[ajaxaddicted]

Go vegan! With 1 move, you reduce or greatly eliminate all the saturated fat, cholesterol, antibiotics, hormones(from any farmed animal, which is 95% of all), heavy metals and pollutants(concentrated in sea creatures due to bioaccumulation), you reduce the risk from the typical western diseases - cancers, heart problems, toxic reactions and autoimmune diseases. The environmental and ethical benefits are a bonus.

[StriverGuy]

Veganism is not by definition healthy.

Eating meat is not by definition unhealthy.

Dietary cholesterol is not directly linked to blood levels of cholesterol. Most recent science suggest high carbohydrate consumption (typically in a vegan diet) is heavily linked to high cholesterol.

[ajaxaddicted]

I would love a link to that recent science :) Also - there is no cholesterol intake at all in a vegan diet. How does it get high if that is the case?

[rocannon]

Here's a 2010 Scientific American article, "Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbs-against-car...

Note the emphasis on refined carbohydrates. I would think that if you ate an unhealthy vegan diet which emphasized lots of junk food like high fructose corn syrup loaded sodas, etc, you'd be pretty unhealthy. Personally, I suspect that a vegan diet can be very healthy for you, but it could also be quite bad for you, depending on how you do it.

Regarding cholesterol: Humans make cholesterol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterol

Also: http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-eating/nutrition/art...

> Many people think that all the cholesterol in their blood (and elsewhere in the body) comes from the cholesterol they eat, which is called dietary or preformed cholesterol. In fact, most of it is made by our livers.

[ajaxaddicted]

Just a quick note on Ronald M. Krauss, which is mentioned in this article. He has been working for the National Cattleman's Beef Association and the National Dairy Council since 1990, so his "research" is heavily biased towards his sponsors. https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2014nl/mar/140300.pdf

This information can be also found on his own page here: http://www.chori.org/Principal_Investigators/Krauss_Ronald/k... in the Other Activities (since 1990) section

[rocannon]

Okay, I suppose it is possible that Krauss does "research" as opposed to research. This is what the article says about it: "The [meta-]analysis, overseen by Ronald M. Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, found no association between the amount of saturated fat consumed and the risk of heart disease."

So do you dispute this result? I was in fact under the impression that recent studies say saturated fat is not really bad, especially if it is not paired with highly processed carbs. Trans fats, OTOH, are extremely bad. Trans fats occur in small quantities in meat, FWIW.

Note that the Scientific American article cites several different studies and scientists, e.g. "Meir Stampfer, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health" (is Stampfer also in the pocket of the beef industry?):

> A 1997 study [Stampfer] co-authored in the Journal of the American Medical Association evaluated 65,000 women and found that the quintile of women who ate the most easily digestible and readily absorbed carbohydrates—that is, those with the highest glycemic index—were 47 percent more likely to acquire type 2 diabetes than those in the quintile with the lowest average glycemic-index score. (The amount of fat the women ate did not affect diabetes risk.)

I suppose you could accuse McDougall of bias; after all he does run a business around his diet. I wouldn't go that far, though.

[ajaxaddicted]

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/161/7/672/70862 "The Nurses' Health Study was initiated in 1976 when 121,700 female registered nurses aged 30–55 years completed a mailed questionnaire about their lifestyle"

The same for the other paper done with the male population - mailed questionnaire.

The problem with both - these are population studies, you don't have a control group for correlation and people can report whatever they want.

And here is Dr Meir Stampfer leaning towards a more plant based diet https://youtu.be/LUYwMsFuQ1o

[m0ck]

As a relatively big person, doing heavy exercise several times a week, I simply cannot image how would I get all proteins I get from eating meat, eggs and dairy products (I can,but it involves eating huge amounts of expensive vegan food).

[ajaxaddicted]

As I mentioned - you also get all the toxic baggage from the animal products, which kind of negates the other side - you exercise because you want to stay healthy.

Also - you may have heard that excessive amounts of protein ages you faster - most protein heavy foods are also pro oxidants and oxidative stress ages your cells.

The expensive vegan foods - meat, eggs, dairy are processed plants. So what you are saying is - if you eat the plants directly, they will be more expensive compared to filtering them through an animal and then eating them. Does not make sense.

For the heavy exercise - they are now ultra marathon runners, power lifters, etc that are vegan. Where do they get their protein? https://www.ranker.com/list/athletes-who-are-vegan/people-in...

[StriverGuy]

Toxic baggage...I get the feeling you haven't spent much time reading into the actual science of omnivore diets.

[ajaxaddicted]

Maybe I have not. Can you get back to me with some information debunking the following claims: Meat - loaded with trans fat, cholesterol, antibiotics. Milk - full with estrogen(it is from a mammal after all), Casomorphin, which makes it addictive, antibiotics, cholesterol and trans fat, just like meat. Eggs - full with cholesterol and choline, illegal to advertise them as healthy or safe in the US. Fish - full with heavy metals like Lead, Mercury, antibiotics.

[rocannon]

> Eggs - full with cholesterol and choline, illegal to advertise them as healthy or safe in the US

This pdf from the USDA says "Eggs are among the most nutritious foods on earth and can be part of a healthy diet". True, the pdf then goes on in great detail about the potential health hazards: https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/5235aa20-fee1-4e5b...

The American Egg Board pretty much states they are wonderful for your health: https://www.eggnutritioncenter.org/egg-nutrition-basics > Eggs fit into the healthy dietary patterns recommended by public health organizations. > The high-quality protein in an egg is essential for building and maintaining lean body mass

Essential, hm.

[vram22]

>Eggs - full with cholesterol and choline, illegal to advertise them as healthy or safe in the US.

Is this really true?

[ajaxaddicted]

Yes, it is: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/who-says-eggs-arent-healthy...

[PerfectElement]

This is called "the protein myth". I encourage you to do some research on it.