Are vegetarians crazy?

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by rpmGator

If you can't buy what I grow, you have no clue what taste's better. I do as I have tried both....

Fairchild mango's just kick ass and when you find one to buy, jump on it. Only one place in Florida sells them, I just walk out to my tree. More convenient that cranking my truck to go shopping, for sure.

I also just planted a Tebow mango. It is a cross of the best tasting mango grown in Florida, with another that increases yield. Way more things to eat than what you have in any store.

Food fanatics seriously need to make up their minds. On the one hand, they insist that their homegrown food tastes better than the 'packaged crap' you're eating. On the other hand, it is a staple argument of theirs that processed food is so addicting because 'evil food manufacturers' have found a way to excite the brain's pleasure centers in a way that Mother Nature can't.

[scrappygator]

The main stress I see in vegetarians/vegans is at a restaurant worrying the $hit out of wait staff if they are SURE this was cooked in olive oil, has no dairy products, the french fries were cooked in peanut oil ad nauseum. With a vegan yesterday that did all of this and then ate some of our unvegan appetizer anyway. If was the waitress I would have slapped her.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by scrappygator

The main stress I see in vegetarians/vegans is at a restaurant worrying the $hit out of wait staff if they are SURE this was cooked in olive oil, has no dairy products, the french fries were cooked in peanut oil ad nauseum. With a vegan yesterday that did all of this and then ate some of our unvegan appetizer anyway. If was the waitress I would have slapped her.

Heard a vegan author interviewed on NPR the other day. She was actually a breath of fresh air, not such a fanatic at all. She suggested gradual adjustments to veggies. And confessed that she herself was an adherent of the "10% rule", meaning she didn't stress out over whether her restaurant veggies were cooked with animal products.

[rpmGator]

Please don't get away from teaching bicep curls, as your food opinion is quite dangerous to many.

Preservatives keeping people preserved is the worst food advice, I have ever heard.

For one, sodium is one of the most often used preservatives. For those that see their blood pressure increased by over use of salt, hidden sodium in foods can kill.

Add in strokes, which women suffer from also, and your advice to eat poorly is dangerous to many.

When you count sodium mg's, you will pass your limit before you ever put a speck of salt on anything. Your packaged crap will taste good, but that comes with a price.

I made my own Datil pepper sauce for my bar-b-q last night, grow my own peppers. I doubt your 7-11 diet is better for you. On taste, to each his own and if junk food is what you prefer, so be it. I will stick to making my own foods, growing what I can, looking before I buy.

You might want to check how many get sick from food sources each year. So much so, the FDA has changed tactics to prevent, instead of react to food born illness.

Your advice on health, is something most should take with a grain of salt.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by rpmGator

Please don't get away from teaching bicep curls, as your food opinion is quite dangerous to many.

Preservatives keeping people preserved is the worst food advice, I have ever heard.

For one, sodium is one of the most often used preservatives. For those that see their blood pressure increased by over use of salt, hidden sodium in foods can kill.

Add in strokes, which women suffer from also, and your advice to eat poorly is dangerous to many.

When you count sodium mg's, you will pass your limit before you ever put a speck of salt on anything. Your packaged crap will taste good, but that comes with a price.

I made my own Datil pepper sauce for my bar-b-q last night, grow my own peppers. I doubt your 7-11 diet is better for you. On taste, to each his own and if junk food is what you prefer, so be it. I will stick to making my own foods, growing what I can, looking before I buy.

You might want to check how many get sick from food sources each year. So much so, the FDA has changed tactics to prevent, instead of react to food born illness.

Your advice on health, is something most should take with a grain of salt.

Thanks for reminding me that, based on recent studies, the forebodings on salt are to be taken with a grain of salt. Additionally, you likely missed the new studies that showed that organic produce is no more nutritious than non-organic produce.

You're a regular blowhard. First, I don't teach biceps curls. Rather, I teach them that two miles walking a day is all they need to make them strong as a horse. *chortles*

Neither do I advise them on health. Rather, knowing that they are going to die (you do know you're going to die, don't you ?), and that food is yummy, they learn to savor smaller amounts of the foods they enjoy, they lose weight, their health markers improve, and then their doctors scratch their heads and inquire, "Have you gone organic ?"

Yes, that was a little warranted sarcasm on my part.

[UFNut]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner

Thanks for reminding me that, based on recent studies, the forebodings on salt are to be taken with a grain of salt. Additionally, you likely missed the new studies that showed that organic produce is no more nutritious than non-organic produce.

You're a regular blowhard. First, I don't teach biceps curls. Rather, I teach them that two miles walking a day is all they need to make them strong as a horse. *chortles*

Neither do I advise them on health. Rather, knowing that they are going to die (you do know you're going to die, don't you ?), and that food is yummy, they learn to savor smaller amounts of the foods they enjoy, they lose weight, their health markers improve, and then their doctors scratch their heads and inquire, "Have you gone organic ?"

Yes, that was a little warranted sarcasm on my part.

Perhaps organic isn't more nutritious, but it's likely to be cleaner/safer. Though I'm aware that isn't always the case. Just like a local market where I live sells something that says wild salmon on the front of the glass, but on the sticker after they wrap your meat it says farmed Scottish Salmon.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by UFNut

Perhaps organic isn't more nutritious, but it's likely to be cleaner/safer. Though I'm aware that isn't always the case. Just like a local market where I live sells something that says wild salmon on the front of the glass, but on the sticker after they wrap your meat it says farmed Scottish Salmon.

As memory serves, in a compilation of 300 studies, only three studies showed pesticide residue levels in excess of government standards.

And I don't recall that they even washed the produce beforehand as a typical consumer would.

[kkg8r]

Wow. Crazy thread.
Here is where Dream and I disagree. Our food system in America is completely unhealthy. Having lived overseas for quite some time, the difference in their food versus ours is glaringly different. From shelf life of breads/veggies to the color of egg yolks, food there is simply produced better. Now, do I think that this food is causing us to be fat? Not really... that's our fat asses eating too much and playing Xbox.

If you think meeting "government standards" means something, then you're as crazy as vegetarians. (See what I did there? Back on the topic.)

[Dreamliner]

Sure, but who sets the standards ? I know people who strongly maintain:

*sugar is killing us

*grains are killing us

*red meat is killing us

*eating fewer than nine servings of veggies is killing us

*less nitrogen in the soil is killing us

*too little potassium is killing us

*too much salt is killing us





*too little boric acid is killing us

*too many Omega 6's are killing us

[Dreamliner]

Alarm bells were sounded, on this board, about rat poison in artificial sweeteners, based on rat studies.

This is why I counsel all my clients to strive for fewer than 59 cans a day of diet soda.

[kkg8r]

yeah, but that's not everyone. I think that there are too many hormones &chemicals in our food. That is all. Sugar is good. Especially when it comes in the form of wine (ok, and cupcakes). Red meat is good, but I buy organic and grass fed.

I also don't like how many genetically modified foods there are our there. How long does it take the human species to evolve?

[LeafUF]

I evolved just this morning.

[Dreamliner]

Both the additives and evolutionary arguments just seem a little squishy and pseudo-scientific to me. Recall that it was argued that we haven't evolved sufficiently to accommodate grains, which is why we're not as healthy as our paleolithic forebears ... even though their average lifespan was something like thirty years.

But you may be onto something nonetheless. Clearly Americans are not interested in eating less, moving more and simplifying their lives so as to reduce stress. But maybe they'll be up for avoiding those fake blueberries in packaged muffins that are said to be killing us.

Seriously, I have an acquaintance who's so fat that she waddles and she's pestering everybody she knows to take leucine tablets.

[UFNut]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner

Alarm bells were sounded, on this board, about rat poison in artificial sweeteners, based on rat studies.

This is why I counsel all my clients to strive for fewer than 59 cans a day of diet soda.

Lol, it'll be tough but I will try dream.

I recently read that all coca cola products contain trace amounts of cocaine (which is actually true, due to use of the plant extract for flavor) also, drugs are bad mkay.

[mamag8ter]

Originally Posted by LeafUF

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22676203#

According to this study, they just may be. Now we just need to find out if you have to be crazy to be a vegetarian or if being a vegetarian makes you crazy.

Lol Leaf. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

[mamag8ter]

Originally Posted by fubar1

I honestly think many vegetarians/vegans, etc are just too uptight. Worry too much about things they honestly can't control, which leads down the path of an ultimate unhealthy end to one's life.

But that really has nothing to do with deciding if a vegetarian lifestyle is healthier than the alternative, which I believe it is.

It just speaks to stress being the ultimate killer, and trumping even the healthiest dietary habits.

Well now that is really a FUBAR.

[ATL_Gator]

Originally Posted by rpmGator

For one, sodium is one of the most often used preservatives. For those that see their blood pressure increased by over use of salt, hidden sodium in foods can kill.

What I can't figure out is how humans survived before electricity and electrically driven refrigeration cycles were so common.

Maybe we didn't. Maybe all the salt and sugar used in preserving food back then lead to high blood pressure and we didn't know that was why we were dying so "young" (relative to today). ????

[jhenderson251]

Originally Posted by LeafUF

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22676203#

According to this study, they just may be. Now we just need to find out if you have to be crazy to be a vegetarian or if being a vegetarian makes you crazy.

As someone currently in the process of converting to a largely vegan diet, there is strong scientific research that backs up the health benefits of consuming less meat. Dr. T. Colin Campbell's The China Study provides some pretty compelling evidence both towards the health benefits of a low to zero-meat and dairy diet, and towards the extreme efforts that the Food Industry in America goes in order to muddy the water and keep their machine running.

I still appreciate a great pork tenderloin or roasted turkey, and I would have no problem with eating the meat if the animals were raised and killed in a remotely humane fashion. But once you've seen a pig screaming and trying to swim out of a tub of boiling water, or employees twisting off newborn piglets' genitals with their fingers (it's cheaper than anesthesia or procedural castration), or workers throwing live baby chicks into a giant grinder, it kind of sours you on the commercial meat industry. None of these three examples are extreme cases; they're very typical operating procedures for most "meat factories."

Once I can track down some local farms that provide meat from animals that I can trust aren't subjected to unnecessary torture, I'll happily go back to incorporating meat into my diet.

[LeafUF]

Yea when I sent this to a recently vegetarian friend of mine she of course said this is the opposite of what she reads. Similar to what you are saying about the health benefits of less meat to which I find anything I have read not very convincing. As for the cruelty to animals I totally understand if you are uncomfortable with it and choose to not support it in that way. In fact this is good, you seem to not be crazy at the moment. Can you report back if you become so once you are fully converted to a vegetarian lifestyle?

[jhenderson251]

I doubt I'll ever convert fully; I don't want my eating habits to become a job. Like I said, once I find a meat supply that operates in a humane and ethical fashion, I'll be fine with eating some meat, eggs, and/or dairy on a daily basis.

It's more of a pursuit to reduce meat consumption to reasonable levels. The average American diet is roughly 60% meat or animal products (i.e., dairy & eggs), 30% processed grains, and less than 10% unprocessed fruits, nuts, and vegetables. I would simply like to recalibrate so that fruits and green veggies make up closer to 1/3 of my food intake.

Regarding the health benefits, Campbell is a distinguished nutritional biochemist from Cornell. I would recommend at least browsing the wikipedia page about his book. I don't buy everything he espouses, but he provides some pretty strong proof behind (1) strong correlations between dairy intake and the development of Type 1 Diabetes in infants and (2) animal cholesterol's strong links to a wide assortment of cancers.