cobra2411

Blatantly false claims? Since you called me out, I'm returning the favor, you know better - you simply made a statement with no facts to support it. How about you list some of the blatantly false claims so we can further discuss them. As for the data showing vegetarians being less likely to suffer the primary causes of death, all the studies shown are observational and by their nature can not show causation. Yet that's the stance offered by many of the video's and Guru's posted here that eating meat causes disease. When a casual person mistakes correlation for causation I can understand that, but not when a professional does it. There have been studies posted that show vegetarians are less likely to die than non-vegetarians - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22677895 for example, but non-vegetarians are all lumped together. I maintain it's not the meat that kills non-vegetarians but what is eaten with the meat that does and I listed a meta-analysis study of low carbohydrate diets that show marked improvements in cardiovascular health. I've shown how there is a huge conflict of interest with cholesterol data and that dietary cholesterol does not impact serum cholesterol and I offered proof for that. The studies that show otherwise are one; observational studies and two; the authors have a conflict of interest as they're on the payroll of companies who sell cholesterol medication. How many studies do you think will get funded after they come out and say cholesterol levels aren't a big deal and aren't a cause of heart disease - and I've covered that too, that bad cholesterol levels are really a symptom not a cause. If they were interested in the truth and finding a cause they're correctly identify cholesterol as a symptom and search for the cause. I've outed Dr McDougall as a quack because he's shown he's willing to intentionally distort facts to support his own agenda and listed the first paragraph of his hit piece on low carb diets where he lists ketosis as an illness and says people loose weight because they are simply too sick to eat. But I'm a quack too, so why listen to me. Ok, here's what Dr. Jeff Volek, Ph.D., R.D. has to say... "When you reduce your carbohydrate intake significantly – typically to less than 50 to 75 grams per day -you enter a metabolic state known as ketosis. Ketosis is a term used to describe the NORMAL process of using ketones for energy. Ketones aren’t bad. They’re actually a fat breakdown product. That is, whenever fat is burned, ketones are created. So they’re always present in the body. On a high carb diet, your body uses glucose, the simplest form of carbohydrates, as its primary fuel. But when glucose isn’t readily available to your body for energy your body begins burning fat at an accelerated rate, producing more ketones. These ketones are really just storage units, holding the excess energy that’s produced from the rapid breakdown of fat so that it can be used later as fuel. As ketone levels rise, your body’s reliance on glucose decreases. In the simplest terms, ketosis is just a shift from using carbohydrates (glucose) as the body’s main energy source, to using fat (ketones). It’s NOT a dangerous condition; it’s simply your body adjusting to your diet so that it’s using the most efficient form of fuel. Unfortunately many health professionals believe ketosis to be a dangerous metabolic condition. Why? Because over a hundred years ago, physicians discovered an overabundance of ketones in the urine of diabetics who were unable to control their disease. Naturally, the association of high levels of ketones with poorly controlled diabetes led to negative views of ketones. The high level of ketones in diabetics was given the name diabetic hyperketoacidosis (now known simply as diabetic ketoacidosis). Diabetic ketoacidosis, which represents extremely high levels of ketones, is a life-threatening state that can occur in type-1 diabetics who aren’t treating their condition appropriately. While diabetic ketoacidosis is serious, the mere presence of ketones is not. The point here is that sometimes a lot of something causes problems, but a little can be advantageous. Sort of like your heart beating 300 times a minute might be bad, but your heart beating 60 times a minute is ideal – and certainly better than not at all. Now consider: the ketone levels in people with diabetic ketoacidosis are 8 times higher than those following a low carb diet. Interestingly, ketones have many benefits. In fact, they may be the perfect fuel for dieters. Since ketones spare the use of carbohydrates for energy, they prevent the protein from your muscles from being broken down and converted to glucose. And that ensures that the calories you’re burning are far more likely to be fat, compared to typical diets where muscle loss almost always accompanies fat loss. Ketones also suppress your appetite. Research shows that increased levels of a compound called betahydroxybutyrate – the primary ketone in the blood -act as a satiety signal , meaning that it tells your brain that you’re full. Of course, the other knock on ketosis is that even if it burns fat faster, it deprives your brain of glucose, reducing your mental capacity. However, your brain only requires a small amount of glucose, which can be met through gluconeo-genesis, the process of converting protein to glucose. Although not high in protein, by it’s nature a low-carb diet provides ample incoming protein. So there’s plenty available for the small amount of glucose that your brain needs, without having to breakdown muscle. In addition, encouraging new research from National Institutes of Health scientist Richard Veech MD, PhD, has found that ketones may help both your brain and heart run 25 percent more efficiently." So ketosis is normal, it's the shift of your body from using carbs to using fat for energy and the primary ketone acts as a satiety signal telling the brain you're full. But I guess it's hard to sell a diet book about using carbohydrates when your competitors are having such good results. When your work can't stand on it's own then slander the competition. Then we have Collin Campbell who says that meat causes cancer. He even proves it with his rat study. The rats were given aflatoxin daily for six months. Aflatoxin, for those that don't know, is a known carcinogen. The rats were then separated into two groups and given 5% or 20% of a protein isolate; casein. Over two years all the rats in the 20% group survived, but many developed cancer or pre-cancer signs. The rats in the 5% group started dying after six months. So what does this study prove? That protein protects you from aflatoxin toxicity. Protein doesn't cause cancer, a constant dose of a known carcinogen cause cancer... Denise Minger has done a very good job of shredding Campbell's study that's frequently hailed as proof that a vegetarian diet is the only healthy diet. http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/ I have never said that plant based diets are unhealthy or that they don't improve health. I only cautioned that simply removing meat from your diet doesn't automatically make it a healthy diet. My stance has also always been that eating meat isn't the problem either. It's what you eat with the meat that causes the problem. Many people who adopt a vegetarian diet drastically alter their diet and remove the damaging food from their diet. Most people don't become vegetarian and adopt a diet of twinkies and ho-ho's. Show me the studies that prove meat and meat alone is the problem. I'll give you a hint; you'll have to look at ketogenic, low carb and paleo diet studies as they're the studies most likely to eliminate the sugary, starchy refined and processed foods that I believe are the problem. I've also maintained that most of those foods are only a problem when mixed with meat. The exception being the processed and refined foods. I've also been consistent with that - get the crap refined foods out of your diet and if you want to eat high carb, eat low fat. If you want to eat high fat then eat low carb.

I'm sorry to hear about what you're going though and I hope you get good news on Monday.

I just want to be clear, I don't have any anger or violence problems. Sure, I get frustrated and angry from time to time, but I recognize that it's trying to tell me something and I take the time to work it out. What I was referring to is the idea that you should release your anger physically. Angry? Hit a punching bag and work it out. That then links the pleasure you get from physical exertion with anger and I suspect can make some people angrier because they want that release...

He is intentionally dishonest! He intentionally misrepresents fact in order to promote himself and discredit others. Sorry, he's still a quack in my book.

Low carbohydrates. Try chicken and vegetables or liver and vegetables and pass on the rice and potatoes. And skip the sweets. Fried carrots and onions in butter with chicken is really good.

First, get any crap food out of your diet. Regular soda, chips, cookies, cakes, candy, etc. The simpler your food the better. Next on the list would be grains and starches - eliminate or greatly reduce breads, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc. Then decide if you're going to go low fat or low carb. If you're going low fat then you'll eat a mostly vegetarian diet. Lean meats are ok, but watch your fat intake. Fiber is your friend as it'll make you feel full faster and it seems to temper the release of glucose into your bloodstream so as not to spike your insulin levels. If you go low carb keep your carbs under 50g/day for weight loss. I personally find under 30g/day works really well for weight loss. The carbs I do eat are all vegetables with the very occasional piece of fruit. Once you've lost the weight you can increase your carb count by 10g/day per week till you start to gain weight. 10g/day less than that amount is your max carb amount. For me I find I maintain weight eating as much as 120g/day of carbs but I feel better if I keep it under 100. Here's a good forum that has a section for everyone from Atkins to Vegetarianism. http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/

Many, if not all of the "cholesterol is bad" proponents are funded by big pharma and there is a vested interest in selling more drugs. Everyone on the cholesterol research board that makes the cholesterol recommendations are on the payroll of big pharma. Simply lowering the recommendation from 240 to 200 created well over 20 million new customers. Cholesterol is a symptom and big pharma loves treating and managing symptoms because you're a customer for life. If they actually addressed the underling cause they might actually cure people and there's no money in a cure.

"The diet does seem primarily targeted at men" "[the advertisements] have virile, cavemen like images" Oh, how dare men have their own diet. Don't our bodies understand how sexist it is to respond to different nutritional intake than women? "One is that our agricultural diets today make us chronically ill" The wheat that is currently grown didn't exist even 50 years ago, let alone 10,000 years ago. The strain grown today is grown due to it's hardiness, it's resistance to disease and it's resistance to insects. Wheat is a grain, grains are seeds, and most seeds are not edible in their raw form. Seeds are the embryo of a plant; it's the baby that must survive a very harsh environment and have enough nourishment to last until it can sprout leaves and make it's own food. It's only reasonable to assume that, like all life, it would find a way to protect itself and it's offspring to ensure survival of the species. Now, there has been debate about how grains are healthy for you and how whole grains are the healthiest, but I haven't seen any studies that compare refined grains, whole grains and no grains. Grains are so low in nutritional value that most cereal products in the United States are fortified with vitamins and minerals. Now seed do have some nutritional value including protein, but not all of that is easily digestible and some is even harmful to us that aren't sprouting young plants. The outer parts of seeds are coated with proteins called lectins which are part of a plants immune system. lectins can bind to the glycoproteins on the walls of our intestines and have in laboratory settings been shown to damage human intestines and in animal studies it leads to leaky gut syndrome. Earlier someone posted a study that showed how a sausage mcmuffin lead to Endotoxin Inflammation Theory and they blamed the meat. A mcmuffin is made from grains which contain lectins which can cause leaky gut leading to endotoxin inflammation. But it sounds so much cooler to the vegetarian crowd to blame meat... Lectins have also been shown to cause cancer in laboratory settings. Soaking foods containing lectins and boiling them for 15 minutes will inactivate most lectins and make them safe to eat from a lectin perspective. But there's more! Grains also have gluten; which is proven to cause Celiac disease in humans. Gluten is difficult to digest and is irritating to our immune system. Seeds also have enzyme inhibitors that make it harder to break down foods and they have phytic acid. Phytic acid binds to minerals and removes them from our bodies, although taking vitamin C can help increase mineral absorption to prevent deficiencies. Then there are the seed starches which are undigestable. However, there is bacteria that lives in the colon that can break down these starches and turn them into saturated fat basically. It's nice that we have a long digestive tract as many have pointed out, but what we really need is a larger colon ratio to be true herbivores. Lets take a look at the western lowland gorilla; a true vegetarian mammal. It has 6 times the colon area as a human and can extract more than half it's energy needs from it's colon due to the bacteria that live inside which break down the indigestible fibers and such and convert them into short chain fatty acids or saturated fat. So on the surface the gorilla eats a very low fat diet, but what the body sees is decidedly high fat thanks to the bacteria that lives in the colon. Since humans lack a ruminant's stomach and we lack the large gorilla colon, we must get our fat through our diet. There are no animals that survive on a truly low fat diet. They either get their fat through their diet or their body makes it through fermentation. "[the paleo diet] has no basis in archaeological reality" So? It's a hook. It's a way of saying that "lean cuisine" meals are bad for you; get into the kitchen and cook your food from scratch and the simpler the menu, the better. Sure, some of it has drifted into ketogenic based models; but that's a valid diet of some people from 10,000 years ago - yes, I'm looking at you Mr Inuit man... "We have stone tool evidence from at least 30,000 years ago" Yeah, and? From what I've read the agriculture movement began in earnest 10,000 years ago and that would be when grains became a significant source of food for humans, so right in line with the timeline that paleo targets. However, the same agriculture that was available then isn't available today. Also, this does not say that humans didn't eat grains before this time; only that it was not a significant part of our diet before about 10,000 years ago. These books are not written as definitive scientific studies of what paleolithic people ate. It's an educated guess and at it's core it's about getting processed and refined foods out of your diet. Overall she seems fixated on showing how the "paleo diet" is not a paleo diet; not whether the diet is good or bad for you. If they called it "the don't buy processed food diet book" how many copies do you think they'd sell? Does this woman not have the words "artistic license" in her vocabulary? I've said it before and I'll say it again - GET THE REFINED, PROCESSED CRAP OUT OF YOUR DIET. I don't care if you eat vegetarian, vegan, paleo, south beach, atkins, etc. Get the crap out of your diet and you'll be a huge step ahead. Now, I do have concerns that vegetarian and particularly vegan diets can be very unhealthy for you However, it's not hard with some study and attention to detail to deal with those issues. And lastly, whatever you do - Don't eat a high fat, high carb diet. I assume you're referring to Dr D'Adamo's work? I looked into this a while ago and was intrigued and I know several people who have tried it with great success. However, I have serious questions about his work. For one, even he has drifted away from a blood type diet to a body type diet. Second, the people I know who did great on the diet cut out processed and refined crap foods at the same time. I submit their improvements weren't from a blood type diet, but rather than simply eating a healthier diet. As I've said before, some people have a sensitivity to red meat, but there is other non-red meat out there. If you love meat, eat meat as you're more likely to stick to a healthy diet eating things you like and that are easy to prepare. Cut all red meat from your diet for a few weeks and see how you feel. Then reintroduce them and compare. If you want to get real fancy then do blood tests 3 months apart. So it would require you to stay on that diet for the whole three months, but it would give you definitive proof that the diet is good or bad for you. I alternated between the standard american diet and low carb a few times with blood-work in between and my cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting blood sugar, c-reactive protein and many other factors improved on a low carb diet and got worse on the SAD diet. So I know consistently that a low carb diet is better for me.

So there's a saturation point where the amount of dietary cholesterol ceases to increase serum cholesterol? Hmm, it's almost as if the body can regulate cholesterol levels to where they need to be independently of the amount of dietary cholesterol. But I think I already said that there is zero correlation between dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol. I'm not sure if you were rebutting my position or supporting it. As for the video's, you do understand that he's talking his book; that is he's pushing a vegetarian agenda where everything else is simply wrong. The studies he listed show no causation, do not identify other dietary reasons for elevated cholesterol and rely on those in the study remembering how many eggs they've eaten and being honest about their answers. What about other foods they've eaten? Did they remember correctly the number of eggs? Did they eat their eggs with something else that could have caused elevated cholesterol. As for other animals that have issues with cholesterol - I don't care. They're not humans. If there is any correlation it's very weak and nothing shown shows causation - because it can't. Cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease. Let me explain. First, the body needs cholesterol; if your cholesterol was zero you'd die. So what we're really talking about is elevated cholesterol levels and those are symptoms, not causes. We're also talking about arterial plaque, not clogged capillaries. So why is it that cholesterol clogs our largest blood vessels, but not our smallest? Maybe because what LDL cholesterol does is protect and repair arterial inflammation. Since the body is fully capable of manufacturing all the cholesterol it needs and because the dietary cholesterol does not significantly change the levels of serum cholesterol we have to assume that when you have high cholesterol; particularly LDL, it's there for a reason - to heal inflamed arteries. Yes, some people have a sensitivity to red meats which causes inflammation. Some... I'm not speaking in exceptions here, I'm speaking in terms of the general population and the general population does not have an inflammatory reaction to meat that results in increased plaques. Yes I know you posted some videos... What were the other foods they ate and could those other foods have been responsible for the inflammation? Now... Notice that the doctor in the second video mentions that people should use lipid lowering drugs? You don't think he's got a vested interest in saying so do you? How about the authors of the study "Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque". They would have a financial reason to write about how cholesterol is bad for you would they? "Dr Spence and Dr Davignon have received honoraria and speaker’s fees from several pharmaceutical companies manufacturing lipid-lowering drugs, and Dr Davignon has received support from Pfizer Canada for an annual atherosclerosis symposium; his research has been funded in part by Pfizer Canada, AstraZeneca Canada Inc and Merck Frosst Canada Ltd." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989358/#__fn-groupid3507264title What's the likelihood they're going to get any more money if they publish a study that says cholesterol isn't a big deal? Excuse me for not trusting someone who has a vested interest in lying to me. As for Dr Potato Head, aka Dr McDougal, he's another one that talks his book and twists facts to distort reality and make his way seem right. Take a look at what he has to say about the Atkins diet: "This diet works by starving the human body of carbohydrates in order to induce a state of illness (ketosis), which can result in weight loss. People become too sick to eat too much." Ketosis is a state of illness? Seriously? Ketosis is the bodies response to a lack of dietary glucose. The liver uses fat for energy and creates glucose through gluconeogenesis. Ketones are byproducts of that process and various parts of the body which normally rely on glucose for fuel and have not adapted to using fat can use ketones in the interim. During this time, due to the lack of dietary glucose, insulin levels drop and glucagon levels rise. Insulin is a fat storage hormone, where as glucagon is a fat mobilization hormone. When glucagon levels rise the liver releases it's stores of glucose. The body only stores about 3 days worth of glucose, but it stores weeks, months even years of fat. Once the body is out of glucose it transitions to fat as an energy source and as I said the liver converts protein into glucose. The brain is one organ that can not function on anything other than glucose. Over time the body will adapt to using fat directly and ketone levels will drop significantly. How anyone can take a natural body function and label it an illness is beyond me. He then says people loose weight because they're too sick to eat; another falsehood. While there is an adaptation period of approximately two weeks, after that there is no sickness. When you eat carbohydrates your body releases insulin to control your blood sugar. Your body first replenishes it's stores, then through de novo lipogenesis your body converts glucose into fat. As I said, insulin is a fat storage hormone. This is why high fat, high carb diets are bad; your body stores all dietary fat and converts excess glucose into fat. Once your have extracted all you can from digestion you will become hungry again because your insulin levels are still high and your body isn't going to readily release fat for energy. When you're on low carb your insulin levels are always low and thus your body will release fat for energy more readily. You don't have the intense hunger because your body's always burning fat for energy - either from dietary sources or from storage. You never have elevated insulin levels to get in the way. Simply put this guy's a quack.

No, nothing major anyway. I might have started taking Tai-Chi sooner and may not have told the "authorities" about being bullied as that did nothing positive. As for my parents, they had problems, but this is one area where I think they got it right. The school wanted me to simply roll over and take the beating or I would be punished. My parents told me that if I ever had to defend myself they would stand with me and support me fully no matter what happened. As long as I didn't initiate the violence. I haven't been in any fights since getting out of school; that was a good 20 years ago.

I don't think so. My strongest desire was to be able to walk around school not being afraid of who might be around the corner. Now seeing the bullies back off and leave me alone felt great, I never did turn the tables and try and intimidate them. I simply became a more difficult target.

Sorry, I do not have my links handy, but here's one after a quick search. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9430080 "Reports from the Lipid Research Clinics Research Prevalence Study and the Framingham Heart Study have shown that dietary cholesterol is not related to either blood cholesterol or heart disease deaths." "The consistency of the clinical and the epidemiological data demonstrating that dietary cholesterol has little effect on plasma cholesterol in most individuals raises a number of questions regarding the justification of population wide restrictions on dietary cholesterol intake" It is not only known, but well known that there is no link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease, yet we're still told to limit our levels of dietary cholesterol. Three years ago when I went to a ketogenic diet my doctor was emphatic that I was going to send my cholesterol levels sky high. They actually went down. Here's one on low carb dieting which is decidedly high in saturated fats. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22905670 "Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and creatinine did not change significantly" "showed the LCD to be associated with significant decreases in ... C-reactive protein, as well as an increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol" No change in LDL, increase in HDL, or in other words an improved cholesterol ratio. Oh, and look, there's a significant decrease in C-reactive protein; a common marker for inflammation... Given that low carb diets rely heavily on animal products, that seems to contradict your statement that animal products exacerbate inflammation. I tried to view the video at the link but was greeted with a 404 error. I just searched youtube and found it, but I don't have time to watch an hour long video. I did watch the first couple minutes and already he's wrong. I've just shown that dietary cholesterol is NOT linked to heart disease. I listed two major studies, including the Framingham study which is a rather large and long running study on heart disease covering three generations. A meta analysys of other studies shows there is no link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease. I'm sure if I searched I could find studies to the contrary, but, and this is the important part, what else was done along with eating eggs. I've already stated that high fat, high carb diets are very bad for you. An egg along with hashbowns and toast for example would very bad for you. How many of the egg eaters are or were smokers? I know there is one study out there that interviewed seniors and then tried to "adjust" the data to make it all equal. Here's a good review from Mark's Daily Apple: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/are-eggs-really-as-bad-for-your-arteries-as-cigarettes/#axzz23ZLBH7Gw I'll respond more when I have more time and maybe I'll try and watch more of that video. It's kind of hard when he makes such a fantastic claim that is simply not supported by fact. Yes I know he listed a study, but what were the other variables and why don't other studies show the same correlation? The analysis of the low carb dieters should have shown a marked increase in cholesterol, but it didn't. That to me is one of the closest studies to look at saturated fat intake and cholesterol and the link isn't there. Neither are many of the other factors of heart disease.

I began learning martial arts in Jr High. I grew up faster than most of my class and became a target for bullies trying to prove themselves. I studied Shotokan and Aikido. One of my strongest memories from then was the concept of blocks as strikes. There were a couple fights where I used an opponents forward momentum to throw them. Another time a bully actually threw a roundhouse kick at my face. I threw a block and made good contact with his shin. The fight was instantly over and he limped away, although he tried to hide it. Of course telling the "authorities", i.e. teachers and principals the result was not positive. The "authorities" did nothing and the bullies sought retribution. I later shifted to studying Tai-Chi. As for the firearms, I'm not convinced that when the "cheese" runs out the entitlement crowd will just peacefully accept that. But I agree, it's best to avoid dangerous areas. Back to my childhood days I have to wonder what kind of childhood those bullies had.

First, there is zero correlation between dietary cholesterol and heart disease. Zero, none, zip, nada. Second, high cholesterol is not a predictor of heart disease as people with high and low cholesterol develop heart disease. Third, cholesterol serves a normal and necessary biological function in the body. So... What causes heart disease, arterial plaques, etc? Inflammation. Your body releases cholesterol (LDL) to repair damaged arteries caused by inflammation. If you have chronic inflammation your body will deposit new cholesterol before the old cholesterol can do it's job and be recycled by the body. What causes inflammation in the arteries? Glucose and Insulin are both caustic to the body at higher levels. When you cut out fat you replace it with carbohydrates and if you eat highly insulinogenic carbohydrates guess what you're doing? Yup, causing inflammation.

I can speak for myself, as one who has studied a couple forms of martial arts and as someone who is licensed to carry a firearm and does. None of those things, learning how to fight, getting acclimated to being hit, learning to fire a gun with the sounds of gun fire close around, none of those things has made me a more violent person. In fact, my fighting style is decidedly defensive in nature and focuses on using my opponents attacks against him and when I'm carrying a firearm I am exceedingly non-confrontational. In both cases my singular goal is to remove myself from the situation safely. Now, I approached all of this from a defensive standpoint and that there are people that simply enjoy beating the crap out of people. One of the problems I have with current psychology is the concept of working out your anger. If you're angry, hit something, it's not good to bottle it up - see, it feels good to release it. Anger is there for a reason and we should all learn to process it, but learning to derive pleasure from the release of anger can lead to someone becoming more angry and violent as they seek the release that comes following a bout of anger. This is all fine and good as long as you have your sparing partner close by or a punching bag, but what happens when it's your ex-girlfriend and you don't know how to safely process your anger. You just know that if you hit something it'll feel better. Of course a good deal of anger and frustration as well as a way to deal with it can be instilled as a child by a parent. An abusive father who uses violence can cause frustration and the learned response is to use violence.

First let me begin by saying that if you have a moral objection to eating meat then don't. I differentiate between killing and abuse and do not equate killing with abuse. For me to live something must die and as long as that something is not unnecessarily abused then I don't care what it is. And yes I'm aware of the production meat plants and their issues and I do my best not to support them. I could go on and on about production agriculture and the damages it does. That's a bit outside of this topic however so I don't want to focus there. Second point. Anything you can do to get the refined, processed crap food out of your diet will go a long way to improving your health. Do whatever is easier for you to get that crap out of your diet. If becoming a vegetarian makes sense and you can stick to it then do it. There is no such thing as a "perfect" diet, however there are some guidelines. 1.) Get rid of the processed crap food. 2.) Eat high fat / low carb or eat low fat / high carb. Do not eat high fat / high carb or you'll resemble a diseased planetoid. 3.) Get sugar out of your diet. The biggest problem with processed foods is they're high in surgar. In nature sugar always comes with fiber - look at sugarcane, it's a stick. You can't get more fiber than a stick... We refine it, get the fiber out of the way and upon digesting it, it spikes the bloods glucose levels and as a result insulin levels. It's that chronic abuse that leads to metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, etc. I encourage people to take a scientific approach to your diet. Get a full blood workup and then after 3-6 months do it again. That will conclusively show if you're on the right track. There are many pitfalls with the different diets out there and there's a lot of bad information. Now onto specific responses. Mango "but eating a low-fat vegan diet is the only one I've found where you can eat until you are satiated, and loose weight." I ate a high fat, meat only diet and lost weight with ease. I ate until I was full and stopped. I didn't exercise, count calories or even think about it past not eating more than 50g of carbs a day. In all I lost over 60lbs this way. Tyler Durden "It's better for the environment. The production of animal products is extremely inefficient compared to plant products and it creates more waste." Big agriculture is incredibly harmful for the environment. I agree that current production farms of all types are damages to the environment, but there's promise in the concept of predator herding of animals. I do have some issues with Allan and what he says, but there is something to what he's saying and I feel we would be better off if we strongly reviewed productions farming in general, both plants and animals and made changes to mimic nature better. More on how predators change the environment. abcqwerty123 "The only logical answer I can come up with is that every time people say that eating vegan isn't healthy because you need "X" nutrients that plants don't supply, I then see vitamins and other sources that claim to have those nutrients." I believe it's completely valid to say a diet isn't healthy because you need to add supplements. Absent those, particularly B12, you can die. abcqwerty123 "Lastly, as for you going vegetarian/vegan, here are my thoughts. I think killing anything is wrong and like I have heard Stefan say, if children were raised properly/kindly, then even though morality cannot apply to animals, they still wouldn't kill or harm them. So, in order to raise a child that way, you cannot be feeding them dead animals because there would be a contradiction and if you eat meat as the parent, then you are being a hypocrite in raising them that way..." Vegetarians kill plants. Big agriculture destroys habitats for many natural animals. I don't feel it's as simple as you're a hypocrite for eating meat while teaching not to kill. You teach your children to respect all life, but everything dies and living things need to die for other living things to continue. We need to get back to the concept of the circle of life. Western society seems to have adopted the idea that life begins, then ends and that's it. Upon death organisms break down nutrients and give back to the earth so life can be repeated. Cows eat grass and leave manure which feeds the next generation of grass. Birds eat fruit and move seeds to new locations. Humans pack their waste into plastic bags and leave them in landfills to do nothing. Now they're tapping landfills for methane gas extraction, so there is a circle of life there... Tyler Durden "And since it's not necessary for your health either, the only reason for eating meat that people have left is that they like the taste of meat." No supplements needed with a meat based diet. I don't think you can argue eating meat isn't necessary for health. EndTheUsurpation "You cannot cut out all meat and still have a healthy lifestyle." Well I haven't done enough research to say that conclusively, but definitely need to be careful with a non-meat diet that you don't create serious life threatening deficiencies. LovePrevails "Humans have a vegetarian digestive system. It's a long digestive system, that isn't very acidic." No, we are omnivores as EndTheUsurpation stated. Take a look at the Lowland Gorilla, a true vegetarian primate. His colon is 6 times that of a human and is designed to ferment the non-digestible parts of plants and turn them into saturated fat. We lack multi-part stomachs that aid in fermentation, etc. However, we do have the ability to ferment and digest plant based foods to some degree, so we're not carnivore and not herbivore - we're omnivores... It has been theorized that humans evolved due to eating meat, others have provided links. This makes sense that given our digestive system that we started out vegetarian and as we started eating meat we evolved into humans. Since meat is so nutritionally dense we didn't have to spend as much time finding / digesting food and were able to evolve. Despite our lack of claws and fierce teeth, we are able hunters. By the way, I love raw meat and eat it frequently... LovePrevails "Humans cannot outrun prey. They cannot catch them easily without tools. That is just a matter of fact. Animals that eat meat can catch prey, their bodies are designed to catch prey without tools." Research persistence hunting. One interesting thing about humans vs animals is that our cooling system isn't linked to our respiration. Quadrupeds cool themselves by breathing and they can only breath once per stride when running. Their respiration system is very efficient but it's a fatal flaw if they have to keep running. Early humans figured this out and could simply run an animal to death. No need for tools or claws. LovePrevails "You don't even admit that other primates are vegetarian and that is a matter of fact." See my comments about the lowland gorilla. Tyler Durden "I provided some links in my first post that show that people who don't eat meat have a lower risk at obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and on average have a longer lifespan " The Inuit. They ate a 100% meat based diet and heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes all were unheard of till they introduced a western diet. There is more here than meat bad, plants good. Typically vegetarians are more aware of what they eat vs the average non-vegetarian who stuffs his face with god only knows what kind of processed and refined foods. It's the processed and refined crap that kills you. This is where it's easy to go astray with a vegetarian diet - you replace meat with processed carbs rather than make your own from the produce isle. EndTheUsurpation "Check out Gary Taubes. He will blow your mind." Absolutely. Why we get fat and what to do about it should be required reading. It will change they way you look at food and diets. FreedomPhilosophy "The journalist Gary Taubes torn to shreds (1 of 16):" I only made it 9 minutes into that drivel but was unable to find any arguments that were put forth against Taubes. Ornish referred to the Atkins diet as a pork rind diet and Taubes called him on it. The retort in the video you listed is that he included pork rinds as a food source? That shreds Taubes credibility? Yolo "People who defend eating meat, eggs and dairy don't want to stop eating them and just try to ignore true information because the truth makes them feel uncomfortable." I scientifically approached the massive changes in my diet, from the standard american diet to a low carb, high fat diet. I did full blood tests 3 months apart and in addition to loosing over 30lbs I saw improvements in all categories tested including a marked reduction in total cholesterol and fasting blood glucose levels. I continued to loose over 60 lbs total and have kept it off. It's been 3 years now and I was unable to do that on any previous diet. Yolo "The China Study" I wouldn't use that book for toilet paper. His conclusions are seriously flawed. The rat study for example was used to show that eating meat causes cancer when in reality, it showed that eating massive amounts of a known carcinogen causes cancer. Wow... Big surprise there. The study gave rats a known carcinogen along with a protien isolate that is a known cancer fuel - casein. Whey is decidedly anti-cancer and in whole foods you would never get one without the other. So what happened? All of the high protein rats survived while some developed cancer whereas 1/3rd of the low protein rats died of other causes than cancer. Even if high protien diets caused cancer, you're more likely to survive than on a low protien diet. FreedomPhilosophy "Endotoxin Inflammation Thoery" Seriously? Sausage egg McMuffin's as the food used to show meat causes inflammation due to leaky gut syndrome? Really? First, the graph is clearly labeled HFHC as in High Fat, High Carb, which is a diet that should universally be avoided. Second, the muffin part of the McMuffin is made from wheat, which has been shown to be a cause in leaky gut syndrome. Show me a study that uses a ketogenic diet and provides an increase in inflammation. Some people are sensitive to red meats, however, red meat doesn't equal all meat. I can't speak for everyone, but I have the blood tests for myself that show a reduction in C reactive protein or inflammation when I switched to a ketogenic diet. I can say, based on my research that my results are not uncommon. Yolo "moderate amounts of animal products are detrimental to the human body because moderate amounts of cholesterol, animal fat, trans fatty acids, casein and animal proteins, are just as harmful as moderate amounts of white refined sugar, tobacco, and heroin. if you want to avoid lung cancer and emphysema, moderately smoking five cigarettes per day would not be too bright. if you want to avoid heart disease, most cancers, diabetes, osteoporosis, and other diseases, not even moderate amounts of meat, dairy and eggs can be on the menu!!" The lipid hypothesis has been thoroughly debunked. Eating animal fats doesn't not make you fat, raise your cholesterol levels, cause cancer, heart disease, etc. That's all myth and has been debunked many times over. Yolo "http://www.drmcdougall.com/" I've outed this charlatan before. He lists the Atkins diet as a no-carb diet then links the Wiki page showing it's low carb. He mentions how the Inuit had high rates of heart disease that went down after limiting meat from their diet and listed a study showing the exact opposite. Fact check his work and you'll find nothing but flaws. Yolo "like I said before just because you loose weight on a paleo diet or any other fad diet and look pretty "fit" it doesn't mean it is healthy...." I have blood tests that show a marked improvement upon adopting a ketogenic diet. Since it's a limited study of one, I will certainly accept that the improvements were from the reduction of crap processed foods, but it clearly shows that eating meat is not unhealthy. Yolo "like Paul Joseph Goebbels the Nazi minister of propaganda said: "the essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never escape from it". saying that meat is necessary and healthy is just PROPAGANDA, it is a lie that is destroying peoples health, killing animals and destroying our environment !" Oh, I like that. Quote a Nazi and then what you say next is simply fact as long as you label the contrary PROPAGANDA in big scary letters! Let me try... like Paul Joseph Goebbels the Nazi minister of propaganda said: "the essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never escape from it". saying that meat is unnecessary and vegetarianism is healthy is just PROPAGANDA, it is a lie that is destroying peoples health and destroying our environment ! Why did I waste my time typing all this out and reading all the posts, I could have simply labeled it all PROPAGANDA. FreedomPhilosophy "The lipid hypothesis is accepted by any reasonable person familiar with the science involved, that's why it appears in medical text books. We know the lipid hypothesis is correct because dietary and drug interventions empirically support it amongst a whole lot of other data." The lipid theory is NOT supported. Take a look at the Framingham study and it shows absolutely no correlation between blood lipid levels and coronary heart disease. Everyone on the panel that makes the recommendations about what are "safe" cholesterol levels receive benefits from the pharmaceutical companies that produce cholesterol drugs. I'm sure they were totally unbiased though...

Capitalism, in my opinion, is where both sides get more value then what they bring. If I'm hungry, I can give the sandwich maker $5 for a sandwich. I'd rather have the sandwich and he'd rather have the $5. It's a win-win. Then the state get involved and taxes my earnings, the sandwich makers earnings and the sale. The regulate that you can only get sandwiches from licensed sandwiches sellers and they restrict who can get those licenses. They tax gross sales, the building, the water, electric, etc... Hey .gov, this is an A-B transaction, C your way out of it...

I'm not sure you understand libel or defamation; that is what the OP specifically mentioned. Allow me to adjust your statement to see if the OP's question makes sense. Someone stands outside your store and announces to people "Don't buy here, the owner is a pedophile that rapes little children and stomps on kittens." Your customers begin to shop elsewhere and there is a noticeable decline in revenue. The person outside made his statement up with no proof whatsoever. In the current system I feel they should be civil penalties, not criminal laws to handle this. Actually, other than hate crime laws I'm not sure there are criminal sanctions for libel and defamation, but I'm not an expert. In any case, clear harm must be shown. If some homeless guy stands outside stating "don't buy here or the world will end" and everyone ignores him the only thing you have left is to remove him from your property. Not much harm there. I also agree that in an ancap system reputation points would likely be an effective way to deal with things like this. There would need to be a way of making and verifying complaints and positive reviews of people, but I don't think that would be too hard to figure out.

In other words, tax chattel pay $77,500 for tax farm enforcer's mistake. I'm willing to bet that the officer did not have to pay directly and wasn't seriously disciplined for his part in the event.

First let me say hats off for sharing your story. One of the things I don't think was touched on was the concept of virginity. In my opinion it's an outdated idea. The idea that you're a lowly virgin then after one specific sexual act you're not. It doesn't make sense. As you get older you loose the naivety of youth and you begin to understand in an adult way what sex is. So if you're worried about being a virgin, don't be. When the idea of sex enters into the equation you can simply say you don't have a lot of experience. Later you can say that you actually don't have any experience; but you look forward to learning.

Fascinating! My first thought is not so much does the monkey own the picture, but does the photographer own it. I doubt the monkey understands the concept of copyright. We can use timers and triggers to take photo's and not manually press the shutter release and still own the picture because we control the timers and triggers, but in this case the monkey owns his body. Now, my dog owns his body and I'm sure with a little time I could teach him to take selfies, but he would be working as my agent for a reward. This was clearly a case where the photographer lost control of his equipment. So next though, if I take his camera and take a photo, who owns the photograph? The owner of the equipment or the photographer. How about if a tree fell and triggered the camera? Or some other random event. In the end the lawyers will be the only winners.

As of December 2013, the FAA had documented at least 35 incidents where pilots required medical attention after a laser strike." My first thought was that they were just lasing the body of the plane, and for that 14 years is a bit stiff, but they're getting cockpits and pilots which is very uncool. I'd like to see a synopsis of that case, but from the sounds of it, it's very reckless behavior.

I did just that when I was called. Case was an open and shut murder case so no jury nullification... But I was prepared if it did come up. OP, good for you to stick to your beliefs and stand up to the monster.

A picture is worth a thousand words... How are you dressed, what's the environment you're in, how is your hair / complexion / eyes / teeth, etc. Do you look rested, do you look like you're having fun, what are you doing, who's around you, etc. We can pick up subconsciously on so many more things that a good picture can make or break a profile. What would be interesting is to find out what type of pictures are more likely to get you the match you want. For example, being an introvert, I find I'm turned off when every picture is in a group of people.

I don't have a problem with old infrastructure, some it can last 100+ years. No, the real problem is that nothing is being put away for replacing it when it fails. So, something has an expected lifespan of 10 years and 10 years go by and we spend all our money on other things. The decision then becomes to hold off on replacing it because we don't have the money. Money is initially set aside for replacement in 10 years, but after 5 years the money gets used elsewhere. Another 10 years go by and there is no money for replacement so the goal is to get another 10 years out of it. 2 years later it fails and the taxpayers are faced with large increases in taxes to pay for repairs desperately needed. Who is really to blame here though? Sure, we put a government in place to manage these things, but why aren't the people taking up torches and pitchforks? You have gross incompetence in not setting aside money for a known future replacement and you have intentional fraud in spending money for something else. What's worse is that in these situations a bond is usually issued that has a maturity similar to the expected lifespan. The bond is never paid down, money isn't saved and in 10 years when the replacement is needed you end up with two bonds that will never be paid down. In the private sector the customer ultimately decides how much you can charge for something, thus what you can spend on things like deferred maintenance. Run your company this way and you'll fail spectacularly. With government however they just put a gun to your head and tell you that they need your money because nobody could have anticipated what happened. The people that are responsible for this have lifetime pensions with lots of benefits. Are they ever clawed back? Are they ever even questioned about their roll in the debacle? No. So why should any future government employee act any different. They screw up or worse commit abject fraud and the taxpayer suffers the consequences.