carbs, fats, and proteins

Hi, I read the anti-vegetarian article. He has a lot of good stuff to say, but also some twisted facts.

I am a borderline vegetarian, but don’t hang with the hardcore vegans. Why? most of them fit the profile from that article. If you don’t eat meat, and don’t know what you are doing you will get sick (also, most vegans I meet are very holy than though) The vast majority of vegetarians do not really know what they are doing. You must have a biochemistry that lets you be a vegetarian, and must tailer it just rite. It is not fair to paint the few vegetarians that learn how to do it right, (to me , these are the true vegetarians) With the brush of people doing it wrong. His logic is inconsistent. If he is going to view it that way, then eating meet does cause all kinds of health problems. Well, yes, it is actually all the steroids and crap in the meat. But that is what the majority of meat eaters eat, along with lots of other crap. If he is going to address the tiny minority of modern people eating free range meet & a healthy diet, then he should also address the tiny minority of vegetarians that have bothered to learn how to do it right.

Cant post a link (can someone else?) but Harvard or Yale, someone, once did an endurance study about vegetarians. They found that the vegetarians had more than twice the endurance of the meat eaters. They also acknowledged that they had used only extremely knowledgeable healthy vegetarians. I would guess that the control group was eating standard US crap. To me they were displaying the same twisted pseudocientific approach, as the article.

IMHO the healthiest diet for MOST people is raw veggies, nuts, some fruit, legumes, healthy fish, and a limited intake of red meet and dairy(unless lactose intolerant).

Dont know the %’s but most people have allergies/intolerance to corn, wheat and dairy.

I think I agree with you Iamaru regarding the best diet.

But in any case I think the diet should be low carb (low dense grain) but very high fiber and veggies (and fruits) provide this best.

I think certain vegetarian staples like wheat (and this is the biggie in the us food pyramid - if you are against wheat then you are really very much against the food pyramid because bread and pasta are made from wheat or other gluten grains in this country) and soy are just bad foods. If you are for the percentages - ok I still think from what I’ve read that that is way to many simple/complex carbs but dont use the terms bread and pasta - those are wheat foods - many other non gluten grains cant be used cause they don’t rise well to form a bread - I’ve tried them)

True modern milk and meat are not healthy foods at all and I know these authors are very anti-dairy/meat industry believe it or not. But that is because they are processed and denatured and the animals have been bred for fastest yield. Soy and wheat in its whole grain form is practically poisonous - full of antinutrients and possibly a toxic protein in wheats case.

And if you don’t supplement with b12 if no animal protein foods are consumed, even if its just insects, you will get sick.

But I think I agree, people are different, and some people probably are better off with less animal protein. I haven’t met anyone who didnt feel much better giving up bread and pasta and gluten in general. Corn is another one.

Many primitives did consume grain - but they soaked it and/or fermented it first. Fermented millet (i think its called ogi) is delicious! They did this to get rid of the antinutrients by the action of lactobacteria.

I guess we could post links back and forth - and I’m sure there was such a study with vegetarians having more endurance - but I’m curious what else these meat eaters ate. Some tribes in Africa only eat meat and blood and there endurance is legendary and virtuosic - they can hunt for days with no rest.

Me, I like my carbs as vegetables, fruits, fermented veggies, some starchy veggies, some rice and sometimes quinoa but only in small amounts. I wouldn’t mind becoming a total fish eater but its difficult for me as I’m allergic to shellfish so my choices are more limited with mercury limiting my choices further.

I think the term vegetarian is kinda stupid anyway - you never really know what diet you are talking about - some people really mean vegan by it, others eat everything but cow and wash it down with coke and say they are vegetarians. I think a vegetarian should refer to someone that consume primarily vegetables - chicken and fish are flesh. But whatever.

Pan, Thunder,

deep sea fish was included in the report about Mercury contamination. I’ll try to dig it up. Also, I would cook the beef to at least medium. I know of a number of people that have acquired parasites from the consumption of raw flesh. Just be careful.

About the overgrazing. Here’s a scenario. If useless crops (corn is my favourite target) are abandoned and the land is allowed to return to its natural state, and then offered/rented to owners of livestock it would yield enough to accommodate the various herds. True, there would be logistical problems but necessity truly is the mother of invention. A bit idealistic? Yes. The real impediment is that the public is not aware or even concerned with what they are eating and how greatly their lives would improve if they insisted upon more natural choices in their marketplaces.

Iamaru,

you hit the nail on the head. Your system will determine which diet is best for you! I am a fast oxidative type that is naturally best suited to eating meat. It has always agreed with me. I could eat half a pound of beef and my stomach stays flat as a board. A small baked potato though and suddenly my stomach bulges like that of a pregnant woman. Intestinal discomfort and tiredness follow. I would be on the crapper all day if I relied solely on fruit or rice/soy.

Another very, very basic indicator of the negative effects of a high carb diet is the “sleepy in the afternoon” syndrome. It never happens to me anymore. I am surrounded by coworkers that eat crap (mostly carb crap) and often do not eat any protein at lunchtime. The result? They are all dead on their feet and rabid for a sugar/carb fix at midafternoon.

TORSO

I think in addition to muscle meats, organ meats are very important in the diet too as all very healthy peoples eat organ meats and they are just full of vitamins and minerals. They are, in general, super concentrated sources of what we need.

Also, some vegetables are better cooked than raw because the cooking makes them easier to digest or destroys toxins.

Personally, I would always cook fish unless you are certain they are free of parasites. Even then I would cook it but thats me.

Regarding vegetarianism, there really is no way to “do it right” unless you are really stretching what is meant by the word vegetarian. Most vegetarians consume gluten grains or soy and very little meat - this is a recipe for a vitamin and mineral deficiency disaster - you have antinutrients on one hand limiting your ability to take in crucial nutrients, many of which are involved in sugar metabolism and hormone regulation, then you are eating high carbohydrates, on top of the fact that these food don’t offer much in the way of nutrition anyway when compared to animal foods or vegetables and fruits.

There really is no sensible reason to become a vegetarian anyway - it doesn’t exist in nature (even vegetarian primates eat plenty of insects and with out these they wouldn’t last long) and it is so difficult to get (really impossible - sorry) what you need without animal foods. It’s not just about getting complete protein and mixing properly. There are vitamins and minerals in abundance in animal foods that are not found in the same levels in other foods (many grains actually have antifactors) and in some cases - at all. Yes, you can use supplementation, but why use fractions of food, many of which are probably missing very important cofactors that are found in whole foods, when you can get them in whole foods? It doesn’t make sense.

If you are vegetarian because of the way animals are treated, that I can understand, but there are cruelty free farms where healthy omega rich meats can be bought.

I would say if you are including animal products like meat, organ meats, fish, then you are not a vegetarian, at least not in the sense that I’ve often seen it used.

I do concede that some people probably do better on less protein, but the highest quality source of protein is without a doubt animal foods and it has been shown through many studies and observations (some involving direct observation, others through very sophisticated and relatively new anthropological techniques), that the more people get away from these foods, the unhealthier they get.

Here is an interesting article about mercury and fish:

http://www.roch ester.edu/pr/re … med/mercury.htm

Here is Mercola again. Much mercury in fish is actually from natural sources btw.

http://www.merc ola.com/2001/ap … ercury_fish.htm

A simple solution really is to find farmed fish where the feed is not soy/grain pellets. Generally, certain salmon are considered to be very safe for many reasons, including the way they metabolize mercury.

Hey Guys!

What about the idea of eating correctly for your blood type? I heard it mentioned either here or the sister forum. I have no idea of what it entails but what do you think about it?

Thanks for your knowledge in this. I and many others are utter dumb asses for nutrition. I enjoy this thread as well as the countless others. TT

I believe in the blood type eating.
Known about it a couple of years and bought the book last weekend to learn more about it.

One funny thing is that the food recommended for me
was pretty much what I use to eat. Seems like the body knows what is good for it intuitevely (raw hole food that is).

There is also another theory that says you should eat after your body type. Dont remember the guys name but he is American.

/Pan

I followed the blood type thing for a while just to try it - I don’t think I buy it all - but I know people who have really benefitted. The whole idea behind it is that the blood types developed during certain periods where only certain types of food were available - type o is first as the hunter gatherer, type A is the natural vegetarian (developed during agriculture rev), type B (me) is a mixed bag and the most versatile eater of the blood types - they can eat dairy - (I don’t think so lol) and AB which has charateristics of both A and B I think. The idea is that certain proteins and lectins agree or disagree with people according to blood type. I think his theory has been disproved as blood types didnt evolve in a straight line. Also, he hasn’t real proved that these reactions he sees in a microscope are happening real time in the body. However, I do happen to have problems with the foods he list as problematic for b’s (with exception of dairy which messes me up). It may be that a leaky gut allows these proteins to reach the blood and there is a reaction. But I think the whole system gets stronger once you lessen carbs, especially the bad grains. I know many people who swear by this diet who were not helped by anything else.

It did help me, but nothing like just lessening carbs and especially gluten grains in general. And again, he has a lot of facts wrong about evolution and hunter gatherer life according to some sources.

But it is an interesting theory. To me its kinda like astrology - at first glance you laugh but then you read a little and go gee, thats true…(lol).

Here is some more macrobiotic stuff.

This story here is one I’ve heard so many times (not this particular story but stories like it - some of them from friends) :

How belief in macrobiotics killed my wife, by Roel van Duijn – Stichting Skepsis

There was also the guy who wrote the book about how great macrobiotics was, how it cured him of cancer - and he was like dead real quick shortly after. It also seems that many famous soy/veg followers all die of cancer. I’m thinking beatles and wives among many.

Here is the article about Kushi’s wife (there are some very nasty underground stories about this around):

http://www.imss .macrobiotic.ne … elinekushi.html

I was reading some promacrobiotic sites and they are full of misinformation saying that people have been eating that way for 10’s of thousands of years - that’s crap. Rice eating is very new and grains in general have only been consumed in quantity maybe 10,000 years at most.

The site also says you can get b12 from non animal sources - (like soy) and that has been proven to be false. It is not true usable b12 - and the intestinal one can’t be used because it is missing processing that occurs higher up the d tract. The soy b12 actually requires b12 to process! So whatever you do have is robbed. Its a *very* bad deal.

However, the diet looks better than I remember it from when I studied it. I guess if modified it can be good. I’ve just heard so much bad about it that I guess I’m a little prejudiced.

Good luck with it anyway.

To be fair, the beatle was a smoker.

Ok, not to be a jack ass, but our bodies still think we’re cavemen, we don’t know the difference, so when you look at it, anything refined (be it fat or carbs) probably aren’t good for you, whole grains, lean meats, and poly/mon UNsaturated fats are all good for you. The main problem is caloric intake also. I think that people could learn alot from bodybuilders and they would have open eyes about macrobolic nutrition, if you want more info on bodybuilding or powerlifting, feel free to pm me