Are Vegetarians Smarter than Non-Vegetarians?
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Question for Rocky -
I am working out 5 days per week.
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I do Life Cycle (one hour ~550 cals), Rowing machine (10 min ~ 116 cals) and the Resistance Circuit - nine machines most muscle groups) Total work out one and one half to two hours
On Tuesday and Thursday, I do Elipticals (20 min ~ 206 cals) to warm up, and then freeweights, followed by whatever resistance machines I feel like doing. Total workout one to one and one half hours.
I am wondering how I can tell if I am doing too much. Some days I do feel tired, but some days I feel great. My resistance level with regards to everything is going up, and the calories I burn are going up. I am definitely getting stronger, but some days I feel tired.
What, if anything am I doing wrong?
How much rest you need is highly individual, and changes based on other things that are going on in your life. Don't overthink it., if you feel like you need a day off, take a day off.
Thank you Rocky.0 -
More than that and you risk cancer. Protein from meat, unlike protein from veggies, does not come with protection against cancer such as anti-oxideants. A small amount of it can cause real damage. If you limit yourself to less than a pound a week, you should be okay, however.
Like I said before, it's not an either-or scenario. I eat meat AND still get plenty of anti-oxidants from fruits and veggies.
Are you aware of any studies of diets that are high in both meat and fruits & vegetables?
The only studies of diets that I am aware of, that are HIGH in meat show that meat kills, i.e., correlates with chronic diseases. The study I cited above has both meat and veggies, but strictly recommends no more than 500 grams of meat per week.
Correlational studies don't really prove anything.
Rocky, they do. Sorry, but don't listen to Mutt. Correlational studies give us valuable information that can and should be acted upon. You cannot just disregard statistical correlations and assume the correlation was cause by something that wasn't looked at. In some, very few cases that is true, but in the case of meat and veggies, so many studies have been done, by so many people in so many countries that the similar results for all of them cannot be mere coincidence.
Bytheway, I don't know if that study I last referred you to wasn't a controlled cohort study.
Okay, this is a dead thread that I'm resurrecting here, but I just have to respond since I was referenced by name (well, nick). When will you finally wrap your head around the fact VeggieRex that Correlation does not necessarily equal Causation. It doesn't matter how many observational studies are performed, this fact will not change. If you perform a thousands studies looking for correlations between health indicators and meat consumption the same confounders can skew the results for all of them. Or different confounders can skew the results in similar ways in different studies. There are TOO MANY VARIABLES to account for them all.
Lets take Ornish for example, he promotes a veggie diet (and converted Bill Clinton). His diet not only eliminates saturated fat it also eliminates processed foods, industrial seed oils, introduces stress reduction techniques etc. Will the average American be healthier on this diet, probably, but does that mean that removing saturated fat is the reason for the improvement in health, that's hard to say.
All of this is not controversial, this is well accepted by scientists, statisticians, my mom and every man and his dog. Drawing conclusions based on observation alone is skipping steps in the scientific method. END. OF. STORY. These studies point to interesting areas to look at more closely. To perform controlled experiments on in an attempt to prove the hypothesis. Until that is done, and the experiments and results replicated by others then the correlations are nothing more than patterns in data.
So many of these studies are performed because they are easy (relatively) and cheap (again, relatively) and they keep the researcher employed. Just about every observational study I've read will include caveats that essentially boil down to correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Further study should be performed. However, the media will often jump on these studies and proclaim that "Scientists have found a link between x and y", translation by the general public, "x causes y".
Okay, it's probable that no one will read this...
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Okay, Mutt, I read it.
Some of what you are saying is living proof that too little knowledge is a bad thing. I refer to your comment about causeation and correlation. In fact you are correct about correlation not necessarily meaning causation. Absolutely correct. But you may not have the philosophical underpinnings to know the difference between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge, between synthetic and analytic, between deductive reasioning and inductive reasoning, or between empirical and logical.
Necessary connection implies a priori, a connection that can never be wrong. E.g. the shortest distance between two points on a Euclidiian plane is a straight line. That is never false because it is tautological.
However, in the empirical universe, in which we live, NOTHING is tautological. There is no such thing as a "necessary connection." All observations are empirical and subject to error.
However, where you are wrong is your assumption that empirical studies can NEVER yield valuable and conclusive results. Anyone who has ever studied statistics will tell you that the probability of something being true is NEVER 100%. Thus there iss always room for error. Correlational studies are nonetheless valuable.
When you have many diverse correlational studies ALL coming to the same conclusion, you can be pretty sure the conclusiion is accurate. Not 100% sure, but pretty sure.
Which of course brings me back to a question I have asked you many times and which you have always failed to respond to. What studies do you consider absolutely true? Why? What evidence that you consider unassailable do you have that your own dietary choices are right? Or are you just going with what you like?
Inquiring minds want to know.0 -
Okay, Mutt, I read it.
Some of what you are saying is living proof that too little knowledge is a bad thing. I refer to your comment about causeation and correlation. In fact you are correct about correlation not necessarily meaning causation. Absolutely correct. But you may not have the philosophical underpinnings to know the difference between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge, between synthetic and analytic, between deductive reasioning and inductive reasoning, or between empirical and logical.
Necessary connection implies a priori, a connection that can never be wrong. E.g. the shortest distance between two points on a Euclidiian plane is a straight line. That is never false because it is tautological.
However, in the empirical universe, in which we live, NOTHING is tautological. There is no such thing as a "necessary connection." All observations are empirical and subject to error.
However, where you are wrong is your assumption that empirical studies can NEVER yield valuable and conclusive results. Anyone who has ever studied statistics will tell you that the probability of something being true is NEVER 100%. Thus there iss always room for error. Correlational studies are nonetheless valuable.
When you have many diverse correlational studies ALL coming to the same conclusion, you can be pretty sure the conclusiion is accurate. Not 100% sure, but pretty sure.
Which of course brings me back to a question I have asked you many times and which you have always failed to respond to. What studies do you consider absolutely true? Why? What evidence that you consider unassailable do you have that your own dietary choices are right? Or are you just going with what you like?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Talk about excess verbiage that ultimately boils down to you saying, correlation equals causation when I want it to. LOL
I never said observational studies have no value. Drawing conclusions based on correlations alone is the mistake. Even Campbell said his colleagues tried to convince him not to do the China Study for those reasons. Observational studies have their place, they are a useful tool, but they are a starting point, they are not sufficient evidence on which to base the dietary recommendations for an entire population. We need the MECHANISM, how does eating forbidden food X lead to bad outcome Y? Once a hypothesis for that mechanism has been formed it can be tested using controlled experiments and then reproduced by others. That's the gold standard. That's really hard, but that's science.
And I agree, nothing is 100% proven, except in mathematics. In science there are only theories and that title is reserved for ideas that have been very well vetted.
As for proof for my own dietary choices, as I've said many times before, there have been no good studies done of a grass fed meat, low grain, mod/high veggie diet, mod/high fat diet. I and many others wish there was. Of course those studies, if they were observational would be interesting and would suggest places to investigate further, trigger ideas that may lead to hypothesis that potentially explain the results. That hypothesis could be tested under controlled conditions, and so on.
My decision to follow this kind of diet was based in part on gut feel because I believe we honestly do not understand what the optimal diet is. Science is far from determining this and indeed it's possible it's different for individuals and may change over time or even seasons. I thought the diet was intrinsically appealing because of it's removal of processed foods, it's high levels of nutrients and the good amounts of protein that help with satiety and weight loss. You've rejected any links to papers regarding the evolutionary basis for the diet (and never produced your own supporting your thoughts on that particular topic) so no point rehashing that argument.
You argue that the volume of observational studies supposedly supporting your position helps bolster it. The problem is that every single one of those studies could suffer from problems that plague so many observational studies. Everything from problems with food recall questionnaires, to almost unlimited confounders. It's those things that make the value of observational studies limited to SUGGESTION of causation, nothing more. What a lot of people tend to misunderstand because it's so counter intuitive is that the suggestion of causation can actually mean the exact opposite. Our natural, intuitive world view tends to make us leap to the conclusion that it's "probably" right, I mean, all of those studies suggesting a link must mean SOMETHING. The reality is, they may mean absolutely nothing. They are not proof.0 -
oooh, love this article by Gary Taubes discussing observational studies.
http://garytaubes.com/2012/03/science-pseudoscience-nutritional-epidemiology-and-meat/
Granted, Gary is a low carb advocate and I don't agree with everything he says. However, his discussion of this topic is thorough and interesting. I love the last few paragraphs.0 -
Okay, Mutt, I read it.
Some of what you are saying is living proof that too little knowledge is a bad thing. I refer to your comment about causeation and correlation. In fact you are correct about correlation not necessarily meaning causation. Absolutely correct. But you may not have the philosophical underpinnings to know the difference between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge, between synthetic and analytic, between deductive reasioning and inductive reasoning, or between empirical and logical.
Necessary connection implies a priori, a connection that can never be wrong. E.g. the shortest distance between two points on a Euclidiian plane is a straight line. That is never false because it is tautological.
However, in the empirical universe, in which we live, NOTHING is tautological. There is no such thing as a "necessary connection." All observations are empirical and subject to error.
However, where you are wrong is your assumption that empirical studies can NEVER yield valuable and conclusive results. Anyone who has ever studied statistics will tell you that the probability of something being true is NEVER 100%. Thus there iss always room for error. Correlational studies are nonetheless valuable.
When you have many diverse correlational studies ALL coming to the same conclusion, you can be pretty sure the conclusiion is accurate. Not 100% sure, but pretty sure.
Which of course brings me back to a question I have asked you many times and which you have always failed to respond to. What studies do you consider absolutely true? Why? What evidence that you consider unassailable do you have that your own dietary choices are right? Or are you just going with what you like?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Talk about excess verbiage that ultimately boils down to you saying, correlation equals causation when I want it to. LOL
I never said observational studies have no value. Drawing conclusions based on correlations alone is the mistake.
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Oh, you are so wrong! You really haven't understood what I said. You really should read it again. NO EMPIRICAL STUDY RESULTS IN 100% PROOF. At best you get 99.99... certainty. Said another way, ALL EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE IS UNCERTAIN. If I say that the sun will come up in the East, even though it always has, there is a possibility a huge meteor would pass by and gravitationally pull the earth "upside down" so that in the future the sun would rise in the West. That is certainly possible, but would it "be a mistake" to draw the conclusion that sun rises in the East? Absolutely not! When you make a statement like that, it indicates you do not understand the nature of empirical evidence.
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Even Campbell said his colleagues tried to convince him not to do the China Study for those reasons. Observational studies have their place, they are a useful tool, but they are a starting point, they are not sufficient evidence on which to base the dietary recommendations for an entire population.
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Again you reveal your lack of understanding of empirical science. OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES ARE THE ONLY TOOL WE HAVE, AND WE WILL NEVER HAVE MORE THAN THAT. ALL CONCLUSIONS MUST BE BASED ON THEM.
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We need the MECHANISM, how does eating forbidden food X lead to bad outcome Y?
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We have plenty of that. And even if we didn't an examination of the diets of the huge American population that is obese and diabetic as well as their diets, will show you a real good case for cause and effect.
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Once a hypothesis for that mechanism has been formed it can be tested using controlled experiments and then reproduced by others. That's the gold standard. That's really hard, but that's science.
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Right. The only problem with doing biological experiments on human beings is that if you tried it,. you would probably go to jail. In vitro studies have been done, and they all have all backed up the observational data.
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And I agree, nothing is 100% proven, except in mathematics. In science there are only theories and that title is reserved for ideas that have been very well vetted.
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Then why do you insist on something being 100% proven?
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As for proof for my own dietary choices, as I've said many times before, there have been no good studies done of a grass fed meat, low grain, mod/high veggie diet, mod/high fat diet. I and many others wish there was.
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Okay, so let me understand this. You are rejecting longitudinal studies because they are not 100% accurate, but your own choices are based on no studies? So you like something and that is why you do it, despite what the evidence says? And you think that is logical and scientific?
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Of course those studies, if they were observational would be interesting and would suggest places to investigate further, trigger ideas that may lead to hypothesis that potentially explain the results. That hypothesis could be tested under controlled conditions, and so on.
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You clearly do not understand the nature of empirical evidence at all. If you have hundreds of studies most or all of which point in the same direction, you should not disregard the conclusions based on a personal whim, which is exactly what you seem to be doing.
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My decision to follow this kind of diet was based in part on gut feel because I believe we honestly do not understand what the optimal diet is.
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Now it comes out. You have no rational basis whatsoever for your diet, but yet, you demand impossible standards of certainty for others.
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Science is far from determining this and indeed it's possible it's different for individuals and may change over time or even seasons. I thought the diet was intrinsically appealing because of it's removal of processed foods, it's high levels of nutrients and the good amounts of protein that help with satiety and weight loss. You've rejected any links to papers regarding the evolutionary basis for the diet (and never produced your own supporting your thoughts on that particular topic) so no point rehashing that argument.
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Sorry, but first of all, I know far more about probability than you and in addition, I know far more about paleoanthoropology than you. I am not saying this to put you down or to brag, but everything you say is not only self-contradictory but simply wrong. Any conclusion about a paleolithic diet is as likely to be as faulty as any conclusion you might make about a "21st Century diet." There is no such thing. Your diet depends on where you are and who you are. As for the paleolithic era, the information we have is extremely spotty. Drawing lifestyle conclusions based on a body found in Switzerland, but ignoring but ignoring hundreds of modern logitudinal studies is patently absurd. Your arguments are neither logical nor scientific.
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You argue that the volume of observational studies supposedly supporting your position helps bolster it. The problem is that every single one of those studies could suffer from problems that plague so many observational studies. Everything from problems with food recall questionnaires, to almost unlimited confounders.
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But the conclusions are similar over and over again, no matter where the study is done and no matter who (assuming they don't have a vested interest in the outcome) does the studies. All the anomolies, such as the few that exist, are explainable. It is the best and only evidence we have, and you choose to ignore it because of a "gut feeling." And you think you are being scientific to boot! Incredible.
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It's those things that make the value of observational studies limited to SUGGESTION of causation, nothing more. What a lot of people tend to misunderstand because it's so counter intuitive is that the suggestion of causation can actually mean the exact opposite. Our natural, intuitive world view tends to make us leap to the conclusion that it's "probably" right, I mean, all of those studies suggesting a link must mean SOMETHING. The reality is, they may mean absolutely nothing. They are not proof.
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The kind of proof you want doesn't and cannot exist. Hundreds of longitudinal studies come to the same conclusion. THEY ARE PROOF, THE BEST PROOF YOU CAN EVER HOPE FOR. And they are certainly better than a "gut feeling." If you are going to require absolute proof for the superiority of my diet, you sure as Hell should not be a hypocrite and hold yourself to a lower (much lower) standard.0 -
oooh, love this article by Gary Taubes discussing observational studies.
http://garytaubes.com/2012/03/science-pseudoscience-nutritional-epidemiology-and-meat/
Granted, Gary is a low carb advocate and I don't agree with everything he says. However, his discussion of this topic is thorough and interesting. I love the last few paragraphs.
I read it. It is an opinion piece. You say you do not like longitudinal studies and this is even less than that. And his logic has several flaws. He does not point out that the Ornish Diet, for example is also a low carb diet. Yet he criticizes Ornish as "extreme." Nor does he point out that the veggie diets he criticizes have been backed by scientific studies since the 1940's (See, e.g, the Framingham Study" ) while even today, there have been no long term studies on the Atkins Diet. Almost all the information he gives is apocryphal. And if you like Aprocryphal data there is plenty of that concerning the Atkins diet reporting everything from failure to get pregnant to constipation to more serious problems.
What amazes me are the sources you listen to compared to those you don't. Taubes is not presenting any data whatsoever, only opinion. I also read a similar (perhaps the same) piece of his in the New York Times. It was long, rambling and disjointed. I have no idea why the Times published it, except very likely they could not get a reputable scientist to make the kind of claims Taubes did;
I will again point out your hypocritical stance. You accept in essence what some guy writes in the New York Times but you put extreme demands on valid scienitifiic studies for what your "gut feeling" says is wrong, demands that no study in the history of science has ever met. (Or, correct me if I am wrong, what studies have actually met your demands. I have asked you this several times and all you ever come up with are opinion pieces and apochryphal evidence, neither of which can or could have the impact of an epidemiogical study.)
As for your persistent claim that not everything is controlled for, well again, that is true for every study ever done. How many test tube experiments, for example, control for the number of nutrinos passing through the test tube? It is impossible to control for everything and that is sort of the Heisenberg principle of empirical science. However, some studies are more persuasive than others, which seems to be a fact you fail to recognize.0 -
oooh, love this article by Gary Taubes discussing observational studies.
http://garytaubes.com/2012/03/science-pseudoscience-nutritional-epidemiology-and-meat/
Granted, Gary is a low carb advocate and I don't agree with everything he says. However, his discussion of this topic is thorough and interesting. I love the last few paragraphs.
I read it. It is an opinion piece. You say you do not like longitudinal studies and this is even less than that. And his logic has several flaws. He does not point out that the Ornish Diet, for example is also a low carb diet. Yet he criticizes Ornish as "extreme." Nor does he point out that the veggie diets he criticizes have been backed by scientific studies since the 1940's (See, e.g, the Framingham Study" ) while even today, there have been no long term studies on the Atkins Diet. Almost all the information he gives is apocryphal. And if you like Aprocryphal data there is plenty of that concerning the Atkins diet reporting everything from failure to get pregnant to constipation to more serious problems.
What amazes me are the sources you listen to compared to those you don't. Taubes is not presenting any data whatsoever, only opinion. I also read a similar (perhaps the same) piece of his in the New York Times. It was long, rambling and disjointed. I have no idea why the Times published it, except very likely they could not get a reputable scientist to make the kind of claims Taubes did;
I will again point out your hypocritical stance. You accept in essence what some guy writes in the New York Times but you put extreme demands on valid scienitifiic studies for what your "gut feeling" says is wrong, demands that no study in the history of science has ever met. (Or, correct me if I am wrong, what studies have actually met your demands. I have asked you this several times and all you ever come up with are opinion pieces and apochryphal evidence, neither of which can or could have the impact of an epidemiogical study.)
As for your persistent claim that not everything is controlled for, well again, that is true for every study ever done. How many test tube experiments, for example, control for the number of nutrinos passing through the test tube? It is impossible to control for everything and that is sort of the Heisenberg principle of empirical science. However, some studies are more persuasive than others, which seems to be a fact you fail to recognize.
I never presented Taubes article as anything other than an opinion piece. It's a critique of observational studies, did you expect a peer reviewed paper? He references studies and names researchers, you are free to check any facts you wish.
The Ornish diet is a extremely low fat diet, it is NOT low carb. Here is the Ornish food pyramid:
http://www.ornishspectrum.com/wp-content/uploads/food_pyramid.jpg
It's quite funny actually, if Ornish was low carb all you could eat was protein. You completely discredited your rebuttal of Taubes article right there my friend. By the way, Ornish is currently associating himself with Deepak Chopra, everyone's favorite mumbler of pseudoscientific BS.
As for Framingham, it was not a study designed to test a vegetarian diet explicitly and there are plenty of interesting pieces of information that have come out of it:
Paper based on Framingham finding an inverse correlation between HDL and risk of heart disease (cited 3.5K times):
http://ukpmc.ac.uk/abstract/MED/193398/reload=0;jsessionid=FaWfpdPJyapfk3wE6M9B.148
Paper (not based on Framingham) finding improved lipids (specifically LDL) from high protein diets:
http://www.ajcn.org/content/87/6/1623.full
Interesting... I've seen loads of papers citing increased HDL from high saturated fat intake. Here is a meta analysis (although I know you despise such work):
http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/12/8/911.full.pdf+html
This one showed favorable results when replacing carbs with protein, but all diets in the study reduced saturated fat. Shame they didn't extend it to have additional high saturated fat groups:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16287956
So the Framingham study, which you so often refer to could be used to support a high protein/high fat diet. Of course, the jury is out on much of this science. It's so damn complicated. Recently different types of HDL were measured and studied and some were found to be more atherogenic than others a similar picture to LDL. The winning diet seems to be the one that reduces LDL particle density (light and fluffy wins) and results in the least inflammatory HDL types. The last part is pretty new so don't think we know what might do that yet, I've seen it theorized that high fat low carb diets decrease LDL particle density but I admit I don't have a link to any papers on that one. There was also a mechanism hypothesized (that's what I'm talking about!) relating to how the liver excretes triglycerides for transportation in lipoproteins. The great thing about all of this is that mechanisms are being described, they are things that can be tested directly in controlled conditions (albeit it's difficult to do).
As for your rant on not experiment ever being fully controlled etc. Of course, as I said, nothing is ever 100% proven except in mathematics, but does that mean we should just not bother? Of course not, there are degrees, that's why in science when things are well proven and they become theories, they are accepted and relied on but are always open for questioning and revision (at least, you hope so). So there are degrees, shades of grey (do you see things in black and white?), a controlled experiment cannot control for all factors, your Heisenberg link (you made a bit of a stretch on that analogy btw), but the greater control the more we can trust the data that results.
No epidemiological study meets my criteria. The criteria is don't draw conclusions based on epidemiological studies. Use them to generate more targeted areas for study. Understand WHY eating more vegetables caused 20 nurses to not get CVD versus a control group etc. Don't run around claiming we should all eliminate animal products from out diet based on that alone. Tell me WHY and HOW.
Don't even get me started on relative versus absolute risk. The former being the one usually quoted by those who like to point to these studies as a reason to not eat X or Y.0 -
The kind of proof you want doesn't and cannot exist. Hundreds of longitudinal studies come to the same conclusion. THEY ARE PROOF, THE BEST PROOF YOU CAN EVER HOPE FOR. And they are certainly better than a "gut feeling." If you are going to require absolute proof for the superiority of my diet, you sure as Hell should not be a hypocrite and hold yourself to a lower (much lower) standard.
You are becoming increasingly condescending and rude in your tone, I expected more from you, but I'll ignore that for now. The studies you refer to our NOT our only tool, that is the most ridiculous claim you have ever made. Why is this so difficult for you to agree to. Use these studies to generate a hypothesis for the mechanisms involved and then test those mechanisms under more controlled conditions where you can be more certain that you've eliminated more confounders. This is not a difficult concept to understand, why do you refused to acknowledge it? Instead you focus on semantics like the use of "observational", of course in any experiment observation is necessary, it's about degree of control. Admittedly I should instead use the term epidemiology instead, but you knew exactly what I was referring to when I said "observational studies".
My dietary choices are based on the best conclusions I could come to given our imperfect knowledge. It's just hubris to think we understand the implications of diet on our long term health. I've repeatedly told you since the beginning that this debate is not about my dietary choices, it was based on the original discussion around the efficacy of the vegetarian/vegan diets. Stop trying to make it personal.0 -
The kind of proof you want doesn't and cannot exist. Hundreds of longitudinal studies come to the same conclusion. THEY ARE PROOF, THE BEST PROOF YOU CAN EVER HOPE FOR. And they are certainly better than a "gut feeling." If you are going to require absolute proof for the superiority of my diet, you sure as Hell should not be a hypocrite and hold yourself to a lower (much lower) standard.
You are becoming increasingly condescending and rude in your tone, I expected more from you, but I'll ignore that for now. The studies you refer to our NOT our only tool, that is the most ridiculous claim you have ever made. Why is this so difficult for you to agree to. Use these studies to generate a hypothesis for the mechanisms involved and then test those mechanisms under more controlled conditions where you can be more certain that you've eliminated more confounders. This is not a difficult concept to understand, why do you refused to acknowledge it? Instead you focus on semantics like the use of "observational", of course in any experiment observation is necessary, it's about degree of control. Admittedly I should instead use the term epidemiology instead, but you knew exactly what I was referring to when I said "observational studies".
My dietary choices are based on the best conclusions I could come to given our imperfect knowledge. It's just hubris to think we understand the implications of diet on our long term health. I've repeatedly told you since the beginning that this debate is not about my dietary choices, it was based on the original discussion around the efficacy of the vegetarian/vegan diets. Stop trying to make it personal.
Mutt, you are right, and I apologize for the tone. There really is no excuse for that. However, you should know that I am getting quite annoyed with your way of handling problems. You call me out, and you call others out, because our diet is not based on what you consider valid proof. You make a big deal about causation vs correlation. Nonetheless, when you are pressed for your own reasons for your diet, you more or less say it is based on a whim. Fine, but don't be so demanding of others if you have no standards yourself. It smacks of hypocracy.0 -
The kind of proof you want doesn't and cannot exist. Hundreds of longitudinal studies come to the same conclusion. THEY ARE PROOF, THE BEST PROOF YOU CAN EVER HOPE FOR. And they are certainly better than a "gut feeling." If you are going to require absolute proof for the superiority of my diet, you sure as Hell should not be a hypocrite and hold yourself to a lower (much lower) standard.
You are becoming increasingly condescending and rude in your tone, I expected more from you, but I'll ignore that for now. The studies you refer to our NOT our only tool, that is the most ridiculous claim you have ever made. Why is this so difficult for you to agree to. Use these studies to generate a hypothesis for the mechanisms involved and then test those mechanisms under more controlled conditions where you can be more certain that you've eliminated more confounders. This is not a difficult concept to understand, why do you refused to acknowledge it? Instead you focus on semantics like the use of "observational", of course in any experiment observation is necessary, it's about degree of control. Admittedly I should instead use the term epidemiology instead, but you knew exactly what I was referring to when I said "observational studies".
My dietary choices are based on the best conclusions I could come to given our imperfect knowledge. It's just hubris to think we understand the implications of diet on our long term health. I've repeatedly told you since the beginning that this debate is not about my dietary choices, it was based on the original discussion around the efficacy of the vegetarian/vegan diets. Stop trying to make it personal.
Mutt, you are right, and I apologize for the tone. There really is no excuse for that. However, you should know that I am getting quite annoyed with your way of handling problems. You call me out, and you call others out, because our diet is not based on what you consider valid proof. You make a big deal about causation vs correlation. Nonetheless, when you are pressed for your own reasons for your diet, you more or less say it is based on a whim. Fine, but don't be so demanding of others if you have no standards yourself. It smacks of hypocracy.
Fair enough, but our original debate, which lets face it has spanned multiple threads despite those threads often being originally for other topics was about the validity of vegetarian/vegan diets and the scientific support for those diets, not of the primal diet. I suppose I am not claiming that there is enough evidence to categorically support a primal diet, but many others will claim there is such support for vegetarian/vegan diets and that's what I'm debating. I would argue against those who tried to use what I see as insufficient evidence to support primal too. I think there is a lot more research to do and sadly it's unlikely anyone will study the primal diet directly unless it's popularity continues which may mean it draws some attention. The amusing thing about all of this is the primal diet is actually much closer to a vegetarian diet in some ways than a standard American diet. At the top of the primal pyramid is fruits and veggies, many people forget that and like to think of it as a carnivorous diet, which is just wrong. The Paleo diet is even closer to vegan since it excludes dairy. So in fact, I'm more vegetarian than I was before, in a way. I have faith that we will figure out the mechanisms behind many of the problems associated with nutrition or lack there of. Might take a while though.
Please don't think that my intention was ever to denigrate vegetarians, I applaud you for sticking to something that is pretty damn hard, especially at first. It's been interesting. If you read about more interesting research supporting either approach, please post it here and I will do the same.0 -
The kind of proof you want doesn't and cannot exist. Hundreds of longitudinal studies come to the same conclusion. THEY ARE PROOF, THE BEST PROOF YOU CAN EVER HOPE FOR. And they are certainly better than a "gut feeling." If you are going to require absolute proof for the superiority of my diet, you sure as Hell should not be a hypocrite and hold yourself to a lower (much lower) standard.
You are becoming increasingly condescending and rude in your tone, I expected more from you, but I'll ignore that for now. The studies you refer to our NOT our only tool, that is the most ridiculous claim you have ever made. Why is this so difficult for you to agree to. Use these studies to generate a hypothesis for the mechanisms involved and then test those mechanisms under more controlled conditions where you can be more certain that you've eliminated more confounders. This is not a difficult concept to understand, why do you refused to acknowledge it? Instead you focus on semantics like the use of "observational", of course in any experiment observation is necessary, it's about degree of control. Admittedly I should instead use the term epidemiology instead, but you knew exactly what I was referring to when I said "observational studies".
My dietary choices are based on the best conclusions I could come to given our imperfect knowledge. It's just hubris to think we understand the implications of diet on our long term health. I've repeatedly told you since the beginning that this debate is not about my dietary choices, it was based on the original discussion around the efficacy of the vegetarian/vegan diets. Stop trying to make it personal.
Mutt, you are right, and I apologize for the tone. There really is no excuse for that. However, you should know that I am getting quite annoyed with your way of handling problems. You call me out, and you call others out, because our diet is not based on what you consider valid proof. You make a big deal about causation vs correlation. Nonetheless, when you are pressed for your own reasons for your diet, you more or less say it is based on a whim. Fine, but don't be so demanding of others if you have no standards yourself. It smacks of hypocracy.
Fair enough, but our original debate, which lets face it has spanned multiple threads despite those threads often being originally for other topics was about the validity of vegetarian/vegan diets and the scientific support for those diets, not of the primal diet. I suppose I am not claiming that there is enough evidence to categorically support a primal diet, but many others will claim there is such support for vegetarian/vegan diets and that's what I'm debating. I would argue against those who tried to use what I see as insufficient evidence to support primal too. I think there is a lot more research to do and sadly it's unlikely anyone will study the primal diet directly unless it's popularity continues which may mean it draws some attention. The amusing thing about all of this is the primal diet is actually much closer to a vegetarian diet in some ways than a standard American diet. At the top of the primal pyramid is fruits and veggies, many people forget that and like to think of it as a carnivorous diet, which is just wrong. The Paleo diet is even closer to vegan since it excludes dairy. So in fact, I'm more vegetarian than I was before, in a way. I have faith that we will figure out the mechanisms behind many of the problems associated with nutrition or lack there of. Might take a while though.
Please don't think that my intention was ever to denigrate vegetarians, I applaud you for sticking to something that is pretty damn hard, especially at first. It's been interesting. If you read about more interesting research supporting either approach, please post it here and I will do the same.
Tidmutt, you are a nice guy and I like you, and I have no problems with your paleo diet , nor do I disagree with anything you said here. The Paleo diet is absolutely superior to 90% of diets. Plus it has a certain back to basics appeal. My problem is with many, many people who do not understand how statistics are used and how they should be used. Statistics can show correlations. Whether the correlations are meaningful or not, depends upon the particular case. In experiments scientists usually control for what they think are factors that need to be controlled for. They are not always right, but generally they give it their best shot, and the results are likely to be meaningful. This is especially true when you have hundreds or even thousands of studies most of which point in the same direction.The likelihood, for example that there is a positive correllation and causal relationship between eating meat and getting certain chronic diseases is quite high based on the number of studies.
Now you can always argue that the wrong things are being controlled for, and you may often be right. However, the greater the number of studies and the greater the total number of things controlled for, the more likely there is a causative relationship if the studies keep pointing in the same direction. Currently, for example the trend seems to be to study the amount of meat in a diet that ultimately causes problems. One study found that 70g or less per week causes no problems. I agree with that conclusion. And if you look at Paleolithic man, that is likely that is around the amount of meat they ate.
The Paleolithic diet itself, as I understand it, has several major problems:
1. Nobody knows what it was. Various sites have provided spotty information on what people ate in certain locations. We know about far, far less than 1% of Paleolithic culture and diet. And then only at a few locations. The period that the Paleolitich culture dominated was the better part of a million years. We have small snapshot here and there of what the culture was.
2. The Paleolithic world was a totally different world to the world of today. I believe that more change has taken place in technology, science and diet, during the last 100 years than has taken place in all previous history combined. In the 18th and 19th century, I believe, European Civilization was generally quite healthy, and their diet was generally quite good. Yes, they ate meat, but not like today. They ate far less, with the majority of people having meat only a few times per year. The meat was a different quality, not shot full of hormones, not marbled fat, not full of antibiotics. Yes the life span of that time was probably under 50 years, but that is not due to diet and lack of exercise, but rather to the lack of advances in modern medical science. Medical science is Janis faced. It has given us longer life, while giving us greater morbiity during the years we have. The diseases of old age were not a problem then, since only a few lived to old age.
3. The modern world has provided us with unprecidented opportunity to eat meat, and the meat is poisoned. Fractory farming and government subsidies have made meat cheaper than bread in some places. People eat lots of meat three times per day or even more. Thus we have a population where many young people look like puffed up caricatures of what a human being is supposed to look like. Obesity and diabetes are plagues. Healthwise, modern diet is unsustainable. Fish are full of mercury and heavy metals. Chicken are full of hormones and antibiotics. What totally amazes me is that meat eaters buy this poison and eat it. Even if I ate meat, I wouldn't touch that crap. Not to mention how cruel factory farming is. Concentration camps for innocent animals. What pigs human beings are. (Sorry, I don't mean to insult pigs.) Anyway, I digress, and I think that here I may be preaching to the choir.
4. Even if we knew exactly what the Paleo Diet was, trying to reproduce it today would probably be counter productive. Our world is not a Paleolithic place. Any diet for survival and the good life today should take into account what is available today, not during a period that ended 10,000 years ago. Nowadays we have vitamins, food supplements, health clubs, and many things that Paleolithic man never dreamed of. An intelligent person today can pick out the good stuff and leave the crap, and can have the perfect diet for the modern world. I of course maintain that is vegan vegetarian, but it may surprise you to learn that I actually do believe other possibilities are good. Also, I believe that there are vegetarians that have extremely unhealthy diets - junk food vegetarians. These people are doing themselves no favors.
Finally, let me point out to you that the Vegan diet is not difficult to follow. Yes, I was at a party the other day, and the host served dinner. It was a horror show! A buffet with about 20 different kinds of meat. Almost everyone loaded their plates with as much meat as they could and some went for seconds. And this crowd was mostly 20-somethings. i feel so sorry for them. Many were already looking overweight.
As for eating out, most restaurants have vegan options nowadays, at least around Connecticut where I live. Those that don't I just don't go to.0 -
Okay, I'm going to skip the debate about stats this time, our argument has become completely circular.
On your other points you pretty much described what a primal diet aims to avoid. Highly processed, factory farmed, incorrectly grown/fed food. That's the Paleolithic concept behind the diet, avoid that stuff, eat food raised closer to it's natural state. It may never match exactly (this applies to fruit and veg too) but we can get closer. So you don't have to take the Paleolithic link quite so literally although some people do, they are also probably jumping around in loin cloths in some national park somewhere. I have always maintained that we don't know exactly what our ancestral diet was and also that it likely varied depending on available flora and fauna but the intent is not to eat the exact diet which is kind of meaningless but to avoid all that stuff you mentioned as much as possible and also reduce the amount of grain/processed carbs as well. As you said, prior to modern agriculture we didn't eat meat filled with antibiotics, primal contends also that we didn't consume huge amounts of sugar and it's almost equivalent, processed carbs. Some argue that we were eating some grains and starchy tubers etc. but except in some rare circumstances no human on the planet could eat the amount of refined grain we do because to eat it in volume requires mechanization.
So you can find meat that is grass fed (where appropriate) humanly raised without antibiotics etc. It's trendy in primal circles to find a farmer who raises meat like that, and then team up and buy a whole animal which is then divided up evenly. It will include all the extra squeamish bits like tongue, brain, heart, liver which are also often super concentrated with nutrients. Paleo man would have eaten it all. I have to admit, I struggle with brains and heart... Wish I had been raised to eat it. So it won't be exactly like a wild caught animal form 100k years ago but it's closer. Some people go the wild caught route and at game meat. It's expensive although some people have ready access to it if they are hunters, live on a large propery etc.
As for the amount of meat, that's very open to debate but as I said, primal is not like Atkins induction, it's not steak three times a day, lol. Some people mistakenly think it is.0 -
Mutt, one of the points I tried to make, well two of them actually, was :
1. The average life span for Paleos was probably less than 50 years. Admittedly, that is much more due to modern medicine and technology than to a bad lifestyle on behalf of Paleolithic man, but even so, if you are going to go the route and be a purist, are you going to accept medicine? Any technology that helps you survive, e.g., cars, bikes or planes. Remember Paleo man walked everywhere. That is a huge part of his lifestyle and likely a reason for some of his good health.
2. If you are going to take some of modern technology (e.g. medicine and cars), and if you are going to do thinks like study in a university or do your work on a computer) then why not also accept that Paleo man would also have modified his lifestyle and likely his food choices if he were able to. I am not suggesting eat meat whenever you can, but make intelligent compromises. For example, at various times in human pre history, man needed a boost, if you will. Anthropologists generally believe that at the advent of Homo erectus (1.8 MYA) vegetable food became scarce or less available so man had to substitute meat. Anthropologists also generally believe that switching to a diet of more concentrated nutrients caused man's brain to increase in sice over the eons from the size of Austrolopithicus (about 300cc) to about 1000 cc. Modern man has a brain size of about 1,350 cc. Anyway back to my point. Since we have the technology to get concentrated nutrients WITHOUT resorting to meat (e.g., nuts, protein bars, various vegetarian sauces and foods) why not utilize those aspects of technology along with cars and computers? In other words, rather than revert to a diet which is little known and probably not even possible today, why not recreate that diet or better it with what we have available today?
(Note on above: I do not believe current anthropological thought concerning the need for concentrated nutrients to increase brain size. My reasons are:
1. The timing is off. Homo erectus emerged about 1.8 MYA, yet the earliest hunting tools we have found date from about 2.5 MYA. The first REALLY GOOD hunting tools date from about 200,000 YA.
2. Starting with H.erectus, brain sized started increasing until some unknown time in the relatively recent past, and has been DECREASING for at least the past 30,000 years. If anything, hunting and the availability of meat has been increasing for the past 30,000 years. And in any event, brain size isn't per se a benefit. Neandrathal Man had a much bigger brain than Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and yet he is extinct.
3. Man is anatomically a herbivore. It may have been an advantage at one or more points in our evolution to have nutrient dense meat, but constant availablity of meat can only hurt us, as in fact, it is proving. I believe that because we are herbivores, in the future, assuming we would ever need constantly dense protein and nutrients such as are found in meat, it would be more to our nature to substitute nutrient dense vegetarian products.0 -
I'm just popping in to mark the page. Hi, Tidmutt!0
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Mutt,
Bytheway, I am not going to call you a hypocrite if you drive a car. I just want to see how far you are going in Paleo, and where you draw the line. I too drive a car, and all cars contain some animal products. I won't buy leather, but I will drive a car.0
