Anyone who claims that "the science is clear" or that nutrition is a settled topic clearly is talking out of their ass. After experiencing health issues in my early 30s I've put an extreme focus on my health and have spent more time reading, listening, and watching nutrition related topics and media than anything else. There is practically no consensus on anything in the world of nutrition, and I am deeply skeptical of anyone who claims there is. I would suggest you discard assumptions and arguments from entrenched authorities on this topic and keep your mind open to other points of view.Christuserloeser wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 4:56 amEveryone knows vegetables and fruits are incredibly healthy - until you bring up the word 'vegan'.
No, I don't even agree with the "vegetables and fruits are incredibly healthy" premise outright. I would ask: Why? Because they're plants? Plants are incredibly diverse. Far, far more diverse in composition than animals are. Being a plant does not automatically make something healthy. Some plants are outright poisonous. Many plants are toxic unless certain parts are cut off or skinned, or cooked in specific preparations to inactivate their problematic components. Antinutrients like lectins and oxalates are common in plants, because with some exception (like fruit, for facilitating reproduction), plants do not want to be eaten, and have natural defenses to prevent it.
I'm 34 now. I've reversed my health issues (primarily GI issues, both upper and lower) and I am in the best I have ever felt in my entire life, including throughout my teenage years, eating a meat-heavy, fat-heavy low-carb diet.Christuserloeser wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 4:56 amAs for your meat heavy diet: Remember that you are much younger than Manoel and me. We are both in our 40s. A bad diet takes a long time to catch up with you. My mostly dairy based diet as a vegetarian took almost 20 years to catch up with me.
You realize there's an entire community out there full of old people eating strictly meat for decades? And not just surviving but thriving with large muscle mass? (I'm personally not carnivore though and do eat some vegetables for their taste)
This is funny to me because the number one draw to the carnivore diet community is for arthritis issues. Famously the Petersons (as in Jordan Peterson, the psychologist) have popularized the diet for this purpose.Christuserloeser wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 4:56 amAt 35 I had horrible pain in my joints, especially my back, my knees, and my hands. I couldn't sit nor run. On top of that I had chest pain, suffered from chronic fatigue, bad digestion and hemorrhoids. I wondered if I had to re-introduce meat into my diet. I did some research and found out that it is scientifically known for a long time that animal protein as in dairy or meat do cause arthritis. From what I understand the uric acid ( a byproduct of the metabolic breakdown of animal protein - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uric_acid ) is neutralized with calcium from your bones and forms tiny crystals in your joints, slowly destroying your cartilage.
I gave it a try and ditched dairy and it helped immediately. Within weeks my joints stopped hurting and I got my normal life back.
It's not that meat is "oxygen." Meat is more nutrient dense than plants, and contains fewer problematic compounds. It creates so many beneficial outcomes because a diet of meat is a natural elimination diet. At least you cook your vegetables, that's not just pre-digesting them, it's also beneficial for partially eliminating the antinutrients with which they are filled. But you will never completely eliminate all of that.Christuserloeser wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 4:56 amMeat or dairy aren't oxygen, you'll be more than fine without them. It will hurt no one to give it a try for 14 days.
And the science is clear: meat and dairy kill you slowly but surely. The WHO has classified meat as a carcinogen in 2015:
I eat a varied plant based diet with a focus on normal cooked plant foods and starch such as potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, muesli, etc., not just fruits or raw uncooked vegetables such as the Ex-vegans you mentioned. - From my observation most if not all Ex-vegans were fruitarians or raw foodists, neither of which provides enough calories and will lead to deficiencies in the long term as you described. Humans are used to cooking with fire for at least a million years, before modern humans even existed. Cooking vegetables saves on time digesting your food and thus frees up calories.
Remember that the word "vegan" only describes what you are not eating, not what you should be eating. Some vegans consume soda, candy and fried foods, others limit themselves to only fruits or uncooked vegetables. The secret is a varied whole foods starch based diet with fruits and vegetables and limited or no oil intake.
Just like "vegan" includes soda, candy, etc. the word "meat" also includes terrible processed meats that have no business in a healthy diet. None of these studies that correlate meat to negative outcomes are controlling for unnaturally raised and processed meats.
That's why I only eat wild animal products or animal products that are raised consistently with their ancestral lifestyles. If you don't purchase animal products keeping in mind what that animal was fed for its diet, you are just passing that garbage on to yourself. For almost all of the animal products I eat, I can (and sometimes do) speak to the actual person raising and feeding them.
Bill Clinton famously ate tremendous amounts of McDonald's. Literally anything else would have been an improvement.Christuserloeser wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 4:56 amFat and cholesterol will clog up your arteries and cause heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, impotence and dementia, which is why Bill Clinton switched to a plant based diet
Natural fats do not create heart attacks. If that were the case, heart attacks from atherosclerosis would have been a much larger problem in history, but it's primarily a postindustrial problem. They have arisen in our society as a consequence of large quantities of fatty acids only made possible to produce/consume in such large quantities through industrial processes invented during the industrial revolution. Stable animal fats are healthy and beneficial, but polyunsaturated fatty acids created through industrial processes and consumed in large quantities in our modern society are prone to oxidation and create metabolic dysfunction.
And the cholesterol theory is straight up bunk science. Cholesterol tests are ridiculous and a poor indicator of heart attack risk; people can manipulate their levels from optimal to terrible to optimal again just by changing what they eat in the last 5 days. It's like taking a single blood glucose test and using that as an indicator of diabetes risk.
A natural animal food diet > a natural plant-based diet > processed unnatural "modern" western foods