"People" may say that beans are too starchy, but I don't think you'll find any reputable medical research that indicates this. We eat lots of legumes, but when I am planning meals I usually count them as both starch/protein. We eat almost no flour-based foods, but we do eat real whole grains.
Those studies implicating red meat in cancer risk have been pretty well proven wrong: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medi...=73040&nfid=nl
http://authoritynutrition.com/is-red...r-you-or-good/
Processed meat has never been studied separately in a controlled trial, so whether or not it's a health risk hasn't really been determined.. The risk shows up in observational studies with many confounders. The category “Processed meat” encompasses everything from artisan salumi to the cheapest soy-extended hot dog, rendering any results nearly meaningless.
Beans defend themselves with lectins, phytic acid, fructo-oligosaccharides. If not cooked thoroughly, beans can be toxic—to discourage animals from eating them. Long soaking helps make them more digestible. Still, they're contraindicated for anyone with digestive problems like IBS.
Soy should be fermented and eaten in small quantities only—and then only when organically grown.
http://www.optimumchoices.com/Soy.htm
Lard is a highly stable, healthy fat—like butter, tallow, and coconut oil.
Human beings can thrive on a number of whole-food diets, depending on their genes. Quoting Michael Pollan: "Weston Price and the researchers from the early 20th century that I look at in this book (In Defense of Food) found many examples of people who were eating almost exclusively animal protein diets and were actually very healthy. There is a great range of nutritional diets to which the human body appears to be very well adapted. You go from the Inuit in Greenland eating their seal blubber and lichens to the Masai in Africa, who eat cattle blood and milk, or the Central American corn and beans. Traditional diets have kept people healthy for a long time with whatever was at hand locally — as long as they were real foods."
happiness - hmm - I like tasty food!. But though I've been depressed enough to try at various times, treating depression with food is the far side of unorthodox, though sure I've heard correlations strong and weak, more omega 3s less depression, more cholesterol less depression, some say more protein helps, some say carbs do (though not necessarily grains - probably better off with potatoes), dark chocolate or turmeric might help, some say fasting helps (I think so).
I think small portions work fine, but that's mostly about eating slowly - taking time. People say mindfulness but that term has a lot of baggage (1000 different zen perspectives on cheesecake - you'll drive yourself completely crazy). But who wants to take time, eat in a rush because it's a bad day at work and impossible deadlines, you're VERY angry at the political situation, it's Friday and your happy to finally be free at last! I know, it's an *ideal*. But don't starve yourself and go around constantly hungry. And we're not all meant to be skinny minnies (it's funny, I'm not super skinny but I don't weight much either, but I tell you we aren't all).
Trees don't grow on money
I have been a vegan for 9 years. I have never felt better in my life and this includes my childhood. I lost a ton of weight and have kept it off, effortlessly. All this little ailments I had went away--and stayed away. It is very important for me to eat healthily. I still feel like I eat too much fat, though.
You and I are on the same page...what can I say? I agree with you 100%. That's the beauty of eating nutrient-rich foods..as you said, "it's no chore." They taste good and are so satisfying. Nutrients---they do a body good!!Originally Posted by catherine
peaceful, easy feeling
I based my comments on red meat/colon cancer in part, from the info in this report http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/up...n-cancer.shtml from Harvard Med...there may be more up-to-date info that I'm not aware of. The info in this report was sufficient to make me shy away from beef/port except on rare occasions.
I think our factory meat produced in the USA has too many dubious additives, hormones and antibiotics to make it a safe food to consume. There must be good reasons why Europe and other countries refuse to allow its export to them...
If one can afford to eat grass-fed organic beef from a local know source it might be a different story, but as I cannot, I shy away from beef and pork.
peaceful, easy feeling
As a hypoglycaemic, I found many dried beans and peas way too starchy for me, with some beans up to 80% starch. I sought out and ate lower-starch varieties for this reason, because I really like pulses. But then I discovered that one of the worst triggers for my chronic migraine is legumes, which irritate the migraineur's already hypersensitive trigeminal nerve. When I cut beans out of my diet, my headache frequency and intensity dropped like a rock. To my surprise and delight, my chronic IBS also cleared up.
From the Harvard report:
"The study from England showed that large amounts of red meat can produce genetic damage to colon cells in just a few weeks, but it does not prove that red meat causes cancer. None of the cells were malignant, and the body has a series of mechanisms to repair damaged DNA." http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/up...n-cancer.shtml. Further, the people on the high-meat diet were eating 14 ounces a day...I'd be interested to know if the group eating meat-and-veg was also getting 14 ounces of meat a day, and whether the group on the vegetarian diet was getting an equivalent amount of protein to that contained in 14 ounces of red meat. Were all volunteers getting exactly the same amounts and proportions of protein, carbohydrate, and fat? Was vitamin C intake held at optimal levels for all participants?
This site is a good resource for finding suppliers of pastured and humane-certified animal products:
http://www.eatwild.com/products/index.html
Nutritional variation is a fact of life for humans. Some have multiple copies of salivary amylase 1, and thrive on starches, while those with only 2 or 4 copies may be unable to deal well with them. Some people produce 200 times as much pepsin and hydrochloric acid in the stomach as others, and the high producers can probably handle meat just fine. There's very considerable variation in the amounts of lactase, maltase, and sucrase produced in the intestines of different people, so those who secrete low amounts don't handle carbohydrates well. Healthy men were shown to vary in their need for calcium from 220mg/day to 1018 mg/day. Adults may need from 2-7 times as much protein than expected from calculation. Roger Williams, whose figures I'm citing here from his study, "Nutritional Individuality", says that "Nutritional needs are as unique as fingerprints; what makes a good diet for one person may be seriously deficient for another."
I also recommend Dr. Michael Klaper's work. Klaper is a vegan and vegan doctor specializing in nutrition. He suspects that some people may be what he calls (incorrectly) "obligate carnivores." The term is incorrect because a carnivore is a highly-specialized animal eating almost exclusively meat, something that humans have never been at any stage of their evolution. However, he's probably correct in his suspicion that some people simply don't produce the enzymes required to produce particular amino acids, and these problematic amino acids are found in rich supply in animal source foods. So it is likely that some people have a metabolic requirement for some meat in their diets; Klaper's hoping to identify these deficient enzymes so they can be artificially supplemented for people who genuinely want to be vegans but who fail to thrive on a vegan diet. Klaper has been running a longterm study on vegan health, available here:
http://www.indiadivine.org/content/t...ry-long-email/
It's a very good read for non-vegans too, as many of the pitfalls for vegans lie in wait for vegetarians and omnivores too.
The take-home is that each person needs to carefully assess her own body, pay close attention to its needs and responses, and go with what is healthy for her personally. As Jane says, people can be radiantly healthy on many different dietary patterns! I seriously doubt that anybody, regardless of where he falls on the vegan-omnivore spectrum, will come to any harm at all by sticking to high-quality single-ingredient fresh foods prepared from scratch.
Congratulations on your article Happy Hiker. This thread has been remarkable (and delightfully) congenial for a diet thread. I appreciate Susanne's information about individual differences that might result in individual dietary needs. I am well aware, after much personal experimentation, that my body does best with animal protein and lots of varied vegetables, including root vegetables, with mono-unsaturated and saturated fats mostly from plant sources. I wish I could feel well on a vegan diet but each attempt has had some really bad outcomes for me. So I am living with some level of inner conflict around what I eat. But also gratitude that I live in a time and place where such discussions are possible. Only possible when there is a sufficiency of food.
Oh, I agree. This discussion has been congenial, and I'm enjoying it very much. The points made are educated, well-researched and make sense.
Seems to me most everyone who has responded is interested in eating for health, avoids the worst parts of the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.--so aptly named, yes?), and care about their health. That's why I find this conversation delightful--and educational
Sending a big thank you for you who took the time to read and comment on my article. I've started back writing after a hiatus that followed my novel. Felt as though I'd used up all my words after that and took a break. It feels wonderful to be writing again...it's a practice I so enjoy. Taking scientific material and making it palatable (pun fully intended) to an average reader has been my forte. The novel was a huge departure.
Writing about food, health, culture and cooking are where I will focus my energy. A point where all my passions unite! Hoping some freelance writing opportunities will be revealed.
There's another article on healthy eating brewing in my brain..something along the lines of The High Cost of Junk Foods..it will be informative, light in tone and down-to-earth--that's my goal.
Don't know about you, but I'm weary with dire fearful articles proclaiming our doom from so many different foods...who wants to become food-phobic? I love food too much to be afraid to eat it. But at the same time, it's my desire to write articles that encourage healthy eating.
peaceful, easy feeling
Yea I guess I take it as a given that people are trying to eat mostly real food, things one's great grandmother would recognize as food. Because though I can handle with a little unease a night of mexican restaurant food or something, if I eat too much complete garbage I feel absolutely *aweful* (that definitely includes sugar, while I do enjoy some sugar, watch me feel absolutely terrible after eating 5 cookies or something).Seems to me most everyone who has responded is interested in eating for health, avoids the worst parts of the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.--so aptly named, yes?), and care about their health. That's why I find this conversation delightful--and educational
But presuming one is eating real foods, if anything leads to overall equanimity, it's not much different than the diet I was raised on, omnivorous, I wasn't raised a vegetarian or even to entirely avoid red meat, I wasn't raised avoiding fats or even saturated fats (although we did always have skim milk and leaner meats, it was the era, but we also had some cheese and peanut butter), I wasn't raised avoiding carbs, potatoes were a regular at dinner, we didn't eat a lot of beans, but they appeared here and there (tacos, chili, in soup). So while I don't actually eat the diet I grew up on, I like to think what I eat is more natural (grass fed, no margarine), more tweaked for me (can't eat much dairy that hasn't first been processed by microorganism//enzymes for instance) and definitely tastier (the vegetables have fat, use lots of olive oil and sometimes cheese - no plain broccoli) - but the macronutrient ratio may not be all that different - though I probably eat more fat now.
By this way this makes it clear to me how the diet religions are indeed religions: ok it's the prism with which to see things: their perspective on fasting. They promise that if only you follow their diet fasting will be EASY. The low-carb paleos say it, Furman says it, those are very different diets, they can't all be right. Well maybe one of them is right, but I really just think it's a mark of diet as religion. Follow my diet and even fasting will be easy! (fwiw short fasts are sometimes easy, sometimes not, for unknown reasons).
Last edited by ApatheticNoMore; 2-2-14 at 2:11pm.
Trees don't grow on money
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