Your thighs on cheese... HAHAHA!

Hey i'm vegan and I have NOTHING against people eating cheese. I love cottage cheese. as soon as i'm done being vegan the first thing I'll eat is a bowl of cottage cheese with yogurt and cheese sprinkled on top It's healthy!!

"Done being vegan?"

Interesting take. Not sure how to follow it though. We would have never made it as a species if eating animals leads to heart disease? That part sounds right, only at first.

To survive, the species most propagate itself. Humans can normally begin making babies right around 13. You don't die of heart disease until a tad later in life than that, so heart disease would not be enough to stop us.

Fat stored in the body and eating animal products have nothing to do with each other??? I'll just give you that one.

Clogged arteries!!! Here we go, I understand this one. Clogged arteries definitely are present in people with heart disease. Clogged arteries are heart disease. Arteries that are clogged are clogged with dietary cholesterol. (Your body makes cholesterol and that cholesterol is necessary, but DOES NOT CLOG ARTERIES)

Age- takes time for that dietary cholesterol to build up and destroy your endothelium!!!

Family History: LOTS of truth here! On your side on this one pal! If there is no history of heart disease in your family anywhere, then you probably won't get it either. For some people, dietary cholesterol does not transfer into artery clogging cholesterol. Those people are super lucky! (my stepdad is one of them)

Exercise is really important too, but more so if you do intend to consume dietary cholesterol as exercise is the best way to control the ratio of bad to good.

I hope you are on of the lucky ones. Good luck to you!

Words getting put into my mouth again!!!

I never said vegans can't get heart disease!!!

So you believe there is no link between consuming animals and heart disease?

I never said the only way to good health is through veganism!!!

I am not vegan!!!

Some of us plant eaters think the way you guys talk about your meat and cheese sounds pretty similar to drug addicts. The game we play (an I'm letting you in on a little secret here) is to substitute whatever animal product you are defending be it beef, pork, or in this case cheese with a drug.

Then when people talk about it, we laugh.

if someone can explain something to me, please do it. Without offending anyone:

I eat clean and most things in moderataion. Life is too short in a sense to ban something like cheese or chocolate or Insert guilty food pleasure here.

That being said, I have an acquaintance of mine who now turned vegan and all she does it gets on her soap box about how much weight she is losing (she is thin to begin with) doesnt eat cheese, only vegetables and carbs and no dairy and works out for 2 hours a day and has seen so much improvement. I cannot understand this concept for the life of me.

I eat red meat maybe once or twice a month, eat lean proteins, low fat dairy, few carbs, and lots of fruits and veggies. Who is right here and who is wrong on the "healthy way to live"?

It's been pointed out by someone involved in this thread that I started out mocking all people that eat cheese and meat and that was in turn "demonizing" these people.

I wanted to say: "I didn't do that!" But I did, and it was small and petty and did not help the course of the conversation.

I agree demonizing people for what they eat is unfair and unwarranted especially if you wish to engage in polite intelligent discourse.

I am sorry.

Nope. Because it's not just "consuming animals". It's a combination of fat stored in the body, lack of exercise, clogged arteries, age, family history, etc. etc. It's not as laughably simple as "eat animals, get heart disease." Because as I previously stated, the entire human species wouldn't have made it if it were.

Interesting take. Not sure how to follow it though. We would have never made it as a species if eating animals leads to heart disease? That part sounds right, only at first.

To survive, the species most propagate itself. Humans can normally begin making babies right around 13. You don't die of heart disease until a tad later in life than that, so heart disease would not be enough to stop us.

Fat stored in the body and eating animal products have nothing to do with each other??? I'll just give you that one.

Clogged arteries!!! Here we go, I understand this one. Clogged arteries definitely are present in people with heart disease. Clogged arteries are heart disease. Arteries that are clogged are clogged with dietary cholesterol. (Your body makes cholesterol and that cholesterol is necessary, but DOES NOT CLOG ARTERIES)

Age- takes time for that dietary cholesterol to build up and destroy your endothelium!!!

Family History: LOTS of truth here! On your side on this one pal! If there is no history of heart disease in your family anywhere, then you probably won't get it either. For some people, dietary cholesterol does not transfer into artery clogging cholesterol. Those people are super lucky! (my stepdad is one of them)

Exercise is really important too, but more so if you do intend to consume dietary cholesterol as exercise is the best way to control the ratio of bad to good.

I hope you are on of the lucky ones. Good luck to you!

Unless she is watching her diet with a very serious eye, and probably taking some nutritional supplements (B12 and iron at least), she (like all vegans) is putting herself at risk of serious nutritional deficiencies.

Humans are omnivores. We are not designed to get all of the nutrients we need from plants, the way that cows (ruminants) are, nor are we designed to only digest meat (like, say, cats). Your diet is healthier because it has the potential to provide all of the essential nutrients you need without supplementation or rigorous balancing.

While I agree that some vegans can have issues with nutritional deficiency, so can some omnivores. If all you eat is junkfood every day, you will have nutritional problems.

I am a vegan and just got my blood work back. I don't pay particularly special attention to my diet and I take a children's multi-vitamin daily. My levels are perfect -- iron, b12, protein. I'm as healthy as I've ever been. And despite not losing a lot of scale weight my cholesterol and trycliderides have also gone down.

Eating a vegan diet is very simple and not at all difficult.

However... living a vegan lifestyle is very different than eating a plant based diet. Which is what caddymatt was trying to distinguish himself from. He's a very inspirational person. He has lost a lot of weight and gotten healthier by adopting a plant-based diet.

However, he does not classify himself as vegan and that is OK.

This.

Humans can easily survive and THRIVE on a vegan diet. We can get ALL of our nutrients from a plant-based diet. Even B12! If we didn't have to wash our produce so thouroughly due to all the trash in our environment (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.), we would get the B12 there; it is found in the soil. So, it's only because humans have screwed that up that we can't get ALL of our nutrients from a plant-based diet without supplements. But, there are still plenty of ways to get ALL the nutrients you need on a vegan diet without tracking every nutrient you consume and taking multiple pills. So, I think it's pure idiocy to say that all vegans are putting themselves at risk of serious nutritional deficiencies. No, very few are. Just like very few omnivores are.

I'm not saying i *never* eat cheese, but very seldom. For this example: Cheese is made from cow's milk. Cow's milk is for baby cows. Why would an adult human need food designed to help a baby cow grow up and be an adult cow? Would you drink a stranger's breast milk? It's meant for baby humans. MILK is not meant to be consumed by adults no matter which'a way you you look at it.

Someones been reading Skinny B*tch