Veggies! (Page 3)

Sigh.  I know better than to respond to these as nobody's going to change their minds, but I have to address a few things.

1.  Dean Ornish claims all kinds of things that he doesn't back up with objective data.  I made 14 out of 15 patients fly last week.

2.  There are no studies based on animal protein vs. vegetable protein in humans.  There are studies on vegetables and meat/food from animal sources however.  As stated above, protein is protein.  There's nothing magical about where it comes from.  The same basic amino acids make up every protein in the world.  The differences in food sources have to do with things that come with that protein, i.e. fat, fiber, etc.

3.  Meat does not rot in your GI tract.  I don't care how long it is.  Another claim that gets thrown around without basis.  You don't have things caked to the inside of your intestines either.  I look at abdominal CT scans, ultrasounds, and endoscopy results on a daily basis.  Unless you have a tumor in there, there's nothing other than normal stool.

I have nothing against vegetarianism, and I do believe it's a healthy way to eat.  Let's just not demonize the alternative.

1) Dean Ornish actually does have objective data and if you search for it he has been part of many different studies. Here is just one such example of a study that showed a reversal of coronary atherosclerosis.

http://jama.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/280/23/2001

Now whether or not you want to believe it or think that what he claims is true is obviously up to the person looking at the data for him or herself. I see these studies which show incredible results and I believe it and follow a life that mirrors that path. To say that he doesn't have objective data though is wrong. You just have to choose if you believe it or not.

2) Protein may be protein but that doesn't account for the animal studies that show when you give them higher amounts of animal protein (greater then 10%) really bad things happen and when you give them less or veggie protein those things don't. Again choose to believe the studies if you want but if protein was protein why would we get results like this. Even if protein is protein what is about it from animal sources that cause the results to be different when the studies use isolated protein. Really I don't care what it is but there has to be something different about the two to account for the vastly different results.

As to studies on humans. There are no direct studies on just veg protein vs. animal protein but there are many studies that show those who eat greater then 10% of there protein from animal sources suffer significantly higher rates of all of the major diseases in North America. Regardless of the reason it seems sound enough for me to avoid them.

3) Maybe rot was the wrong word. But I know that when I ate a ton of animal products I had bowel movements with a lot less frequency, which meant that what I was eating stayed in my colon a lot longer then it should have. As a healthy person you should be having more then one a day and I'm sure that is not the norm.

In any case it's up to the person to decide whats best for them. I'll leave it at that.

I also don’t want to turn this thread into some kind of a “flame war”. But the way I see it, is that this thread is named “Veggies”, and as such if someone comes asking for something in one direction or the other; then they are literally “asking” for it and people will give their point of view. Of course it’s up to the person to decide: They should “self-educate” themselves and try to find out the “Truth”.

I don’t care where one comes from or about their “upbringing”. As human beings, we all (exceptions are the mentally challenged) have the brain capacity to understand things at certain levels and to decide on our own. We can all point to this study and that study, but forgo the obvious reasons (moral, ethical, environmental) of being a vegetarian!

I would really like to see a human go and start chomping on an animal. All the meat is processed and then cooked so humans can consume it. Tell me to go eat a raw vegetable or fruit…gladly!! Humans are NOT designed to eat meat:

http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

Warning!!: This is in your face (came across it in a search, and don’t quite know the premises of it as it seems to be taking sarcasm and hypocrisy to a whole different level) but it gets the point across:

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/history.html

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/e-sermons/butcher.html

“Just because everyone in the world is doing it, doesn’t mean it is right!!”

I don't really think that gets any point across. Group like Peta use this kind of sh*t and think that everyone will somehow realize that they are so wrong and Peta is so right. If you want people to change education is the key, not posting a disgusting article on how to butcher a human.

Really, those links are in bad taste and get no point across and add nothing to this discussion. They are not at all a representation of vegetarians as a group of people, and I find them quite offensive.

I also don't condone some of the extreme methods. No doubt education is the key, and more than that is the idea of "awareness". Although PETA and such groups are "extreme", they bring out more of the "awareness" when people acutally "see" the things that go on, rather than just the "nice sugary" discussions/articles.  It's like those "Truth.com" commercials for smoking.  People don't know what's happening to their arteries clogged up with the gunk, and actually showing that with a doc taking the gunk out of a smoker's artery, makes much more of an impact than "Please...don't smoke..it's bad for your lungs!!" 

And why would you be offended...because you are a human? The same exact things are happening to other life forms. If you get the jist of it, that link is a hypocritical "recipe" on how certain humans "cook their food."

If that article offends you, then so should the cooking shows on TV that teach preparation of all those "delicious" meat dishes, and all other such content (chicken/burger commercials, etc.) for that matter!!