Animals, being vegan, etc.

Webby

I'll accuse vegans of being manipulative when they spread blatant lies about nutrition, health etc

Could you give any examples of this RG? I know the vegan promoting world is full of wankers but I don't think I've seen what you're suggesting. Wouldn't surprise me of course but still I'd like to see some evidence.

Edit: just for clarity, I've seen loads of vegans lying to make money but not to promote animal welfare.

Kureigo-San's posts on this thread and there argument with Operaista are a good example, also false claims about what fast food is made from are fairly commone, And i don't care if they genuinely believe the disinformation they are spreading, the effect is the same regardless of there intent.

Webby

it's just that according to medical science, as prescribed by my nutritionist with the 'carb counting' system I should be using an extra 200% but am actually using around 40% less. Some of this I'm sure is to do with the increased amount of exercise I am now doing but again the role of diet is key to this - my energy levels increased so dramatically that I had the energy to start exercising.

well good for you, but what medical personnel do doesn't necessary correspond with science, for instance i've heard of doctors using the body mass index, which is bullshit, and anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, i wouldn't assume what they said was scientific,* and i think you are reading too much into your individual case, what work for you may not work for everyone else, id be in favour if everyone testing what king of diet and excise works best for them, rather than promoting one singular diet as the cure of all ills.

*really no one should assumes anything is scientific, but you cant check everything all the time

Communism is veganism to me . Animal genocide is pretty much a protein IV for the poopletariat. fuck the meat-eating addiction that this industrial civilization embraces.

So I've got one person saying that medical science is what I need to measure up to and another saying that it's representatives, such as my nutritionist in an NHS hospital can't be trusted(I'd agree with that point!). I'm on a hiding to nothing here!
I've not suggested this as a cure all or that it is perfect for everyone but we know a lot of things make good general practice and would suggest that what I'm doing may be one of those things. Knowledge moves on and develops and it has to start somewhere. The earth is no longer flat!

body mass index, which is bullshit,

yeah?

Can I suggest coffee enemas?

Mr. Jolly

Can I suggest coffee enamas?

No need mate, most people on this thread seem to be using it to clear the shit out of their system.

Honestly though, judging by the usual quality of yours posts, this is simply a joke and not an attempt to discredit vegans? If it is(surely not?!!!) it's at about the same level as discrediting anararchists by say they all sport cloaks and wide brimmed hats and skulk about the place with a fizzing bomb in their hand. Of course, everyone knows that it's only the discerning elite such as myself that have such exquisite taste!

Hey Fleur, you reading this? Having now read some of the posts pre-Webby's bump, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts...

Chilli Sauce

body mass index, which is bullshit,

yeah?

Body mass index is weight divided by hight, its sometimes used to tell people, but it doesn't take account of what form that weight is in, so having more muscle than average can make someone "overweight" for example

Admins, can we split the thread and call this bit, "Webby-ate-a-carrot shit-storm 2014"?

bozemananarchy

Admins, can we split the thread and call this bit, "Webby-ate-a-carrot shit-storm 2014"?

???

I was merely commenting on how the innocuous nature of your post #258 raised so many hackles. You'd think you had claimed that chemtrails, by order of the lizard-people, were giving you the diabetes and that crystals rubbed counter-clockwise on the belly were the only cure. . .

Ah, I thought it meant something like that but reasoned and balanced responses seem to have deserted this thread so I had my doubts.

Snipfool wrote
Hey Fleur, you reading this? Having now read some of the posts pre-Webby's bump, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts…

Ah, you're going to have to work harder on your summoning spells, because that one very nearly didn't work ;) ( Trying to de-stress my life a bit at the moment and arguing on the internet isn't helping me much on that project.)

Going to type this up in chunks because I'm not good at short and sweet & my internet connection's a bit dicey & I don't want to type it up only to lose it when my connection bums me out.

I'm also going to link to Ramona's excellent blog
https://libcom.org/blog/guilt-choice-responsibility-austerity-kitchen-21012013
because she says pretty well a lot of things I feel about food and food culture.

Firstly, I'd like to pass on all my best to Webby. I'm genuinely pleased you're feeling better. Whatever works for you, it's all good.
Secondly, I can't see that this in any way contradicts what I had previously said ie

"Eating a sensible, controlled, reduced fat diet, in conjunction with exercise will make everybody, regardless of whether or not they have diabetes, feel better"

The point that Webby has done this with a vegan diet is moot. It is possible to lose weight and feel better without adopting a vegan diet, although the effects are likely to be more dramatic and faster when you go vegan because you are immediately cutting out most fats and the effects are more likely to be sustained if you continue to stay vegan because it's less likely you're going to slide back into bad habits if you've totally changed your diet.

Also, with the insulin it makes not particular difference if a person is vegan or not. Insulin requirements are calculated using a number of factors, one of which is body weight. Ergo, if you lose weight, you will need less insulin. There are formulas to calculate how much insulin you should be taking but they don't really work and depend on so many variables but the bottom line here is that if you're skinnier you most likely have to take less.

Another factor in calculating insulin requirements is exercise. Did anyone else pick up in Webby's posts that he's doing more exercise? No extra exercise than normal means no reduction in insulin requirement, more exercise means needing less insulin. So,
Losing weight = less insulin
More exercise= less insulin.

Nowhere in there does it specifically require you to be a vegan to do that, any kind of healthy diet and exercise combo will do it. It's a simple energy in, energy out equation. And if anyone requires a testimonial from someone (me) who spent a decade as a vegan and is vegan no more, I'll come back to that later.

What I find infuriating in the concept of "curing" diabetes (either type 1 or type 2) through diet, whether vegan or whatever, is the implicit suggestion that less insulin = good. Insulin is neutral. Your body needs as much as it needs based on carbs consumed, body weight, calories spent (exercise) as well as other factors which throw in curve balls, like stress, whether or not you have an infection, fever, and all sorts of weird and unpredictable shit. Someone without diabetes, with a healthy pancreas, will produce the right amount of insulin based on the same factors.

There is however a lot of shaming involved with taking insulin. Adolescents with diabetes have a higher rate of eating disorders than in the general population and often take inadequate amounts of insulin to keep their weight down. The nurses in the diabetes clinic where I've spent far more time in than I would ever have wished to have have told me that just about all of the adolescents and many of the adults have not taken their insulin properly at some point for one reason or another. There's often a perception that taking more insulin = failing at diabetes. Taking less insulin can be a by-product of living a healthy lifestyle (ie good diet and exercise) however it should never be a goal. I feel very irritated at promoting a diet on the grounds that you will need less insulin. You might not.

For Type 2 it's even worse. People are already shamed for being type 2 - "oh, you have the 'fat' kind of diabetes, the one you did to yourself." - ignoring the fact that there are also genetic predispositions to it. To be type 2 and having to take insulin, well that's a total failure. It's not altogether accurate to say you can "cure" it either. You can manage it and control it with good diet and exercise but if you fall off the wagon it will come back. Coming off meds does not mean reversal.

Part 2:

I think we live in a culture which is totally and unhealthily obsessed with food. Just say the words "celebrity chef" out loud and see just how ridiculous that sounds. People watch competitive baking on TV for entertainment, someone thought creating a website shaming women for eating on the tube was a bit of a laugh. People are fat shamed, thin shamed, body shamed. People are shamed for being sick, for having a disability and I think this obsessive food culture adds to it. If you are ill, it's because you don't eat right - sort it out.

I know there are lots of vegans who don't participate in this kind of smug, proselytizing behaviour which everyone finds so annoying, but there are enough that do, which pegs them, imo, on the same level as the diet industry, food industry and fashion magazines which make you feel shit for not looking like a 16 year old supermodel.

In the same way as people think that food is the source of all evil, there's a feeling also that food will cure it too but there's a couple of great big elephants in the room, which are far more complicated to deal with. We actually consume fewer calories and less fat and sugar than people did in the 1970s. If you want to scroll through endless tables and stats in this, you'll find overall consumption of the things which are generally blamed for obesity and ill health has fallen.
http://www.bhf.org.uk/plugins/PublicationsSearchResults/DownloadFile.aspx?docid=508b8b91-1301-4ad7-bc7e-7f413877548b&version=-1&title=Coronary+Heart+Disease+Statistics+2012+&resource=G608%2F1012%2FCHA
(It's a pdf and very boring btw.)
What we have now is a much unhealthier lifestyle. People move a lot less. The first law of thermodynamics still holds. The problem is what to do about it.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/the-shape-we-are-in-blog/2014/jul/08/obesity-food-and-drink
As someone wrote on a London wall in the 1970s -
Same thing day after day- tube - work - dinner - work - tube - armchair - TV - sleep - tube - work -how much more can you take? - one in ten go mad, one in five cracks up
It takes quite a lot of determination and time to overcome that and slot in a good, healthy lifestyle, when modern life is generally so crap and energy consuming. As another excellent Libcom blog
https://libcom.org/blog/anxious-worker-06062014
points out, one in three workers have a diagnosable mental illness. Life's a struggle, to suggest that good health is is only a matter of education and making the right choices kind of ignores just how difficult making these choices sometimes are.

Then tell someone with an illness that on top of the constant struggle of everyday life and responsibilities that they have to find the time and energy to make themselves well, then we're back to sick shaming, aren't we? There's no doubt that having a good diet and healthy lifestyle will make you feel better but do not ever underestimate how hard that can be.

Aaaagghhh! The big guns have rolled in!

It's nice to have someone post some actual info instead of just having a dig at something that irks them. It's also good that you're doing it in chunks so that I don't get in a muddle!
I don't disagree with much you've said, if anything. My bump post simply stated that I have done this and these are the results. Nothing more. People then started getting their knickers in a knot and the nonsense ensued.
I think what takes a bit more explanation with me is the fact that my carb and calorie intake has risen so dramatically. I was eating around 2500-3000 calories per day and around 250-300 grams of carbs, I now usually have around 4000 calories and 900grams of carbs. I pointed out myself that some of my insulin reduction must be down to exercise but the reduction started before I started exercising more. I have never suggested that reducing insulin is a goal to aim at - if eating the way I do now required 10 times as much insulin I would be happy to take it. I have bought this up because I find it interesting and rather surprising that the amount of simple carbs I eat don't result in blood sugar spikes and that the large increase in caloric intake hasn't resulted in weight gain. I frequently drink a 1500 calorie smoothie for breakfast or lunch that has a vast amount of sugar in it using no more insulin than I did when eating a light snack previously. So, as you say, there are a number of factors that contribute to insulin requirement. My point is that the factors such as exercise and my modest(yet rather pleasing!) weight loss don't seem to be different enough to account for the massive increase in carb intake. Interesting to me? Yes. Do I give a fuck? Not really. Also, my increase in exercise nowhere near accounts for my weight loss. So it seems that it's not as simple as calorie intake vs calories spent. As you say though, there is no obvious connection to veganism there.
Posters on Libcom can say what they want about this, most of their comments are really quite moralistic - they seem to be standing up for some sort of nonexistent virtue which is ironic really as it is the accusation that make as soon as the word vegan is mentioned. For fucks sake, all I really said was 'I stopped eating meat and cheese and started eating grapes and bananas and I feel great'. Then, as if by magic, the tubs started thumping! But really, I'm not too bothered by this, I'm used to that attitude when I talk to non anarchists about anarchism. What has pissed me off though is that a paid healthcare professional, charged with advising me on diet, doesn't even seem to know that there is protein in a fucking banana! She told me that what I was doing will not work. She said that I will gain weight eating this way unless I do massive amounts of exercise and most infuriatingly, despite being told that by very careful weighing of my food and using an online tool that checks your intake of every single macro and micro nutrient for a whole month and finding I was exceeding my RDA(as recommended by the World Health Organisation) on everything apart from Vitamins B12 and D(which you get from sunlight), that I would suffer from deficiencies, especially protein. I ran this by my niece who is a newly qualified NHS dietician and she agreed with her and said I was crazy to be eating this way.
My main point was, and still is, that I feel amazing eating like this. I'm not talking about a small or even a large improvement - I'm talking about a total transformation in my physical wellbeing and mental outlook. Plus I don't feel hungry anymore! Only someone that has experienced CONSTANT hunger for years can appreciate what a blessing this is.
I did mentioned that my view of animals has changed considerably but I have not talked about that and it is not my agenda for the purpose of this conversation despite the accusation of cloaking animal rights issues with other things.

Fleur post # 2

Agreed. I guess though that because of our lack of movement diet has become more important. I'm fortunate that my work is physical but not heavy, is mostly enjoyable and pays well. Also I live in a nice environment which affords me plenty of dog walking opportunities. If I was poor and living in the inner city I think it's quite possible that my most serious health issue could have finished me off by now.

I was hungry for some vegan pizza the other day and a Cop asked me, where do u think yoghurt going?? And I said , god damn you fucking governmental prick, I , you harrass me for my dieraty record? And he said Ive stepped on a lot bigger feet than yours, buddy... and I was like , oh you blimp, do you know that I am an anarchrist, and that I read literature that deconstructs you? And he said, yes I know all about it. so I was about to break veg. Then I got an idea... excuser me officer, do you happen to know where the nearest pizza parlor is. Well in that case, he said, there's one just down the road called the Salami Shack. Thanks, but no thanks, I said... I'm vegan..... that's actually what you pulled me over for? um?

cresspot

I was hungry for some vegan pizza the other day and a Cop asked me, where do u think yoghurt going?? And I said , god damn you fucking governmental prick, I , you harrass me for my dieraty record? And he said Ive stepped on a lot bigger feet than yours, buddy... and I was like , oh you blimp, do you know that I am an anarchrist, and that I read literature that deconstructs you? And he said, yes I know all about it. so I was about to break veg. Then I got an idea... excuser me officer, do you happen to know where the nearest pizza parlor is. Well in that case, he said, there's one just down the road called the Salami Shack. Thanks, but no thanks, I said... I'm vegan..... that's actually what you pulled me over for? um?

The universe needs to either destroy Cresspot or create some more question marks.

I don't disagree (significantly) with anything you've said, Fleur. I've said a few times in this thread that a Vegan diet isn't strictly necessary for huge improvements in your health, but nobody acknowledged that and went 'Oh right so he's not an implacable missionary, then' like they perhaps should have, so some rational conversation could be had. Logically, saying your diet is Vegan doesn't count for much at all because it only denotes what you don't eat, what you're excluding. 'Vegan' says nary a thing about what you include - A vegan could eat oreos, chips, cardboard and light bulbs. Do you know what the paleo diet is? Well, there are some of these guys who are eating way more fruit and veg than vegans, so they're in a better way than them for it. Dietary labels are guilty of glossing over far more detailed realities. The confusion stems from the fact that just a plant based diet is literally vegan, but isn't beneficial simply for the fact of being vegan. We all know the person who went vegan, ate nothing but pasta and tofu for 8 weeks and nearly had a breakdown.

"There's no doubt that having a good diet and healthy lifestyle will make you feel better but do not ever underestimate how hard that can be."

There has never been any doubt about that, when at any supermarket there are 15+ varieties of frozen pizza and a puny selection of plastic, over-priced fruits. The terrain is set up in a way that makes being healthy require an inordinate, unnatural degree of attention, which is why we kind of pity the weirdos who seem to be obsessed about health. But in the end, a bit of 'obsession' is what it takes to make it work in this bad situation for most people. It isn't easy by any stretch, but as I say if health is the goal then I won't hesitate to say fruit, veggies and physical movement - nothing controversial about that, it's what everyone knows already.

Fleur

Part 2:

I think we live in a culture which is totally and unhealthily obsessed with food. Just say the words "celebrity chef" out loud and see just how ridiculous that sounds. People watch competitive baking on TV for entertainment, someone thought creating a website shaming women for eating on the tube was a bit of a laugh. People are fat shamed, thin shamed, body shamed. People are shamed for being sick, for having a disability and I think this obsessive food culture adds to it. If you are ill, it's because you don't eat right - sort it out.

I think the TV chef phenomenon came out of the DIY culture much the same as the house make over phenomenon, that 30 minutes of alchemy format, rather than an 'unhealthy' obsession with food per se, it started at the same time and follows a similar format. Food is pretty central to everyones lives so I dont think that we are neccesarily obsessed with it and if we are its not such a bad thing, hedonistically speaking.

But there is indeed an obsessive strand of middle class morality around food though (as well as other phenomenon, such as relationship dynamics, leisure activities, correct langauge, music, fashion etc.), an austere finger pointing that seeks to pathologise, its part of the aesthetics of the cosmopolitan middle class which aims to create as much space between themselves and everyone else, though novel behaviours, but also a need to intervene, to act as saviours, as game changers.

They acheive this because they have more money and more time to spend on food coupled with the deep cultural affectation 'not be like them' but also not to be like each other. Thats why obviously you have an explosion of diets amongst the middle classes, from veganism to paleo to raw to piss drinking. This seems to be a constant amongst the middle class, to differentiate themselves through their morality then seek to educate the masses through that morality. Ultimately its about power.

I got no money, lol.

Kureigo-San

I got no money, lol.

Its not about you its about a dominant cultural sensibility.

radicalgraffiti

Chilli Sauce

body mass index, which is bullshit,

yeah?

Body mass index is weight divided by hight, its sometimes used to tell people, but it doesn't take account of what form that weight is in, so having more muscle than average can make someone "overweight" for example

Ah, I see. But if it's done by measurement (what are those things called - calipers?), so you're actually measuring fat v. muscle, that's alright, no?

Incidentally, while it wouldn't kill me to lose a bit of weight, I also lift weights and when I put myself into an online BMI site, it says I'm nearly obese. Beer gut? Yes? Obese. no.

What are the implicit conclusions of what you're saying?

edit: Chili, I heard the only accurate way to measure body fat is with some special machine I definitely don't remember the name of.

DEXA scan. Also Hydrostatic weighing is pretty good. Contact your nearest Premier League football team and they might let you try theirs.

Edit: But ultimately, the only way the plebs can get a decent reading is with the callipers as Chilli suggested.

Chilli, it could well be that you have more muscle than average which distorts your BMI, but I think the definition of 'obese' as 30 on the BMI, even when applied to the 'typical' body types that it was designed for, isn't as large as what most people think of when they think of 'obese'. So might also be a problem of medical and colloquial meanings?

Disclaimer: I know fuck all about it really.

Webby
I read through the whole of this thread, which I hadn't bothered to before because I don't really care what other people chose to put in their mouths and I think I had a bit of a penny dropping moment, but before I put 2 and 2 together and make 5 can I ask you something?

Roughly, what percentage of your diet comes from raw fruit and veg?
Do you eat grains, pulses, beans etc?
What about things like soy milk/almond milk?

Calorie wise about 60%. Bulk wise probably 90%. I eat rice, pasta, noodles, quinoa, beans of various types, potatoes. Some but not much bread. Cooked veggies, soup etc.
I don't each much raw veg - just a bit of salad. Almost all of the raw food is sweet. The sweeter and more sugary it is, the better I like it! Very occasionally, if they are not sweet enough, I'll sprinkle some sugar on strawberries or whatever. I drink fruit and green juices and massive smoothies. The nutritionist said I should never blend fruit but I take no notice. Smoothies are the blocks!

Now tell me about that penny. 4 or 5???

OK, fair enough. I did for a second think you might be a fruitarian and was about to tear you a new one.

So, you're eating foods other than just fruit, which is good. I know adherents of raw fruit/veg diets are very sensitive to the suggestion that there's not enough protein in their diets. I understand, "where do you get your protein?" is the endless and repetitive and boring question you get when you're vegan. It is very unlikely that you will get a protein deficiency if you eat a balanced diet and it's pretty rare in the western world. I have found myself looking at a lot of websites & videos promoting this diet over the last day though and I keep hearing the same thing from them, along the lines as there's no such thing as protein deficiencies - try telling that to the developing world
http://www.fao.org/docrep/w0073e/w0073e05.htm#P2919_330117
Or even my great grandmother who grew up in Late Victorian poverty and never grew any taller than 4 foot 8. Also that there's no medical name for protein deficiency. Yes there is, it's called protein-energy malnutrition or in it's extreme case, starvation. It won't kill you particularly quickly, it's more likely to kill you through organ damage. It was probably one of the contributing factors to Karen Carpenter's death.

The reason your dietitian/nutritionist didn't know there's protein in bananas is that there really isn't very much protein in one. There's about 1.1g of protein in a 100g banana, or about 2% max. And this is where it starts to get really weird because all the websites and testimonials promoting this diet are quoting protein figures way, way higher than anywhere else. And I've looked at UK, Canadian, US and Australian figures for nutritional contents of foods and they all quote the same/so similar to make no difference levels of protein in foods. And they are a fraction of what the raw food diet proponents are quoting. And I've checked for the sources of these figures on the raw foods sites and they're quoting each other and not coming up with any sources which contradict what appear to be world-wide accepted (and I mean accepted by World Health Organization) figures.

Some, however link to external sites, including the USDA, citing these as their sources but if you type into the table, it still comes up with the far lower protein value than they are claiming.
e.g. 100g of raw tomato has 1g of protein NOT the 14g they argue.
100g lettuce has 1g of protein NOT 16g they argue
100g of green peppers have 1g of protein NOT 18g they argue

These are just insane numbers for protein content in vegetables which are mostly water. These numbers keep popping up, sometimes in nice infographics, or pie charts but they make no sense unless the entire medical, biochemical and nutritionist world is lying to us. Measuring nutritional contents of foods is not new science, this subtefuge has to have been going on for a long time.

However, one of the sites linked to this and it started to make sense.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-011078000000000000000-1w.html?
A ranking of vegetable foods by protein content. Ignore the beans and pulses, which is obvious that they have high protein content, the highest ranking foods by protein content are vegetables which have the same protein values as claimed by the raw foods diet folks.
eg 100g tomatoes has 14g of protein
100g peppers has 18g of protein and so on...In their concentrated, dehydrated forms.

THAT IS KEY - 100g of sundried tomatoes does have 14 grams of protein but you would have to eat 1400 grams of raw, fresh tomato to get the same amount of protein. 100g of dried shiitake mushroom has 10 g of protein, fresh shiitake only has 2.

So, if you're using the figures for protein content of vegetables from these sources, it looks very much to me like they are taking them from the wrong table.

Yep, parsley does have a high protein content - but only when it has been completely dried and vastly reduced in size. 100g of raw parsley only has 3g of protein. You would have to eat fields of the stuff to get any significant amount quantities in a diet.

There is absolutely no fucking way on this planet that a cucumber is 24% protein, it's mostly water. This is just complete and total bunk.

And I'll be back after dinner, which is vegan by the way.

Fleur, you didn't come back after your vegan dinner - presumably you're at the hospital suffering from protein deficiency or got beat up by a gang of anarchists for being too middle class!!!

I have watched quite a few YouTube vids about this and mostly I consider the nutritional info to have been sound but the proponents were mostly very irritating and spouted all the usual self help bollocks about success just being a choice in the moment and we are all one etc, so I quit watching them. The main resource I have used is www.cronometer.com which gives full nutritional content for all foods including meat and dairy. It has no agenda, just straight forward information. It quotes bananas as containing 1,1g of protein per 100g.

Just want to say thanks for the cronometer Webby, been looking for something like that for ages, just to make sure I'm getting it all. Just imputed all I could remember from yesterday, and I've quite comfortably surpassed everything, only vitamin A was below 60% and water was pretty low, but I've always known I should drink more of that stuff. Trans fat was at 1.246g, while cholesterol was 28%, though aside from a banana I didn't have any raw foods yesterday, and used a fair bit of oil, ate 500g of gnocchi and drank a couple of beers. I got 95% of my nutritional needs apparently. If nothing else it's quite interesting. I'm going to do this for a week, eating what I normally do, and see if I any alarm bells ring. B12 was fine as I take a pill everyday, and I walk loads, and work outside a lot so D is pretty safe.

Does this take into account combinations though? I mean, I've heard that some vitamins don't absorb well with others. Maybe Fleur would know a bit about that?

Fleur, what you're talking about is starvation which isn't just a protein deficiency, it's a deficiency of literally everything..fat, carbs, minerals, nutrients, food water. Developing countries and your great gran have suffered a calorie deficit in general, not from any particular way of eating. Maybe the people you've heard are not communicating the idea very well, but the notion more accurately put is: if you are eating enough calories, you are eating enough protein. Your examples of developing countries and your great gran are neither here nor there, as they haven't had access to enough calories in general. What you have to show to successfully make your point is a case where somebody is eating 3000+ calories of plant foods and is shown to have developed a protein deficiency. I've never seen or heard of such a thing, and nobody has been able to tell me what the symptoms of that might even look like, i.e where someone is eating enough real food in general but not getting enough protein.

A cucumber may well be 24% protein, but it doesn't really count for much anyway because the cucumber itself is so low in calories. A banana even with its much lower protein content gives more bang for your buck because every banana is about 110 calories compared to a cucumber's, what, 30?

I'm just going to leave these here. There comes a point when you have to use your eyes more than your ears

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WG4x_pCxjo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5vdqX7zgqM

Kureigo-San

, what you're talking about is starvation which isn't just a protein deficiency, it's a deficiency of literally everything..fat, carbs, minerals, nutrients, food water.

Kwashiorkor is actually a thing despite its history of fucking things up in the treatment of marasmus. Its a protein deficiency in the presence of adequate intake of calories (usually starches).

Though it starts with protein, those suffering from kwashiorkor quickly develop deficiencies in basically everything because of amino-acids role in the digestive/metobolic process is disrupted. Further, general health is effected due to amino-acids major role in the endocrine and immune systems.

To give you an idea how serious it is

A person with kwashiorkor won't really benefit from eating fats as their lipoprotien (fat transport system) fails. The enzymes responsible for the hydrolosis of carbs depend on amino-acids as well. In fact, protein digestion is dependent on the protein trypsin (which is cobbled together with amino-acids in the pancreas) in the first place. Protein deficiency is dangerous as fuck as you can fall in a hole that is hard to get out of. At some point, food-based protein can't treat kwashiorkor because the body will drop the ball in its digestion. Somebody has to break those peptide bonds!

Its really nothing to shrug your shoulders at and claim its neither here nor there.

Hm, well Fleur seemed to be trying to make some link between that and the supposed shortcomings of plants.

Usually populations living in famine-prone areas have access to only one caloric staple at any given time, which isn't what I'm on about. That's obviously going to produce deficiencies.

Do you think that Kwashiorkor and Marasmus could happen to people who ate a vegan, plant-based diet, long-term? If so, this thread is getting exponentially stranger with every post.

The number of incidents of this in the west is negligible and my guess is that the cases that do exist are ED related. Regardless of all that this just ain't gonna happen eating a well balanced diet whether it's vegan or not. Obviously it also won't happen with a standard American or European diet because they are pretty protein heavy.
I've just put today's food in to chronometer and have so far hit 76% of my RDA protein. That has come from just 5.3% of today's calories. I have had no cooked food, just various fruits and a small amount of spinach and avocado. I will probably have a large portion of rice and vegetables for dinner which will take me to around 100% RDA. If I have any pulses I will be way over . I will be eating some snacks before dinner as well so I would guess my calories for the day will be around 3800 of which about 85% of which will be carbs. Get enough varied calories and you'll get enough protein.

Webby
Sorry about that, didn't come back after dinner as I had some people unexpectedly show up, forcing unscheduled socialbility on me.

It seems wise to avoid many of the youtube videos, not only are they like a latter day old time revival, endless testimonials to their miraculous healing and weird culty behaviour but they seem so often to be talking straight out of their arses. And yes, you can live probably live perfectly well on nothing but plant foods (excluding grains & beans etc) and I'm sure you can feel great on it but it's the long term effects that are going to be the worry. Not to mention that you have to spend so much of your time carefully monitoring and evaluating and monitoring your intake of every thing to make sure you're getting adequate supply of various micronutrients which you need for your long term health. Seriously, eat some fucking lentils or nuts or something that sensible vegans have done for donkey's years. Some of these plant diet only proponents talk about things like not eating "dead food" ie anything which isn't fresh picked from a tree and that nuts die if left hanging around for too long. A little bit of biology 101 wouldn't hurt.

Kuriego -San

I wondered when someone with great abs doing athletics was going to be posted up. And yes, I've seen that video before, just about every blog on the subject links to it. How about some actual research? As much as enjoy looking at people with great bodies, it doesn't actually tell me much.

There comes a point when you have to use your eyes more than your ears

Oh come on, that's just a side step away from telling me to be touched by the holy spirit.
Someone I used to know taught martial arts and spent half his life in the gym bodybuilding, while at the same time suffering from bulimia. You can look great and perform well despite having a shit diet, as long as you have a thoroughly unhealthy obsession with food and devote absurd amounts of your time to maintaining it. You're forgetting that I have spent a long time being vegan, obviously not a true believer though because I chose to get much of my micronutrients from pulses, beans etc, rather than chowing down to bucket loads of Kale.

I'm finding your arguments disingenuous. You started at the beginning of this thread proposing veganism as an animal rights issue, linking that to a class struggle issue, using words like speciesism and genocide. When no-one was buying that, you moved on to arguments such as the one that we are not designed to eat meat because we don't have tails. (post#29.) Then you move on to the it'll cure disease argument - which is the most annoying of all because desperate sick people will try anything.

The thing about cancer is, that a plant-based diet has been shown over and over to halt cancer development and often reverses it. Cancer is our most popular apology for animal experimentation but the answer has been growing on trees the whole time. I don't want to expend too much energy convincing you of this, I just recommend T Colin Campbell as an author to start with if you want. On AIDs I am less familiar

(My bold)Post#17
Well, I'm glad you're less familiar with with AIDS because there are raw food vegans actively promoting the diet as a cure for HIV.
There's a reason why people call the China Study the Vegan Bible, because like the other bible it's taken on faith and it really doesn't matter how often it's findings are refuted people believe in it with all their hearts and souls. Raw food vegan diets are being touted as cures for all sorts of things, cancer, HIV, all kinds of auto-immune diseases, various mental health issues, ADHD, autism. I have no doubt that eating well and having lots of vegetables in your diet can make you feel better and alleviate symptoms, but as cures? A little close to snake oil.

As for protein values in vegetables, you yourself have been posting up this percentages, without explanation.

Tomatoes are about 15% protein, cherimoyas/custard apples are about 7%, cucumber about 20%, watermelons about 7%, lettuce about 16% - if an adult eating in the range of 2800 - 3000 calories ate these foods, they would find that in the end their protein intake of total calories consumed would come between 6-8%.

Post#106
These are percentages by calories (which is why they correspond to dry weights.) People are actually believing that 15% of a tomato is protein.

Even if you feel that the recommended amount of protein is too high, then 3000 calories of plants only is unlikely to provide enough protein for long term health. People living off only vegetables will probably feel great in the short term but it's the long term accumulative damage which will stack up.

As for curing cancer, the smartest dead skinny guy in the room treated his cancer with a raw food only vegan diet. Steve Jobs had the only kind of pancreatic cancer which was curable. He decided to treat it with a raw food diet and all sorts of hokey alternative therapies. It didn't stop it spreading to his liver and eventually killing him.

Anyway, I have things to do now and I will (probably) be back later.

Just one more thing though - vitamin D.
People in the UK are at risk from vitamin D deficiency because there isn't enough sunshine. It's fine in the summer, when you have exposed skin but during the rest of the year, especially under cloudy skies, you're not going to absorb enough. In my part of the world, it is estimated that anyone living above Washington DC are potentially Vit D deprived. Even here, where winter sun is the norm (and we're a lot further south than the UK) people need to supplement.

Fleur

Just one more thing though - vitamin D.
People in the UK are at risk from vitamin D deficiency because there isn't enough sunshine. It's fine in the summer, when you have exposed skin but during the rest of the year, especially under cloudy skies, you're not going to absorb enough. In my part of the world, it is estimated that anyone living above Washington DC are potentially Vit D deprived. Even here, where winter sun is the norm (and we're a lot further south than the UK) people need to supplement.

As a slight aside from my sneering about this thread, Vitamin D and B12 should be supplemented if your on a plant based diet. Ive never done it for 30 years but evidence (esp. B12) has convinced me otherwise.

As for Cronometer thing had a look, looking at the nutritional breakdown of my usual lunch of dall and chapatti and its lists red lentils as containing the complete set of amino acids, says the same about oyster mushrooms???!!! Pinch of salt I think.

**edit**
Ah lentils contain all 9 essential amino acids but certains ones are quite low so you would have to eat a stack of them to get your complete protein for the day.... Same for pretty much everything else.

Well Fleur, I already do eat beans and a small amount of nuts but the point of my above post was to show that on a normal day I easily make my RDA of protein even without them. Also, I don't spend any time at all monitoring my nutrition - I did it for a month and found that every single day I was WAY OVER on everything apart from B12, D and fat. After that I've just freestyled it as I eat a good variation of food in large amounts every day. Honestly, this is so easy to do. Once you have done your shopping there's nothing to it. Hardly any cooking and the cooking I do is dead simple and quick - a pot, a pan, a knife and a chopping board for most meals.
I see no long term negative consequences of this but plenty of positive ones.
I'm going to try to step away from this now. As I've said several times, I've made no claims other than those of my own experience. I am achieving the requirements suggested by conventional health organisations and am absolutely thriving. Considering these facts I find the opposition that I get to this from all sides absolutely fucking staggering and it's starting to do my nut in. I think I'll just get on with it and shut the fuck up!

"Steve Jobs had the only kind of pancreatic cancer which was curable. He decided to treat it with a raw food diet and all sorts of hokey alternative therapies. It didn't stop it spreading to his liver and eventually killing him."

I don't think a plant based diet is a total panacea - one of my good friends was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer despite being on the plants for 2 years.

My participation here is starting to get me a bit down, so I'll be taking a leaf out of Webby's book and getting on with it.

This would be why I was reluctant to get drawn into another bloody argument where people post up youtube videos and junk science in lieu of any compelling argument, although to be fair videos of buff people doing athletics is marginally more entertaining than anything produced by the Zeitgeist Movement.

Do you think that Kwashiorkor and Marasmus could happen to people who ate a vegan, plant-based diet, long-term?

Obviously not, because no human society has ever lived entirely off a vegan, plant based diet. Human beings have been cooking food ever since we used our really big brains and opposable thumbs to discover how to make fire and tools.Not even remote cultures who live in jungles where fruit is dropping from the trees around them live entirely off an uncooked, raw vegan diet. The nearest equivalent would be gorillas, who do spend the bulk of their time grazing on a raw vegan diet. They do however spend pretty much all of their time just sitting around, which in my opinion is not a bad way to spend your life, but ultimately no matter how hard I would strive for that one I would find it pretty much undoable. They also have brains which are about a third of the size of humans, so they need less nutrition to feed them. And as far as I know there has been no longitudinal study of people on a raw food vegan diet, not surprisingly because most people quit it after a few years, either because of health problems or because it's just so time consuming and difficult to carry on. Even Harley "30 bananas a day" Durianrider admits that he has cooked food in his diet.

Some of the claims of the raw food diet just border on the absurd. Some claim that cutting vegetables destroy nutrients ( I side-eyed that one so fast I nearly detached a retina.) All that woo about live food and dead food for one thing, as if an uncooked vegetable is any more alive than a cooked one and even if it was it wouldn't survive very long in the hydrochloric acid in your stomach. Also, that cooking "kills" the food and destroys the nutrients. Sure, you lose some vitamins when cooking, like vit c but plants are so rich in them as long as they aren't boiled to death then there are plenty left to nourish you. Cooking of some vegetables improves their nutritional values. Cooked tomatoes release more antioxidants than raw ones. Cooking breaks down fibre and cellular walls making more of the nutrients available - human beings cannot digest cellulose. Cows can but they have extra stomachs to do so. If you cook a carrot there is more beta-carotens available for your body to absorb.
Cooking does destroy plant enzymes but so does the acid in the human gut. That is why we produce enzymes to digest and convert the food into nutrients. The enzyme theory used by raw diet advocates is based on research from the 1920s, which has been well and truly debunked.
Oh yeah, the worst kept secret of the raw vegan movement is the appalling dental health a lot of the adherents have, mostly from the constant sloshing of sugar in the mouth (sugar from a banana is no better than refined sugar) and the acid erosion from raw foods. Have a couple of raw vegan testimonies.
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/01/24/dental-drama-tooth-problems-on-the-raw-diet-part-1/#more-57
http://renegadehealth.com/blog/raw-foodists-have-bad-teeth

Seriously, it's exactly this sort of shit which give vegans a bad name.

I don't think a plant based diet is a total panacea

So you've backtracked (maybe got better informed?) from your post#17 where you said

Cancer is our most popular apology for animal experimentation but the answer has been growing on trees the whole time.

Or when you were entertaining the idea that raw veganism might be a solution to HIV or when you were promoting Peta's favourite pet Neil Barnard as a solution to diabetes?
Human beings have a myriad of health problems, many of them caused partly- but not entirely- by poor diet. Looking for a magic bullet solution to this is just a little bit infantile and simplistic.

Incidentally, there has been an increase in what is considered a relatively new eating disorder, called orthorexia. I'm not suggesting that all raw food vegans have this but endless youtube videos of people with bugger all body fat, banging on about the largely unsubstantiated health claims, is probably just as unhelpful as size zero fashion models.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/aug/16/orthorexia-mental-health-eating-disorder

Standfield
I honestly have no idea about food combining. I combine my foods into delicious meals, using herbs, spices, all sorts of clever techniques invented by big brained humans like fermentation ( incidentally the only way to make soy fully digestible) and fire and it works well for me. I don't eat more than I need, mostly from plants, very few processed foods and I don't have a sweet tooth so excess sugar isn't that much of a problem. I'm 5'7", 136 pounds and very active, with no obvious health problems. It's most likely not going to cure cancer though, so I'm obviously doing it wrong.

So I thought I'd leave with a youtube video I found, which is very illuminating. It promises to open your eye and about half way through explains how to cure digestive problems. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahcDdDZavs0

Backtracking? If you don't permit someone to learn and develop nuance..

A video showing simply that it's possible to be a vegan and perform high level sports isn't the same as the holy trinity, or crystal healing. Not even in the same ball park. You're confusing the intent of my video posting with one that tries to show it's the best way to be.

I'm not even against cooking. I do it all the time.

I'm sure you'll get a lot of up votes anyway - you really showed me, after all.

So, you're not on the 80:10:10 diet that you alluded to in the earlier part of the thread, which is only really doable on a raw vegan diet,as if you're eating a traditional vegan diet ie with pulses, grains & beans, you will get more than 10% protein in your diet. And you keep linking to videos, like the diabetic banana boy, which espouses the raw diet.

My point with the crystal healing video is that anyone can put up a video on youtube and make all kinds of claims, and even believe them. It's hardly a substitute for any empirical research.

And I never said you couldn't be fit on a vegan diet, although some of the health nuts who post up videos look like something from the Bodyworlds exhibitions and I doubt if that is in any way long-term sustainable.

I could post up videos of my own, of one of my team-mates, who does marathons, spartan races and has videos of himself doing all kinds of extreme, macho stuff and could your videos a run for their money. He usually goes for a post match cheeseburger. You know, energy in, energy out.

Personally, I'm in far better shape now than I was when I was vegan, mostly because I do a shit-ton more running about. However, when I start my new job, which is going to involve an hour & a half commute and I'm going to spend 3 hours a day sitting on my ass in traffic, I know my health and fitness is going to go down the tubes because, like most people I won't have the time and energy to obsess about my health.

Fleur

Standfield
I honestly have no idea about food combining. I combine my foods into delicious meals, using herbs, spices, all sorts of clever techniques invented by big brained humans like fermentation ( incidentally the only way to make soy fully digestible) and fire and it works well for me. I don't eat more than I need, mostly from plants, very few processed foods and I don't have a sweet tooth so excess sugar isn't that much of a problem. I'm 5'7", 136 pounds and very active, with no obvious health problems. It's most likely not going to cure cancer though, so I'm obviously doing it wrong.

So I thought I'd leave with a youtube video I found, which is very illuminating. It promises to open your eye and about half way through explains how to cure digestive problems. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahcDdDZavs0

Fucking hell, I realise it must be tiring writing your long messages on this rotten corpse of a thread, but lay off the patronising and the sarcasm, I was just asking a question and I've think you've misunderstood my intentions.

Basically, I heard that if you take vitamin x, it could stop the absorption of vitamin y, and if the website that Webby linked to takes this into account. I was wondering if you knew anything about this, as you seem to be quite clued up on this stuff, and I am not. But you don't, so fair enough.

Shame about the cancer thing - don't know how I going to break it to my family that nan's not cured after all despite all of the seaweed smoothies I've been giving her. Thank fuck I can still rely on those crystals though, that round trip to Glastonbury village cost a fucking fortune.

Fleur

So I thought I'd leave with a youtube video I found, which is very illuminating. It promises to open your eye and about half way through explains how to cure digestive problems. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahcDdDZavs0

Oh my God, the eyes. The eyes say so much!

"I could post up videos of my own, of one of my team-mates, who does marathons, spartan races and has videos of himself doing all kinds of extreme, macho stuff and could your videos a run for their money. He usually goes for a post match cheeseburger. You know, energy in, energy out."

Again, the intent of posting the vegan guy doing high level calisthenics was to counter the belief that you can't be vegan and be strong. And that's what it does, quite successfully. That's fundamentally different in purpose than if you posted the kind of video you're talking about - because no one on this earth doubts you can eat cheeseburgers and be strong. Do you understand what I'm saying?

plasmatelly

But you're only a couple of posts away from sounding like Jamie Oliver mate!

This is a non-flaming forum. Please try to be constructive rather than insulting towards other posters.

I know this will be water off a ducks back to most but I hope it at least gets some people thinking differently.

I attended my first slaughterhouse vigil today. Words can not convey the emotions I'm feeling. I watched as truck, after truck, after truck, crammed tightly with pigs, were transported to their brutal death. I was able to give some of them water, stroke their faces and look into their haunted eyes. I told them I loved them and I was sorry. I asked for forgiveness for my complicity for so many years and promised to fight for their sisters and brothers. At one point a large tanker pulled in and I was told that was the vehicle that takes away their blood. This particular death chamber kill
s 10,000 beings EVERY day! What kind of a world are we living in where such things are possible? One day we will look back on these barbaric times with shame and disgust. Many thanks to Toronto Pig Save for organizing these vigils. We must bear witness to these atrocities, and do everything we can to stop it.

George Jackson once wrote that the best way to change the errant behaviour of children is to make them feel ashamed of their errant behaviour.

Here is a great vegan dish I prepared last night:

Yemeni Flatbread with Zhoug

To make zhoug grind 3 tomatoes, 6 red chillis, parsley, coriander, a tablespoon of ground coriander, a teaspoon of ground carraway (I used cumin), a teaspoon of ground cardamon, salt, pepper, oil and lemon juice to taste.

To make the Flatbread (it is similar to Ethiopian bread – more pancake than bread – except that it's made with the Asiatic grain wheat not the African grain teff) take two cups of flour and mix with a teaspoon of sugar, 3 tablespoons of oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a cup of water. In half a cup of lukewarm water mix in two sachets of dried yeast and set aside 5-10 minutes until it is frothy. Mix this with the dough. Leave covered in a warm place for 1 hour. Mix and leave one more hour. Heat small frying pan or skillet to a low temperature and add one label full of the mixture. Cook for 8 minutes without turning. Eat and enjoy.

Do you eat a vegan diet or do you just enjoy some vegan recipes?

Sometimes on the wagon, sometimes off.

I know that animals are human and that I am inhuman to eat my fellow human being.

I also use that lame excuse that I do not control the production process. I even use the excuse that I am pandering to what my children desire even though I know that when they are truly hungry they will eat whatever food I serve them.

I saw this quote on a separate thread:

It is only in communism that the Great Philosophy coincides with being in an organic circuit between the action of eating (today seen as trivial and unworthy of the spirit) and the action of respiring in the Spirit, conceived sublimely as truly worthy of the complete being, that is to say, God.

I don't know who said it but it seems relevant.

https://youtu.be/LL2cLhOqPsE

This is not an animal welfare film. There are others that cover that particular area of fucked up human behaviour, but I defy anyone to watch this all the way through and then deny that animal agriculture and the mass consumption of animal derived foods is a political issue, indeed to deny that its a class issue.
It’s not my intention to start another debate but things have moved on significantly in the last couple of years and mainstream science in both human health and environmental issues is on board with what those once considered whack jobs have been saying for years. It’s my hope that people will start to reconsider their position on this topic and the that scales will start to fall from the eyes of those who have thus far been dismissive of the significance of this to our politics.

Thank you for sharing this video. Most people agree that it's wrong to unnecessarily harm an animal. But we continue to kill them for unnecessary reasons. Animals are conscious, they have the capacity to suffer, and to enjoy life. They don't deserve to die when we have other options. I might be kind of bias, though, being a cat and all.

I might be kind of bias, though, being a cat and all

Should be ‘biased’ comrade, not ‘bias’, plus it should have been a comma, not a full stop between ‘animal’ and ‘but’. Hopefully though, your apparent inferior intelligence won’t be seen as justification for killing and eating you!
I’ve heard that cats can also be vegan even though I’ve always thought of them as obligate carnivores. Perhaps you can let us know if you’re a meat eater, or do you condemn violet against animals for the provision of your food?

Ah, a spelling/grammar nazi. No wonder you're vegan! ;)

No, cats are obligate carnivores. But I only eat fascists, so it's still ethical.

"No, cats are obligate carnivores. But I only eat fascists, so it's still ethical."

Hah! That definitely made my day. :)

If you consume meat, dairy or eggs you need to watch this film. I’ll warn you, it’s seriously disturbing stuff but if you’re not prepared to watch you need to ask yourself the question...

IF IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOUR EYES, HOW CAN IT BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOUR PLATE?

This has to stop. Animal agriculture is causing the unimaginable suffering of billions of animals, heart disease, diabetes and cancer in millions of people, and the apocalyptic destruction of the environment. So much of this could be changed if the world adopted a plant based diet. It’s not just hippy cranks saying so either, it’s mainstream science too. The evidence is all in.
So can you justify all this coz animal products are convenient and taste good?

https://youtu.be/BrlBSuuy50Y