I'm not sure what the status of that discovery was. I think there were some troubles with the peer review (as far as I know, unjustified). That's the trouble with science; it's a good system but in the end humans are still human.

[Andrew Gubb]

While we're on scientists I could mention Frederic Patenaude's Dr. X. The Story of Dr. X | Frederic Patenaude Raw Foods Diet

I know it's markety but Frederic's stuff is at least honest. So there's a story of a vegan, raw-foodist scientist.

[NoWMDs]

My mother has been a vegetarian for about 30 years. She's 78 and the healthiest person I know. She takes no medications and has been to a doctor only for well visits for many years now (save an occasional toothache or sore throat). Point being, she has suffered no health problems as a result of her vegetarian diet. (Note: the "no WMDs" label refers to no wheat meat or dairy - the diet I follow)