Vegetarian/Vegan Questions?

[FreedomPhilosophy]

 But I agree with your synopsis - there are no controlled studies that show that meat is bad for you, just as there are no controlled studies that show vegetarianism is the cure...

There are no "controlled studies" indicating that meat is healthy or necessary to consume, but there is heaps of evidence that it is not. From these 2 facts alone a rational person will limit or remove meat from their diet (assuming that there are other things to eat known to be healthy). 

It is rare if not impossible to obtain definitive scientific conclusions in relation to human health, so the science is instead based on the weight of evidence, the theory being most parsimonious with the known facts being the one favoured.People waiting in denial until some unattainable scientific proof arises are engaged in acts of faith.

[cobra2411]

There are no "controlled studies" indicating that meat is healthy or necessary to consume, but there is heaps of evidence that it is not. From these 2 facts alone a rational person will limit or remove meat from their diet (assuming that there are other things to eat known to be healthy). 

It is rare if not impossible to obtain definitive scientific conclusions in relation to human health, so the science is instead based on the weight of evidence, the theory being most parsimonious with the known facts being the one favoured.People waiting in denial until some unattainable scientific proof arises are engaged in acts of faith.

Please show me the controlled studies that show meat, and only meat is the issue. Or at least show studies that deal with the confounding data of high fat, high carb diets vs low carb diets to eliminate the problems that highly insulinogenic foods cause. I have asked for this information before and I have posted studies on ketogenic diets and their positive effects on health. 

 

http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articleid=1133027

 

"The low-fat “diet–heart hypothesis” has been controversial for nearly 100 years. The low-fat–high-carbohydrate diet ... may well have played an unintended role in the current epidemics of obesity, lipid abnormalities, type II diabetes, and metabolic syndromes. This diet can no longer be defended by appeal to the authority of prestigious medical organizations or by rejecting clinical experience and a growing medical literature suggesting that the much-maligned low-carbohydrate–high-protein diet may have a salutary effect on the epidemics in question."

 

How about the Spanish Paradox? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7754987

 

Heart disease deaths in Spain from 1966-1990 dropped by 25% for men and by 34% in women. Between 1964 and 1991; 

Bread consumption fell by 55%

Rice consumption fell by 35%

Potato consumption fell by 53%.

Beef consumption went up 96%

Pork consumption went up by 382%

Poultry consumption went up by 312%

Full-cream milk consumption went up by 73%

 

But eating meat causes heart disease right? 

 

How about the Massi? 

 

66% of their calories are derived from animal fat with an estimated average daily cholesterol intake was from 600 to 2,000 mg per person. Surely their arteries were clogged with cholesterol and they died from heart attacks right? Opps, doctors found that their blood cholesterol levels were extremely low, and autopsies of deceased Masai found almost no evidence of arterial plaques.

 

As I've said before, I'm betting my life on this literally. I've already seen a huge improvement in my health and a great reduction in markers for CVD. 

 

Eating meat isn't the problem. 

[cobra2411]

Then there is Israel... 

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8960090

 

Israel has one of the highest dietary polyunsaturated/saturated fat ratios in the world ... Despite such national habits, there is paradoxically a high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and obesity-all diseases that are associated with hyperinsulinemia (HI) and insulin resistance (IR), and grouped together as the insulin resistance syndrome or syndrome X. There is also an increased cancer incidence and mortality rate, especially in women, compared with western countries. 

 

But saturated fat is bad for you and will give you heart disease. 

 

It's not meat. Metabolic syndrome, aka syndrome X is the most likely, logical cause for heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes (type 2), obesity, and cancer. What likely causes metabolic syndrome to develop? Repeated abuse of highly insulinogenic foods, mainly the processed and refined foods, but I don't believe it's limited to just those. Earlier I posted how grains are seeds and seeds have developed defense mechanisms that can cause problems for humans. That is a possible explanation of gluten sensitivity, celiacs disease, leaky gut syndrome, etc. That may also play a roll in the development of metabolic syndrome. Just as some people are allergic to shell fish or peanuts, some are allergic to wheat and gluten and it would explain why two people can eat the same diet and have differing reactions to it. 

 

So if metabolic syndrome is a cause of these diseases, what's the solution? Well, restricting glucose would reduce the need for the body to produce insulin thereby managing or possibly reversing the condition. How do we restrict glucose? Lose the carbohydrates. I've already posted studies where LC diets improve insulin resistance and LF diets make it worse. A vegetarian diet may reduce weight, but it won't do anything for insulin resistance because it can't. It's glucose based and therefor will continue to trigger an insulin response in the body.

 

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/14/4/963.full

 

"Both vegetarians and nonvegetarian health-conscious persons in this study have reduced mortality compared with the general population."

 

It's easy to show that meat is bad for you when you make no attempt to find health-conscious meat eaters for your study; like the paleo crowd... But, as soon as you do look for low carb eaters or other health-conscience meat eaters the difference in mortality rates disappears... But eating meat causes 17 out of 18 leading causes of death... Vegetarians are by their nature health conscience and most of the observational studies build two categories - Vegetarian and Non-Vegetarian which includes people who don't give a crap about what they eat. All those studies show is that people who care about their health and eat in some health-conscience way live longer and have less disease.  

[FreedomPhilosophy]

 

Please show me the controlled studies that show ...

 

You need to study the body of work and show me why you consider the authorities on the topic to be incorrect. It is you who present the controversial position.

 

The evidence that meat is bad for people is in the literature and abundantly presented on various internet platforms. There is a vast amount of supportive data from a range of scientific fields. If you are not prepared to review this and understand the scientific consensus, then I'm hardly motivated to discus at length the few seemingly contrary findings you present.The best research I am aware of that approaches controlled studies of meat vs vegetarian are the Seventh Day Adventist studies. This population share a fairly consistent lifestyle (not drinking, not smoking, exercsie etc.) yet some are vegetarian whereas others are not. The vegetarians lived a few years longer on average than the meat eaters and suffered from less degenerative illness. Google AHS-1 / Adventist Health Study 1. See also http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/526S.longAs for the Masai they experience extreme atherosclerosis... 

The hearts and aortae of 50 Masai men were collected at autopsy. These pastoral people are exceptionally active and fit and they consume diets of milk and meat. The intake of animal fat exceeds that of American men. Measurements of the aorta showed extensive atherosclerosis with lipid infiltration and fibrous changes but very few complicated lesions. The coronary arteries showed intimal thickening by atherosclerosis which equaled that of old U.S. men. 

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/1/26.abstract

 

[FreedomPhilosophy]

Then there is Israel... 

 

 

Do you understand what confirmation bias is, or what the term cherry-picking refers to?

[cobra2411]

You need to study the body of work and show me why you consider the authorities on the topic to be incorrect. It is you who present the controversial position.

 

The thread starts out ok with people asking about vegetarianism. Then someone posts how eating meat is deadly. I refute that and offer plenty of contradictory studies as well as evidence that at least some of the listed sources are flawed in some way; McDougal, Campbell, the egg study, etc. My position isn't that eating meat has been proven to be the healthiest way to eat, but rather that it's not settled science that it's unhealthy. Yet I have to prove myself? 

 

The science is not settled one way or the other and all indications are that sugar, et. al. is to blame, not meat. I've asked for studies that show meat is directly the cause because I know they don't exist. Please go re-read my posts and you'll see why I consider the "authorities" to be incorrect. 

[FreedomPhilosophy]

 

 

The science is not settled one way or the other and all indications are that sugar, et. al. is to blame, not meat. I've asked for studies that show meat is directly the cause because I know they don't exist. Please go re-read my posts and you'll see why I consider the "authorities" to be incorrect. 

Science is never "settled" because scientific facts (unlike plain facts) are always subject to revision in the light of new evidence. The evidence of what is unhealthy about meat is what it is. If you think that evidence is wrong then discredit it.Presenting a few pieces of conflicting data does not necessarily refute a theory. There can be errors in such data, a theory could also be generally sound but unable to explain some phenomena fully. 

 

 

Can there truly be equality amongst species?  What does that mean in terms of the NAP? Do you believe that every action against an animal has the same moral content as it would if it was a human that was acted upon?

 

Can there truly be equality within a species?

[LovePrevails]

 

Please show me the controlled studies that show meat, and only meat is the issue. 

 

 

perfectionist fallacy, asking for an unattainable standard of evidence as the number of factors to controls for would be limitless. You can always say well that doesn't prove that it's only meat.

[cobra2411]

perfectionist fallacy, asking for an unattainable standard of evidence as the number of factors to controls for would be limitless. You can always say well that doesn't prove that it's only meat.

I already explained that I was asking for the studies to point out that they don't exist. 

 

 

Science is never "settled" because scientific facts (unlike plain facts) are always subject to revision in the light of new evidence. The evidence of what is unhealthy about meat is what it is. If you think that evidence is wrong then discredit it.Presenting a few pieces of conflicting data does not necessarily refute a theory. There can be errors in such data, a theory could also be generally sound but unable to explain some phenomena fully. 

This is starting to feel like a discussion with a religious person when you explain that science and logic have shown god doesn't exist and their response is "God doesn't want to be found". How much data is needed to raise the possibility that the theory is wrong? I thought I did a pretty good job of explaining that there are unaccounted confounders that are likely skewing the data to make meat eating look unhealthy. I've repeatedly argued that sugar is almost certainly the problem. I've argued that vegetarians by their nature are health conscience and that for a true comparison to be made you'd have to look at health conscience meat eaters. I showed a study comparing heath conscience meat and non-meat eaters and it shows the mortality differences disappear. I show multiple studies on ketogenic diets and low carb showing that they improve cardiovascular disease markers as well as studies showing ketogenic diets effects on cancer. I even posted studies showing where diet-lipid researchers are questioning the theory. But that's all erroneous conflicting data points. 

 

How many studies before you'll accept the possibility that a meat based diet can be healthy? I'm not asking you to abandon being a vegetarian and I'm not trying to say one is better than the other, only that eating meat isn't the killer that some vegetarians make it out to be. Will all the evidence I present be flawed in some way? 

[AustinJames]

Can there truly be equality within a species?

 

There can be an equality of expectations within a species, accepting objective morality.

[FreedomPhilosophy]

I already explained that I was asking for the studies to point out that they don't exist. 

 

 

This is starting to feel like a discussion with a religious person when you explain that science and logic have shown god doesn't exist and their response is "God doesn't want to be found". How much data is needed to raise the possibility that the theory is wrong? I thought I did a pretty good job of explaining that there are unaccounted confounders that are likely skewing the data to make meat eating look unhealthy. I've repeatedly argued that sugar is almost certainly the problem. I've argued that vegetarians by their nature are health conscience and that for a true comparison to be made you'd have to look at health conscience meat eaters. I showed a study comparing heath conscience meat and non-meat eaters and it shows the mortality differences disappear. I show multiple studies on ketogenic diets and low carb showing that they improve cardiovascular disease markers as well as studies showing ketogenic diets effects on cancer. I even posted studies showing where diet-lipid researchers are questioning the theory. But that's all erroneous conflicting data points. 

 

How many studies before you'll accept the possibility that a meat based diet can be healthy? I'm not asking you to abandon being a vegetarian and I'm not trying to say one is better than the other, only that eating meat isn't the killer that some vegetarians make it out to be. Will all the evidence I present be flawed in some way? 

So you accuse me of what I accuse you of? Not very original, lets deal with the facts...As I said, the Adventist Health Studies are the nearest thing to controlled studies showing that meat eating increases mortality and morbidity, did you miss that? Also, the evidence that meat is harmful comes form a range of different scientific fields, not just from population studies, also toxicology, clinical intervention studies (double blind) and more.If sugar causes cardiovascular disease, how do you explain CVD in the Maasai, 400yo Innuit mummies or 5000yo Otzi or the Andamanese? No, sugar is a potential contributing factor not causative.Anyway I've got to the point where I am repeating so I have reached my limit of giving you anymore of my time.Write yourself a research paper and submit it to a reputable journal, see how far it gets. There's little point publishing your false propaganda here amongst people who lack the required knowledge and expertise, unless of course you are looking for the comfort of finding other believers. But as you can see there are skeptics here.

[cobra2411]

So you accuse me of what I accuse you of? Not very original, lets deal with the facts...As I said, the Adventist Health Studies are the nearest thing to controlled studies showing that meat eating increases mortality and morbidity, did you miss that? Also, the evidence that meat is harmful comes form a range of different scientific fields, not just from population studies, also toxicology, clinical intervention studies (double blind) and more.If sugar causes cardiovascular disease, how do you explain CVD in the Maasai, 400yo Innuit mummies or 5000yo Otzi or the Andamanese? No, sugar is a potential contributing factor not causative.Anyway I've got to the point where I am repeating so I have reached my limit of giving you anymore of my time.Write yourself a research paper and submit it to a reputable journal, see how far it gets. There's little point publishing your false propaganda here amongst people who lack the required knowledge and expertise, unless of course you are looking for the comfort of finding other believers. But as you can see there are skeptics here.

I did miss the link you posted. I'll have to look into it. As for the Masai the Muran are the warrior class and from 14-40 or so they eat meat, milk and blood and are free of CVD. They are free to eat a western diet however and there's your confounder. I'm sure I'll be accused of cherry picking though. 

 

I've listed many studies published in reputable journals, but I guess reputable journals are full of false propaganda about eating meat. I too have grown tired of this, I've said my peace and whoever reads this thread can make up their own mind. I guess we finally agree on something. 

[Richard_V]

I agree that the modern meat and dairy industry is largely inhumane, and perhaps even immoral.  The animals live and die in abhorrent conditions.  The treatment you describe is unacceptable.

 

There are examples in history of people selling themselves into slavery, and in accordance with your example some of them were wet nurses who agreed to have their babies taken from them.  They did this because life as a slave in a civilized society was better than being free in a tribal society.  Even some slaves that were freed in post-Civil War U.S. asked to be enslaved again, as they were not prepared to compete in a market environment.  Today, I prefer to live in tax slavery rather than take my chances in the wilderness.  If some humans prefer slavery, is it possible that animals would prefer it?

 

It's one thing to talk about humans being willing to sell themselves into slavery - presumably under terrible / desperate circumstances. To talk about animals in the same context as humans is, in my opinion, futile. 

This quote from Henry Beston sums up my position: 

 

"We need another, wiser and perhaps more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronise them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err... we greatly err.

For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."

[Jelle de Jong]

I have read the six pages of posts here and I seen behaviour of people changing there level of acceptance for an argument to be valid and also keep putting new arguments up when an old one was disproved.

 

I would say:Give me a full list of information points that we would have to prove and when this information would fit your acceptance and non-acceptance standards in order for you to accept a low fat high carbohydrate whole food plant based diet as preferable over any other diet that involves animal products?I am keeping to a diet that has been double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled proven to reduce or even reverse the top killers of western society like heart decease, diabetes, obesity, migraines and a lot of other physical discomforts. 

At the same time a low fat high carbohydrate whole food plant based diet is environmentally sustainable for 8 billion people and our own living environment.

 

It hurts me in my whole body if I watch an other mammal (even if it was grass feed and raised as being part of a "loving" family with lots of care and attention) be killed for my own or someone’s else pleasure, I have to turn my emotions off, full force field on, trying to explain this empathy to someone that does not want to study and try alternatives to killing for your own pleasure is for me like talking to an diffrent human species. I understand I kill/harm other beings for my own pleasure, but I try to minimise this killing and harm and would use that as an universal principle.

[cobra2411]

First, let me repeat myself in case it was missed. If you have a moral objection to eating meat then don't. Also, I'm not saying that a plant based diet is unhealthy. Sure, there are some issues like nutritional deficiencies, but I believe properly done a plant based diet can be very healthy. I also believe that properly done a meat based diet can be very healthy. I have shown evidence of this, refuted claims made by others and asked for one specific thing; proof that it's meat alone. 

 

Give me a full list of information points that we would have to prove and when this information would fit your acceptance and non-acceptance standards in order for you to accept a low fat high carbohydrate whole food plant based diet as preferable over any other diet that involves animal products?

 

No list of things to prove, just one item: Provide credible, measurable, peer-reviewable, scientific evidence showing that meat, and only meat is the cause of 17 out of 18 leading causes of death. Show a comparison between health conscience vegetarians and health conscience non-vegetarians showing a scientifically significant decrease in mortality in vegetarians. Show me a study of vegetarians vs low carb dieters. Show me something that successfully deals with the confounding issues. I'm not even asking for hard fast proof, simply show to the best of your ability that meat alone has a statistically significant rise in mortality while dealing with the confounding issues that can also cause a rise in mortality when eating a meat based diet. The seventh day adventist study had some hope, but it's a comparison of roughly the same diet with and without meat. High carbohydrate, high fat diets will kill you. It's not the meat, it's the combination of the meat and the highly insulinogenic foods. Eating highly insulinogenic foods while on a low-fat plant based diet doesn't seem to cause the damage that it does when you add meat and saturated fats. I already posted a study showing there is not a significant difference in mortality between health conscience meat and plant eaters. 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html?_r=2

 

"People who avoid carbohydrates and eat more fat, even saturated fat, lose more body fat and have fewer cardiovascular risks than people who follow the low-fat diet that health authorities have favored for decades, a major new study shows."

 

"By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat group. They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat group, and improvements in lean muscle mass — even though neither group changed their levels of physical activity. While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more muscle than fat."

 

Isn't the heart a muscle? 

 

"Nonetheless, those on the low-carbohydrate diet ultimately did so well that they managed to lower their Framingham risk scores, which calculate the likelihood of a heart attack within the next 10 years. The low-fat group on average had no improvement in their scores."

 

"Eating refined carbohydrates tends to raise the overall number of LDL particles and shift them toward the small, dense variety, which contributes to atherosclerosis."

 

I vaguely remember someone saying something about getting the crap processed, refined foods out of your diet. Oh, yeah, that was me... 

 

"The average person may not pay much attention to the federal dietary guidelines, but their influence can be seen, for example, in school lunch programs, which is why many schools forbid whole milk but serve their students fat-free chocolate milk loaded with sugar, Dr. Mozaffarian said."

 

We have a problem in this country (USA), and possibly elsewhere, where we take correlation, however weak it maybe, and run with it as proven fact that it's causative. Margarine and trans fats anyone? Why is it still sold when we know the risks of transfats, Omega-6 and inflammation and their influence on heart disease? We've been pushing the low fat agenda for 30 years and the obesity rate has skyrocketed. When will we accept that we were wrong and when will the government and it's My Plate nonsense apologize for what they've done? I'm not holding my breath. 

 

A plant based diet works great when properly done and I'm sure there are lots of people on this thread that are doing it right and have researched the in's and out's of it. A meat based diet low in insulinogenic foods also works great. The key is adopting a diet that you can stick to. I can't stick to a plant only diet. 

[shirgall]

Submitted without comment. 

 

[SspoonBenderR]

If there's anything I am prone to addicting, it would be food.  Always could sit in on a cigarette with a friend on a late-night study session or party, or give up marijuana as required by my environment without much concern beyond losing my most effective pain meds... but processed, fatty foods seem to have power over me.  From middle school on I started studying nutrition to reconcile the image of my body I had in my mind and what I saw in the mirror.It took until about college to follow that knowledge thread all the way to the high-carb vegan camp before I started actually getting results that I was expecting the whole time.  Just full-body appreciation for what I'm feeding it.

 

In my understanding there are specifically two sides to this fence.  High fat diets that effectively nix the carbs AND high carb diets that cut out nearly all the fats and proteins BOTH work.  The real culprit is when you combine the two.  Sugar does not cause diabetes.  The direct combination of sugars + fats does.  Consuming sugars and fats simultaneously make it difficult for your insulin to uptake the sugars in your system and starts a devastating cycle of releasing more and more, now, fat-coated insulin to uptake greased-up carbohydrates to try to take them to the cells.  When they fail to do so efficiently more and more insulin is released until the fat starts to exit the bloodstream hours later and suddenly your blood is full of insulin with little sugar left to deal with so it cleans it right up, leaving you with extremely low blood sugar, a tired pancreas, and ultimately candida malfunction.  In this case it seems you can solve the issue by leaning heavily either direction.  Cut out the carbs so your body acclimatizes to breaking fats and proteins down into the necessary sugars and your blood-fat is no longer an issue, or, on the preferred, and seemingly more efficient side for me, cut out the fats and you will find your body finds it simple and beautifully efficient to extract whatever amount of pure carbohydrates you can stuff in yourself and distribute immediately for healthy and bountiful energy.The real root of the issue(as this argument goes) is that the lab studies that try to include high-carb diets are NOT truly high-carb in this sense.  High-carb seems to require 10% or less calories from fat while mainstream studies are closer to around 30% or so calories from fat.  This is 3 times as much fat and is plenty enough to ruin your sugar metabolism.There is no particular nutrient you will be deficient in on a high-carb plant-based diet.  The only real danger is B12 and that's something both meat eaters and vegetarians alike are deficient in thanks to modern farming practices.  5 years of no big animal product consumption, 3 years more strictly high-carb vegan and I've gotten 2 blood tests with A+'s across the board from cholesterol to triglycerides, etc etc.  DurianRider has been HCV and posting his equally successful bloodwork and boasting his athletic prowess for 9 years and there are plenty more examples that according to any of the popular models today should be withering away and invoking major injury due to malnutrition.  This is clearly not the case.

To me this means any understanding of human biology and nutrition that does not explain this and cannot predict nor incorporate this data into its model is wholly off-base and harmfully towing the corporate, medical, statist line that's been lobbied and manipulated by some of the biggest and most influential industries in our recent and modern history, meat and dairy.

[Jelle de Jong]

First, let me repeat myself in case it was missed. If you have a moral objection to eating meat then don't. Also, I'm not saying that a plant based diet is unhealthy. Sure, there are some issues like nutritional deficiencies, but I believe properly done a plant based diet can be very healthy. I also believe that properly done a meat based diet can be very healthy. I have shown evidence of this, refuted claims made by others and asked for one specific thing; proof that it's meat alone. 

 

 

No list of things to prove, just one item: Provide credible, measurable, peer-reviewable, scientific evidence showing that meat, and only meat is the cause of 17 out of 18 leading causes of death. Show a comparison between health conscience vegetarians and health conscience non-vegetarians showing a scientifically significant decrease in mortality in vegetarians. Show me a study of vegetarians vs low carb dieters. Show me something that successfully deals with the confounding issues. I'm not even asking for hard fast proof, simply show to the best of your ability that meat alone has a statistically significant rise in mortality while dealing with the confounding issues that can also cause a rise in mortality when eating a meat based diet. The seventh day adventist study had some hope, but it's a comparison of roughly the same diet with and without meat. High carbohydrate, high fat diets will kill you. It's not the meat, it's the combination of the meat and the highly insulinogenic foods. Eating highly insulinogenic foods while on a low-fat plant based diet doesn't seem to cause the damage that it does when you add meat and saturated fats. I already posted a study showing there is not a significant difference in mortality between health conscience meat and plant eaters. 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html?_r=2

 

Only 17 out of 18? Do you have those standards for all your decisions? Smoking only affects 1/3 of people, that is why I asked for what you would deem as acceptable information, are your standards realistic? Do you use the same standards for making decisions about spanking, yelling. I need to know where the goalpost is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Logical_fallacy

 

What are the standards for to prove that animal flesh alone is the single cause of disease we can only make strong coralation and elimination studies.... so what is the standard?, because animal protein has been proven harmful, but then the goalpost are moved to grass fed free range animal flesh.. [example in the comment: http://nutritionstudies.org/animal-protein-carcinogen/] also the book the China Study that isn't really about a study in China, but about laboratory work on animal protein, that uses the china study to verify findings in real life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study#Blood_cholesterol_levels_correlated_to_diet.2C_particularly_animal_protein loads of other studies show harmful effects of animal protein http://nutritionfacts.org/?s=animal+protein there is no fibber in animal flesh and there is no human need for trans fats (they seem to cause only harm) that are only found in animal products (and industrial creations) http://nutritionfacts.org/2014/02/27/trans-fat-in-animal-fat/.

 

The Blue Zones book is a summary of studies about people that lived the longest: http://www.amazon.de/The-Blue-Zones-Lessons-Longest/dp/1426207557/ conclusion was a high carb low fat whole food plant based diet as well. (a nice summary can be found here: http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/blog/?p=1247)

 

Sorry I misread mortality for morality, so here is some extra information:

The Brain Functional Networks Associated to Human and Animal Suffering Differ among Omnivores, Vegetarians and Vegans:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010847#abstract0

http://scholar.google.nl/scholar?q=vegan+empathy+research

Could be more intensive research but it shows there is an difference.

 

The URL you provided to the article on the nytimes talks about a low fat diet, but the actual study shows there definition of low fat >30% isn't low fat at all, low fat is 5≤15%, see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neal-barnard-md/diet-and-nutrition_b_5761450.html about an detailed explanation about the study http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html?_r=0

 

Why do we (well I want to) want an society with voluntary interactions and negotiations between fellow humans, but enslave non-humans (98% animals are used for agriculture, only 2% life in the wild) and use them for your own pleasure and even worse kill them only for having a nice palate/taste experience, while destroying environment and allocate resources that could be used for feeding other people. I just don't get why you would do so much harm to other humans and non-humans, when it is not necessary at all. (It feels like a difference species of humans).

 

I spent a lot of time replying on this, I don't want to reply any more unless the question and goalpost is very specific and realistic. I can use my time a lot more useful, but would like you to stop hurting me and my fellow non-humans (speciesism) so I invest my time in this, if I feel it will be appreciated and evaluated fairly. (just like I want people to stop childism and stop people that want me thrown into prison because I follow voluntarism).

[luxfelix]

And three things that should be avoided in particular: MSG, Aspartame, and HFCS. 

[cobra2411]

Only 17 out of 18? Do you have those standards for all your decisions? Smoking only affects 1/3 of people, that is why I asked for what you would deem as acceptable information, are your standards realistic? Do you use the same standards for making decisions about spanking, yelling. I need to know where the goalpost is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Logical_fallacy

 

What are the standards for to prove that animal flesh alone is the single cause of disease we can only make strong coralation and elimination studies.... so what is the standard?, because animal protein has been proven harmful, but then the goalpost are moved to grass fed free range animal flesh.. [example in the comment: http://nutritionstudies.org/animal-protein-carcinogen/] also the book the China Study that isn't really about a study in China, but about laboratory work on animal protein, that uses the china study to verify findings in real life: 

...

The 17 out of 18 causes of death was initiated by another poster in support of the argument that meat kills. I focused on heart disease because there is the most data but I also have touched on cancer. Those combined add up to around 50% of all causes of death. My standards for proving meat is a cause of mortality is pretty simple; show a statistically significant reduction in cardiovascular disease markers, specifically changes in the LDL/HLD ratio, HDL/Triglyceride ratio, LDL type a / LDL type b ratio and/or reduction in inflammation. I have shown with countless studies, including the Times article, in which these improve while eating high fat diets while limiting carbs. Note I said limit, mainly paleo / atkins people eliminate starches, grains and sugars but eat fruits and vegetables. 

 

I have said before, and I'll say again, I will not discuss the moral or environmental aspects of this. Those are separate arguments that have nothing to do with the dietary benefits or damages associated with a particular diet. When I have some time this weekend I'll look at the studies / articles you've listed, but I've already refuted Colin Campbell and the China study in my previous posts. 

[corbyco]

-How many of you are vegetarians/vegans and what do you think about the lifestyle?

 

I have been a vegan for nearly 4 years.  I am vegan because I believe it is healthier - my blood pressure, cholesterol, and fats fell to perfect levels once on the diet and there is a lot of evidence that animal protein encourages cancer; its moral, I dont want animals to suffer on my behalf; and its a more efficient system for feeding the populations - eat the veg rather than feeding to the animals and then eating them.

It is a little inconvenient when eating out - but that's fine.

 

-Do you guys see eating meat as wrong even though morals can't be considered when an animal is involved due to their lack of capability to understand morals?

 

Yes.  Now I know I don't have to eat meat then all killing of animals for food is unnecessary - and it is absolutely wrong to inflict pain and suffering if it is not necessary for our survival.

We nursed our dog for months when it was sick - I just cannot disconnect this from the idea of deliberately inflicting pain on other animals.
 

 

-Do the cravings for meat every go away because I cannot stop thinking about it?

 

My taste buds definitely changed very quickly.  All fruit and veg have much more flavour.

I now cant look at meat without seeing a piece of dead cow or chicken and how it used to be alive and running around a field.

I do not have any cravings other than occasionally for the texture.

 

I went to Greece this summer and said I might have a piece of fresh fish as I have such fond memories of a taverna by the water and selecting a fish caught that morning - but on the day I just could not bring myself to do it after so many years of veganism.

 

-Is it even healthy for humans to go vegan/vegetarian because I literally hear two sides to all of it and being as uneducated as I am in the health department, I can't figure out which is correct and incorrect?

 

It is healthier for me.  I have the obligatory medical every year and my results are fantastic.

I also believe the results of the China study and follow up experiments which point to the connection between animal protein and cancer  (hence why I am a Vegan rather than a Vegetarian).  I have not seen any evidence to dispute the findings.
 

-If you are a vegan/vegetarian, do you have any foods/stores you can recommend?

 

Wholefoods (in the USA) are excellent.  I have to say I struggled in the UK a little.

I absolutely love Mexican roasted vegetable burritos with rice, black beans and guacamole.

I ensure I eat oats, beans, nuts, quinoa and ground flax seed for protein and omega 3's.

I take B12 suppliments even though its in the rice, almond, oat, coconut etc milks I drink.  Just want to be sure.

[Psychophant]

Yes.  Now I know I don't have to eat meat then all killing of animals for food is unnecessary - and it is absolutely wrong to inflict pain and suffering if it is not necessary for our survival.

 

 

Then refrain from things in your life that aren't strictly necessary. Eating plants for example, if you can get the same nutritions from cattle. If it is not torture it is moral to eat animal, since it is no violation of the NAP. I don't think you can make the claim that all cattle is tortured but hey, the burden of prove is not on me, although I would suggest that farmers aren't interested in diminishing meat quality: http://www.cattlenetwork.com/drovers/columns/editorial/reducing-cattle-stress-will-help-you-improve-beef-quality-113971094.html

[J. D. Stembal]

It hurts me in my whole body if I watch an other mammal (even if it was grass feed and raised as being part of a "loving" family with lots of care and attention) be killed for my own or someone’s else pleasure, I have to turn my emotions off, full force field on, trying to explain this empathy to someone that does not want to study and try alternatives to killing for your own pleasure is for me like talking to an diffrent human species. I understand I kill/harm other beings for my own pleasure, but I try to minimise this killing and harm and would use that as an universal principle.

 

Can you state your case as to why you feel the killing and eating of particular animals violates universally preferable behavior? Where do you draw the line using your own logic? Are all non-mammals fair game for food? Why don't plants also benefit from your universal empathy? How much of your ethical perspective is based on objective definitions and how much of it is based on subjective opinion?

[Richard_V]

99.9% of the population pay someone else to murder (and in most cases, torture) animals so they can enjoy the taste of their flesh and secretions because they definitely don't want to know what those beings have to endure in death - let alone 'life'. 

 

Hang a dog upside down, slit it's throat, chop it into bits and throw it on a barbecue and people will scream bloody murder and call the police. Pigs are more intelligent than dogs. Scientists have learned that pigs have the cognitive function of a three year old human child. 

Do some proper research and see how animals are treated on factory farms - there is undercover footage available on many websites. One doesn't have to use the NAP or any other three letter construct to see that it is just plain evil. 

 

Anyone worried about plants 'having feelings' (one of the more hilarious arguments brought up when people feel morally inferior to vegans) should go ahead and become vegan. If the entire human population switched to a plant based diet, many many more plants would be saved due to the sheer quantities used in animal agriculture to feed livestock. 

[Nathan H. Hoffner]

This is a must watch!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ixsBn_lfXE

 

 

"Sally Fallon, the author of Nourishing Traditions Cookbook, gives a presentation that discusses the research work of dentist, Weston Price, in the early part of the last century, there are compelling before and after photoes in this presentation that demonstrate just how our modern diet affects people in first, and then second generation children. She presents an interesting case for how this diet affects our DNA expresses its fullest genetic potential (epigentics), and gives plenty of slow food for thought about how we may be able to turn this degeneration of our genetic expression around by learning from our elders, so to speak... the traditions of the indigenous people that Weston Price researched...I highly recommend a viewing of the presentation for anyone thinking of having children, or grandchildren."

 

Also, along the same lines.....

 

"Traditional Fats and Sacred Foods"

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9A-30Twp1k&list=PLD2976BB328CC9617

 

"Introduction to Traditional Eating"

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-WKkCIpNxQ&list=UUD36Fcfb-fdFF1aaOpVQRWw

[square4]

-How many of you are vegetarians/vegans and what do you think about the lifestyle?

-Do you guys see eating meat as wrong even though morals can't be considered when an animal is involved due to their lack of capability to understand morals?

 

Another vegan here. The reason I became vegetarian six years ago was the conviction that is wrong to slaughter another being for food. I think that morality also applies to the treatment of animals, and that it does not matter whether animals themselves can understand morality. We also have to treat well newborn humans, who also lack that ability. My initial reason for going from vegetarianism to veganism was that dairy products are currently linked to meat production and other animal mistreatment. But more fundamentally, it is about letting animals be what they are, not enslaving them.

Veganism = Not exercising dominion over animals

Anarchism = Not exercising dominion over humans

I think it fits nicely together as a lifestyle.

 

When comparing humans and animals, the important difference is the advanced reasoning skills. But advanced reasoning is not a prerequisite for experiencing something, or for having pain. Suppose for example, that you have a medical procedure, and are happy about it using long-term thinking that it will heal you, but at the same time you suffer intense pain because of the procedure. So if the pain experience can be opposite to the effect of your advanced reasoning, then advanced reasoning cannot be a prerequisite of the pain experience. In other words, I see no reason to suppose that similar beings, such as monkeys, and other mammals, are not sentient beings, like we are. Then we have a gradient of animal species up to the microbe, and the problem where to draw the line: which is impossible to answer. It is appropriate in this case to use the precautionary principle, which means: If there is a small chance a human is living in a certain house, we wouldn't blow it up, similarly if we think that maybe a particular animal is a person, we wouldn't kill or enslave it.

[luxfelix]

I came across similar arguments against agriculture (as practiced today) since: (1) it displaces animals and therefore reduces their chances of survival (maybe less of an issue with urban farming?... but then urbanization doesn't help either...?)  ; (2) many products we use today rely on animal byproducts (and synthetics are potentially harmful to humans); and, (3) a varied diet as close to as found in nature (seasonal as well?) benefits the individual (dietary flexibility etc.) and their environment by allowing soil quality to regenerate and trophic levels to remain in balance (as exemplified in "How Wolves Change Rivers").

 

Food for thought: 

 

[Soren]

Another vegan here. The reason I became vegetarian six years ago was the conviction that is wrong to slaughter another being for food. I think that morality also applies to the treatment of animals, and that it does not matter whether animals themselves can understand morality. We also have to treat well newborn humans, who also lack that ability. My initial reason for going from vegetarianism to veganism was that dairy products are currently linked to meat production and other animal mistreatment. But more fundamentally, it is about letting animals be what they are, not enslaving them.

Veganism = Not exercising dominion over animals

Anarchism = Not exercising dominion over humans

I think it fits nicely together as a lifestyle.

 

When comparing humans and animals, the important difference is the advanced reasoning skills. But advanced reasoning is not a prerequisite for experiencing something, or for having pain. Suppose for example, that you have a medical procedure, and are happy about it using long-term thinking that it will heal you, but at the same time you suffer intense pain because of the procedure. So if the pain experience can be opposite to the effect of your advanced reasoning, then advanced reasoning cannot be a prerequisite of the pain experience. In other words, I see no reason to suppose that similar beings, such as monkeys, and other mammals, are not sentient beings, like we are. Then we have a gradient of animal species up to the microbe, and the problem where to draw the line: which is impossible to answer. It is appropriate in this case to use the precautionary principle, which means: If there is a small chance a human is living in a certain house, we wouldn't blow it up, similarly if we think that maybe a particular animal is a person, we wouldn't kill or enslave it.

So Lions are evil?

And are animals just free to treat us like they want to?

Letting animals be what they are, what about animals which have been breed to be food?

When comparing humans to animals the important difference is that we are humans and they are not humans. They can't poses property, they can't be reasoned with, they can't be responsible, they don't look like humans, they don't act like humans, they don't think like humans, they are physiological different. Sure there are similarities because of our shared animal past, but they still are not human and not close to being so.

[J. D. Stembal]

Another vegan here. The reason I became vegetarian six years ago was the conviction that is wrong to slaughter another being for food. I think that morality also applies to the treatment of animals, and that it does not matter whether animals themselves can understand morality. We also have to treat well newborn humans, who also lack that ability. My initial reason for going from vegetarianism to veganism was that dairy products are currently linked to meat production and other animal mistreatment. But more fundamentally, it is about letting animals be what they are, not enslaving them.

Veganism = Not exercising dominion over animals

Anarchism = Not exercising dominion over humans

I think it fits nicely together as a lifestyle.

 

When comparing humans and animals, the important difference is the advanced reasoning skills. But advanced reasoning is not a prerequisite for experiencing something, or for having pain. Suppose for example, that you have a medical procedure, and are happy about it using long-term thinking that it will heal you, but at the same time you suffer intense pain because of the procedure. So if the pain experience can be opposite to the effect of your advanced reasoning, then advanced reasoning cannot be a prerequisite of the pain experience. In other words, I see no reason to suppose that similar beings, such as monkeys, and other mammals, are not sentient beings, like we are. Then we have a gradient of animal species up to the microbe, and the problem where to draw the line: which is impossible to answer. It is appropriate in this case to use the precautionary principle, which means: If there is a small chance a human is living in a certain house, we wouldn't blow it up, similarly if we think that maybe a particular animal is a person, we wouldn't kill or enslave it.

 

Let me see if I understand your position correctly.

 

1) The non-aggression principle can be applied to animals even though they cannot understand or be expected to follow it. Animals cannot commit murder due to having no moral faculties, but humans are not allowed to murder animals. Infant humans also have no moral faculties, but we extend the NAP to apply to them.

 

2) Pain is a sufficient criterion for the application of the non-aggression principle.

 

Allow me to rebut.

 

1) Unlike infant humans, animals generally cannot adhere to the non-aggression principle, nor can they learn it when they reach adulthood. You could probably cite some exceptions from the primate family, but I don't know anyone who eats apes. Therefore, the non-aggression principle cannot apply to most animals. Stefan logically explained this reasoning in a caller question from earlier this year.

 

(I am also a little confused by your language. Can you define dominion and enslavement as it applies to human treatment of animals? I'm not sure how animal husbandry or meat eating can be defined as such.)

 

2) Pain is a environmental stimulus meant to protect an organism from harm, but it does not confer an understanding that harming another animal is unethical. Carnivorous mammals such as wolves can feel pain, but they generally do not uphold the non-aggression principle. Therefore, the ability to feel pain has no influence on the application of the principle within the animal kingdom.

[yagami]

I'd love to chime in on this. one of these days I planned on calling in the show and asking Steph about his view and what I have come to believe. For starters I dont believe it's morally wrong to eat meat if you cant afford it. And I dont think it's morally wrong to eat meat at all. Those who have trouble eating meat because the thought makes you cringe makes me wonder how much empathy im lacking in :/.

 

The problem with all diets

 

Have you ever wondered why there are so many diets out there and there seems to be such a varying degree of results? Well the simple answer is because all diets require will power and that is the varying factor in all diets. What if you could take will power out of the equation (mostly). If you only eat veggies and no meat you will inevitably get very hungry at some point throughout the day but will have reached your calorie limit. The question is why are you getting hungry. The answer is because there are only two reason why anyone ever gets hungry. The single that goes to your brain that tells you you should eat happens when:

 

1. You require more calories:

 

This occurs when you have exercised or worked out a ton and you have burned a bunch of calories. Calories are your energy source and are needed for you to even blink. Pushing your body by excercising will use up that energy and send that signal.

 

2. You require nutrition:

This is the one that is so obvious but no one realizes it. Our bodies do not know where nutrients come from exactly. Our bodies only know that the way you get nutrients is through food. At least or me when I think of the term malnourished  I think of some starving child in Africa with no food. But in reality many many many Americans are malnourished. When you live in a rich country where food is readily available around every corner and you are not getting nutrients you get a situation where all your food has nothing in it but calories are everywhere.

 

IMPORTANT!!

 

So this is probably the least known fact about health and losing weight that everyone misses. Everyone is told from being a child onward that you need to eat your veggies to be healthy. Everyone believes eating your veggies is the best thing in the world you can do to be healthy. Well that's not really true and here is why. Every millimeter of soil is different on the planet. The difference in soil composition is something that happened when the planet was originally formed. So what you end up with is one farmland with one soil composition and another with a completely different soil composition. Now what farmers use to do was just farm their lands and it was no big deal but now we are much more efficient with our technology and have basically taken all the minerals out of the soil. Our soils are depleted in the US at least. So what western farmers did was figure out how to get the best bang for their buck. We came up with something called the NPK fertilizer(nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorus). Basically this is the bare minimum that plants need to grow that will give the farmers the best yield. Plants have a strange property in them where they can absorb more and different types of nutrients then what they require to grow. Because of this the plants our grandparents use to eat were much more healthy then the plants we eat today. Farmers are not about to start giving their plants one penny more of nutrition for the sake of the customer. They will only give the plant what it needs to grow because their money comes from meeting the market standard for quality and selling as many of those quality plants as possible. Right now the market has no idea they are getting almost nothing out of their veggies and so nothing will change for now.

 

Little known fact of how it use to be:

 

The invention of electricity was both an amazing thing but had some serious draw backs on our health that most people dont realize. Before electricity and basically as far back as before written history humans would take wood ashes and use them as fertilizer. So we would burn our wood for heat and fuel and then we would take those ashes and place them in the ground with our plants and the plants would absorb all the nutrients from the burnt wood and we would consume the plants and receive the nutrients this way. I would say this was part of our culture but like I said humans have been doing this since prehistory. No one knows why. Once we invented electricity we dont need wood for fuel and there goes the the recycling of nutrients in our diet.

 

The myth about vitamins:

 

Well it's not really a myth more just people misunderstanding why vitamins are not the big picture. Plants can create vitamins amino acids and essential fatty acids. All three of those categories of nutrients are essential and if not taken will eventually lead to health problems. The forth category of nutrients are minerals. Minerals are rocks. Rocks can not be created by plants. When people talk about alternative health usually they jump to thinking vitamins. Vitamins are one peace of the pie and you can get these by eating veggies. But you can not get the minerals this way. As I stated earlier the soils are depleted. And I meant they are depleted of minerals. NPK only provides three minerals which is all a plant needs to survive and grow. We are humans need much more than that.

 

Conclusion:

 

The reason diets are so hard and get such different results is because the very thing that makes us hungry and want to eat is not being address. If you address the two reasons why we get hungry you can lose a ton of weight in no time. Getting enough calories to move around is easy but you MUST SUPPLEMENTS WITH MINERALS!!! If you dont supplement with minerals you will get hungry when you shouldnt be because your body thinks you are nutritionally starving yourself. Last thing and I'll shut up. Farmers are 100% able to control the weight of their farm animals because they understand how this works. Every animal on the farm is given a pellet that corresponds to that species nutritional requirement. So a pig is given this pellet everyday because if the pig doesn't get this pellet it is possible the pig will get sick due to a lack of a nutrient that is require for a certain function of the pig (this is why you never hear of huge plagues of farm animals with debilities or cancer). So what the farmer does is take that pellet away before it is about to be sold and that fattens the pig up because the pig suddenly gets hungry all the time and gains a ton of weight very quickly. This process works the same for humans. OK END OF RANT!

 

PS I am not a doctor just someone who enjoys reading about this stuff.

[corbyco]

I dont understand why many contributors here have a problem extending the NAP to include all aggression - even towards animals.

 

If the UPB is non-aggression then isnt it fair to try to work towards being non-aggressive in nature ( character ) rather than trying to come up with a line where non-aggression applies and beyond which it doesnt apply?

 

I wouldnt even be aggressive to my computer which has no rights and doesnt feel pain.  I have learned that aggression just makes things worse wherever it is applied.

 

I hope that peaceful parenting and teaching your children to be non-aggressive includes being kind to animals and even not smashing up inanimate objects.  This way the brain can perhaps rewire to be naturally non-aggressive without having to think about it.

[yagami]

I dont understand why many contributors here have a problem extending the NAP to include all aggression - even towards animals.

 

If the UPB is non-aggression then isnt it fair to try to work towards being non-aggressive in nature ( character ) rather than trying to come up with a line where non-aggression applies and beyond which it doesnt apply?

 

I wouldnt even be aggressive to my computer which has no rights and doesnt feel pain.  I have learned that aggression just makes things worse wherever it is applied.

 

I hope that peaceful parenting and teaching your children to be non-aggressive includes being kind to animals and even not smashing up inanimate objects.  This way the brain can perhaps rewire to be naturally non-aggressive without having to think about it.

Couldn't by that logic you say we should apply the NAP to things like plants and trees. If we did that then we couldn't use wood or is there something im missing?

[J. D. Stembal]

I dont understand why many contributors here have a problem extending the NAP to include all aggression - even towards animals.

 

If the UPB is non-aggression then isnt it fair to try to work towards being non-aggressive in nature ( character ) rather than trying to come up with a line where non-aggression applies and beyond which it doesnt apply?

 

I wouldnt even be aggressive to my computer which has no rights and doesnt feel pain.  I have learned that aggression just makes things worse wherever it is applied.

 

I hope that peaceful parenting and teaching your children to be non-aggressive includes being kind to animals and even not smashing up inanimate objects.  This way the brain can perhaps rewire to be naturally non-aggressive without having to think about it.

 

Eating animals can't be considered a violation of the non-aggression principle because the principle cannot be applied to animals. How do you convince a whale to not eat krill, or a lion from eating a gazelle? Can you negotiate with animals?

 

Are you also suggesting that we must apply the principle to non-living machines?

 

You can have all the objections you desire about eating animals, but the fact remains that it is not aggression, at least not morally. This means that I have have the right to kill animals and eat them, despite your objections.

[yagami]

I think the issue here is using the word aggression. Although it's called the NAP it's actually just the non initiation of force. Aggression isn't morally evil. You can be agressive towards and attacker or anyone else that threatens you so if we think about it in that sense I dont see anything wrong with initiating force to consume living animals. We do it to living plants all the time. I really wanna know what the difference is.

[J. D. Stembal]

I think the issue here is using the word aggression. Although it's called the NAP it's actually just the non initiation of force. Aggression isn't morally evil. You can be agressive towards and attacker or anyone else that threatens you so if we think about it in that sense I dont see anything wrong with initiating force to consume living animals. We do it to living plants all the time. I really wanna know what the difference is.

 

If Stefan wasn't a sometimes vegetarian, we wouldn't be having such a heated debate over applying the principle universally. The definition of aggression is not the problem. The difficulty arises when we the attempt to apply the principle to all animals when all animals do not have the ability to practice moral philosophy.