Is vegetarianism foolish?

[Miggins]

Ysabella, seriously, you need to get out more.....

 

[epepke]

is simply a statement of food prejudice. You don't like there, therefore they're worthless.

It's a statement of my opinion, which I made clear earlier in the posting.

If you can't remember the beginning of a posting when reading the end, it doesn't say anything about my prejudice, but it may say something about how vegetarians think.

 

[epepke]

The starches/sugars in a plain baked potato are very blood sugar reactive, truly. The glycemic index of foods measures the blood sugar/insulin reaction to 50g of carbs from foods (more info here). On a scale where the body's reaction to 50g of pure glucose is 100, enough plain baked potato to provide 50g of carbs scores 85 or so (they vary). Table sugar is 59 and potato chips are 51.

Yes. Potato starch is quite linear and has few branches, so alpha amylase breaks it down rather quickly.

 

[ysabella]

Ysabella, seriously, you need to get out more.....

Eh? It's a part of managing my health to know that sort of thing. At the moment, also the health of my fetus. I have a very strong family history of diabetes.

epepke, is that why parsnips rate so high? They're so fibrous that I can't imagine them really slapping someone's blood sugar. Their starches must be similar.

 

[curt]

I just have two words to contribute to this thread...

Omaha Steaks

Mmmm mmmm

oh, and the hamburgers are made from the steak cuttings. They're amazingly tasty.

 

[Euromutt]

We need to address the resource and energy claim...

How much grain must a person eat to gain the same benefits as from eating meat? Compare the energy/calories from one cow to how many acres of grain that must be grown to equal it.

The short answer to that is that it takes ten calories of wheat to produce one calorie of meat (according to this recent Economist article on wheat), but of course, that doesn't go into the whole protein/fats/carbohydrates/fiber nitty-gritty. I'm sure it also takes less effort, calorie for calorie, to grow sugar beets than raise cattle, but somehow I suspect that an all-sugar diet isn't going to do anyone any good.

I also think that the fact [animals] get torn apart by predators is awful too. Personally I find all these TV programmes showing animals being torn apart is extremely upsetting. I think it's wrong we don't intervene.

Unless that was rather subtle joke, the only way that even remotely begins to make sense is if you refuse to accept that predators are animals as well. Most predators require a diet comprised (almost) entirely of animal matter to survive, so preventing predators from killing will doom many species to extinction. Moreover, removing predators from an ecosystem is a short and speedy way to screwing up that ecosystem entirely. My favorite example is what happened after grey wolves were eradicated from Yellowstone National Park in 1926 (I volunteer as a tour guide at a wolf sanctuary, so this is a particular area of interest to me). Wolves are an "apex predator" - they're at the top of the food chain, and I like to extend that metaphor by pointing out that when you remove the top link by which a chain is suspended, the whole chain will come crashing down. Without the wolves around to keep them in check, the local elk and bison herds expanded, resulting in overgrazing; you would have been hard-pressed to find a mature willow or aspen in Yellowstone between 1930 and 1990. Removal of the predators didn't allow the elk and bison to live full and happy lives either; because they overgrazed in summer, many would starve to death when winter rolled around (leaving carcasses littering the landscape, yay).

There's also the matter of something called the "sanitation effect." Wolves' preferred prey (in North America) are critters like deer, elk, moose, bison and bighorn sheep. These are fast, powerful and/or agile creatures, and it's pressure from wolves which provides them with the impetus to stay that way. Wolves go after the easiest kills, which means that the weaker prey animals are weeded out. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, predation benefits the gene pool. Natural selection in action! Also, when predators take down a diseased member of the herd, that animal is no longer capable of spreading the disease to the rest. In the long term, predation is beneficial to the prey species (though not to the individual members who get eaten, obviously).

Okay, sorry for the derail; we now return you to the discussion on vegetarianism. As someone who likes hanging with predators, I see no moral issues with killing herbivores for food. And no, humans going vegan will not result in all animals living long, happy and fulfilling lives, no matter what those idiots at PETA claim. In the wild, an animal's life is typically nasty, brutish and short.

I don't think vegetarianism is foolish per se, but some doctrinal tenets which certain vegetarians (though more often vegans) adhere to are.

 

[NeilC]

That's all true but humans are more than mere predators. We are also moral, ethical, compassionate beings. So whilst it makes sense in an evolutionary and economical way to, say, keep pigs in tiny boxes and then kill them without stunning them, we don’t like seeing this. We have some empathy for them and have various ideas on the value of life and living. You can’t argue with people not wanting to inflict pain and suffering onto creatures they empathise with.

It's a moral stance and therefore a personal choice.

I've begun to start eating more organic animal produce - milk, eggs and meat on the basis that the animals seem to have a bit of a life before serving my nutrional means and there is some evidence that such foods contain a healthier makeup of fats.

But I think the veggie arguments about how humans are not evolved to eat meat and how unhealthy it is are however tosh.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Eh? It's a part of managing my health to know that sort of thing. At the moment, also the health of my fetus. I have a very strong family history of diabetes.

I don't have diabetes. I got tested about a year ago because I had high blood pressure. I eat a huge quantity of oven baked "fries", either ones that I make myself from "King Edwards" variety of potato prepared in olive oil, or ready frozen from the supermarket prepared in sunflower seed oil. I have no idea what varity of potato they use as they never specify on the bag. I also put a large quantity of vinegar on.

So will this be bad for my health?

 

[NeilC]

A huge quantity of anything is usually bad for you.

Re: GI - the GI of a meal is quite different to the GI of a food. So the GI of potatoes might be quite high but in oil, as part of a meal it's probably a lot lower. If the spuds are replacing a good amount of fresh veg then it's not good.

I do love home-made potato wedges made like that. Had them last night as it happens.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

The short answer to that is that it takes ten calories of wheat to produce one calorie of meat (according to this recent Economist article on wheat), but of course, that doesn't go into the whole protein/fats/carbohydrates/fiber nitty-gritty. I'm sure it also takes less effort, calorie for calorie, to grow sugar beets than raise cattle,

Thing is, that's not the only variable. How much grain must one eat to equal the protein in a gram of meat? How much spinach/how many raisins do you have to eat to equal the iron in a gram of red meat? etc. etc. Someone like me that can't eat milk products or eggs would have to be the extreme vegan. I'd have to eat all day long to get my protein and iron requirements met.

Think of how much space one cow takes up vs the amount of grain sprawled out to get an equal amount of protein. Add to that the fact that animals like cows have a completely different digestive system and can live off of things we can't eat.

The vegan sites scew information to make it look like we are wasting land. We are not. Try feeding the vegation animals eat to humans. Just try digesting hay, grass, etc. It's worth it to "waste" land on cheap animal feed in order to get the valuable meat. Trying growing crops in winter as well.

Carbohydrates account for 65 to 90 percent of the calorie content of grain. Protein usually accounts for 7 to 15 percent of the calories and the fat content, contained wholly within the germ, makes up the remainder of the calories.

Grains are a "rich" source of protein, but the protein lacks some of the essential amino acids that are only obtained from animal sources.

http://www.hormel.com/templates/knowledge/knowledge.asp?catitemid=132&id=1011

A healthy man, 175 lbs./79.54 kilos, exercising regularly with no health problems would need 72 (71.59) grams of protein per day. That works out to about 24 grams per meal.

LEAN MEAT, FISH, POULTRY - 25-30 grams per 3 1/2 OZ.
OATMEAL, COOKED - 5 grams per CUP

http://www.krispin.com/protein.html

Yeah, I want to eat 5 cups of oatmeal 3x/day. Think that won't make me fat?
I don't like beans enough to eat them as much as I'd have to, and then how much raisins to get me enough iron. Ick.

Gimme my steak!

 

[luchog]

I don't like beans enough to eat them as much as I'd have to, and then how much raisins to get me enough iron. Ick.

Gimme my steak!

Amazing what you can "prove" when you cherry-pick your data like that.

You do realize that there are other vegetable protein sources that are much higher in protein than grains right? And that some of them have an even higher percentage than meat, with a nearly identical amino acid profile? And that according to the WHO and FDA, amino acids from soy are rated as more bio-available than animal sources?

And you are aware that Americans in general get many times the amount of protein that they actually need? And that high protein intake (from animal sources) is linked to osteoporosis?

Similar for iron. Raisins are not the only, nor even the best, source.

The "vegetarians have a hard time getting protein/iron" nonsense has been long-since debunked. The only issue with a purely vegan diet is obtaining sufficient vitamin B12.

 

[ChrisC]

See, I personally took the if-I-can't-kill-it-myself-I-shouldn't-eat-it argument to heart, and got me a shotgun and started hunting Which may not have quite been the intended outcome of those making the argument.

Good hunting to you!
Just to be clear, my argument was strictly personal. If _I_ couldn't kill it myself, _I_ won't eat it. I have no issues with someone else purchasing meat and eating it or hunting game for food. I used to do a lot of fly fishing and found it very pleasurable. I'd assume the experience is similar for hunting other game. I'm all for getting out and enjoying nature, possibly by killing and eating it.

I'm Kicking myself for using the 'V-word' to describe my eating habits since it's clearly untrue. Mostly vegetarian, occasionally fish. Interesting read and it's causing me to re-evaluate the reasons for my choices. Although I'm not about to tuck into a thick steak, it's never a bad time to revisit established ideas now and then, just to make sure they're still valid.

EDIT: I'm an idiot. Somehow the humor in that post went right over my head... no gold star for me.

 

[ysabella]

I don't have diabetes. I got tested about a year ago because I had high blood pressure. I eat a huge quantity of oven baked "fries", either ones that I make myself from "King Edwards" variety of potato prepared in olive oil, or ready frozen from the supermarket prepared in sunflower seed oil. I have no idea what varity of potato they use as they never specify on the bag. I also put a large quantity of vinegar on.

So will this be bad for my health?

I couldn't really say. There are no bad foods, per se, so I wouldn't say 'potatoes are bad,' but there are bad diets/bad habits. If you're eating potatoes to the exclusion of other things, all the time, more variety would be better for your long-term health. If you're just on a potato kick this week or this month, there's no harm in that.
Are your triglycerides high? Starchy carbs can drive them up, and that can feed into the formation of LDLs and lead to artery plaque. But if you're fairly active, that may not be a problem.

If you had reason to be concerned, I would recommend the following: get a glucometer. Test your blood sugar before and after eating potatoes (perhaps 1/2 hour after, 1 hour after).
I imagine someone could even be diabetic yet not react much to potatoes - making up an idea based on what epepke said, if they didn't have much amylase in their spit maybe they would not take up the carbs from potatoes so rapidly.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Amazing what you can "prove" when you cherry-pick your data like that.

You do realize that there are other vegetable protein sources that are much higher in protein than grains right? And that some of them have an even higher percentage than meat, with a nearly identical amino acid profile? And that according to the WHO and FDA, amino acids from soy are rated as more bio-available than animal sources?

And you are aware that Americans in general get many times the amount of protein that they actually need? And that high protein intake (from animal sources) is linked to osteoporosis?

Similar for iron. Raisins are not the only, nor even the best, source.

The "vegetarians have a hard time getting protein/iron" nonsense has been long-since debunked. The only issue with a purely vegan diet is obtaining sufficient vitamin B12.

Cherry pick nothing. Read the entire page that I provided and didn't cherry pick from. And then give me your best sources instead of just saying there are better. Give me your suggested daily diet. I didn't find anything appealing that would get me anywhere near a suitable diet of protein, iron, and amino acids. You say it can be done. Show me how. NO MEAT, not even fish. I don't want to be downing a bunch of supplements either.

 

[ysabella]

You do realize that there are other vegetable protein sources that are much higher in protein than grains right? And that some of them have an even higher percentage than meat, with a nearly identical amino acid profile? And that according to the WHO and FDA, amino acids from soy are rated as more bio-available than animal sources?

Bear in mind, though, soy has drawbacks for some people. Some soy products contain plant estrogens, which can be a problem; it's recommended especially to watch children's intake of those. Also, soy isoflavones are goitrogenic - they have an anti-thyroid action. I have hypothyroidism and have to take thyroid supplements for life, so I have to bear this kind of thing in mind. I mean, the odd miso soup won't hurt anything, but if I decided to start drinking soy milk every day, I'd have to tell my doctor and titrate my meds to account for it.
It's just one of those things...I happen to really, really like tofu. Naturally, it had to turn out to be something I should be careful about.

And you are aware that Americans in general get many times the amount of protein that they actually need? And that high protein intake (from animal sources) is linked to osteoporosis?

On the other hand, Americans also tend to eat 300+ grams of carbs in a day, way more than anybody needs (well, I'm sure Lance Armstrong can burn more than that). And a lot of 'em are simple sugars. Vegetarianism will not automatically make the diet better, as lots of simple sugars are in animal-free products. High-fructose corn syrup is animal-free, but it's still crap.
I never heard of the osteoporosis thing, can you please provide some info on that? Also, what is "high protein intake"? People can eat meat without eating too much of it, after all.

Similar for iron. Raisins are not the only, nor even the best, source.

And some plants can block iron absorption. Soy has iron, but it has phytates too.

The "vegetarians have a hard time getting protein/iron" nonsense has been long-since debunked. The only issue with a purely vegan diet is obtaining sufficient vitamin B12.

I would say, that depends on the individual. Some will thrive on a vegan diet, and some will not.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

And you are aware that Americans in general get many times the amount of protein that they actually need? And that high protein intake (from animal sources) is linked to osteoporosis?

I can't find evidence of that, especially in a balanced diet that includes adequate calcium. I don't even eat meat at every meal. I don't even drink milk (gives me rashes), and do take calcium supplements.

These conflicting findings may occur in part because dietary protein produces opposing effects on bone. On one hand, dietary protein increases the loss of calcium in urine,17 18 which should increase the risk of osteoporosis. On the other hand, normal bone formation requires adequate dietary protein, and low dietary protein intake has been associated with low bone mineral density.19 Current research shows that finding the line between too much protein and too little protein remains elusive, though extremes in protein intake—either high or low—might possibly increase the risk of osteoporosis.

http://www.vitacost.com/science/hn/Concern/Osteoporosis.htm
I'm still looking for your diet recommendations, and don't want to be taking more supplements. I really really want adequate protein intake.

 

[Miggins]

People hunger for high quality protein to the extent of eating dead humans, even if they have to murder to get it. I thought that point was obvious. Doesn't cannibalism make animal rights activism look really, really foolish?

Oh what a load of cobblers.
Despite rumours to the contrary, the whole world is not yet another American state, and there are quite a lot of other people upon this planet who subsist quite happily on a vegetarian diet, for religious or economic reasons, without the overwhelming urge to devour one another.
I`ve been a vegetarian on and off for years, not a particularly devout one, and Iv`e noticed that vegetarians tend to be quiet reasonable people, who do not as a rule try to force meat eaters to comply with their diet, whereas on the other hand there are some, quite a lot actually, hardened carnivores who are Royal pains in the arse. My brother-in-law is one of these. I`m not a vegetarian now, but when I was, nothing was funnier to him than to tease me at Christmas dinner every year. usually it would start with a sly glance at my meatless plate and a hearty `MMM this is a LOVELY bit of beef Janet!` (Janet being my lon suffering sister)
Then, if no reaction was forthcoming, there would be the mock concern-
`You need some protein Karen, look how pale you are, I`m worried about you, I am` Then after a few beers, he would attemt to get logical- `If we stopped eating cows tomorrow they would all have to be put down! is that what you want??
Of couse, one has to laugh, being a guest.
Then there comes the cod sympathy ruse- `Look Karen, I love animals me, I love cows and **** (looks around for an audience) ESPECIALLY WITH LASHINGS OF GRAVY AND A FEW SPUDS! HA HA!
Fortunately by this stage all the lumps of animal have had their soporific effect on his flatulent bloated body and he falls asleep, leaving the rest of us to enjoy ourselves.
There are so many meat eating bores who cannot walk past a field of sheep without shouting `mint sauce` it`s not worth counting them. They ruin every country pub lunch with their predictable gags about the beasts of the field, they dont seem to see them as living creatures at all, more as one of those old cookery book illustrations where they are divided into chops and cutlets.
Worldwide, there are SOME people in a CERTAIN Country who would perhaps benefit from being able to eat something that didn`t once have a face, then they might be able to reduce their OBESITY problem, and stop annoying us every year when they come to visit us by bellowing like bull seals when they get their FAT ARSES stuck in normal sized cafe seats or managing to get their lumbering bulk wedged in station turnstyles, griping all the time about how small everything is in England.

 

[Valmorian]

I`ve been a vegetarian on and off for years, not a particularly devout one, and Iv`e noticed that vegetarians tend to be quiet reasonable people, who do not as a rule try to force meat eaters to comply with their diet, whereas on the other hand there are some, quite a lot actually, hardened carnivores who are Royal pains in the arse.

That's nice, I've met more than a few Vegetarians that are "royal pains in the arse". So what?

Worldwide, there are SOME people in a CERTAIN Country who would perhaps benefit from being able to eat something that didn`t once have a face, then they might be able to reduce their OBESITY problem, and stop annoying us every year when they come to visit us by bellowing like bull seals when they get their FAT ARSES stuck in normal sized cafe seats or managing to get their lumbering bulk wedged in station turnstyles, griping all the time about how small everything is in England.

Do you really think the obesity problem is caused by eating meat? Couldn't it be from eating TOO MUCH? I've known fat vegetarians too.

 

[ysabella]

Obviously, the target of her scorn is those fatass Danish. Way out in front with 145.9 kilos of meat per capita!

Nah, I've been there. If anything's making them fat, it's the lard-laced pastries at the Konditori (sorry if I spelt that horribly wrongly).

 

[Miggins]

That's nice, I've met more than a few Vegetarians that are "royal pains in the arse". So what?.

So nothing. You don`t get vegetarians very often waving a tofu burger under your nose going `COME ON, HAVE SOME OF THIS!` though, do you?
And no, I`ve never seen a fat vegetarian. have you got a picture of one? I`m surprised the old `Hitler was a vegetarian` argument hasn`t surfaced yet, as if all veggies were repressed Nazis bent upon world domination.