121–130 of 137 posts
Imagine being so addicted to dairy and meat that you think that you can't survive without either.
It brings to mind a smug inuit saying "Imagine being so addicted to eating plants from the ground that they you think you can't survive without it!"
Or the same from someone living on a hypothetical full synthesized diet.
It is absurd and meaningless.
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This. Western world has a bit skewed view of food anyway, since most distribution is handled by large companies that optimize for their own profit, and this applies to producers as well. We couldn't survive without modern "food chains", but that does not mean the crops used by the modern processes are the only viable ones. Rather, they are the most popular ones for which the processes have been optimized for.
>Western world has a bit skewed view of food anyway, since most distribution is handled by large companies that optimize for their own profit Where in the world is food distributed by non-companies for no profit? Venezuela? Cuba?
Maybe I was too obscure. The point I wanted to express was that the current species that are mainstream for food production are there for many reasons, including the fact, that it's easier to optimize food production business from the point of view of distributors if the number of species used is small.
Hence if there is an odd plant that is used only regionally, it does not mean it could not become a staple - just that it's not currently staple, and not necessarily for any inherent quality of plant itself.
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A huge part of it is that they make money on what people want to buy as well. I’m sure if they put seaweed and cacti in most American grocery stores most people would skip them for what they think will be good for dinner. Therefore having zero profit without the companies margins having anything to do with it. What’s available has typically played a role but it’s not the only metric.
Where do you live, Maine? Every grocery store around me has seaweed and cacti and I live in the sticks. Only the most demographically challenged parts of the country lack Asian and Mexican options in the supermarkets.
Sure you can get tacos, salsa, and egg rolls just about everywhere but any non-mainstream produce like plantains or lychee let alone seaweed or cacti are niche enough to call for specialty supermarkets.
Of the five Guiding Principles on page 52 only about 1.5 of them are primarily concerned with the nutrition content of the food. The rest are mostly focused on their environmental impact. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And clearly that's aligned with the mission of the WWF. But I think you'd get a much different list if it was just about maximizing the health of the eater. E.g. meat. When I choose food at…
Is anybody the "bad guy?" Is anybody not? The Earth will fix itself, eventually, no matter what we do to it. It's seen worse. I mean it apparently went from a ball of lava pelted with meteorite-nukes to the only verdant garden we have ever known, and it has already been through at least a few cataclysms. Even if the planet disappears overnight, the universe at large will still go on as if we never existed. You choose…
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On the supply side, government intervention is what it takes to internalize externalities. Monocropping is only the most profitable choice when the cost of heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides is low.
Interesting, but could you elaborate? Are you saying governments are subsidising fertilizers and pesticides? And if so, why would that only be to the benefit of monocropping and no in general?
And those techs benefits everything but monocropping more. Crop rotation also restores soil quality but it is less optimal in yields and a "cycle" of crops means more variables to optimize for like soil, temperature, and financial yields.
It's worth noting for anyone that advocates this sort of diet that it is a luxury. Many people mention that you can make good food on such a diet, but it is doubtless time-consuming. What of those who work by the hour? And the ingredients are expensive. Many of the fancy foods on here come from Whole Foods, not HEB. Even if they become affordable, the time aspect is still important; most don't want to spend 2 hours c…
With that said cooking every night does not take long at all not to mention leftovers means no cook time the next night or two.
Also- things like beans, rice, and vegetables are cheap as hell. Meat is almost always the most expensive part of a meal, and rightfully so.
(Side note: that is one gorgeous document.) After watching the excellent documentary "Eating You Alive", I have mostly switched to a whole-food plant-based diet and feel fantastic, although I do eat the occasional pair of eggs. The big difficulty with the diet is avoiding all the refined oils that permeate our packaged food culture. Luckily, my wife is a professional cook and still cooks at home. That said, this docu…
Did I miss something in this comment? I don't understand the downvotes.
That we live in a world full of cowards is the sad-ass truth.
Imagine being so addicted to dairy and meat that you think that you can't survive without either.
That is an utterly vapid statement format that states only ones own sense of superiority with nothing about any actual merits. It brings to mind a smug inuit saying "Imagine being so addicted to eating plants from the ground that they you think you can't survive without it!" Or the same from someone living on a hypothetical full synthesized diet. It is absurd and meaningless.
Because if you need a reminder, here is one link [1] and here is another. [2]
Can you honestly have any argument against the fact that 99% of the meat and dairy you buy on the market has been in some way altered or modified?
Not to mention that a lot of this product comes out enzyme-less by default, and by adding the factor if cooking it's just that much worse. Your body needs enzymes to process food, and if they're not there, you are literally dropping atomic bombs in your stomach that slow down your entire system. [3]
I'm not trying to be hypocritical either. I grew up on meat and dairy. But somehow the transition away from it came naturally to me, many, many years ago.
I lived near local farms for most of my life, and even the local farmers (in a "remote" part of the world) have started to use additive injections and questionable food choices because there is serious competition.
And I understand your point of view. You think I come off sounding insensitive, but I am more than happy to talk facts and lay down some examples. Because, after all, that's what HN loves the most.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/01/death-ra...
[2]: https://www.livestrong.com/article/464430-are-hormones-in-me...
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Aside from fad diets like Atkins, you don't see health professionals recommending meat as the core of a healthy diet. My doctor tells me to eat a plant-based diet at every visit now. If there's a discrepancy here, it's not that you should be eating lots of meat.
> you don't see health professionals recommending meat as the core of a healthy diet Yeah, this is probably why obesity and related complications is the #1 cause of death right now. (Edging out 'old age' and 'smoking'.) These "health professionals" have blood on their hands.
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Meat is very calorie dense due to the fat content -- if you don't eat it, you need to substitute a plant food that is also relatively calorie dense (like beans, lentils, or potatoes) but also, probably just eat more of it. I found that I needed to eat more when I became a vegan, and even more now that I'm trying to put on muscle mass. Also, beans are a good substitute because they tend to dampen blood sugar swings, d…
> you need to substitute a plant food that is also relatively calorie dense (like beans, lentils, or potatoes) I tried this; not much help. I was used to a diet of essentially no carbs (and had found it beneficial for me), and actually switched because I had a friend who would not shut up about not eating meat and wouldn't stop until I did. I can indeed eat more, but occasionally I would get full and still not feel "…
I should also note, that I follow a whole-food, plant based diet, which is both stricter than a typical vegan diet in some ways, and less strict in others. I don't obsess so much if I have a bit of honey, or if my food has touched some meat, or anything like that. But I try pretty hard to stick to "whole foods", which rules out "vegan junk food", and in fact most processed foods, which have added oil, salt, and sugar, and have fiber and valuable phytonutrients stripped out. The fact that I don't eat anything with processed oil means that it's really quite hard for me to eat so much that I gain fat. I believe the term "nutritarian" is another way to describe this diet. (But of course, I cheat once in a while).
I sort of agree with you about people doing best on different diets, but in a more limited sense than you mean, I think. For sure, nuts and avocados have a lot of research showing their health benefits -- but I don't eat them, because every time I do I feel like crap for the next day or so (which is SUPER annoying, because I fucking love avocado). Whole wheat is healthy, unless you have Crohn's disease.
I think that some people who feel better without carbs might feel better because they eliminated a particular chemical that comes along with certain types of carbs, without realizing what the exact culprit was. Someone who suffers from a dairy intolerance and drinks milk every day, might actually feel better after switching to an all-beef diet, even though they cut out tons of healthy foods!
But overall, I think that the general shape of the healthiest human diet is virtually all plant foods, with most calories from carbohydrates rather than animal protein and fats. In exceptional cases like childhood epilepsy, ketogenic diets can be valuable, but there is a long list of undesirable side effects -- it's just that it's better than the alternative. And the Standard American Diet is so bad that pretty much any deviation from it is an improvement.
I don't want to try to convince you that you should stop eating meat because I want to prove that I'm right, or something... It's more that I wish that everyone can be happy and healthy, and I based on what I've learned in the past few years of geeking out on nutrition research, I suspect that though you feel better on a high-animal-protein diet, it might be causing you (and most other people) long-term harm. And that there might be a diet that works for you both in terms of long-term health and also just plain feeling good.
But I understand that it's really hard to try to eat something that you expect to make you feel unwell. I 100% understand if you are happy enough with this diet not to want to make any more changes.
I guess, just, maybe if down the line you find that you're suffering from high blood pressure, or heart disease, or pre-diabetes, or just start feeling unwell, you might remember our conversation and consider giving a plant-based diet another try. Maybe at first just by swapping in some beans in the place of meat, fish, or eggs (they're not terribly high-carb), and gradually trying out other foods.
By the way, if you don't eat a particular food and then suddenly start eating it, it can take a while for your gut bacteria to adjust. Different types of foods require completely different bacteria to digest them, and the lack of the right type of bacteria can cause the food to just ferment in your intestines, which feels pretty bad and leads to smelly farts. It's best to make dietary changes slowly.
Also, it's possible to eat a low-carb vegan diet, with most of the calories coming from plant-based oils. It takes some planning though.
And the fact that you eat vegetables, fruit, nuts, and avoid trans fats and other junk food is a step up from the standard american diet, for sure.
Oh, and finally: IGF-1 is a growth hormone, you're correct. The reason it leads to cancer is that when you get more of it than your body naturally produces, by eating meat, it stimulates the production of new blood vessels. Tumors need a lot more nutrients than normal tissue to support their growth rate, and IGF-1 gives them that -- without it, they have a much harder time.
We are actually getting little cancers all the time, but our body is quite good at killing them, if avoid foods that help the cancer and eat lots of foods that with anti-cancer chemicals (cruciferous vegetables, for example). If our immune system couldn't fight most of the little cancers, we'd be in some pretty serious trouble.
Anyway, I wish you the best of health and happiness! Thank you for your honest and thoughtful discussion.