[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'W')hy it matters what you eat:

Vandana Shiva: Why We Face Both Food and Water Crises

http://www.alternet.org/story/85433/

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Serial_Worrier', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'N')ot true unless you are completely unaware of factory farming methods.
Egg laying chickens live what a human would see as a hell on earth existence. Males are extricated as soon as the eggs hatch and promptly burned, usually alive. When the layer slows down production about 1 year to 18 months old, she is made into stock cubes.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'A')nd so are invalid for some reason? Or what are you saying, because something is a first worlder "indulgence" it has no significance?

[Narz]

I was vegan for about three years. I was fine. I feel slightly better on an omnivorous diet with vegan food + occasional eggs, butter & salmon.

People who are like "OMG, if you're vegan your toenails will fall off" annoy me though. Some people seem to do ok on vegan, it's not really for me though, melted butter is just too good. Land flesh is not very ecologically appropriate though unless you raise it yourself or get it locally. I suppose if I craved chicken or red meat I might try to get some free-range flesh but I honestly feel no need for it. Salmon is the best tasting flesh & the healthiest so it's all I ever have outside the plant realm (besides organic butter & eggs).

[Narz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'A')nd so are invalid for some reason? Or what are you saying, because something is a first worlder "indulgence" it has no significance?

[careinke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') think the important point is that everyone's physiology is slightly different. Some people can be healthy on a vegan diet, other people will become ill. Some people can eat a grain-based diet and be fine, others will get extremely sick and possibly die on such a diet (Celiac disease).

Everyone should try to work out the diet that best suits their physiology and ethics. There's no "one size fits all" diet for people.

Personally I'm now on a Paleo diet - no grain - because this is a diet I am most likely to be able to raise for myself. It's very different from what I used to eat being mostly vegetarian and, for a short time, vegan.

http://www.nerdheaven.dk/~jevk/paleo_intro.php#menus

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Narz', '[')Shoot, in California (where I lived when I was vegan) it's possible for anyone (vegan or not) to live on 100% local food.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I')f food is apolitical, then how is my diet considered yuppie elitism? It is just my diet.

[eastbay]

One thing about vegans baffles me. I know, I've read all about the supposed harm such a diet can inflict on a body and mind, yet I'll shortly start my seventh year on a vegetarian diet which, if not for egg whites and cheese, would be vegan and thus far I don't believe I've been damaged. As I prepare to exit my late middle age and enter the 'golden years', this diet has allowed me to retain my health (as far as I know) and, for example, bench press 315 and run 10 k without difficulty. I feel more energetic than when I was much younger and continue to remain on the go all day.

My question is why are so many vegans skinny and unhealthy looking? (Ok, maybe it's a stereotype, and they're on average just as healthy as any meat-eater ... but this is the common impression.) Assuming this is true, why do some fall apart and others do not? How can this be? Is it possibly due to other lifestyle choices? I hear over and over again that the vegan diet is generally destructive and few remain on it for long without 'bad stuff happening'. Yet my experience is quite the opposite. I have many +50 year old friends who manage quite well after many years and even decades on a vegetarian diet.

So ... what gives? Why are so many vegans slowly falling apart while others don't?

[sparky]

.
Sea gypsy , i've worked in the slaughter yards of Smorgon in Footscray ,
it didn't make me Vegan ( but nearly did , that was like a Death camp ..only worst )

mattduke , good on you ! do whatever you feel is right
If you want to feel like superman try the paleo-diet ,based on what our teeth are for
red lean meat ,vegs ,, wine , cheese is fine too so is sea food
anything else but grain crops or sugars .
you eat once a day , in the evening ...no snacks or cans of soft drinks
we are time programmed ,
at first it feel like you are hungry then you get in the groove

[jedrider]

I went on a Vegan diet, almost two years now, mostly for health reasons, losing soom excess weight, not that it was much, but just what accumulates, it seems all in the same place, in the mid stomach area. When I do it right and eliminate the refined carbohydrates, the weight and appetite all come in line. It's like meditation, at first, you just have to exercise a little discipline and then it becomes easy.

Took a long backpacking hike recently and realized the value in physical labor, that your body works so hard, that the food intake must exactly balance the body's requirements for nutrients. That is just a data point. The dried food packs they sell for hiking expeditions usually have mostly grain and a few very small pieces of meat -- I'm not a religious nut about veganism.

So basically, my point is "we eat too much" and everything we do is "too much" and that is why we are killing the planet! Also, why in hell would anyone persist in a diet that was obvioulsy making them ill? In my case, I would add making them overweight, as well.

[BlisteredWhippet]

I'm pretty hardcore. Last weekend I was walking in the woods and grabbed a random leaf and, chewed, and swallowed. I think it had hair, I felt it going down. From a stringy, vine looking low-growing plant. I feel ok, no difference. But I wonder how many wild organic compunds entered my system, phytochemicals, phytotoxins, along with the carbs, lipids and proteins. Not enough to kill me I suppose. Maybe its because of all those millions of years of my anscestors eating a little of everything. What they endured what a state of constant stimulation from a much wider array of compounds. What the fossil record suggests is that Paleolithic people were extremely fleet of foot, like an Olympia sprinter, and strong, like an MMA or bodybuilder. And I'm pretty sure they didn't have "Pork Rinds" for snacks. I'm sure a whole hell of a lot of them succumbed from saturated fats after bearing their children- those that lived that long. Today, we live unnaturally long lifespans. Our rationale for the food we eat must be qualitatively different. Because as children of their children, we are suseptible to the damage of a high fat animal protein diet. They were -> We are. We make bad food choices -> So did they. But we have the benefit of hindsight. Hindsight proved that maybe the native americans should not have gorged themselves on Vitamin A rich foods like Raw bear liver. It shortened their lifespans. Similarly, today they should not be gorging themselves on wheat flour and cooking oil in frybreads, because that makes them obese. A successful diet is an adaptation to your environment. The benefit is health.

Exercise is the other half that gives resistance. The reason so many Vegans look unhealthy is because they are probably running out of calories, protein, fats, or trace minerals of something, and not be aware that it is happening. If they are not exercising, they are surely not in touch with what is happening inside their bodies. Starvation of different kinds will bring on a sort of trance-like state in many people. And the body is very efficient at being able to burn the furniture to keep the house warm.

Health + Resistance is the foundation for Strength. Strength lends itself to Endurance and Agility. Knock out health or resistance by being out of shape or eating poorly and strength, agility and endurance will decrease.

This can be expressed

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')itness = (H + R)^(S+E+A)

[Dezakin]

Veganism always struck me as mostly pretentious nonsense that makes it harder to be healthy. But I'm glad there's so many vegans to prop up the market for foods those with egg and dairy allergies. There's some amount of irony about taking vegan food and putting slabs of meat on it I guess. So I thank all the vegans for having such a silly obsession.

[lulubel]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', 'O')ne thing about vegans baffles me. I know, I've read all about the supposed harm such a diet can inflict on a body and mind, yet I'll shortly start my seventh year on a vegetarian diet which, if not for egg whites and cheese, would be vegan and thus far I don't believe I've been damaged...My question is why are so many vegans skinny and unhealthy looking?

[Umber]

Micho Kushi, grand poobah of the macrobiotic diet, was operated on for colon cancer recently. His wife died of cancer. One daughter died of cancer. Two friends of mine were married to women who were macrobiotic. One of the women died of cancer in her middle forties, one in her early fifties.

Of all the people I’ve known who were vegetarian, and I’ve known more than a few during the course of my life, most were sick at least half the time. Only a very few of them could do a day’s worth of hard physical work without keeling over.

Back about 1985 I had a number of friends help me put up trusses and roof a house I was building on a few acres I had bought in a little backwoods town in north-central MA. The work made for a long, physically demanding day. One of the guys was my best friend and had become macrobiotic when he married a woman who convinced him to eat as she did… his wife was one of the women I mentioned above who died at a young age. He lasted less than half the morning before he was completely done in. The rest of my animal eating buddies were still chugging along as we nailed down the last of the roof shingles, tired but not much the worse for wear.

My friend’s obvious weakness and lack of endurance (he had worked framing houses at one point in his life, so hard physical work was not a new concept) shocked him enough to convince him to drop the diet and take up his old meat eating habits again. When he did, he soon regained his strength and vigor. His wife almost divorced him because he went back to eating some meat, eggs and milk products. I would have perhaps been better for him if she had.

When someone with oozing skin lesions shows them to me, as my friend’s wife did, and proudly announced that it’s “the poisons leaving her body” I have to wonder if their thought processes as well as their health have not been degraded by malnutrition. Being a vegetarian = good health? I’m not convinced. Eggs + milk and milk products + vegetables is a much, much better way to go if you want to get away from eating meat.

As always, YMMV.

Umber

[Ibon]

It's nice to all take a moment to reflect how the mind can create these obsessions that cause us to depart from common sense.

Seeing these vegan obsessions can be instructive as it is an opportunity for all of us to ask ourselves..........am I free of obsessions that cloud my judgement?

[vision-master]

Vegan is religion.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lulubel', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', 'O')ne thing about vegans baffles me. I know, I've read all about the supposed harm such a diet can inflict on a body and mind, yet I'll shortly start my seventh year on a vegetarian diet which, if not for egg whites and cheese, would be vegan and thus far I don't believe I've been damaged...My question is why are so many vegans skinny and unhealthy looking?

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'I')t's nice to all take a moment to reflect how the mind can create these obsessions that cause us to depart from common sense.

Seeing these animal-eating carnivore obsessions can be instructive as it is an opportunity for all of us to ask ourselves..........am I free of obsessions that cloud my judgement?