A new film has come out on netflix called the Magic Pill which, as a disclaimer argues it is just reporting anecdotes. Which raises a big red flag for me. It argues for a keto diet as being beneficial.
Mic the Vegan has brought out a comprehensive debunking of the film from just about every angle possible. Since many people might think he is just biased a large part of that debunking comes from the paleomon website.
Below the video he provides a comprehensive list of research links backing up his viewpoint. At least one of these is new to me. It is a 2016 study ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/273... that asks whether people on a keto diet actually lose weight better than those on a high carb diet. I'll let you read the study yourself to find the conclusion.
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andyswarbs
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There is no doubt that keto helps weight loss, that is proven without doubt - at least for the people who are able to get their body in to ketosis. And of course that weight loss has benefits on such illnesses as diabtetes. Also focusing on removing processed foods and dairy is fantastic, imo.
However the film puts out a message that keto is a magic pill, metaphorically and literally. For instance, if I have it right, it even seems to provide a message that autism can be cured in just a few weeks on keto!
On the other hand it provides absolutely no warnings about long term health risks, none at all. Sending this kind of one sided message out I consider very dangerous.
Don't listen to my opinion. Also as Mic the vegan, says don't even listen to his conclusions.
Just take a look at paleomon's viewpoint on the health risks associated with keto. Paleomom argues that these heath risks are simply not part of the general discussion by keto advocates. Why is this? Why is the keto community largely silent on the long term health risks?
>> On the other hand it provides absolutely no warnings about long term health risks, none at all.
That's because there aren't any.
We've done this before. Can you actually enumerate the health risks associated with eating meat and vegetables?
There are all sorts of trivial health risks associated with eating this item or that item, but they are SO trivial the media (and scientists) change their minds about them every week. Sure it's possible to do unhealthy LCHF by combining all of those really trivially-unhealthy habits. It's also possible to do unhealthy vegan in the same manner (as per Hidden 's post below). So what? What does that prove, except that some people just enjoy eating rubbish?
Incidentally I really hate the term 'keto' - most people doing LCHF-based diets are not in ketosis.
Yes, you really need to understand the science behind all these fad diets including vegan in order to be successful. If you don’t know what nutrients your body needs and know how to prepare them you could fail. They probably all work if you don’t eat processed food or take out and ditch the sugar.
I think part of the problem is that the authorities and the media have demonised LCHF by misrepresenting what it is. The net result is that the general public think it involves eating steak and bacon with not a vegetable or a fruit in sight.
I agree that most diets work by removing junk and sugar. The rest is just detail.
You often use the term "LCHF". But, you also say, you eat loads of veggies and fruits which are high in Carbs, so the name/label you use does not represent what you are actually eating. That's precisely the reasons why those "terms" should be best avoided as it is open to misunderstanding/misinterpretation. Some people simply use "plant-based" food, which is essentially complex carbs, trace minerals and anti-oxidant. As for fats, it may be more useful if you could name the specific oils/fats you are referring to.
As for keto, there are things to factor in (as in anything). I have seen articles that state that the short-term keto diet can be effective in obese people with type 2 diabetes without any other health issues. However, it is advised against when people have chronic conditions who do not have the body's ability to process the high fat intake. Generally, keto is also recommended to be carried out under the supervision of medical professionals. I think it makes sense. But again, what is exactly "HF"? Eating an avocado a day? Or eating some salad with canola oil or consuming 300g worth of walnuts/or pistachio? Daily full fat Ben & Jerry? Based on what I read so far, if you are physically robust/possibly male undertaking daily CrossFit, lift weights, no feeble organs, compromised by chronic autoimmune diseases and you tend to get obese easily. Maybe, keto is for you.
I often find that keto is just seen as a fad diet which may have worked for healthy, yet obese people, who are fit to try some extreme diet. People who have autoimmune conditions with delicate GIs tend to be far more cautious with oils/fats that tax our sensitive GIs/organs and even damage them.
Hidden : green vegetables are mostly water and fibre (ie., carbs with no energy value). I don't eat starchy vegetables in any significant amount, not do I eat "loads of" fruit. However I agree that nutritional terminology tends to cause all sorts of confusion, and it's far better to just talk about FOOD rather than protein, carbs, and fat.
As I've argued before, the problem with starch-based diets is not the carb content per se but metabolic power-in vs. power-out. If your blood glucose is rising faster than your organs are capable of acting as a sink for that glucose, you're screwed. This situation can arise either when the sink is compromised (weak musculature, or always-full glycogen stores) or when the source is delivering energy quickly (mashed potato, white bread). That's why many people find that eating low-GI foods is just as effective as straight low-carb: it avoids stressing your body's blood-sugar control loop.
>> it is advised against when people have chronic conditions who do not have the body's ability to process the high fat intake.
I can't think of any such condition that isn't vanishingly rare. Gall bladder removal is fairly common I suppose (as a direct consequence of dietary-carbohydrate overload and the development of gallstones) but that probably wouldn't prevent you from eating the modest amounts of fat that LCHF requires. There are various genetic disorders that cause malfunctions in the metabolism of certain fatty acids, but if you were unable to metabolize fats at all, you'd be dead.
>> what is exactly "HF"?
The basic problem here is that everyone accepts the establishment-approved diet as a baseline. Any deviation from it, however modest, is labelled as "high this" or "low that". To put some hard numbers on things, a rubberstamped low-fat government diet might contain 80g/day total fat, whereas a typical LCHF diet might be 160g/day. Yes, it's highER, but we're not talking of food swimming off your plate in a pool of lard. The reason is really simple: fat is calorie-dense, so you don't need to eat much of it to replace the carbs you're not eating.
>> I often find that keto is just seen as a fad diet which may have worked for healthy, yet obese people, who are fit to try some extreme diet. People who have autoimmune conditions with delicate GIs tend to be far more cautious with oils/fats that tax our sensitive GIs/organs and even damage them.
Can you propose a mechanism by which fat "damages our sensitive organs?". Unlike subsidized, technology-fuelled grains, fat has been a constant component of every diet on earth since humans dropped out of the trees. No doubt there are people who have odd reactions to some types of fatty food, but they're fewer in number, it seems to me, than people who are sensitive to (say) gluten, lactose, or milk proteins.
Low-calorie low-fat diets work for people who are basically healthy (ie., precisely the sort of people who don't need to diet). They do NOT work for people who are insulin-resistant, which is why the NHS thread is full of near-suicidal people desperate to know why they're still fat despite "doing everything right".
TAD says >> As I've argued before, the problem with starch-based diets is not the carb content per se but metabolic power-in vs. power-out. If your blood glucose is rising faster than your organs are capable of acting as a sink for that glucose, you're screwed.
My reply: Absolutely right with simple/refined carbs, eg white breads, sugary drinks. Absolutely wrong with complex carbs, eg all whole foods all plants.
I can point to a growing number of world-class athletes powered by complex carbs. For these people, for myself (who is very far from world-class) for all the other people on complex carb aka whole food plant based diets they live a life with a positive nitrogen balance - the ideal platform for sustained exercise, or as you say power-in vs power out.
andyswarbs : I think you misunderstood me. Power - in whatever form - is energy divided by unit time. It has nothing to do with nitrogen balance. The critical point is that your body cannot extract glucose-based energy from your bloodstream at infinite power. There is a limit. If you infuse energy within that limit - and the limit will vary dramatically for different people - then all is well. If you exceed that limit, even for a short period, you have a problem. If you keep doing it over and over again, you have BIG problem.
There are no differences between the carbs in white bread and the carbs in a potato. Starch is starch. It's only the physical packaging which changes the surface area available to amylases, which in turn changes the reaction rate ... slightly.
Athletes have a much higher power limit than the average sedentary human - a factor of three or more - so they have more flexibility in their diet. Their muscles, fat cells, and other organs can cope with the rapid flood of glucose from starch-based foods far better than the rest of us. Several athletes have got diabetes T2 the moment they retire.
I am not aware of ANY study showing general risks associated with vegetables.
The whole clumping together of complex carbs and simple / refined carbs as one class of macronutrients called carbs is very bad sales/marketing that is backfiring on populations worldwide with increasing the epidemics of chronic illness. This film does exactly that. That is exactly the story it tells. It says carbs are bad and need to me limited.
This summer people will be barbecuing sausages and burgers a-plenty. Most of these will be the cheapest ones in the supermarket. They will be made of nefarious meats with dubious backgrounds. The burgers themselves will be padded out with refined flours of poorest quality. The will be wrapped in the cheapest buns of made from more refined flours. The BBQ sauces people will drench them in will also have refined flours to help thicken them.
Many of these burgers will have cheese on them. Even without added "salt at serving point" the result is a huge load of salt that will send insulinic levels through the roof.
But I have not answered your question. Long term health risks of eating meat. What about research that shows significantly elevated risks even meat consumption and type 1 diabetes.
1. Mycobacterium paratuberculosis is implicated in the majority of people with Type 1 diabetes. Where does this come from? Milk, beef, pork, and chicken as faecal contamination in slaughterhouses with killed dairy cattle being a likely source. As far as I know spent dairy cows are often headed for the cheaper cuts of meat such as sausages and burgers. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/233...
2. Not only does prevalence of Type 1 diabetes in populations go up with dairy but does it does with meat consumption. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/108...
3. A breastfeeding mother eating meat increases the risk of both pre-clinical type 1 diabetes as well as increased risk of full-blown type 1 diabetes in their babies. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/255...
Risks of eating copious amount of fruits/veggies can be reduced by purchasing locally produced varieties (less spray would be needed to keep the freshness - easier said than done, however..) or you grow them in your own backyard or front yard which would also attract the butterflies and bees.
You (and others promoting a vegan lifestyle) are conflating several different issues here. The environmental effects of meat (and veg) are almost entirely separate from the nutritional arguments.
You could plausibly argue that if the whole planet were eating vegan, carb-heavy diets it would be an ecological disaster. You must surely have heard the assertion that it takes 10 calories of fossil fuel to get 1 calorie of food onto your plate, and that's broadly true whether the food is plants or meat. I suspect the number 10 is an exaggeration, but the fact is that cultivation (ploughing), application of fertilizers and biocides, and logistics all involve an enormous amount of pollution and waste. Grains take a big part of the blame because they don't naturally suppress weeds and are susceptible to all sorts of diseases; since they're grown on large acreages, farmers throw chemicals at the problem to protect their investment with a better-safe-than-sorry approach. They also use land very inefficiently because it's virtually impossible to grow grains in a polycropping scheme. At the moment a large fraction of the grain output is used to feed animals, but that's an aberration. It's neither necessary nor desirable.
A world run by and for vegans would be a world dependent on mined minerals and chemicals. It would involve killing (of small, ugly animals) on an unprecedented scale. It would be unsustainable because an entire chunk of the ecosystem responsible for turning plant matter into soil would slowly disappear. The idea that vegan farming is inherently innocuous is a dangerous conceit based on a misunderstanding of agricultural science.
Animals integrated into an well-designed farming system, with a sensible stocking rate, make all sorts of problems go away. Properly integrated with mineral-mining plants, animals on the farm eliminate the need for ANY external inputs. A "sensible stocking rate", incidentally, would meet both heath recommendations (0.8g/kg protein) and tastes, although with an average reduction in meat consumption of maybe 50-70% driven by price corrections.
I can plausibly argue that if the whole planet went vegan... It would be ecological heaven. Why do we filter plants through animals and then eat animal flesh? That process consumes energy? After all cows, pigs and hens are all warm blooded animals.
Instead of devoting land to grow soy & corn for animal feed (much of which is rainforest), if we used 1/10th of that same land we would have enough crops to feed the entire human population.
Instead the animals we breed for human consumption produce so much "waste" that it pollutes streams, rivers making them places where you can only see dead fish. How is that good for the planet?
Do you know how many animals are killed for human consumption annually? The answer is 56 billion? How does that help bio-diversity?
Hunters in North America claim they help conservation. Except "stocks" of deer etc are kept high so that there enough for deer hunters to hunt! At the same time more forest areas are cleared to make them more suitable for deer hunting - at the expense of animals that hunters are not interested in. This puts non-huntable species at serious risk.
And don't get me started on the by-catch of the fishing industry! With a prediction that oceans will be empty of fish by 2048.
While you are completely correct about the depredations and inefficiencies involved in so-called 'modern' farming methods, you are making the assumption that this is normal and inevitable. It is not. There is a right way and a wrong way to farm, and most farmers are simply doing it wrong (typically because the government prevents them from doing anything else, especially in the US). Vegan farmers would carry on doing it wrong, except they'd make it worse by removing the one possible source of salvation from the equation, preventing anybody from ever even CONSIDERING the right solution. If veganism were enforced by law, humanity would be extinct within two centuries, and they'd take a whole bunch of other species down with them.
You seem to have a very shaky grasp of physics. Energy cannot be "consumed", merely converted. Same with matter, which can be neither created nor destroyed. The underlying issue here is entropy, which can be thought of as a gradual degradation of the 'quality' of both energy and matter as it passes through some physical process. The network of animals+plants+fungi makes maximum use of solar energy in a kind of entropy waterfall; each organism in the chain extracts energy at a slightly higher level of entropy (higher entropy = lower 'quality'). Regarding the reuse of matter, the natural environment implements a similar kind of waterfall effect, with a long chain of organisms accepting as inputs the 'waste' of others.
Chemical-fed farming - which is what vegan farming MUST be - is horribly inefficient in terms of both energy/entropy and use of non-renewable materials. The practical result would be rapid soil degradation, water scarcity, desertification, land-use conversion (=rainforest destruction) and eventually famine and ecological collapse.
I'll maybe write an article about it, or this will end up as a TL;DR comment.
I totally reject the premice that vegan farming needs must be chemical led. Please provide evidence for this. Yes current farmers are used to using chemicals and are addicted to these. But this is because they need high yields because so much land is devoted to growing crops for animal feed.
Also remember a vegan lifestyle is not anti-animals, very far from it. Rather it is against the killing of animals for food. A typical modern dairy cow's life is less than 5 years because it becomes unproductive, whereas the normal lifespan of a cow is around 25 years. My main point is that a vegan farm is NOT necessarily a farm without animals, just no killing for the purpose of eating.
Thus there is no reason that a vegan farm could have animals around it. What would be great is the diversity of animals would grow apace.
Also because we would not be growing the humungous swathes of land for soy and maize to be fed to cattle that land that the vast lands devoted to single crops would return to diverse plant growth.
I understand fully that energy is not destroyed but converted. In the context of a cow excess energy is expended when one compares the amount of energy provided in plant crops when compaired with growing animals for humans to eat their flesh.
This energy consumption not only exists on the farm but also on the stove and in the oven where meat "has to be cooked thoroughly" to ensure any bacteria are killed. Whereas anyone on a largely raw diet has no cooking with relatively no risk of food poisoning.
Interestingly a recent e.coli outbreak in the US ends up with romaine lettuce being "blamed." However if you read foodpoisonjournal.com/food-... you will see the cause is traced back to animals. "E. coli O157:H7 is most commonly found in cows, although chickens, deer, sheep, and pigs have also been known to carry it. Meat becomes contaminated during slaughter, when infected animal intestines or feces come in contact with the carcass." It is the occurence spread of animal waste (intentionally as manure or via pollution) onto crops that caused this.
I really don't think you've thought through the logical consequences of your position.
>> Thus there is no reason that a vegan farm could have animals around it.
But there is, viz., you would have to kill them, and kill them often. What, for example, do you propose to do with excess male animals? You could, of course, let them terrorize each other and fight it out to the death, as they would naturally. Or you could do the kind thing and cull them. And then eat them.
What would you do with genetically-inferior animals? In the vegan petting-zoo paradise, they would be protected from nature and left to breed without limit. The entire population would end up with disastrous genetic faults. Natural selection is unkind and it's wasteful, but it DOES prevent genetic bit rot. Again, the kind thing would be to cull them, leaving the superior individuals to perpetuate the species.
What would you do with females that are bad mothers, or that have trouble giving birth?
What would you do with animals that are injured, or old and infirm, or that bully others? Ever seen what chickens do to a sick chicken? They eliminate it, and it's not pretty, but they do it for a reason.
What about the 'microlivestock' and animal diversity? All those insects, invertebrates, reptiles, and birds just wandering around? Would you ensure that they are all kind to each other, instead of ripping each other to pieces as nature intended? Or is it only the big doe-eyed animals that merit our concern here?
The vegan solution, IMO, comes from the same dark place in the soul that drives chemical-fed agriculture. It is a combination of arrogance and ignorance: nature has got it wrong, and it is our duty to make her see things our way, by terrorism and war if necessary. That assault is not only morally flawed, it's a guaranteed losing proposition. Nature ALWAYS wins, and if she has to do it by eliminating humans, she will do so.
Would it be technically feasible to work around these problems? I suppose so. You could have a sterilization programme, and you could subsidize vast ranges where excess animals could go to live out their very long lives in peace and safety (albeit without breeding). Not sure how much land (and land management) that would be likely to require, but I'd guess quite a lot.
You asked why vegan farms would have to be chemical-led, and the answer is simple economics. Unless you used laws and draconian enforcement (in which case the global price of food would skyrocket) no farmer in his right mind would use the astoundingly expensive methods you propose to maintain soil fertility. It's hard enough to convince them NOW that animals can provide a better solution than chemicals; if they had to set aside three-quarters of their land to nursemaid a population of deformed, ill or ornery creatures, they'd probably just exit the business.
We can debate what animals might or might not be on a vegan farm until the cows come home! (Spot the pun!)
When you ask how, on a vegan farm, we might care for animals, can it be worse than what happens now? Right now animal farming is a complete waste of our planet's resources, it is a hotbed of the worst cruelty this planet has ever known: on these ground alone modern farming methods at least shoud be phased out.
And when I say the worst cruelty I include the concept of holacaust. That is not my choice of word, rather that of a jew who survived the Warsaw ghetto and so who knows what that cruelty is. Here is Alex Hershaft himself youtube.com/watch?v=f7dZv43...
I don't disagree with you about the way animal farming is conducted now. However you're viewing this as an either-or dichotomy: ie., if "modern farming" is a travesty and a blot on human conscience, then the only alternative is to switch to an equally-disastrous model that avoids using animals at all. I can understand why people think this way, but it really has no possible practical implementation.
I do this for a living and I do it in a manner that celebrates life. I know how this stuff works. I do not kill a single bug if I can help it; I'm endlessly rescuing beetles and flying critters from precarious situations. Nevertheless, death is a necessary aspect of life, and recognising that is a necessary part of ecosystem management.
As I've said elsewhere, cruelty in animal-raising is neither necessary nor profitable. Waste (eg., of manure) is not necessary or profitable. These things happens because, fundamentally, the people running the show are incompetent and innumerate. The people who make the rules and set policy have absolutely zero understanding of ecology, farming, business, or pretty much anything else to do with food production. The powers-that-be do not comprehend that cruelty brings its own punishments; and conversely, that treating your animals well, integrating them into a functioning whole that resembles a natural system, and using them to build soil fertility is very productive (for society) and very profitable (for the farmer). As a bonus, the animals have a pleasant life, albeit somewhat foreshortened - and the key word here is "somewhat", since animals in their natural state live a life that is nasty, brutal and short, and their deaths are far more protracted and painful than they would be with (say) nitrogen asphyxiation, which isn't actually used much in slaughterhouses because people associate it with cruelty. Go figure.
In other words there is a happy medium here that works for all concerned. Vegans can be accommodated as a minority lifestyle choice. The rest of the population - who will never give up meat unless ordered to do so at the point of a gun - can eat it without guilt and without having any actual negative impact on the planet. Or, for that matter, on animals at large, as long as you're prepared to accept that death is a natural and normal part of the biological world.
I think as you see the number of vegan farms increases that your perspective will change. No-one wants nitrogen asphyxiation, and it is not anything that a vegan farm would countenance and is addressed with techniques such as nitrogen fixing plants.
As for anmal husbandry in a post-slaughterhouse world this is a debate yet to be had. The RSPCA have a video on the benefits of their dairy certiifcation program. rspcaassured.org.uk/news/ma...
In the video the line goes how it is better to have a calf in a cage to protect it from disease. What the video does not tell you that the standard BEST PRACTICE for a baby to avoid disease is to drink mother's milk. But calves are denied moither's milk. GIving milk to the calf is not acceptable on a farm because that would reduce profits. So much better to give that mik to humans? I think not.
Nitrogen asphyxiation is a method of humane slaughter: a brain doesn't figure out that a nitrogen atmosphere isn't air until it's too late. Nothing to do with plants or soil nitrogen.
Again, I agree with you about the cant and lies generated by the industry to justify their messed-up business model, but your proposed replacement is equally messed-up. If the debate about "a post slaughterhouse world" hasn't even begun, then clearly nobody has even considered the practical implications. It's all just vegetable-pie-in-the-sky stuff.
I quite agree. Ethical, sustainable, as well as a healthy diet is the way to go. But I do not object people expressing their own opinions. We all learn something from them.
Anothermember, the second link presents some interesting observations, eg " Eating meat no more than three times a week in the UK could prevent 45,000 early deaths and save the NHS."
Following the first link about their food recommendations leads me to friendsoftheearth.uk/food/w.... I really would like someone who advocates grass-fed to explain how that is sustainable for the planet! People buy meat because it is cheap because it is subsidised A big part of this cheapness is done by modern commercial farming practices such as crowding 1000's of animals into buildings such that they never see light of day. Animals are kept stood still so they do not walk around intentionally so they do not consume energy, thus leading to faster weight growth. So with FoE recommendation of organic & grass-fed if all the animals went outside into low-density farmland (as recommended by FoE) then we need to
a) Understand how much land would be needed for grass-fed animals, including continued deforestation of rain forests. (If I look for it I think I can provide a link to Burger King being directly linked to Amazon rain forest removal.)
b) The costs of extra skilled staff to manage these animals. Note that most commercial farms and slaughterhouses use immigrants on minimum pay.
c) how the average person is actually meant to afford the new world of this expensive meat.
As for the FoE recommendation of "RSPCA Assured" labelling of meat. Much of the exposure footage poor animal husbandry comes from such farms. Some of this includes the actual RSPCA inspector in the video footage!
I wonder if grass-fed farming is relatively small-scale. Maybe, it's their strategy to "eliminate" the large-scale industrial scale meat producers first. Once the public awareness is heightened, then they would pounce on the "grass-fed" "corn-fed" "free-range" producers as the next target. By then, the public awareness is there, consumer demand had already shrunk. As someone else commented, people do dislike the sudden change. Some of them still enjoy eating meats as weekend treats and as rewards. They can get used to some change, gradual, slow, but steady, to get to the goal. Rome wasn't built in a day. Best to have the short-term and long-term goals.
Nearly all UK beef are grass fed in the summer (fed silage in sheds in the winter), unlike the US, where intense factory farming is the norm.
I wish it was possible to eliminate the industrial scale meat producers, but this is a growing trend and is likely to spread across the UK to the detriment of animals and humans, unless actively campaigned against.
Hi Andy,
I have a friend who is a strict vegan and she is on insulin, high blood pressure meds and had a pretty serious stroke this year. I know folks doing Keto who have lost weight and look and act extremely healthy.
Since I have a serious autoimmune disease I read some of Dr. Terry Wahls studies. She has multiple sclerosis and was a vegan. She has improved her condition maybe 80% by doing a form of Keto. She has a great little video on YouTube called “minding your mitochondria”.
What’s my point? Different people may need different food at different times. I follow the “middle way”, mostly whole plant based, gluten free, low carb, nuts, seeds, some wild caught fish, eggs from a friends backyard and very occasionally some turkey or wild fowl. For me at this time it is the best diet I have tried.
Thanks for posting the video, I found it very interesting. Have a beautiful day. Karen
Acquaintance of mine calls himself 'vegan' but is one of the most disastrously unhealthy people I've ever met. Last I heard he was taking statins because he has heart problems. Now I'm not a doctor, but I suspect the primary reason he's so unhealthy is that he drinks, smokes, doesn't eat regular meals, and does zero exercise. Eating no meat is not a Magic Pill.
There are indeed vegans who follow extremely unhealthy diets. Indeed many of the plant doctors explicitly object to the word vegan for this precise reason.
I think of a generally unhealthy vegan diet and a specific one. The general version I think of as people who do not transition towards a whole-food plant based diet but stick with ready-meal styled vegan. Such people might have soya burgers, eat oreos, get insufficient calories etc. I have been on vegan forums where some people object to talking about health aspects because it detracts from the ethical arguments. But that is not me.
I listened to one video on youtube about how veganism attracts people with eating disorders. And I think that leads me into the specific category. I would not survive on a standard vegan or even a standard whole-food plant-based diet. It would put me into a wheelchair and thence into a care home/hospital in double quick time. People with eating disorders, with IBS and with other health challenges are ones for whom a "normal diet," of whatever complexion simply causes problems. Moving to veganism per se doesn't solve these issues. Especially with IBS you need to follow a finely tuned FODMAP-like lifestyle perhaps.
I have posted on here about Chef AJ who eats carrots daily as part of her breakfast. She fought her own eating disorder/obesity challenges. Many of her videos are about understanding and dealing with nuances that people have with health disorders. She is a specialist on losing weight, knowing from the inside that for some people going vegan is not enough, going whole-food plant-based is not enough, dropping the oils is not enough.
Some people are exceptions and if they recognise that then at one end of the spectrum they might be lucky and be able to smoke and drink coca-cola until they are 110 and still run marathons. Other people are exceptions at the other end of the spectrum and they need to be extremely careful with what they eat and drink, even perhaps needing say properly filtered water.
Unless you are lucky and in the middle, it is about a lifestyle change, a commitment. A commitment not because it is some kind of religion, but because that person needs to go "the extra mile" for their own personal health reasons.
My own extreme story is an anecdote. We can all find exceptions. The purpose of research, good research is to show the rules. We then need to decide if those rules apply to us.
Are you saying that you have some eating disorder? I think it's common amongst men, too, not just amongst women especially in the context of the multi-systemic autoimmune spectrum.
I am not saying that I have an eating disorder in the commonly used sense of someone who can hardly eat anything safely, or at all. What I am saying is that I have found that if I eat, say plants from the nightshade family, then I get an arthritic reaction. Afaik, most people can eat nightshades without issue. So, yes my body does not work in a normal way, it has a disorder, and that is it reacts badly to some foods.
Cool presentation. 👏👏👏 I used to know a lady, who offered small macrobiotic workshops. They only use organic ingredients. They were all vegan, sophisticated, skilled ones in cooking techniques.
Macrobiotic diets can be highly dangerous too. I followed the macrobiotic way for over a year. Periods stopped, stomach was constantly bloated, mood terrible.
It needs very careful organising and huge amounts of time and money sourcing, preparing and cooking.
Just my experience though. Any extremes are potentially dangerous.
Dee
Well said Andy, that is why I like this forum, everyone seems committed to their healthy eating goals.
You are absolutely right anothermember. For me it needs to be an obsession because there is so much mis-information out there it takes considerable time & energy to wade through and work out the sense from the nonsense.
As an example there is Dr Gundry (Plant Paradox) who advocates drinking 10 tablespooons of olive oil per day. I mean he is a doctor, so he should be trusted surely? Except he also sells pills to help clear your arteries. So by getting people to guzzle more oilive oil he guarantees more sales for his tablets, imo.
But I do have children. I also have a grandchild, aged almost 18 months. If my grandchild contracted type 1 diabetes and I kept silent what kind of cruel person do you think I would have been? Fortunately he didn't and part of that story surely is reduced risk because his mother, my daughter-in-law eats an almost entire vegan life.
That is what the research shows. It is not my opinion. It is the conclusion of research scientists. It is not just one study by one group of research scientists. It is many groups of scientists have looked at the subject from different angles. They all tell similar stories. I can post other research articles on the same subject if you wish.
Surely a much better example of propaganda is every day, almost every TV advert break on almost every TV channel in almost every country in the world has some form of advertising for meat and dairy? Is it right that McDonalds, for instance, advertises, program in program out with smiley faced clowns with pictures of happy cows. These adverts are aimed exactly at impressionable children. Whereas on here we are all adults.
I watched the film, as I know some do suggest it's beneficial for thyroid disease (which I struggle with). Really, I think the benefits of it come down to the fact you're cutting out auto-immune trigger foods, like gluten, dairy, legumes, grains and soya. In reality, I don't think everyone needs to cut out all these food groups.
I've equally heard some people make similar arguments for vegan diets curing their auto-immune diseases, but again, I think that comes down to cutting out triggers (dairy is a common one), but because the vegan diet doesn't necessarily cut out all trigger foods, I think that's why it isn't so widely acknowledged as a cure all.
I don't think that ALL my posts are about children! I think I have only ever made one post about children and that is above.
Yes I am very enthusiastic about the subject. From my perspective I see a LOT of misinformation out there. I base that judgement both from my own experience and supported by the majority of research.
My own experience I consider totally anecdotal, but I can post research papers both recent and going back decades. Mainstream press do not give these coverage because much of their advertising is funded by dairy & meat industry.
If you want I can talk about other subjects other than babies and type 1 diabetes. I was answering a question about long term health risks, and that just happened to be easy to hand.
I very strongly suspect I got my RA from eating dairy as a child and as an adult. Add to this getting yellow jaundice at around the age 13, and also being stupid enough to smoke 20 a day for around 5 years age say 18-23.
Onset of my Psoriasis was around the age of 26. Two research statistics I came across was that most people that get psoriatic arthropathy do so in their 20s. Also having had yellow jaundice apparently psoriasis, if it appears is likely to start around 10 years later. So take my jaundice at age 13 add 10 years brings me to 23, and 26 is not far away.
thanks for sharing. Glad we have people like Mic who dedicate so much time to researching these topics. Magic Pill is a complete nonsense and goes against common sense. Just as the whole ketogenic diet. Whenever I see a word Keto or Paleo, all alarms go up. All the relevant nutritional research on pubmed points towards plant based diet being supreme in every aspect.
Different diets work for different people, especially when it comes to autoimmune diseases. I recently came across a blog by a young woman diagnosed with RA, who has found that a very strict meat diet has worked for her.
I have always said when you are in depths of an autoimmune illness you need to look at ALL avenues to aid recovery. But once recovery has taken place you should take the time and energy to look after your long term health.
Some people have recovered from auto-immune issues with the wierdest of fixes. In Coventry there is a clinic whose main tenet is the use of cider vinegar. I am not saying they don't have success, but is drinking vinegar the rest of your life a good option? (Oops I have to admit here that I know an Iranian who happily drinks a pint of vinegar most days.)
There are people who have recovered using pre and/or pro-biotics, and I can see a logic as to why that works. There are people who have just given up dairy and that works for them.
For myself I consulted a diviner to help work out what path I should follow. Not much wackier than that you might argue. I was so impressed with the results from the first visit I consulted her again six months later.
But, as I say is recovery the same as a long term continued health plan? I subscribe to the research that shows that if you keep total cholesterol level of less than 150 mg/dL then you are heart attack proof. Given that heart attack is the number one killer in modern society then addressing that seems of great importance?
Both high and low cholesterol levels have been associated with health problems. There is no way that anyone can guarantee being heart attack proof, only the possibility of reducing the risk.
I was initially thinking of other researched health problems relating to low cholesterol, such as depression and anxiety.
I was surprised to find research from Japan and Korea on the negative effects of low cholesterol levels in old age (The Japan study is mentioned in the Korean report).
I have also seen the higher mortality, too. But one can be never be sure. Maybe, they got good cholesterol whilst being a bit overweight. But if you have got bad cholesterol whilst being overweight...then, that's not a good sign. Thin people could have high bad cholesterol as well as high blood sugar. You can't judge them according to how fat, thin etc you are. If they got good cholesterol, you live a lot longer. Being thin doesn't necessarily mean you are healthy but NHS may think that. That's just no science. Eat the type of foods that convert into good cholesterol and get active in many ways would, I should think, might help prolong your life. Avoid pesticide/preservatives to keep fruits and veggies look nice may go a long way if you eat a lot of them daily. I am convinced that these residues cannot be rinsed off.
Thanks for the link penel. It is interesting that the study participants were all people who lived near to nuclear plants! Also they were all lived in rural situations as well. Not sure why these limitations or even it is relevant to the conclusions.
Ah, I have found that this was a spin-off study reusing research data ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl... asking whether cancer risk increased near nuclear plants. I think they were re-using the primary data to ask different questions. This does not invalidate the conclusions, however a flag is raised as to whether drawing cholesterol conclusions from a cancer study is valid. More checking needed...
Further health.harvard.edu/heart-he... is an article arguing that looking at overall cholesterol is not the best indicator. It argues that LDL cholesterol is the most important factor. As far as I can see the Korean study only measured total cholesterol, arguing "WHO (2) has recommended total cholesterol (TC) as the only lipid parameter for CVD risk assessment of individuals detected to have hypertension, diabetes or smoking behavior in low and medium resource settings where it is both time-consuming and costly to measure TC, TG, LDL-C and HDL-C altogether." I am struck by the terms time-consuming and costly... Not only that but linking hypertension, diabetes and smoking...
For now I will stick with my low cholesterol regime, especially as all the other factors in this Korean study do not apply to me.
Total cholesterol level certainly isn’t the best indicator, but it does seem to be the measurement widely used by the NHS. I don’t know if the full panel is offered at any point.
It seems possible that the focus on the effects of high cholesterol levels have meant that health problems associated with low levels are less widely known about. Age and gender are also a factor which don’t seem to be considered in many studies.
I would also love to watch a fly on the wall style video, like that Gogglebox programme, of him actually watching The Magic Pill for the first time, his little fists balled and waving in self righteous fury.
It seems interesting to me that nearly everyone here (and in my life) refuse the thought that they might be wrong let alone that their entire belief system, while it might be perceived as "right" (whatever that is) by most, was derived through all the wrong concepts. It is difficult to deny that "modern day" health problems might not be the result of better, more accurate diagnoses, but from a total shift in agricultural technology, government intervention, flawed research, monetarily motivated misinformation, environmental issues, continued evolution (or De-evolution) or a combination of all of these or none of them. It's also difficult to deny that people are living longer and longer lives without being able to pinpoint why. Octogenarians, nonagenarians, centenarians and super-centenarians have been with us throughout recorded history and certain areas of the world seem to produce more per capita than do other areas. One thing these discussions do seem to provide however, is the opportunity to perpetuate one of the most avoidable health issues... stress. Are your opinions really worth so much? We know practically nothing for certain about what makes us live longer or die younger of "natural causes" so most of these discussions are nothing but opinions of semi-educated, albeit well meaning, folks. I guess the bottom line for me is: We all die at the end of our lives, what did we do with that life? Eat what you want but don't tell others what they should or shouldn't eat... except poison of course... don't eat poison, not because I say so though, but because it will kill you. Please feel free to not respond.
You are right that the human mind has a way of convincing itself it is right. That's why I say go with the research...
If that research is funded (sometimes very indirectly and discreetly) by industry parties then that research needs to be questioned, not necessarily discounted, but at the very least questioned for bias.
If that research produces totally opposite results to lots of other research over many decades then that also rasies a red flag. It is not that that new research is wrong. Science is about challenging theories. But it is important to check the research as best we can. Sometimes we even depend on whistleblowers who know the inside story! And that is how the US egg industry was successfully prosecuted.
I don't even know where to begin with your last comment Captain Obvious. You can't prosecute an industry, only individuals, organizations or corporations. I'm tapping out. No getting that time back.
I have read the attacks on this page against those that support the Keto diet. I have been on this diet for 8 days now. After reading my results below please explain why eating meat and green vegetables is unhealthy and why I should stop and go back on my medications. I will be back for the reasons I should quit, I'm very curious because so many here claim to know it is bad. I had Polio in my youth and am very limited in physical activity. I am obese and have type 2 diabetes. After 8 days my weight has dropped by 12 pounds, I have dropped all diabetic meds including metformin and my sugar levels are now 102. One hour after eating my sugar levels are 145. My blood pressure yesterday was 107 over 74. I'm looking forward to the reasons that I should cease this diet.
Any diet that helps you stop medications safely is to be applauded. Everyone who gives advice on this forum says "remove processed foods from your life" and replace them with "real food". Just doing that can help anyone's health an awful lot, and for many people that may be all they need to do.
Most people coming to this website have chronic conditions. That means many are on drugs. Obesity is a common thread and so far there are not many recognised meds to help reduce weight - just lots of diet plans.
There is no doubt that keto can help lose weight. And since weight loss is a common factor of many other chronic conditions simply reducing weight can help assuage those same conditions. So I would ask, if keto reduces weight, which it clearly does, then is the reduction symptoms for other conditions simply because of the weight loss or is there some other mechanism at play. That's the first question.
Secondly what we all ideally need is a lifestyle change that is permanent, something we can live at for the rest of our lives. Otherwise we simply end up yo-yo ing. There is a big questionmark around keto for this. Ketosis is, by definition a short term plan. Noone should be in ketosis permanently. In fact is it possible to even be in ketosis permanently? This is the second question.
Thirdly ketosis is documented as having a range of dangerous side effects, right back from the early days when it was used for epilepsy in children. You needed to have bad epilepsy to be allowed to use ketosis as a tool because it was seen as a tradeoff of epileptic fits versus the well documented side-effects.
Fourthly to be in ketosis you need to not only go on a keto diet but also monitor it to ensure you are actually in ketosis. How many keto proponents actually do this?
Fifthly I don't believe fast weight loss is to be recommended over solid & steady weight loss. Fast weight loss can lead to stretch marks being visible for many years to come. Whereas if you lose weight slowly the skin can adapt.
It is about the emphasis of meat in a "normal" keto diet. This is not only very bad for the planet, cruel to animals but also has a lot of long term illnesses that are implicated. For example the nitrates in ham are added to keep the pink colour, but are associated with cancer. Do you want pink ham or do you want cancer? (I say normal keto, because it is possible to do keto in a vegan diet.)
Finally I think ketosis should ONLY ever be done under medical supervision. This is true whether it be plant based or meat based. I see anything else as reckless. End of story.
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