The Anatomy of Personal Change (Blog)

[Iamsuperman]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Many veg*ans are hugely disappointed in the current state of the healthcare field (which in the USA is really sickcare) and therefore rarely visit a doctor except in case of emergency...

The vegan diet is a financial threat to the medical field (less risk of big moneymakers like cancer, heart disease, etc), while consumption of animal products is a significant long-term profit center. It's unfortunate that profits are increased when people adopt habits that encourage long-term disease.

Another problem is that ongoing education for workers in the medical field is largely controlled by those with a vested interest in prolonging disease, so doctors are incredibly misinformed on basic nutrition. Many doctors and nurses also serve as poor examples of health for their patients.

You should move to Canada

[HealingMaven]

Originally Posted by Joeschmoe

And you haven't seen people screw themselves up eating cheeseburgers?

I'm not trying to be snarky I'm just wondering what you base that on. If you work in the healthcare field wouldn't it follow that the people you see are sick, and that you don't see the large majority of people who go veg who end up feeling better and getting healthier?

How many vegetarians do you see for other reasons, that aren't diet based? Do you even know?

It seems like observational bias to me. Because, I've seen very few people who were vegetarain, vegan, or raw who "screwed themselves up." Most are healthier and happier than the average person. But that's my observational bias.

Fair questions all. I swear I wasn't trolling, just saying that I came from a different perspective and it was interesting to me to see someone challenge the assumptions. Apparently, I did a poor job of conveying that.

Honestly, the first people I saw screw themselves up (meaning crash into horrid depressions and/or started getting sick all the time) were socially -- friends and acquaintances who each went downhill about 6 months after going veggie. I have a large number of friends/acquaintances who are veggie and a number of veggie or vegan restaurants among my acquaintance. I count several people I love dearly among the non-meat inclined. I disagree with them, but they don't lecture me, & I don't lecture them.

I rarely get involved in this kind of discussion, because frankly I see it as akin to a discussion of religion -- ie, an emotional tinderbox and not my thing. Because honestly, I doubt anyone really knows. We have about 17 zillion competing theories on what is and isn't healthy, and many of the things that people KNEW were healthy 20 years ago are now considered the worst offenders and vice versa. (Example: eggs and margarine; eggs used to be the devil and margarine the "healthy substitute for butter." Partial hydrogenates anyone?) And more importantly, I'm inclined to think that some things are correct for some people and some correct for others. (Except partially hydrogenated oils -- I'm unconvinced that they have a therapeutic value for anyone. And that covers 90% of the cheeseburger eating. I think most fast food ought to be given the same warning labels as cigarettes.)

My bias is actually from alternative medicine, not western. You're right that the average doctor knows only the food pyramid and 3 squares, and I shudder at it. My background is acupuncture and chinese medicine, and I have seen a number of nonhealing patients, usually tendon/ligament issues, who get better far slower than they should for the treatment/age group, whose progress actually sped up dramatically when persuaded (usually by my mentor, but occasionally by myself) to start adding small bits of red meat into the diet.

Chinese medical theory, depending on who you talk to, (and yes, there are plenty of v*gan acupuncturists) has 2 main objections to raw food: a) raw food is harder to digest -- that cold, raw food is generally rougher on the system and can lead to digestive weakness, and b) the lack of meat can lead to certain imbalances.

The question about me seeing only sick people is very apt -- After watching Steve's 30-day trial I mentally concluded that perhaps it's doable if you're already very healthy and in a warm climate, but that I remain skeptical of the long-term safety and health of it. I wasn't surprised that he (and mentioned that others reported) getting chilly. It was what I had expected based on my training. The mental clarity was a surprise however and I find that intriguing and it tells me that in 5000 years, chinese medicine still hasn't figured it all out.

(FYI: If curious, to balance out the sensitivity to cold, if you're allowing yourself spices, I'd add things like ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, cardamom -- most any spice which sounds like it'd be good in a pumpkin pie or feels warming to the mouth aside from pepper.)

(Also FYI: not trying to "convince" anyone of a thing. Just giving my perspective. Apologies for doing it badly the first time & getting anyone's dander up.)

[moonrambler]

Well, I haven't eaten red meat in nearly 30 years and I'm very healthy. The only person I know who had problems with a vegetarian/leaning towards vegan diet is a diabetic, whose diabetes got worse and worse until he went back to eating meat. It seemed the only thing that could get him regulated and feeling good again.

I'm skeptical of the health benefits of the raw diet and vegan diet also, because I'm extremely interested in nutrition, and I haven't read anything that places raw and vegan lifestyle higher on the health/longevity scale than certain other types of diets.

If people here are feeling much better eating this way, though, I can't really argue with that.

I went on a detox diet once and after a few days I felt more energetic and very good. It allowed fruit, veggies, brown and basmati rice, and that's about it. The only problem was, no matter how much I ate, I still felt hungry. I had intense cravings for ice cream. I figured I would feel more energetic if I stayed on a diet like this, but man, I love all this other food so very much, I did not want to give it up.

[HealingMaven]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Red meat is very healthy -- if you're a cancer cell.

Honestly, I'm not convinced. I've seen so many studies, both for and against, that I'm fairly convinced that most people doing studies know squat.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Many veg*ans are hugely disappointed in the current state of the healthcare field (which in the USA is really sickcare) and therefore rarely visit a doctor except in case of emergency. So it makes sense that you wouldn't see many healthy veg*ans walking through your office door. Most tend to avoid a service that profits from disease except as a last resort.

Sigh. I'm right there with you. As I just posted above, I'm not in the traditional health care field and I'm frankly terrified of being at their mercy. I've learned a lot of things from a lot of perspectives, and almost none of them agree with your GOOD results from the raw diet. But theory is theory and fact is fact.

If your diet works for you, it's clearly good -- for you, for right now. The average American's diet is such Pure Crap that most people could probably benefit from a change like you took, at least for a few months. I'm still unconvinced of it's viability in the long term, but I'm keeping an open mind about it. I think the biggest reason it works so well for you is that you're eating no processed foods. Honestly, a lot of veggie food I see in the local co-op worries me because it's nearly as processed, plastic-ed and packaged as anything Kraft sells. To borrow a phrase from an endocrinologist I've read, if you can't pick it, fish it, hunt it, or milk it, I'm kind of suspicious of it.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

The vegan diet is a financial threat to the medical field (less risk of big moneymakers like cancer, heart disease, etc), while consumption of animal products is a significant long-term profit center. It's unfortunate that profits are increased when people adopt habits that encourage long-term disease.

The sheer bloody weakness of preventive and/or curative care in this country make me furious. But I genuinely have my doubts about how much animal products themselves rather than what manufacturers *do* to them is to blame.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Many doctors and nurses also serve as poor examples of health for their patients.
(...snip...)
In a contest between doctors and patients to test basic nutritional knowledge, the patients won.

True enough -- it's an overworked, overstressed field that comes from a perspective of looking at disease rather than health. (To quote a snarky friend of mine - doctors learned by studying DEAD bodies. Something is wrong with that.) It's why I went left of "normal" (to acupuncture and chinese medicine), and I actually consider it a requirement of my job to be a good example. I have no doubt that my health and diet are improvable, but given that for the last 2 years I've improved it enough to have weaned myself off of all the asthma and allergy medicine I was on, I think I'm heading in the right direction. I went from 2 daily preventative medicines + one "emergency" inhaler being used 2-3x/week, to no daily medicines and using the emergency inhaler 2x in the last 20 months. I can't begin to tell you how happy I am with that. (My primary changes though were self-treating and exercise, not quite so much diet change.)

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I remember when our daughter was having a minor health problem when she was a baby, the doctor said it was definitely the result of a dairy allergy. He was very certain that his diagnosis was correct. Erin and I both looked at each other, thinking, "This guy is a dufus!" Our daughter had never consumed dairy products in her life.

Oi. I have WAY TOO MANY "dufus" stories. Something in the way doctors are trained has them SO CONVINCED that they are Always Right. I'm convinced that the willingness to be wrong (and ask a couple of extra questions) is a lot more important to healthcare than they're being trained to believe. The problem is, doctors really are screwed by the HMO system almost as much as the patients are. They don't have the luxury of actually talking to a patient for 20+ minutes the way I do. I have a lot of sympathy for them, and I would not want their job.

As I said in the last post, I genuinely did not mean to come across as trolling -- I gave my background for (what I thought was) the humor aspect -- that even this mild carnivore loves reading the veggie posts. Again, I apologize that it clearly came across poorly.

[munish]

Originally Posted by HealingMaven

Honestly, I'm not convinced.

There is one more study.
Red meat consumption doubles risk of colon cancer, says study; is it time to go vegetarian yet?

[Steve Pavlina]

@HealingMaven: It's refreshing to interact with someone from the healthcare field that's as open-minded and curious as you appear to be. It doesn't surprise me you work in alternative medicine.

I read that the AMA actually has a part of their annual budget devoted to discrediting alternative medicine, especially chiropractic.

You may find a lot of eye-opening info in John Robbins' books. He does an extremely thorough job of exploring diet from all angles.

One of the things I've found is that when I see a pro-meat study, it can typically be traced back to the meat and dairy industries. The most neutral and unbiased studies I've seen have been highly pro-veg. Of course you see some biased ones on the veg side too, especially regarding soy.

One of the most important things to consider is whether each study is whole or fragmented. A fragmented approach (singling out the health benefits of some small compound in a larger food without respect to the holistic effect of th food) is largely worthless. The meat and dairy industries (as well as the alcohol industry) love to stress fragmented studies.

I tend to use studies only to get ideas for personal trials, so I allow my body to be the ultimate judge. Those are the results I trust the most. For example, being able to measure my increase in endurance and strength during my January raw trial and then seeing those factors decline again when I returned to a cooked whole foods vegan diet was a big eye-opener.

As far as raw foods not digesting well, they actually digest more quickly and easily than cooked food. When I eat nothing but raw fruit and veggies for a while (no fat), it passes through my stomach quickly and gives me a burst of energy.

[HealingMaven]

Originally Posted by munish

There is one more study.
Red meat consumption doubles risk of colon cancer, says study; is it time to go vegetarian yet?

Thank you. I appreciate the effort to save my soul. But you accidentally sent me to a great example of the things that drive me crazy on the internet -- the plethora of available health info that's without anything to back it up. It says the there was a study in JAMA, but it doesn't say what issue or where the study took place so that I can look up said study and draw my own conclusions. Being unfamiliar with the author, I have no clue if he's highly reputable, just another random person spouting their opinion as fact, or anywhere in between.

Whenever I read articles like this, I think "what high school let this guy graduate without learning how to give footnotes??" Without a source to back it up, it's an opinion (or gossip) at best.

I just have to add that I find it surreal to be turned into the advocate for meat because I play devil's advocate. (Yes, I can see the irony to that sentence.) I'm not a die-hard carnivore and like to eat red meat more rarely than what I've learned is optimal for a woman of my age.

[Joeschmoe]

I agree, but s simple search on red meat and colon cancer gives better results. I always try to find reputable sources when I post to forums, but it can be difficult.

For instance:
ACS :: Eating Lots of Red Meat Linked to Colon Cancer

[HealingMaven]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I read that the AMA actually has a part of their annual budget devoted to discrediting alternative medicine, especially chiropractic.

I'm not terribly surprised by this, but I suspect that's a legacy item from decades-old politics. I believe, (not sure) that when chiropractic was first developed as a field (late 1800s) it was highly touted as a cure-all, thus being in direct competition with the AMA (I think some DCs still follow this train of thought, but I believe it's considered fairly old school and not the mainstream.) My understanding is that acu/chinese medicine has been promoted by western medicine in recent years, to "Complimentary" instead of "Alternative," and has even been taught about as such in med schools & nursing schools for the last few years.

I do wonder however if that part of the budget still exists though.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

You may find a lot of eye-opening info in John Robbins' books. He does an extremely thorough job of exploring diet from all angles.

I will add him to my list, thank you. (Looong list.) I should learn how to photoread.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

One of the things I've found is that when I see a pro-meat study, it can typically be traced back to the meat and dairy industries. The most neutral and unbiased studies I've seen have been highly pro-veg. Of course you see some biased ones on the veg side too, especially regarding soy.

See, I used to think that. Then one of my professors back at school started handing out articles from what he said was a nonprofit research organization with a lot of really good arguments that were pro-meat, pro-dairy, etc, some of which I recognized from other legit places. One of the articles was even something you've posted about -- about microwave food not being as healthy as conventionally cooked food. I believe the argument used was that the microwave altered the protein structures of serotonin precursors and linking the microwave to the epidemic of depression, among other things.

The articles were always fully footnoted from what appeared to be legit sources. I admit that I did not follow up on those footnotes because at the time I was taking 7-8 classes/semester and it was a bit beyond me time-wise. I always did wonder about them in the back of my mind, if they were legit or not.

*insert 45 minutes of searching old email here* Aha! Found them again! The Weston A Price Foundation is full of interesting articles on the healthiness of indigenous diets. The article on beef particularly can be found here:
Myths and Truths About Beef

It continues to pass a surface examination like it did last time I checked them out. It *looks* legit, but I've always wondered about it... If anyone knows anything for certain, (and of course, can back it up) I'd be quite interested in hearing it. I'll probably look into it myself later in the weekend, and will happily report any results that I find.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

One of the most important things to consider is whether each study is whole or fragmented. A fragmented approach (singling out the health benefits of some small compound in a larger food without respect to the holistic effect of th food) is largely worthless. The meat and dairy industries (as well as the alcohol industry) love to stress fragmented studies.

A good point. I am personally skeptical of all studies I haven't actually looked at. Many that look good in the abstract have awful methodological flaws if you look closely. (Offhand, I'm remembering a couple of acupuncture studies where the "control group" received different points that could also be helpful for the conditions being tested. Clearly, the people choosing the points didn't know a lot about chinese medicine.) Of course, as I haven't yet learned to photoread, there's an awful lot of material that's been on my skeptical list for years.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

As far as raw foods not digesting well, they actually digest more quickly and easily than cooked food. When I eat nothing but raw fruit and veggies for a while (no fat), it passes through my stomach quickly and gives me a burst of energy.

I knew I was going to get myself in trouble with that one. Trying to translate from chinese medicine concepts to english isn't always easy and I oversimplified. So I'll unsimplify a bit and stick the other foot in my mouth.

The more literal concept is that cold and/or raw food harm or overwork the digestive qi. (Qi can be translated roughly as energy/function, same is ki in various martial arts) The dominant thought is that over time, too much cold or raw food either cools or weakens the digestive fire as it has to work harder to transform it to energy (qi). This is the concept/theory. The best english/science translation I've heard of this is two-fold:

1. The body's enzymes work most efficiently at 98.6 F, eating cold food slows down the reactions and weakens the body.

2. Raw food has more nutrients than cooked, but it's less bioavailable. The body can't actually break down the cellulose in plant cell walls very well making it harder to get to what's inside. Cooking veggies lightly is considered ideal -- just enough to break down those cell walls. (ie, cook just until the colors were brighter, before they could become dull again)

The ramifications of this are actually slightly greater than just the digestion, because the theory continues (logically enough) that if your digestive qi is weak, it can't then power the rest of the body. (and we're back to slight oversimplification. Apologies, but I'm trying to turn 4 years of grad school into a few paragraphs.)

The explanation for meat is more complicated, less universally accepted, and much less easy to translate, so I'm not going to pick up that challenge in a public forum. Not until I've been treating for another 10 years, and by then I may disagree with myself.

You're giving my brain quite a workout today, Steve. (As usual.)

[HealingMaven]

Originally Posted by Joeschmoe

I agree, but s simple search on red meat and colon cancer gives better results. I always try to find reputable sources when I post to forums, but it can be difficult.

For instance:
ACS :: Eating Lots of Red Meat Linked to Colon Cancer

That one looks a lot more interesting/valid to me. Thank you. I'll definitely be looking at it.

[munish]

Originally Posted by HealingMaven

Whenever I read articles like this, I think "what high school let this guy graduate without learning how to give footnotes??"

But you may agree with this.

It is a tragedy that a doctor has to make his living by taking care of those , who abuse their bodies by eating wrong kind of food, and who don't exercise.

I never ate meat in my life. (Eating meat is considered as a sin by Hindus.) Though, i don't follow any religion.

Eating meat is also not the healthiest way to feed your body.

Why not try veg. food and try for yourself, instead of asking others?

[MasterD]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

As far as raw foods not digesting well, they actually digest more quickly and easily than cooked food. When I eat nothing but raw fruit and veggies for a while (no fat), it passes through my stomach quickly and gives me a burst of energy.

Same experience here. Digestion time down to ~ 18 hours in that case.