Switching to a Vegetarian Diet

[specsaregood]

The fossil record shows that the average human height dropped over five inches and the average lifespan was shortened by about 30% with the advent of agriculture with the neolithic era. Additionally, neolithic fossil remains show a higher incidence of arthritis and other degenerative disease that leave traces on bone. Tooth decay also increased dramatically.

One theory is that it was the tooth decay (from impacted flour)and wear(from erosion due to grinding stone residue in the flour) that lead to malnutrition which lead to the general decline in health. Another theory is that the toxins in the grain and legumes caused inflammation and other problems. A third theory is that it was the carbs.

You happen to have any sources on hand that aren't specifically related/promoting paleolithic eating diets?

 

[PaulConventionWV]

The fossil record shows that the average human height dropped over five inches and the average lifespan was shortened by about 30% with the advent of agriculture with the neolithic era. Additionally, neolithic fossil remains show a higher incidence of arthritis and other degenerative disease that leave traces on bone. Tooth decay also increased dramatically.

One theory is that it was the tooth decay (from impacted flour)and wear(from erosion due to grinding stone residue in the flour) that lead to malnutrition which lead to the general decline in health. Another theory is that the toxins in the grain and legumes caused inflammation and other problems. A third theory is that it was the carbs.

Basing your diet on an evolutionary paradigm and the idea that humans should eat what they've always eaten is simply a false premise. There is such a thing as feeding your body what it needs and what is right for it, and what it can use. This whole idea that you can just look at what your "ancestors" ate is pure baloney, and yet you parade it around as if it were a given and that everyone should treat it as fact. Then, you bash everyone who disagrees with you and laugh at them because you think it's silly that anyone could fathom you being wrong. I think you are claiming to know about the world at large by citing "the fossil record" and thinking you can decipher some sort of optimal diet based on it. What utter rubbish.

 

[Acala]

You happen to have any sources on hand that aren't specifically related/promoting paleolithic eating diets?

I'll see what I can dig up. But that guy usually has citations to supporting science.

 

[BeautifulWorld]

It doesn't make you gay, it makes you break out in vaginas until you turn into a giant pussy, derrrr...

I believe it! Meat does a body good.

 

[Acala]

Basing your diet on an evolutionary paradigm and the idea that humans should eat what they've always eaten is simply a false premise. There is such a thing as feeding your body what it needs and what is right for it, and what it can use. This whole idea that you can just look at what your "ancestors" ate is pure baloney, and yet you parade it around as if it were a given and that everyone should treat it as fact. Then, you bash everyone who disagrees with you and laugh at them because you think it's silly that anyone could fathom you being wrong. I think you are claiming to know about the world at large by citing "the fossil record" and thinking you can decipher some sort of optimal diet based on it. What utter rubbish.

Who did I bash other than Ed Griffin? I am arguing ideas here. If that makes you feel threatened, well, too bad. Don't participate.

So, for those who care about reason and ideas, here is the "false premise" upon which I am operating:

Human beings evolved to operate optimally in the environment in which they evolved. That is how evolution works. The system keeps getting tweeked to make most beneficial use of the resources at hand and to avoid as effectively as possible the risks presented. This is why animals that live in the ocean evolve to eat food that appears in the ocean and don't evolve to eat pine nuts.

We have a pretty good idea, based on remains in the trash piles of paleolithic humans, that they were eating vegetables, meat, shellfish, fish, some nuts, seeds, and fruit. No grain. No legumes. There is no evidence that they would have had any access to any significant quantity of those things since they only became available with agriculture later in human history. So the theory is that human beings evolved to make optimal use of what was at hand - vegetables, meat, shellfish, fish, some nuts, seeds, and fruit - and didn't bother to evolve the ability to use things that were not available. This is efficient. Why evolve the ability to eat things you never eat?

So, since natural selection concerning diet seems to have halted with the neolithic age, except those who were killed by grain and legumes before reproducing, we have essentially paleolithic bodies. If you want an animal to thrive, you try to give it as much as possible its natural diet and environment. If you accept that humans evolved in an environment free of grain and legumes then you would strive to feed them a similar diet.

And if you think paleolithic humans didn't eat meat, come to Tucson and I will take you to a fossil dig and show you the remains of an imperial mammoth with Clovis spear points still in among the bones.

That's the theory. If you don't like it, that's cool with me. It suits my way of thinking better than the religious approach or pseudo-science about electromagnetic energy.

And my own personal experience has been stunning.

 

[Acala]

You happen to have any sources on hand that aren't specifically related/promoting paleolithic eating diets?

If you are interested, the wikipedia article is actually pretty good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet

Here is a pretty good breakdown of height and longevity. It doesn't support the size of the decrease in longevity I previously reported. Still a decrease.

http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/angel-1984/angel-1984-1a.shtml

Here is one from Lew Rockwell (but it is pulled off Mark's Daily Apple)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sisson/sisson59.1.html

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Who did I bash other than Ed Griffin? I am arguing ideas here. If that makes you feel threatened, well, too bad. Don't participate.

So, for those who care about reason and ideas, here is the "false premise" upon which I am operating:

Human beings evolved to operate optimally in the environment in which they evolved. That is how evolution works. The system keeps getting tweeked to make most beneficial use of the resources at hand and to avoid as effectively as possible the risks presented. This is why animals that live in the ocean evolve to eat food that appears in the ocean and don't evolve to eat pine nuts.

We have a pretty good idea, based on remains in the trash piles of paleolithic humans, that they were eating vegetables, meat, shellfish, fish, some nuts, seeds, and fruit. No grain. No legumes. There is no evidence that they would have had any access to any significant quantity of those things since they only became available with agriculture later in human history. So the theory is that human beings evolved to make optimal use of what was at hand - vegetables, meat, shellfish, fish, some nuts, seeds, and fruit - and didn't bother to evolve the ability to use things that were not available. This is efficient. Why evolve the ability to eat things you never eat?

So, since natural selection concerning diet seems to have halted with the neolithic age, except those who were killed by grain and legumes before reproducing, we have essentially paleolithic bodies. If you want an animal to thrive, you try to give it as much as possible its natural diet and environment. If you accept that humans evolved in an environment free of grain and legumes then you would strive to feed them a similar diet.

And if you think paleolithic humans didn't eat meat, come to Tucson and I will take you to a fossil dig and show you the remains of an imperial mammoth with Clovis spear points still in among the bones.

That's the theory. If you don't like it, that's cool with me. It suits my way of thinking better than the religious approach or pseudo-science about electromagnetic energy.

And my own personal experience has been stunning.

You can get "results" with many different diets, but it doesn't mean you're healthy.

Obviously, you don't understand that I'm not just saying you're wrong to base your diet on that. I'm saying evolution itself is not a basis for anything. It's false. However, I'm not here to argue about evolution. I'm saying you and me come to our conclusions based on two completely different mindsets about the world. Yours is based on evolutionary history, so you derive everything off of what you think you know about evolution. I come to it based on how the body was designed.

The problem I am seeing here is that you keep asserting that your diet is right because of the way you interpret evolutionary history, but you just assume that the evolutionary premise is true. If it's not true, then your whole idea about health and diet don't apply anymore. That's what I'm saying. Your view of how you came to be affects your health decisions, and that's fine by me. Just don't try to tell me that your diet principles apply to everyone because you base it on something that you take for granted as true. Many people here don't take that as true, so if you are going to say that everyone's diet is based on evolutionary history, then you're going to have to prove that evolution itself is true. I'm not talking about natural selection and mutations. I'm talking about your purported history of mankind in the fossil record. If you're going to base your diet on that, then you have to assume that evolution itself, which the fossil record is based on, is true.

 

[dannno]

I believe it! Meat does a body good.

I was being sarcastic.. it's from a South Park episode.

Meat is horrible for my system. I believe it is good for many people, though.

 

[Arklatex]

Semi vegetarian here, it's can be really hard but it's worth it. Your body chemistry will change, and after that its easier. I used to get tired if I didn't eat meat, now though it's the opposite.

Thank god for Avocados, Sweet Potatoes, Hemp, Pecans, Eggplant, Okra, Kidney Beans, all fruits and Whole Wheat cereal.

 

[dannno]

Semi vegetarian here, it's can be really hard but it's worth it. Your body chemistry will change, and after that its easier. I used to get tired if I didn't eat meat, now though it's the opposite.

Thank god for Avocados, Sweet Potatoes, Hemp, Pecans, Eggplant, Okra, Kidney Beans, all fruits and Whole Wheat cereal.

Thank god for Avocados, Apples, Black Beans, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cheese, Dill, Dates, Eggs, Eggplant, Fishes, Garlic, Grapes, Hummus, Honey, Ice Cream, Kale, Kiwi, Lentils, Limes, Mangos, Mushrooms, Nuts, Oats, Onions, Papayas, Peanuts, Rice, Rasberries, Soy, Spinach, Tea, Tofu, Vanilla, Vinegar, Yogurt and Zanzibar!!

 

[specsaregood]

//

 

[Tina]

You don't want to do that without researching the facts and fats first.
(Keep in mind this is not about farm fed meat, but organic grass fed animals.)

Fats and brain size

The evidence was already overwhelming that we could not be a vegetarian species. However, in 1972 the publication of two independent investigations really nailed the lid on the vegetarian hypothesis's coffin. The first concerned fats (9) .

About half our brain and nervous system is composed of complicated, long-chain, fatty acid molecules. The walls of our blood vessels also need them. Without them we cannot develop normally. These fatty acids do not occur in plants. Fatty acids in a simpler form do but they must be converted into the long-chain molecules by animals - which is a slow, time-consuming process. This is where the herbivores come in. Over the year, they convert the simple fatty acids found in grasses and seeds into intermediate, more complicated forms that we can convert into the ones that we need.

Our brain is considerably larger than that of any ape. Looking back at the fossil record from early hominids to modern man, we see a quite remarkable increase in brain size. This expansion needed large quantities of the right fatty acids before it could have occurred. It could never have occurred if our ancestors had not eaten meat. Human milk contains the fatty acids needed for large brain development - cow's milk does not. It is no coincidence that in relative terms, our brain is some fifty times the size of a cow's.

The vegetarian will be dismayed to learn that while soya bean is rich in complete protein, and grains and nuts also combine to provide complete proteins, none contains the fats that are essential for proper brain development.

Although the eating of fats today is believed by some to be a cause of heart disease (erroneously, see The Cholesterol Myth ), we know that our ancestors ate large amounts of fat. Animal skulls are broken open and the brains scooped out; long bones likewise are broken for their marrow content. Both brain and marrow are very rich in fat.

Toxicity of raw vegetables

The second investigation (10) concerned the inedibility of many of today's plant foods in the raw state which contain many anti-nutrients that can damage a wide variety of human physiological systems. These antinutrients include alkylrescorcinols, alpha-amylase inhitors, protease inhibitors, etc. These must be broken down by cooking, and cooking for a long time, before they can be eaten safely. Beans and other legumes although rich in both carbohydrate and protein, also contain protease inhibitors. Starchy roots - yams and cassava - are common staples today, but if not well cooked are very toxic indeed. The cassava even contains cyanide which must be oxidised by heat to make it safe to eat. And apart from the anti-nutrients above, the starch in cereals - wheat, rice, barley, oats, and rye - are also inedible in quantity if not cooked first. Cooking causes the starch granules in the flour to swell and be disrupted by a process called gelatinization Without this the starch much less accessible to digestion by pancreatic amylase. (11) (See also soybeans below.) Unlike meat, which can be easily digested in its raw state, vegetables should really never be eaten raw and cereals should be fermented and then cooked for a very long time before being eaten to neutralise the phytic acid and other toxic anti-nutrients. That fact that we don't do these things is the reason for so much atopic disease - asthma, eczema, and so on - around today.

read more...

 

[Yieu]

So, a forum member comes and posts that he has decided for himself that he is going to change his diet.

And the majority of the responses are people demonizing, bashing, and insulting vegetarians, and misrepresenting the health of vegetarianism.

That is off topic and quite frankly it is rather rude to the OP.

If you want to make up false information about vegetarianism being "unhealthy", maybe make a separate thread titled "Lets all bash vegetarians!!1!", and post that in there.

There is no reason to evoke such hatred for our way of life, just because we chose to eat slightly differently. This is ridiculous.

This is the topic:

I'm planning on switching to a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. Still eating eggs and consuming milk products.

Any tips on meals to prepare, foods to switch to(and to snack on), etc. Would be awesome.

Bashing vegetarians and insulting them by calling their diet less healthy when it is not is not the topic.

This is like someone saying "I want to move to New Hampshire to support the Free State Project", and all the replies saying "Don't do that, it could be dangerous!".

I do not think the OP came here asking for insults. Seriously!

The OP and other vegetarians have made their choice. We won't push our views onto you, don't push yours onto us.

Maybe the thread should just be locked or something.

 

[sevin]

So, a forum member comes and posts that he has decided for himself that he is going to change his diet.

And the majority of the responses are people demonizing, bashing, and insulting vegetarians, and misrepresenting the health of vegetarianism.

That is off topic and quite frankly it is rather rude to the OP.

So you think only think people who agree with the OP should respond?

What's wrong with having a discussion? This thread is really interesting. If everyone responded to the OP by saying "Good for you" the thread would be dead by now.

Besides, just because someone disagrees with vegetarianism doesn't mean they're "demonizing" it. They're just letting the OP know what they think. Nothing wrong with that.

If you want to make up false information about vegetarianism being "unhealthy", maybe make a separate thread titled "Lets all bash vegetarians!!1!", and post that in there.

There is no reason to evoke such hatred for our way of life, just because we chose to eat slightly differently. This is ridiculous.

Some of us really believe vegetarianism is unhealthy. We're not just making shit up for the sake of hatred. Good grief.

 

[Acala]

So, a forum member comes and posts that he has decided for himself that he is going to change his diet.

And the majority of the responses are people demonizing, bashing, and insulting vegetarians, and misrepresenting the health of vegetarianism.

That is off topic and quite frankly it is rather rude to the OP.

If you want to make up false information about vegetarianism being "unhealthy", maybe make a separate thread titled "Lets all bash vegetarians!!1!", and post that in there.

There is no reason to evoke such hatred for our way of life, just because we chose to eat slightly differently. This is ridiculous.

This is the topic:



Bashing vegetarians and insulting them by calling their diet less healthy when it is not is not the topic.

This is like someone saying "I want to move to New Hampshire to support the Free State Project", and all the replies saying "Don't do that, it could be dangerous!".

I do not think the OP came here asking for insults. Seriously!

The OP and other vegetarians have made their choice. We won't push our views onto you, don't push yours onto us.

Maybe the thread should just be locked or something.

If the OP didn't want comments, he shouldn't post on an internet forum. Duh.

And disagreeing with someone is not the same as insulting them.

And third, YOU posted false information about the supposed necessity of carbohydrates in the diet. We are, I suppose, bashing you when we point out that is false?

Perhaps your diet is causing you to have thin skin.

 

[Acala]

You can get "results" with many different diets, but it doesn't mean you're healthy.

Obviously, you don't understand that I'm not just saying you're wrong to base your diet on that. I'm saying evolution itself is not a basis for anything. It's false. However, I'm not here to argue about evolution. I'm saying you and me come to our conclusions based on two completely different mindsets about the world. Yours is based on evolutionary history, so you derive everything off of what you think you know about evolution. I come to it based on how the body was designed.

The problem I am seeing here is that you keep asserting that your diet is right because of the way you interpret evolutionary history, but you just assume that the evolutionary premise is true. If it's not true, then your whole idea about health and diet don't apply anymore. That's what I'm saying. Your view of how you came to be affects your health decisions, and that's fine by me. Just don't try to tell me that your diet principles apply to everyone because you base it on something that you take for granted as true. Many people here don't take that as true, so if you are going to say that everyone's diet is based on evolutionary history, then you're going to have to prove that evolution itself is true. I'm not talking about natural selection and mutations. I'm talking about your purported history of mankind in the fossil record. If you're going to base your diet on that, then you have to assume that evolution itself, which the fossil record is based on, is true.

Ahhhhh . . . I get it.

You are correct. If you assume that the human being was created as is out of thin air 5000 years ago, with agriculture and civilization already in place, then the basis of my theory is useless to you.

But, and I am no expert here, I think there is PLENTY of evidence in the Bible for humans eating meat. And even for the smell of burning meat being pleasant to God. Animal sacrifice and all. But that isn't my field.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Ahhhhh . . . I get it.

You are correct. If you assume that the human being was created as is out of thin air 5000 years ago, with agriculture and civilization already in place, then the basis of my theory is useless to you.

But, and I am no expert here, I think there is PLENTY of evidence in the Bible for humans eating meat. And even for the smell of burning meat being pleasant to God. Animal sacrifice and all. But that isn't my field.

That's in the Old Testament. And you are right, eating meat is not condemned, but it also doesn't mean it is completely healthy.

Anyway, I'm glad you understand now. I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of getting into an evolution debate, but just trying to point out the vital assumptions.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

You don't want to do that without researching the facts and fats first.
(Keep in mind this is not about farm fed meat, but organic grass fed animals.)

Fats and brain size

The evidence was already overwhelming that we could not be a vegetarian species. However, in 1972 the publication of two independent investigations really nailed the lid on the vegetarian hypothesis's coffin. The first concerned fats (9) .

About half our brain and nervous system is composed of complicated, long-chain, fatty acid molecules. The walls of our blood vessels also need them. Without them we cannot develop normally. These fatty acids do not occur in plants. Fatty acids in a simpler form do but they must be converted into the long-chain molecules by animals - which is a slow, time-consuming process. This is where the herbivores come in. Over the year, they convert the simple fatty acids found in grasses and seeds into intermediate, more complicated forms that we can convert into the ones that we need.

Our brain is considerably larger than that of any ape. Looking back at the fossil record from early hominids to modern man, we see a quite remarkable increase in brain size. This expansion needed large quantities of the right fatty acids before it could have occurred. It could never have occurred if our ancestors had not eaten meat. Human milk contains the fatty acids needed for large brain development - cow's milk does not. It is no coincidence that in relative terms, our brain is some fifty times the size of a cow's.

The vegetarian will be dismayed to learn that while soya bean is rich in complete protein, and grains and nuts also combine to provide complete proteins, none contains the fats that are essential for proper brain development.

Although the eating of fats today is believed by some to be a cause of heart disease (erroneously, see The Cholesterol Myth ), we know that our ancestors ate large amounts of fat. Animal skulls are broken open and the brains scooped out; long bones likewise are broken for their marrow content. Both brain and marrow are very rich in fat.

Toxicity of raw vegetables

The second investigation (10) concerned the inedibility of many of today's plant foods in the raw state which contain many anti-nutrients that can damage a wide variety of human physiological systems. These antinutrients include alkylrescorcinols, alpha-amylase inhitors, protease inhibitors, etc. These must be broken down by cooking, and cooking for a long time, before they can be eaten safely. Beans and other legumes although rich in both carbohydrate and protein, also contain protease inhibitors. Starchy roots - yams and cassava - are common staples today, but if not well cooked are very toxic indeed. The cassava even contains cyanide which must be oxidised by heat to make it safe to eat. And apart from the anti-nutrients above, the starch in cereals - wheat, rice, barley, oats, and rye - are also inedible in quantity if not cooked first. Cooking causes the starch granules in the flour to swell and be disrupted by a process called gelatinization Without this the starch much less accessible to digestion by pancreatic amylase. (11) (See also soybeans below.) Unlike meat, which can be easily digested in its raw state, vegetables should really never be eaten raw and cereals should be fermented and then cooked for a very long time before being eaten to neutralise the phytic acid and other toxic anti-nutrients. That fact that we don't do these things is the reason for so much atopic disease - asthma, eczema, and so on - around today.

read more...

I don't know where you get all this pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo from. Saying that all raw vegetables are toxic is at best very misleading. I suggest you take a look at this guy if you want evidence that a raw vegan diet can fuel even the hardest working human.

http://www.scottjurek.com/#/bio/

 

[Acala]

old testament

That's in the Old Testament. And you are right, eating meat is not condemned, but it also doesn't mean it is completely healthy.

Anyway, I'm glad you understand now. I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of getting into an evolution debate, but just trying to point out the vital assumptions.

Isn't the Old Testament part of the accepted Christian canon? It certainly contains the part of the scriptures that is used as the Christian counterpoint to evolution. Can't really rely on Genesis if you don't also take Leviticus, can you? Or maybe you can. But who decides which parts of the Bible still count and which don't? Sort of like the way our government treats the Constitution.

 

[Yieu]

It's not worth the effort to repeat myself over and over, but it would be really nice if people understood that it is not less healthy to be vegetarian, that both diets can be just as healthy as each other, and that whether you eat meat or not is based on taste preference and religion. That is all I ask.

Non-vegetarians often complain they don't like when vegetarians push their views onto them. Therefore, I do not push my views, and many others here do not either. But I don't like it when non-vegetarians push their views onto me either, by claiming my diet is "less healthy" when it is not less healthy. It's the same thing. Non-vegetarians don't like it when vegetarians push their views, vegetarians don't like it when meat eaters push their views. So I won't claim my diet is more healthy -- in response I'd appreciate the same kindness.

But I can see that those points will not be heard, so perhaps it would be most wise of myself to go back to avoiding these threads because they never get anywhere, because it always ends up with meat eaters ganging up on and bashing vegetarians. I might not follow my advice, but I should.

I guess Vessol won't get his tips and recipes he created this thread as a simple request for, because we can't have a thread without it being derailed.